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| Alhaji Taju |
The role played by every
community member adds either to the growth or decline of such community. Every
community has within its fold people obsessed with his growth and development and
also people bent on bringing it to ruin. Commune Magazine quest to find people interested
in community growth and prosperity led us to Onosanya Street in Ladi-Lak area
of Bariga, just behind Gbagada estate. This community of 36 houses is the only
known street in the Ladi-Lak area that operates and maintains a street lighting
policy with or without PHCN electricity while the Lagos State Government is
still working to implement the Light up Lagos policy. This community has taken
the bull by the horn to light up their street in order to reduce crime in their
community. Assistant Editor, Ola Pat spoke with Alhaji Tajudeen Gaffar Bello,
the Chairman of Onasanya Community Association to find out how they power their
street lights and ask other pertinent questions. Excerpt:
Who is Alhaji Taju?
My name is Alhaji Tajudeen Gaffar Bello, I am a printer based in
Shomolu. I lived In Onasanya Street and I am the chairman of Onasanya Street
Association.
What exactly is the
duty of the Association?
We founded the association in order to solve and tackle community
issues and problems. For example, when we have electrical issues, bad poles,
damage transformer or prolong electrical power outage. It is the association
duty to look for solution. In fact, we are representative of the Onosanya
community. Recently, we had a bad electrical pole; it was the association that
ensures that it was replaced by Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN. When we had a faulty transformer,
it was also the association that carried out all the leg work for the
replacement.
Your street road is
not motorable, is there any plan to have it repaired?
We are still proposing to approach the Local Government to repair our
road. It has been like this for a long time. Since, I have been here and that
is about 13 years ago. There has never been any attempt to repair the road. It
is the residents that make little repairs by sand filling the pot holes
especially at the onset of the raining season.
What are the problems
your association is grappling with?
Our major problem is the people attitude towards paying their monthly
dues. Sometimes, we have to go out late night to be able to meet some of them
in the house. We sometime need to get crafty with the sneaky ones. We collect
the dues every month mostly during the environmental sanitation. Our major
problem is people don’t want to pay.
How do you manage,
when people don’t pay their dues?
We have not found a solution yet but we juggle it. We are able to meet
out monthly bills especially the security men’s salary with the dues collected.
We work hard to ensure that most of the houses on the street pay their dues, so
we don’t have to serious cash problem at the end of the month. By the end of
the month, with the collected revenue we are able to pay the security men and
still have something left to run the generator.
How many security men
do you have guiding you street?
We have only three of them.
Your security men are
Oodua People’s Congress, OPC members, how do you ensure they don’t molest or
victimize community members?
Our security men were provided by Adex and he understands that this is
a responsible community that demands responsible security performance. Since,
we employed them; they have not taken any untold or unnecessary aggression
against anybody. We gave them mode of operation, even if they caught a thief.
They are required to inform the Association Executive immediately. Then, we
will investigate their claims and charges against the person before handing the
person over to the police. For the past five years or there about, we have not
had such experience.
What prompt the idea
of lighting up your street with or without PHCN power supply?
Necessity is the master of invention. When people are coming in in the
night, the community is always in perpetual darkness. Thus, that situation
provides petty thieves the opportunity to snatch bags and phones. We thought of
ways to lighten up the street. So, we decided to use the accumulated fund left
to light up the street. We called an electrician to give us the cost of putting
up a sort of street light. He gave us an estimate of 35,000 Naira for about 40
bulbs and wiring involved. We gave him the money to run the wire and put the
light bulbs in place. As we are proposing how to buy a generating set, the
campaign train of the Lagos House of Assembly came to our community. We have
both All Progressive Congress, APC
and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in
our community. So, the PDP members brought in PDP candidate, Tolu Ebun. After
telling us her plan for the constituency, she asked what she can do for our
community and we told her we need a generating set to power our street light,
when there is electricity outage. By the second day, APC candidate, Wole Diya
had sent our community a generating set, while Tolu’s generating set arrived on
the third day. With the generating set out of our list of what to buy, we were
now saddled with how to power the generating set every night, because we hardly
have electricity supply. We had to call a general meeting to discuss how we are
going to fund the running of the generating set. We look at the number of
houses in the community, it was about 34 buildings. We decided on powering the
generating set with 500 naira fuel per day. That comes to an additional 500 Naira on the monthly due that is payable.
Now that the price of
fuel has gone up, how do you do it?
We have not call a general meeting since then but we still maintain
the 500 Naira per day fueling. Sometimes, the fuel finish around mid night or 1 am
but we make sure that we put the light on around 8pm. By the time fuel finish,
most of the street residents are in bed. One of the reasons for the lighting
project was to prevent phone and bag snatching in the night from people coming
back from work. And that have been achieved because we no longer receive
complains of phone and bag snatching again. In fact, the boys that snatch
phones and bags gave us a tough time, they kept cutting the wires and we tried
as soon as we notice it to immediately effect the repairs.
How did you repay the
politicians that donate the generating sets? Did your association endorse a
particular party?
We cannot dictate to anybody, it is individual decision to make. When we
start doing that we will have a divided community. The community must not
campaign for any party in order not to destabilize it.
How do you ensure
peace in the community between the different party members?
There cannot be disharmony because we separate community association
form party politics. We did not bring politics into community development
issues.
How do people get
into position in the association?
There are some positions that are only open to people, who are
landlords. These positions include Chairman and treasurer while all other
positions are open to both landlords and tenants.
What project is your
organization embarking on now?
People are not paying well; our next project is to secure the street
by mounting a gate. When we mount those gates, it will help enhance our
security and the security men will be more effective in their watch.
But, Lagos state government
will prefer streets without gates?
It is not that the Lagos State Government don’t want street to be
gated because it is to enhance security of the residents. What the State Government
is saying is that residents should have easy access to go in and out especially
when they have an emergency. And that is not a problem as all our executives
are well known and can be easily approach and access.
Is your association
affiliated to any CDA?
We are not affiliated to any CDA yet but we are already making that
move. I attend CDA meetings at the Bariga LCDA office. Although, we are
considering merging with other streets around us to form a new CDA, but these
other street associations are still in their infancy. They are not as strong as
we are.