It’s a known fact that Lagos city in Nigeria with the population of over 140 million, is the most populous city in Africa and according to a poll conducted recently, it shows that the city may likely implode very soon.

According to the poll, 72.5 percent of Lagos residents live in a one-room apartment with 8-10 persons per room; and only four million have access to pipe-borne water. Add 2,600 unplanned communities and over 100 slums; compare electricity power demand of 2,000 mega watts with actual supply of 500 mw; then consider the vehicular density, flooding, inadequate and decaying infrastructure and menace of street thugs popularly known as area boys’, and its obvious that Lagos is primed for an implosion.

How many Lagos residents leave their homes without the luxury of taking their baths? With all the rooms converted to meet the ever increasing demands for rented apartments, most buildings have no kitchens. The end result is that the passage ways are littered with kerosene stoves used for cooking, resulting in environmental pollution. And with the night spent having no electricity, people sweating profusely and slapping themselves in vain attempts to kill the ever present mosquitoes, hardly can anyone sleep well enough.

For the average Lagosian’, the distance between home and the workplace is like traveling across the wilderness from Egypt to Canaan, only that, in this case, work is not a promise land. Some Lagosians need between three to five bus rides a day just to make it to work, with one or two motor bike riders popularly known as okada’ thrown in-between. For those who have cars, it is about two to three hours’ drive, just to make it to the office.

The condition of public buses are atrocious, with people squeezed in like criminals, every conceivable space in the bus is utilized for carrying passengers. The roads are riddled with pot-holes the size of craters, yet handling more traffic than they were ever designed to do. Throw in the police check points and the usual harassment from the police, touts, and the Lagos states transport management authority known as {LASTMA}, it is all a long story of suffering.

The work place for most Lagosians becomes the ideal environment for sleep, using the toilet, eating and preparing for the maddening journey back home. Battered by living conditions, assailed by health issues, threatened by the fear of the unknown, the death rate in Lagos is staggering.

Take a trip to government and private hospitals in Lagos and ask to see their daily death registers. Call at the various cemeteries in Lagos and inquire on the number of burials conducted on daily basis. Stay at the toll gate on the outskirts of Lagos and count the number of vehicles carrying corpses out of the city on daily basis. Most of them came with hopes and expectations but were over overwhelmed by the challenges of living in Lagos.

Despite these gory statistics, more people daily migrate into Lagos in pursuit of their dreams. These are the drivers, gatemen, house helps, cooks, stewards, nannies, clerks, typists, messengers, gardeners, mechanics, plumbers, carpenters and the like. They also include touts, dock workers, policemen, security guards, market men and women, hawkers, job seekers and many more.

Which schools do their children attend? What health care facilities are available to them? What do they eat, considering the pittance they earn? How does it feel to live 8-10 in a room and then go across town to work in a big house where even dogs have rooms to themselves? How does it feel to drink well water and while at work, use pipe-borne water and hose to wash oga and madam’s cars?

How does it feel to know of a neighbour who died of typhoid fever and know that your boss has just gone abroad for a medical check-up? How does it feel to know that your child is attending a public school that is like a poultry and staffed with frustrated and ill-equipped teachers yet you daily ferry your boss’ children to and from a private school where the fees for one term is enough to train your child to the university level?

No wonder religious houses in Lagos are always full and bursting at the seams with people believing God for one miracle or the other. No wonder that at the slightest provocation people resort to fisticuffs and sometimes murder.

No wonder Lagosians always seem to be shouting when they are merely discussing. No wonder that alcohol consumption in Lagos is very high and substance’ abuse is commonplace. No wonder that the consumption of LEXOTAN and other sleeping pills is so high in Lagos so that people can numb out their pains and sleep like the dead.