By Chris Emetoh
To many, especially those whose dream place happen to be Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital City, life in this often beautifully presented place might appear rosy.
But forget the flashy cars you see on the ever busy roads of Abuja, forget the high rising edifices you see all around the city, all that glitters are not gold.
The FCT no doubt is a very beautiful city befitting a country as wealthy as Nigeria.
Abuja is home to Nigeria’s elite political class as well as to high ranking business moguls. Abuja is home to majority of the nation’s civil servants, traders and to many other professionals.
The city prides itself as hosting the country’s most beautiful houses and architectural master pieces, in addition to countless number of estates most of which are still unoccupied.
But believe it or leave it life is not exactly what these beautiful houses seem to portray.
A closer look at life in this beautiful city of Abuja with a population speedily growing above 7 million, becomes very worrisome.
Perhaps, based on the perception of people that Abuja is a land of opportunities that thousands of Nigerians troop into it daily in search of livelihood. Ironically, these people find themselves in quagmires as they lack access to shelter. But for want of survival they determine to stay put unmindful of the prevailing situation.
Coupled with the lack of jobs which in the first instance was their major attraction to the city, most of these settlers are compelled by circumstance to resort to all sorts of menial jobs earning barely enough to provide for a comfortable living.
Let alone help them raise enough money for accommodation.
These persons are the reasons for the proliferation of shanties and slums throughout the parts of the FCT thus, constituting nuisance.
Yet, there are some who cannot afford the shanties and squatter spaces and therefore take refuge in uncompleted buildings, under bridges, cars and shop fronts after its occupiers might have closed for the day.
The Bridges have been turned into luxurious abodes by these same group of persons especially in places like Nyanya, Karu, Mabushi, Kuwa and even Dei Dei even under the vigilant eyes of the authorities.
Although a lager percentage of these under-the-bridge settlers happen to come from the northern part of the country the ugly situation is not restricted to them.
Recent investigations into the development showed that some of the settlers have lived under a particular bridge for over one year.
One of the squatters from Zamfara State speaking to africahousingnews.com on grounds of anonymity, said had to leave his family behind to seek greener pasture in the FCT, but never dreamt of living in his present condition. According to him, he was trained as an artisan in the building sector hoping that that with that skill he had acquired he would able to find a regular job that can fetch him enough money to feign for his wife and two children back at home.
Bala Isa is an indigene of Nasarawa State said he has been jobless for a long period and cannot afford to pay for a any decent accommodation. He even depends on his townsmen for daily meal.
Isa admitted that at nights unlike some of his friends under the bridge he sleeps a dilapidated car and baths in a nearby river.
Isa and others happen to be among thousands of downtrodden Nigerians who found themselves in similar precarious predicament striving for daily survival but without hope of shelter at the end of each day.
There are also countless others who had found themselves in such situation as a result of demolition exercises by the FCT Authority,
Although there had been attempt by previous Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) Administrations to nip squatter settlements in the bud, none of the approaches adopted has ever yielded the required fruits, either because the policies introduced were wrongly implemented or that they had no human face in the approach.
As long as the economy continues to bite harder, and jobs are becoming more difficult to find, while accommodation for the downtrodden remains a mirage, the proliferation of squatter settlements, slums and all that will continue to exist just as we will continue to see every night people taking shelters under
