The Waters Have Gone Crazy
On the third of August, this month, in Osogbo Osun State, a powerful downpour destroyed many lives. Traders, mostly, were affected. Then businessmen, then roadside sellers, then shop owners, then people whose source of income had drowned away.
When I heard the news, from returning hagglers, I knew instinctively that I had to see the casualties. I got to the market, and nothing felt strange. Yes, nothing – maybe not at first. The river had filled up, its contours making gruff splashing. Aboki children hung everywhere. The traders seemed too sparse, too unconcerned; their eyes, bloodshot, floated. Into the market I saw a young girl who I knew sold foo-foo. The last time I bought from her, I told her I wanted eeni, extra, but, fierce, she said: the foo-foo had been counted. And now the foo-foo are gone.
Perhaps not, only something in her that unhinges.
The market seemed to transform, into hoards of sad
people – traders who sat by their spread drowned rice, or beans, or yams. The
yams had turned to almost-black. The rice had knotted themselves. The Akindeko
market was littered with news – about two Olokadas, one woman, that died; a furniture
house in Estate whose chairs got flooded; Rasco bridge that fell – “thank God
nobody died there.” They all ended their chattering with “God I tenk you for my
life.” Not everybody received it with the grace some received it. Some snorted.
Some cursed in silence. Some were silent; they stare at those people as if they
owed them a debt they had forgotten. Only the Aboki children skittered in the
street; all the other Non-Hausa boys sat beside their mothers or Aunties. They
were silent all through. Nobody peemed, though it was not long that the clouds
severed, cackled, and the traders went mad.
They ran into themselves, shouted curses, made angry
phonecalls, upturned so many things. A boy began to cry. Cars honked, thugs
shrieked, two men engaged in old fisticuffs. Nobody interfered. Nobody
separated them. Everybody was interested in important issues like the rain.
–
Only the poor, the less privileged, the lower-class
will suffer all catastrophe. These market women, traders, shoe cobblers,
provision sellers, are people whose economic status is detestable enough. And
sometimes, when these floods – like the one in Lekki, and this one in Osogbo
now – happen, only those who can’t afford the luxury are affected. They are the
ones whose savings are ripped open by the unforeseen usage of money; which is
consistent, each time, with new impermeable stories. And I find this obscene!
How do we solve this impasse? Do we prevent floods,
or write petitions to the government? If we are going to write a report to the
government, then no need, please, rumors have it that Peculiar Constructions –
who are the contractors for the flyover bridge in Osogbo, Olaiya – are already
heading there.
But what does this teach us? What lesson really is
from loss? Or from children who are going to go hungry more because their
fathers’, or mothers’, source of survival had perished. This way, children who
suffer neglect recriminates, repress into solitary state of mind. Then children
as these become criminals of the state, hardened or loosened. and they often
end up as political thugs to canvass for votes and cause violence.
In essence, the flood on the third of August in
Osogbo, is just a reminder of things we have left undone: the government and
the governed. The government of Osun must not forget that actual humans in
Akindeko, Alekuwodo, Oja Oba, Orita ‘Gbemu area in Osogbo, live in abject
poverty, and whatever provision there is in the state is not reach – or is not
serving the purpose it should. The blockade of Olaiya junction had strangled
most trader’s source of survival. They, like animals, trashumance. Mama Bisola
migrated too. She was in debt. And she had made no sales since the inception of
the bridge – at least not as before. So she went to Aregbe area, and there,
now, like many others I know who has migrated because of the stricture of the
Olaiya Flyover, they are, experiencing a different kind of hurt.
So yes, governing on a people is a transaction.
Whether the transaction is successful depends on how attentive the government
can listen and take positive actions for her citizens.
The downpour continued today. My mother has closed
her shop, though, but countless other people has nothing to close. They sit
there, in the rain, counting on you, counting on their votes, hoping it saves,
hoping it makes their lives and their children’s better. They hope for some
sort of savior. It is hard to understand whether it is really the government that neglects, or is less committed to, this dogma, o it is just that the waters have gone crazy.
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