Makoko House’s On Lagoons

Makoko House’s On Lagoons

A cup of tea and 5 sliced bread was my breakfast this morning before dashing out from my house to my destination. My destination is the Makoko Community. Finally I got to my destination. The road from my house to this destination was balanced but the hold up was not a child’s play but I had to endure until I got from one bus stop to another down to another until I got to Makoko Community.

The Makoko Community is a peaceful and swampy environment where people dwell. Makoko is one of the poorest communities in Nigeria based on my observation during my exploration of the environment. The people living in this environment seem to be happy and enjoy the communication in this swampy area. No child born from this community that doesn’t know how to swim.

A community that interacts with different languages depends on who you are communicating with. The languages you can interact with are the egun, Yoruba, french and English language.

Makoko is another world entirely. There is nothing you find on land you can’t see in this community. These people construct their houses on water, the houses being constructed are a room and parlor self-contained, one room even a storey building. Their toilet and bathroom is built separately from the house. Once you take your bath or defecate, it goes directly inside the water.

All kinds of businesses are being sold on water through the medium of canoe. Every trader doing business in this community has their own canoe. Canoes are their means of transportation. They use the canoe to hawk their business from one location to the other like cooked rice, beans and stew, detergent, water leaf, bread and butter, selling of fishes and many others. There are some businesses that are still done without moving on the water like the fashion designer, hair stylist, barber’s, phone engineers, boat engineers and the rest. They also have some local factories like the garri factory and not just factories but bore hole water installed by some NGO in Nigeria. The bore hole water is very clean and tastes good, even better than some bottled water.

This community has two (2) primary School’s also built by some NGO and eight (8) local health centers built with woods.

This community has different areas governed by a chief on the water. Like we have;

Migbewhe street, meaning; ( We don’t want trouble) is governed by Agi Steve.

Adogbo street is governed by Sir Panke Victor.

Yansinwhe ( the area is named after an old woman who denominated the area in the past) governed by Shemede Emmanuel.

Sogunro, 1st governed by Abraham Mesun.

Sogunro, 2nd governed
by Agbojete.

I visited all this area on the water. There are no Kings but chiefs and baales. The community is also connected to electricity.

At the end of my tour, I sighted the third mainland bridge. At this point, you paddle your canoe back because of the waves.

In fact, the Makoko Community is really another world entirely. I really enjoyed being on the canoe, going around for the time I spent there.

I’m Dennis Chukwuebuka Okeke, a travel writer and tourism promoter. Onye-njem one of AFRICA.