FESTAC: Town in need of moral salvation -Written By Linus Obogo, Assistant Editor

Welcome to FESTAC Town. This was the landmark at the First Gate that clearly offered a hint of where Nigeria’s Festival of Arts and Culture village was situated. That was 35 years ago.

Today, the landmark has not only disappeared, but the very gate that once welcomed its residents and visitors alike has been ripped bare of any directional compass, having progressively transformed into a garage for commercial motorcyclists, popularly called ‘Okada’. 

The once posh and highbrow estate was built by the government in 1977, during the country’s first oil boom, to quarter tens of thousands of participants in the Second World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture. After the festival, it was to later serve as a satellite for the country’s middle class. This was so until the late 1980s.

With the death or rather, the disappearance of Nigeria’s middle class, FESTAC Town also suffered vicariously and in turn, lost its plum and upscale status. Like a similar fate that has befallen the country, FESTAC has weathered corresponding socio-economic vagaries and sadly, morphed into a juvenile, ramshackle colony of social and economic vermin.

Today, a stopover at the once modish FESTAC Town conjures varied and distorted images of a glorified barracks, refugee camp, deplorable roads, altered and fractured landscape and corollary putrefaction.

Apart from what has sustained as its surviving vestiges, everything in FESTAC Town has literally assumed a life of its own. Armed robbery, rape, kidnapping, ritual murder, email and Facebook scams are some of the defining narratives of the cultural village which have sprouted as concomitants of its vanished glory. Its reputation as a crumbled neighborhood is well documented.

A cluster of shops, stalls, eateries, cyber cafés and snooker spots are hangouts for most of its vibrant, unemployed youth occupants.

The cultural village which neither sleeps nor toils, between the hours of 8am and 5pm, its ‘employable’ but idle youths are seen either chatting away or in their redundancy, argue about their favourite football teams tucked away in England, Spain or Italy.    

Newsstands are not left out of their hangouts. Here, they cluster as ‘Free Readers Association’ and constitute themselves panel analysts and commentators on issues of the day from economy, politics and sports.

On this particular day (Tuesday August 28,) this reporter had cause to sniff around, if anything, to feel the pulse of the residents following the bizarre murder of Cynthia Osokogu, by suspects already cooling their heels in police custody.

As could be imagined, Cynthia’s murder was the subject of discourse. Varied positions were taken by the ‘nomadic’ discussants. The debate was heated and occasionally miscued. While some found holes in late Cynthia’s misadventure in Lagos, there were others who enlisted sympathy for the diseased. 

The late Cynthia Osokogu, the only daughter of Major General Frank Osokogu (retd), it would be recalled, reportedly went missing on July 22, 2012. She was said to have been strangled in a hotel by Odera Ezekiel (23) and Okwoma Nwabufor (33), in FESTAC, Lagos. 

Cynthia was allegedly drugged, bound hand and foot and then strangled by her assailants.

Cynthia was said to be in Lagos to purchase goods for her boutique.

She was received at the Murtala Muhammed Airport her assailants, who later took her to the hotel. According to a confession extracted from two of the suspects, they met the deceased on the internet and cajoled her to Lagos to purchase goods at a rate believed to be cheaper than elsewhere.

On getting to the airport in Lagos, the suspects allegedly took her to a hotel, drugged her, and bound her by the hand and foot. They confessed to inflicting pains on her and strangling her before stealing her money, phone and identity card.

The suspects who confessed that their modus operandi was to lure young females to Lagos for such purpose said the incident was not the first of their heinous acts.

Long before Cynthia’s murder, Festac had already acquired notoriety for all that is unwholesome. Security agencies’ feelers had indicated that FESTAC Town had long been a hub of high level organized crimes over the years. And if there existed doubt about the police report, it was firmly laid to rest with the recent gruesome murder of Cynthia Osokogu.

The report also added that the former FESTAC 77 cultural village has moved from being a middle income residential area to a grade one crime spot, adding that out of the 1,760 drug traffickers arrested in the first and second quarters of this year, 1,102 ingested the substances and took off from FESTAC Town.

The security report came after a combined team of security operatives including the State Security Service (SSS), Police, NDLEA and officials of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), raided hotels and other recreational spots in the area. Items including guns, illicit drugs among others, were recovered from most of the hotels combed.

