For Mr. and Mrs. Mukhtar Hassan, surviving the 24 hours in a day is more like a chance game. Aside the financial lack that has enveloped them for years, their uncompleted, ramshackle house, flooding and uncertainty of illness and daily battle with invading snakes, make their life most undesirable. MEDINAT KANABE and DORCAS EGEDE report.
When young Aisha got married to Mukhtar Hassan in 2008 and relocated from her village in Agbede, Edo State to Lagos, she was super excited. Little did she know that her life was about to become one of untold hardship.
She convinced her husband, who was a roadside electrician, to enroll her in a fashion school and looked forward to acquiring sewing skill. However, her husband’s family kicked against and saw to it that she was withdrawn.
“I had already started cutting and using the machine but they persisted until he gave in on the ground that I had not gotten pregnant. That, in a nutshell, is why I don’t have any skills,” she said.
Twelve years down the line, she still lives with that regret.
The 34-year-old mother of four, who lost her mother at birth, said her husband soon got a job as an electrician with GAC at Apapa, where he earned N70,000 monthly; but things took a downturn in 2013, when he was later retrenched.
“While working at GAC, he bought a land, but because he was busy, he was sending money to a “trusted” friend to assist him in building a house. Unfortunately, the friend used the money to build himself a house instead.”
She said it took a while to get over the shock that the house they thought had been completed was merely a sketch.
They managed to roof a room and started to live in it, even without any windows or doors. “We have been here four years, managed to put one door and two windows but whenever it rains, our room gets flooded and for days we will not be able to sleep at all.”
Revealing that they use the same room as kitchen, sitting room and bedroom, Aisha said, “The room that should serve as sitting room remains unroofed and filled with water and spirogyra. Also, snakes regularly stray in there. I have battled with big snakes in the water that never dries up. I have also killed many small snakes there. Sometimes, the snakes even find their way into our room.”
Mrs. Hassan said she has tried to salvage the situation by engaging in petty trading like selling sachet water, pap, repacked noodles and stuff, but whenever her children fall ill or her husband cannot provide money for feeding, both her capital and profit come to the rescue, leaving her to start afresh.
Now, she says her husband makes do with little repair jobs for as little as N200 and N500.
“At times when we have just N200 to spend for a day, we eat N10 biscuits in the morning, N20 puff puff in the afternoon and drink garri at night.”
“We are used to staying without food, but when the children get really hungry, they start crying so much that I also cry.”
Mercifully, she says her three boys and a girl attend a nearby public school.
“When we are sick, I look for herbs around to cook for the family. But if the sickness is severe, I run around begging for help, and if none comes, I just sit and hope that whoever is sick comes out of it alive.
“On several occasions, I had given up on my children when they were sick. I don’t fear death anymore because it has lived with us for a long time.”
She also revealed that their legs are permanently in the water except when they are out.
“The water increases as we bail it out because it is coming from under the ground. We need to landfill the area, but we cannot afford it. The water causes itching and when we scratch the affected areas, it swells and bursts. We fall sick from typhoid regularly; and just last week, I got electrocuted when I tried to switch on the fan. It was not funny; I got stuck to a spot, holding firmly onto the fan. At first, it was as if the fan was throwing me around. But for my second son who got the wisdom to disconnect the fan, I would have died.”
Aisha who revealed that she hardly sleeps a wink at night said her husband and children manage to squeeze on the small bed, while she climbs onto the pile of pots on the side of the room because of the water. “And when the children wake up every morning, I rob their chests with something hot, so they don’t feel cold, as the house is always cold and their legs are always in the water.”
“Usually, I sit through the night asking God why I have to suffer this way. My mother died when I was born and I suffered growing up, so why did I marry to continue the suffering?”
As a parting shot, Aisha called on well-meaning Nigerians to come to their rescue. From the look of things, she can’t seem to fathom how they would wriggle free from of the firm grip of poverty without external help.