Nigeria

Manifestation

Homelessness is manifested in overcrowded slum accommodations; houses built on stilts especially in riverine areas, swamps, and floodplains; pavement dwellings; and informal settlements.

Olusola Labeodan's study (1989) in Ibadan, Nigeria, revealed a sample count of about 15,700 people homeless. The homeless found in the study slept on road curbs and pavements, inside old train coaches and public transport buses, and in front of closed market stalls. It was found that night guards harbor some of these homeless persons under the pretext that they too are guards. The homeless people play cards till about 2 a.m. and then sleep on benches or tables. In the morning, they go begging for alms or work as load carriers.

There are no national statistics or data on the number of homeless people or people living in marginal situations in Nigeria. About 10 percent (author's guess estimate) of the population are street homeless and are referred to as omo gutter (“gutter child”; omo is used as street slang to mean a child, youth, or adult who is homeless) or omo asunta(“child that sleeps outside/on the street”). Some of them are destitute, mentally ill, beggars, touts, area boys (dropout, street youths and adults in their twenties and thirties who engage in crime and illegal activities and are social misfits), agberos (“motor park touts,” who are chronically homeless), alabarus(“porters in the market places”), and omo abe gada(“someone who sleep under the bridge/under bridge user”). On the other hand, about 70 percent (author's guess estimate) of the population live in slums or substandard housing. Ajakaiye (2000) affirmed that the proliferation of informal settlements and slums of despair is not likely to stop.

Antecedents

Homelessness in Nigeria is attributable to economic, political, social, and cultural factors, which are intertwined with the lopsided distribution of resources and wealth among the population. The antecedents of homelessness include a mismatch between supply and demand for housing, internal migration, increasing urbanization and population growth, obsolete housing stock, and unemployment. Further factors have been land issues, including local resistance against authorities in their bid to take possession of land and develop in spite of the 1978 Land Use Decree; cumbersome procedures for land acquisition; high cost of providing infrastructure on land; high cost of securing land and of settling compensation demands; and delays in the release of funds by government to housing authorities for land acquisition and settlement of compensation.

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