BY: HighCelebritySquard
Men, women, and children were seen in rain boots as they waded through dark-green-coloured water, much of which has not even dried up for about two years.
Floating on the water that covered many entrances to rooms, churches, and schools were spirogyra, sticks, nylons, and other materials.
The ‘stomach-swelling’ odour that reeks from the nooks and crannies of the vicinity, where two-storey buildings and make-shift apartments sit in stagnant water, could make a new person in the estate environment pass out.
“If you fall inside this water by any mistake, just ask to be taken to the hospital. Unfortunately, the hospital here probably has no space for you. You may have to get outside here for serious care,” a trader in the estate, Sunday Philip, who led our correspondent through the flooded footpaths around the buildings, jokingly said as he spat at intervals.
“Most of the water contains faeces; people defecate and throw inside gutters,” he added.
Coveted ‘small London,’ the legacy of a one-time visionary governor
Jakande Estate is part of the legacies of a former governor of Lagos State, Lateef Jakande, who served between 1979 and 1983. He was widely known for his infrastructural initiatives, one of the most popular being the low-cost housing estates.
Jakande’s government constructed over 30,000 housing units that were made available to low-income earners, including civil servants at affordable prices.
Some of the housing units are located in places like Oke-Afa, Abesan, and Lekki, just to mention a few.
Jakande, adjudged by beneficiaries to be visionary, was said to have funded these projects by increasing the tenement rates and price of plots of land in affluent areas of Victoria Island and Lekki Peninsula and the processing fees for lottery, pools, and gaming licences.
These estates were later named after the former governor by beneficiaries. Each is now being referred to as Jakande Estate.
Like most of the other estates, what was sometimes referred to as “small London,” according to a resident, and a much-coveted abode, the Jakande Estate at Ilasan, Lekki, is now squalor.
In its early days, most of the occupants of the estate were evicted from Maroko, a community in Eti-Osa in Lagos.
Adjacent to Ikoyi and East of Victoria Island, the then Maroko was a low-income area that attracted a lot of migrants due to its proximity to economically robust areas. Flooding and sand-filling affected Maroko during its life.
In the early 90s, military administrator, Raji Rasaki, evicted the residents and demolished the community. The government said Maroko was below sea level and needed to be filled in with sand.
Many of the evicted residents sought refuge in the Jakande Estate in Lekki as a form of compensation.
Four-decade buildings in decadence
Our correspondent visited the estate which has existed for about 40 years.
Entering from the Jakande first roundabout along the Lekki-Epe Expressway, it was the sight of refuse, littered around like sprinkled petals welcoming a guest.
At the mouth of the road is a market that extends from the estate, where traders tabled their goods on black-coloured soil surface, much of the characteristics of an age-long sedimentary deposition.
At the entrance of the estate, on the right side of the road, was a red-coloured gate that opened into a large expanse of land covered with sand. It is called ‘White Sand,’ and it is a landmark on its own. Opposite it is a block in the estate, where a banner pasted on the wall announced admission into a private secondary school, AnnyTina International Schools at blocks 232 & 255.
On the ‘White Sand’ land is a field where some youths were seen playing football. Right behind the field are heaps of refuse, and an isolated grassy area. Apart from the area reeking of fresh and stale faeces, the sight of it was not pleasant to start the journey into the estate with.
The buildings were old, with walls that could not be said to have been painted before. A new painting would have not helped the sights of the damaged roofs – in cases where they were not completely removed.
Whether some of these buildings would stand the test of another decade is a question that not even the residents, who feared eviction or demolition before then, could answer.
Jakande Estate, according to the Chairman of the Community Development Association in the area, Mr Kazeem Sulaiman, had about 1,900 housing units, but are now around 1,500 units because according to him, some of them had collapsed.
Old buildings like those in the estate have managed to stand strong to date when compared to new buildings that have collapsed in Lagos in recent times. This is perhaps due to the materials of those periods, which may now be different from those used for new structures in Nigeria.
