ON Saturday, May 9, 2020, at a press briefing, the Lagos State governor, Mr. Sanwo-Olu, was reported to have spit fire on poor Lagosians – largely constituted as traders, artisans in the informal sector, women, unemployed youth, society-neglected aged, commercial transporters and the like – for non-compliance with the elitist and middle class couched instructions on “staying safe” against the Coronavirus pandemic. The governor went further to threaten to shut down Lagos if the non-compliance in the markets and by transporters continues based on official policy assessment.
One wouldn’t know what the governor was expecting from talking down to the poor with so much arrogance rather than engage a continuously suffering mass of people with words of compassionate appeal. Does the governor think he has won the hearts of the poor because of the media profiling of him as the most active governor in the combat against the pandemic? Or does he think that the distribution of his government’s palliatives, officially touted to have benefitted millions of the poor, really got delivered to them? Or does he think that his treatment of a select poor with crumbs amounts to addressing their basic yearnings and expectations?
What the Lagos governor, and his colleagues across the country, wouldn’t admit or may not know, is that the Poor have learnt from the very hard realities of circles of deceptions of the ruling class. The Poor do not trust them and never do they trust the middle class who speak big, big grammar that are inconsistent with their daily life experiences.
The Poor already understand the game! They know that when elections come, the governors and other politician-looters would become pretenders of anything good. They would placate the poor that they care – no okada rider is deemed to have violated the traffic law at election period; bad roads are hurriedly patched with promises of permanent fixing if elected; much more money are spent to buy votes that could be spent on facilities preparatory to emergencies such as this pandemic, and so on, and so forth.
The Poor also know the elites and ruling politicians never really need the poor to vote. They can always add up the figures to claim criminal victories, depending on which tendency of the rich class has more looted funds and instruments of violence and patronage of state apparatuses (armed gangs, police, security operatives, INEC officials) to control. The Poor equally know that the rich class need them as paid or rented crowds to give the false impression that they are popular with the poor.
With electoral power secured for acts of impunity, the Poor’s value ceases temporarily, okada riders are crushed, market stalls are demolished, substandard houses are reduced to rubbles without alternatives, etc. But the Poor continues to exist in a circle of poverty, desperation and endless hope!
The Covid-19 scenario unfolded a number of predicaments for the Poor. Imagine a middle-aged head of a household with a wife, five children and many other dependants, holed up in a poorly constructed 2-room apartment in an overcrowded suburb of Sango in Ogun State doing nothing due to a five-week lockdown!
Most people who live in this sprawling part of Ogun State commute to Lagos on a daily basis for their daily sustenance. They set out from their homes at 4.30am and return as from 9pm, most often not yet to their homes, because they have to fulfil their social obligations in hangouts to share some drinks and banters with soul mates to unwind from the day’s stress! This is the normal life for many, who literally live at the very edge of existence.
The Poor already understand the game! They know that when elections come, the governors and other politician-looters would become pretenders of anything good. They would placate the poor that they care – no okadarider is deemed to have violated the traffic law at election period; bad roads are hurriedly patched with promises of permanent fixing if elected; much more money are spent to buy votes that could be spent on facilities preparatory to emergencies such as this pandemic, and so on, and so forth.
For an artisan such as a vulcanizer, life is no less stressful. At his roadside workplace, with a little space to keep his tools of trade and junk, perhaps additional space to sell tokunboh tyres, he tends to his customers to eke out living – patching tyres for his daily survival. On a good day, for those lucky to have networked with commercial drivers and on vantage locations, between N4,000 to N6,000 could be made. On a bad day, N1,000 could be a blessing; just enough to cover a return transport fare.
There are wives who are breadwinners of their families. They jump into the streets hawking wares of every description from dusk to dawn, trekking miles and miles to keep together body and soul of their families. There are hundreds, even thousands of underage boys and girls, forced out of school by poverty, they also hawk wares in the thick and thin of go-slows, manoeuvring between moving vehicles.
These, characteristically, are just a few of the painful daily experiences of the daily income Poor! With the COVID-19 lockdown in Lagos and Ogun states, living a normal life with family after few days doing nothing becomes not just unbearable! It is a real nightmare for many, if not all!
With the news of palliatives coming to the neighbourhoods, though not many were really hopeful because of past experiences, but this time, given the announcement by Ogun State Government to cover about 500,000 households, many tended to believe.
But alas, as the state distribution contingent came, the palliative amounted to mere 8 cups of rice (1/8th of a bag,) sachets of tomato and beverage, all worth less than N3,000 delivered to a zone in an area which has 7-streets of about 150 houses. It was devastating for poor and vulnerable households!
Communities got infuriated; rejected the insult called palliatives and expended part of their communal contributions to buy bags of beans and gave appreciable quantity to households. They even specifically identified the less privileged for another round of special palliatives!
As easing of lockdown was announced in Lagos, comes a momentary relief that home hostage without daily income has come to an end. But the Ogun State Government announcement came: inter-state restriction would be enforced and Ogun residents to spend additional two weeks till May 19. The lamentations were loud: No, this is not possible!
There are many painful experiences of the poor and vulnerable, narratives of physical and psychological trauma of the Poor around the lockdown arising from the irresponsibility and the lack of empathy of the ruling class.
The poor are not weak; they only respect the symbols of State. When it comes to survival, they can dare anything and can take the greatest risk without thoughts for the consequences. The prevailing concrete social realities in Nigeria are deeper and beyond most of the social media misinformation and disinformation, which are in most cases at variance with the realities on ground.
Comrade Aremu, Co-collaborator Amilcar Cabral Ideological School (ACIS-M) Movement, can be reached via email: biod_abi@yahoo.co.uk
