OJUELEGBA IS A THEATRE YOU WON'T STOP VISITING

Photo credit: @slumphotos

Davy Fidel 

(Freelance, Author)

Every area has their peculiarity. The uniqueness, the ugliness, and the beautiful side of it. It might also have it's up and down that when you are there you won't stop wondering. Ojuelegba is not a new tone and place for many people living in Lagos. It is not a place people don't go to daily. 

Ojuelegba is a theatre you will want to visit. It is a theatre with different stories for you to tell on how people stomp the place, day and night, and break their sweat to pick what to eat.  Ojuelegba is like a poet who said, "Listening to the song of a certain water, we learn the rhythm of their beating heart." 

However, we cannot be talking about this place without also referring to Fela Anikpolakuti i.e the afrobeat legendary musician. In that song, he sang. "For Ojuelegba, for Ojuelegba, for Ojuelegba! moto dey come from the south, moto dey come from the north, moto dey come from the east, moto dey comes from the west, and policeman no dey for the centre! Na confusion be that-i o!"

This is not to mystify the legendary musician, Fela Anikpolakuti, who died in 1997. But it is to uproot the logic of common sense from these lyrics about this "beating heart." This is Thirty-five years after this song was released or perhaps Fela's death. But when you play it, the song still stings into the heart of people, literally. 

We might want to ask ourselves some sincere questions. Has anything changed about Ojuelegba since this song stomps the country? The answer might be yes! Not really! Of course! It has! These will be the answers of people if a news reporter will carry out a street tour about Ojuelegba. 

But when you look closely and reexamined Ojuelegba, a few years ago. You will want to say nothing has changed. Nothing has improved fundamentally. Is it the dilapidated road? The street light that hardly light up the area at night or the social life? Or what will be the different improvements of life do we want to talk about?

Of course, the argument will be to compare the military and civilian administrations.  today people walk freely, compared to when the military was in power. There is no doubt about that. But people fought for it. They laid down their lives to have a "democracy" that Fela described as a demonstration of crazy. 

It is a democracy that a few people are richer while millions of people cannot find one meal to eat. It is a democracy where the hit track in the country is madness. The madness where one person is richer than thousand of people, if not millions e.g. "Dangote." It is a democracy where politicians use projects to become billionaires and use it to settle their cohorts at the corridor of people.

Ojuelegba is another piece of Nigeria. It is a "demonstration" of the kookiness the country has shaped people to live daily. Day in and day out, it depicts how people strive to pick surviving on the ground shatteringly. It demonstrates the economic hardship of thousands of people who either work there or pass through there to have a life for themselves and their families at home. 

The place reveals how people are hustling every day to survive the different policies of the government. In short, the policies contribute to the economic hardship of the country. Young men and women come around this place to survive. Commuters, street urchins, vendors, and all calibres of people see Ojuelegba as their home to pick the next day's meal. 

Even the police, the Lagos State Task Force and all State uniform people see Ojuelegba as their pot of soup of prepared also. They pinch their daily bread from the commuters' pocket or any bus or car that unknowingly default the Lagos State traffic law, which is meant to pound people. 

Of course, it is nice a thing to have an order in the traffic system in the State. But on the other hand, it is a death trap from the LS Task Force, which rake money from people that unknowingly defaults the law. Sometimes, this is what commuters pass through. However, they are trying to catch up with the exigency of survival, the country is snatching away. 

They are another sideshow of Ojuelegba and it is the hawkers. Old and young people hawk all kinds of brands i.e. pure water, bottle drink, books, and all stuff just to survive. Whether the weather is friendly or not, people must come out to survive. They will exhibit all kinds of shows to get passerby's attention to buy what they hawk. 

Especially young people, who should be in school. They will be at Ojuelegba to guarantee what they will eat. This might sound funny but it is the reality. It reveals a lot of ugliness in the everyday toiling of people. Ojuelegba is a pull of attraction of people from the four poles of Lagos. There are nothing people doesn't do to survive there.

It is like Oshodi, another amazing place. If it is your time stepping foot at Oshodi, the atmosphere will freeze you with shock. The way people are sweating, shouting on top of their voices including the lockdown traffic. All these put together, describe the similarity of Ojuelegba, which speaks the up and down of the country. 

On the other, people don't get tired of going to Ojuelegba, because it is also the pedestrian to another part of Lagos. It is also a connecting unit of patching today in tomorrow's hand. Importantly, Ojuelegba will remind you of the many labour's struggles against government policies and why this country shouldn't be managed the way it is being organised into pieces