Speaking on comparisons between the quality of building materials in the past and recent times, the National President of the the Nigerian Institution of Builders and Facility Management, Dr. Akinsola Olufemi, in a recent interview with a liable source, noted that the materials used in building construction in recent times were different from those used for building projects in the past.
He said, “The materials are still the same but under different standards; those standards were regulated in the past and inferior materials could not be brought to the market for construction.
“There was the Standard Organisation of Nigeria, which is still in existence, but they are not as functional as they were in the past. Also, there was the Standard Organisation of Nigeria Conformity Assessment Programme, which was always in the market to check if the materials and products were of good quality.”
Also, on the expiry date of buildings, a former President of the Nigerian Institute of Building, Kunle Awobodu, believes that the lifespan of a building should be up to 60 years.
According to Awobodu, in a recent interview a liable source, he noted that theoretically, a building was assumed to have a lifespan of about 60 years, “however, looking at the age of Windsor Castle in London for instance, the castle has been there since 1070.
“Coming home to Nigeria, in some of the building surveys conducted by the Nigerian Institute of Building in 2020, it would be discovered that buildings like the water house owned by Candido Da Rocha on Lagos Island was constructed in 1874, and was still stable when we conducted a structural integrity test on it. In the same vein, Shitta-Bey Mosque on Martins Street, Lagos Island, was constructed in 1892.
“These buildings have been built well over 100 years and are still stable.”
Since buildings in Jakande Estate are around 40 years old, they might only need thorough renovation. But who will carry out this renovation or when it will be done are questions that beg for answers.
Stagnant water
Opposite Block 97 in the estate is the building of the Gospel Faith Mission International. Surrounding the church is stagnant water that has flowed to the church from the pool of water on the road opposite it.
Residents that were seen going into the church were wearing rain boots to prevent dipping their feet in the water.
Within the estate is also the Ilasan Primary School. The condition of the school seems to be more pathetic for the pupils, because, apart from overgrown grasses in the compound, right from the school gate, is a water-logged entrance that extends to the school compound. At the centre of the school blocks was a stagnant green-black colored water with some weeds raising their heads inside the pool of water.
Attempts to broadly capture the condition of the school were foiled when a woman who runs a store opposite the school gate challenged our correspondent and was beginning to make some calls. Our correspondent left the vicinity when the situation was becoming hostile.
But speaking generally on the stagnant water in the school and around other houses in the estate, a public health expert, Professor Tanimola Akande, said the condition was dangerous for the pupils and residents.
“The stagnant pool of water is unhealthy for any environment. Such a pool of water serves as a breeding ground for mosquitoes.
“People who live, work, or school around such places have frequent mosquito bites that lead to repeated episodes of malaria,” the Professor of Public Health at the University of Ilorin, and a Consultant Public Health Physician with the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, said.
Expressing fear of reptile attacks, Professor Tanimola added, “Reptiles such as snakes can also be in such stagnant water that may also bite humans,” saying “This can be very dangerous.”
Some of the residents also told our correspondent that one of the reasons they wore rain boots was to prevent germs from the water and any other dangerous organism in the water from getting to their feet.
Some planks usually doubled as bridges constructed as walk paths within the buildings in some sections of the estate. This is to prevent the dwellers from wading through the waters that have actually taken over the entrance to some of the buildings.
In some situations, if one is not a swimmer, the situation could be pathetic if one falls into the pool of water, especially children.
While passing through some of the buildings, a girl, around the age of seven years, fell while running with another little girl around three years old. They both fell near a pool of water on the ground before an adult helped both of them to get up. The situation would have been pathetic if they had both fallen into the water.
“There is no way we can enter our room without the wooden bridges,” a woman, who did not give her name but was seen spreading her clothes on the line with her feet inside the stagnant spirogyra-filled water that reached her knees, said.
