Mr Obafemi Hamzat, did you actually say these?
By ABANIKANDA OLUMORO (UK)
For many young Lagosians, the question is not whether they would love to live in their parents’ homes. The question is: where are those parents’ homes, and how practical is that suggestion for someone whose workplace may be several kilometres away?
I have been inundated with complaints from friends and other admirers back home in Nigeria about remarks reportedly made by the Deputy Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Obafemi Hamzat, concerning his purported suggestion that, in the face of exorbitant house rents, young Nigerians living in Lagos should return to their parents’ homes, as well as his alleged description of traffic indiscipline in the state as a lifestyle. I therefore make bold to ask: Mr. Obafemi Hamzat, did you actually say these?
That, in the face of exorbitant house rents in Lagos State, young Nigerians who cannot afford accommodation of their own should simply go and live in their parents’ houses?
And that traffic indiscipline in Lagos is simply part of our lifestyle?
If you did not say these things, then I thank God. But if you actually said them, Your Excellency, then I sincerely think you need to say them again — perhaps more clearly, and perhaps with the realities facing ordinary Lagosians firmly in mind.
Lagos is a city of opportunity, but it is also a city where the cost of living has become a serious burden for millions of residents. Housing, in particular, has become increasingly difficult for young workers, newly married couples, students, entrepreneurs and low- and middle-income earners.
For many young Lagosians, the question is not whether they would love to live in their parents’ homes. The question is: where are those parents’ homes, and how practical is that suggestion for someone whose workplace may be several kilometres away?
Some young Nigerians working in Lagos are not from Lagos. Their parents may be in Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Ondo, Kaduna, Kano or even outside Nigeria. Others may have lost their parents. Some come from broken homes, while others have parents who themselves struggle to survive.
Lagos is also a city where people often spend hours commuting to and from work. Asking a young worker to return to a distant family home without addressing the housing and transportation crisis may therefore sound less like a solution and more like an admission that the problem has become too difficult to solve.
Then there is the issue of traffic indiscipline.
Yes, Lagos has developed a peculiar driving culture over the years. Some motorists disobey traffic rules, drive against traffic, obstruct roads, ignore pedestrian rights and engage in dangerous manoeuvres.
But should indiscipline be accepted as our lifestyle?
Absolutely not.
A society is not condemned to remain what it has become. Governments exist partly to create systems that encourage responsible behaviour and discourage conduct that endangers others.
If traffic indiscipline has become entrenched, then the answer should be stronger enforcement, better road design, effective public transportation, proper driver education and consistent application of the law — not resignation to indiscipline as an inevitable part of Lagos life.
Your Excellency, Lagosians are resilient people. They have survived economic difficulties, terrible traffic, rising rents, inadequate infrastructure and many other challenges. What they need from government is not an explanation of why these problems exist, but leadership that confronts them.
Perhaps, therefore, if those statements were indeed attributed to you, they deserve to be repeated — but this time with a little more explanation.
Tell Lagosians what you really meant.
Because sometimes, Your Excellency, the difference between a statement that angers the public and one that inspires them is not necessarily the message itself, but how the message is explained.
And if you never said those things at all, then, once again, I thank God.
But if you did, please say it again. Lagosians are listening.
