It is my pleasure to participate in this Contest today because I have been looking forward to sharing some interesting articles about my area. With this opportunity I will talk about the Market, Traffic, Security, Road Construction and Transportation. I invite you to come along with me to see happenings in the part of Lagos State Nigeria where I live. All pictures used in this article were taken with my smart phone camera. I hope you will love its quality, lets go.

MARKET

There are many markets in my area but I cannot mention all of them now. But the one that attracts my attention most is the Iyana Iba market at Ojo Local Government Area of Lagos State. This is a market that booms with different goods – kitchen wares, food stuffs, vegetables, fruits, clothing including ‘the bend down select’ as its popularly called ‘OKRIKA’ second hand clothes.

Inside the market

This market harbour wholesales of different dealers. If you want to buy fresh vegetables and fruits at reduced prices directly from the farm, the best option is to come to Iyana Iba market and you get them mostly in the early morning hours at very cheap and discount prices.

Vegetables

This is the time for fresh Corn. Just come to this market and you see market women haggling out the prizes with farmers. Corn is one of the stapple food in Nigeria and everyone loves it especially at this time both old and young. It can be cooked, roasted or grinded for making Pap (Akamu) and also eaten with any soup as swallow.

Fresh Corn

Retailers buying Corn

The only thing you will not see at this time in large quantities now in this market is Plantain and Tomatoes. This food item has been scarce for sometime now because this is not their season. The few you see at this market now is doubled the price as we use to buy them before. Although recently prices of food items increased in price. Yam too is not much in large quantity because now is not the season we are expecting the new yam harvest soon. But all the same people are still buying as they can but not like as it were some 6 months ago. Personally the money I used in buying food items has changed as I was at the market 2 days ago, I could not buy as my list outlined. The price tag on each item increased by at least 20%. May God help us out of this terrible situation because ‘man must wack’ (eat).

From this market you can get vehicles going to different parts of Lagos because it harbours a big garage for vehicle transporting passengers to different locations in Lagos and outside the city.

At the Garage

TRAFFIC

The traffic situation in my area is worsening day by day. You can spend hours on a go-slow before you get to your destination. This has made a lot of people trecking and walking on foot. When you check it out properly, most times it could be due to the ‘Area boys-Agbero’ touts collecting money from drivers thereby causing those vehicle hold-ups on the way. Another thing that is contributing to the heavy traffic is bad road. The rain has washed away many good portions of the tarred road. There are construction works also going on in our roads and it is also causing traffic, vehicle movements are slowed down.

The Go-slow

The construction workers are very busy at this time building drainages for good flow of water. They are also building overhead bridges so that the traffic situation can ease up for people. We are all looking forward to the time when this road constructions will finish because it has taken too long a time. They started this construction work over 6 years ago on the Lagos Badagry Expressway that comes from the Orile axis to Badagry. Construction in most of the places are now completed but the one ongoing now is at the Iyana Iba to Okokomaiko road and we have been experiencing heavy traffic on these roads almost every day.

Road Construction

This road expansion led to demolishing some part of the market to allow enough space for vehicular movements and commuting. This has also caused untold hardship to the marketers as their shops are no more. Many of them are now left managing and using any available space along the road to display their goods with make-shift umbrellas under the shed with their goods. Many are under the sun selling their goods just to make sure they have something to cater for their families.

Goods under Umbrellas

Goods on the floor

SECURITY

The government is trying very much in this regard. There are so many agencies working very hard to see that life and property are being secured. We have the Vigilantes that make up of security guards that parade the streets in each neighborhood to make sure that hoodlums do not parade and disturb people at night. The Police too are not left out. We have various Police stations in each community to keep on the watch against ‘bad boys’.

HOUSING

There are a number of good houses located in my area. Housing has been a major challenge some few years back but now most people have started building their own homes to avoid the shylock landlords and have their own good accommodation. There are many gigantic fine buildings being constructed newly in my area and most of them are occupied by their owners. Still yet a lot of people are looking for good accommodation. Rentage is not cheap anywhere due to high cost of building materials. The only thing that has changed in Lagos State is that you are now allowed to pay for between 6 months or 1 year in advance with agency and agreement fee attached. The houses are affordable depending on each category you are looking out for. There are no homes on Mortgage rather people buy land and build, it is based mostly on individual effort. Even the government owned houses are not easy to come by. Some Government Agencies and other Parastatals are renting out homes to their staffs and they pay from their salaries.

A beautiful 2 Storey building

WATER

This is one of the cheapest thing in my area. Almost every house has good water. Boreholes are erected to supply water to its occupants. If a compound does not have borehole, there will be a ‘Well’ dug out for people to fetch water from. You can easily get water from a neighbor’s house if you don’t have in your compound. Everyone is cooperating and sharing this necessity with each other. I love this aspect so much. No one is using money to buy water. It is absolutely free unlike in some localities where people buys their water. We have good drinking water in my area.

ELECTRICITY

Electricity supply in my area has improved recently. The EKEDC (Eko Electricity Distribution Company) is trying to supply electricity recently. There is an improvement in their distribution but the charges on consumers are very high. Recently there were free Prepaid Meter shared to most houses by the Federal Government of Nigeria. Many people received this free Meters including my house but after the consumption of the credit loaded into the Meter got exhausted, recharging it back becomes a big problem for many users. The rate is very high and if your house were owing any debt before as these company was billing customers based on ‘Estimate’ not on actual consumption, they now added all those accumulated bills and mandate each user to pay for those debts before they can recharge their meter. This has resulted in a lot of unbearable burden to many users. It has not been easy at all. Many people are not happy, this has resulted to a lot of complains going on and the billings are very high yet the electricity is not regular 24/7.

These are the much I can write out now as it is happening in my area now.

Thank you.

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