Is this the reason why they say Africans live on trees?

Recently, what has been making news is that the residents  in this slum will be evacuating this place, the question is where do they intend to live? what will become of them in the next future if this evacuation takes place?

Toyin Oluwatobi wakes up at 6am and cooks a variety of food enough to feed 50 people. After, she prepares her paddle and canoe for the day’s work; the only means of transport for her goods and it also serves as her shop.
One thing is sure though, by 3pm when she retires to her wooden house, the food would be completely sold, Oluwatobi told PUNCH Metro.
Life in Makoko, a Lagos riverine community in Yaba Local Government Area of the state, is different from what is obtainable in other parts of the metropolis.
The majority of the residents of this fishing community depend on food vendors like Oluwatobi to eat daily.
When our correspondent visited the fishing community, it was noticed that the residents rely on the goods sold by women and girls who paddle around the community in their canoes.

Let me rephase the question is the reason why they say Africans live in the forest? 

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By morning, most of Makoko’s men would be off to their fishing spots, while the boys would either be away to a small school built with wood, or at the loading dock, waiting for passengers to ferry around the community.
 Makoko traders, who are mostly women, do not have the luxury of shops. So, they load their items on their canoes and paddle around the community until they or their goods are exhausted. Sweating as they rigorously paddle their canoes around the community, these women provide the main economic sustenance, which the residents of Makoko depends on.

While they move about, anxious residents wait at the entrances or windows of their wooden houses on the water and beckon on them. A food vendor, Mrs. Seun Okueso, told PUNCH Metro, “What we cook is what the people eat. They do not have a choice because the majority of the people here cannot afford to cook in their homes.

You can see the reason why. If they do, what if they forget to put out the fire and it burns down the wooden house? “Apart from that, the way things are around here, it is easier for the people to buy the food from us than to cook in their houses. We save them a lot of stress. Cooking in our kind of houses is not as easy as it is in normal buildings.” As our correspondent moved round the community, different canoes were encountered laden with either food or household commodities that one would find in normal shops.

Explaining why the traders prefer to hawk the goods in canoes instead of setting up wooden shops at the homes, a woman selling beans cake, told our correspondent, “who do you think the residents would prefer to buy from; a trader who brings the goods to their doorsteps or the trader who expects them to get into their canoes and come to her house?”

Even though the traders seemed to be the only source of meals for the residents of Makoko, they said business is not as rosy for them as it seemed. “I have eight children and I have to feed them all. I need to send some of them to school as well. Children are treasures in this community. The little I get as profit I use to feed my children. My husband is a fisherman. He takes care of the education of those who are schooling,” Okueso said. Another trader, Mrs. Elizabeth Bajowa, said the trade was the only way she could support her five children. Bajowa said, “Two of them are schooling in Benue State and I have to send them money.

The work starts by 6am and I don’t close till 5pm. I sell a lot because the people don’t cook or have the time to go outside the community and buy these things we sell. “Despite all these, livelihood is still a challenge here. What we get as profit from this trade is barely enough to feed us.” Our correspondent also noticed that the girls, who take part in the business activities of the community, have become masters of the paddle. Paddling with dexterity, some of them were seen in canoes laden with liquid soap, condiments and other goods. A girl, who identified herself simply as Kate (not English), said she did not go to school. “I am six years old. I have two elder brothers who are in school. I’m helping my mother with her trading. She has two canoes. I take one to hawk condiment while she uses the other to hawk food,” she said in her native Egun dialect, while our correspondent’s guide interpreted.

In Makoko, the residents buy water from vendors, who get it from boreholes in the neighbouring communities and brought to the riverine community. The water vendors put the water in big plastic tanks, load them into canoes and move around the community. Some Makoko residents buy and store the water in tanks in their wooden houses and resell to other residents. The scarcity of potable water has to do with absence of pipe borne water in the community. For a community where all household wastes go into the water on which their houses are built, a leaky pipe can be hazardous. One of the Baales (village heads) of the community, Chief Abraham Mesu, told PUNCH Metro, that the traders needed help from the government.

“We depend so much on these women daily but their business has not been that good. I think it would help them a lot if they can get loans from the government to improve their trades. “Even their husbands who are mostly fishermen still use the old fishing method that was transferred to them through many generations. Most of these men fish through the night and catch fish worth N150,000 sometimes. “So, you can imagine how much fish they would catch if they are using modern fishing method. Another problem is that there is no storage system here. So, even if they catch fish worth N200,000.

They have to sell them that day or it would get spoilt.” Mesu appealed to the government to come to the aid of the traders and fishermen of Makoko in order to make life worthwhile for them.

So what aid can the government give to these people when they are evacuated?