Flanked by the National Theatre to the East and a high-rise Lagos Mainland Hotel to the West, Otto-Ilogbo community sits lowly on a swampy, filthy site in the heart of Ebute-Metta. But for a few decent houses on Jones Street overlooking the slum to the outskirts, the neighbourhood reeks of penury–one that defines the daily life of Mrs Florence Njoku, 65, and worsens it amid lockdown occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.
Njoku and her husband relied on their eldest son, who is into furniture work, for their daily meals. Unfortunately, that source of income has been put on hold since the state was on lockdown about four weeks ago.
Days into the lockdown, the native of Owerri, Imo State, picked used plastic bottles and sold them to get money to prepare food for her husband, their two young children and four grandchildren living with them. It was a hard task. At N50 a dozen, Njokus leaned on the paltry income and little help from friends to battle hunger.
The grey-haired woman has heard of government palliatives, food and a sum of N20,000 the Federal Government is giving out to vulnerable people like her to cushion the effect of lockdown but none has yet to come her way. “I have not received any palliatives from government,” she disclosed.
“I have become sick because of hunger. If not for God and help from some generous people, maybe I would have died by now,” the grandmother bemoaned as she began to share her ongoing excruciating moments.
She said, “I used to sell drinks but I stopped three months ago when thieves broke into my shop. I have three children. Only one of them is working. He is into furniture making, but since the lockdown started, he is unable to get money to take care of us.
“The first two weeks of the lockdown, I went out to pick used plastic bottles and sell them so I could get some money to feed my younger children and grandchildren living with me. I sold a dozen for N50. One day while I was going to Oyingbo to sell five dozen I picked, I fell on the road around Railway. Since then, I stopped picking plastic bottles. It was one of my husband’s friends who came to give us some food last Sunday.”
The Federal Government has been giving N20,000 relief fund to vulnerable persons to cushion the effects of the lockdown after the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd), imposed lockdown on Lagos, Ogun states, and the Federal Capital Territory. Other state governors have also initiated similar measures to contain the spread of the virus.
According to a report by The ICIR, as of April 9, the North-West region is the highest beneficiary of the Conditional Cash Transfer in the country, with 561,758 households benefitting from an allocation of N500bn.
Others are North-Central, 321,434; North-East, 109,442; South-South, 67,696; South-West, 37,904; and South-East, 27,977.
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