In their harmonized report after the operation, FESTAC was classed among the most dangerous areas in the city of Lagos in terms of organized crime and other criminalities. The 12-page report said apart from armed robbery, the cultural village also tops the list as a habitat for 419ners, hard drug dealers, ritual killers and kidnappers.

Shortly before the story of Cynthia broke, men of the Festac Town Police Division had on July 26, 2012 reported the shocking discovery of a headless body and human parts in a residence at Close B. 3rd Avenue. Two brothers, Toye and Omotola, were alleged killers of their brother, Akinbuyi, 39. The trio was believed to have shared a terrible and twisted relationship. 

Toye and Omotola were arrested by men of the Lagos State Police Command for being in possession of a mutilated and decomposing parts of their victim inside the house occupied by the duo. Akinbuyi’s brothers allegedly killed and dumped his body in a room inside the flat.

The three brothers were believed to be living at B Close, House 6 of 3rd Avenue, after their father died and left the property for them.

 In January 2005, the entire nation kept vigil and prayed endlessly as Nigeria’s best-selling pop artiste, 2face Idibia  lay on a hospital bed, recovering from injuries sustained after robbers laid siege to his FESTAC Town residence, injuring him and his brother, Steve. 

The 32 year-old music star escaped a similar attack in December 2006 when robbers stopped a car he was being driven in and asked all the occupants to lie flat.

On October 5, 2007, the "African Queen" crooner was rushed to hospital in Lagos after he was shot in the thigh by unknown assailants.

The spectre of armed robbery attacks on musicians in Festac Town resurfaced in 2005 as popular hip-hop singer, Mr. Lekan Fadeyi (aka Azadus) was attacked by bandits. They attempted to snatch his metallic blue-colour BMW 5 Series car.

3rd Avenue, according to “The Nation” investigation, is popular, particularly for playing host to the Passport Office of Nigeria Immigration Service and as a prominent relaxation spot known as Fatherland. 

“The Nation” also gathered that sometime last year, a certain white man whose nationality could not be ascertained was lured into the country by Facebook scammers and allegedly killed at 7th Avenue. His body, according to a source, was later dumped into the canal.

A source in the cultural village told “The Nation” that there have been a series of cases of what could be termed high profile murders, rapes and muggings that have gone unreported in the last three years. According to him, the late Cynthia’s turned out to be a wakeup call on the security to be on their guard. He said Cynthia’s saga was just lucky to have been reported. 

Investigation by “the Nation” revealed the upsurge in deadly criminal activities in the estate is a spin off from the clampdown on cyber crimes and related activities by men of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). The downturn in email scams is said to have begun during Mallam Nuhu Ribadu’s tenure as EFCC Chairman. 

With so much heat from the EFCC bearing down heavily on the operators, most net cafes were forced to close shop as a result of incessant raids by the agency’s operatives, a development that saw many of the idle youths take to other vices to stay afloat. ‘Businesses’ had to be redefined, the consequences did not really matter.

With the dwindling fortunes from cyber crimes, a member of the residents’ association, Mr. Njoku (surname withheld), told “The Nation” that the ‘Yahoo Yahoo boys’ began to recruit young men into their fold for nefarious crimes like robbery, pick-pocketing, mugging and rape.

Njoku identified areas he called black spots to include 2nd Gate, 512 Road Bus Stop, 52 and 23 Road Junction, 402 Road Bus Stop. He disclosed that 23Rd Market serves as a recruitment ground where young men are conscripted into their fold.

At 5th Avenue, off 41 Road, which is the last bus stop in the estate Njoku said Indian hemp is openly sold, and young men converge as early 9am warm up their lungs with the substance. The area is christened ‘Stone Field’ because of the nature of the trade.

A visit by this reporter to Stone Field revealed a graphic portrait of young men whose lives and future are being controlled and navigated by destructive substances. One of the boys, Olapade, who volunteered comment, said he has been forced into smoking ‘weeds’ as a way of comforting himself .according to him, “Whether or not I smoke Indian hemp, my life is not going to be different from what it is now and there is no point  for me to continue to wallow in self-pity. What I am doing is to make myself happy. It is my life and however it ends up is no one’s business.”

For an estate conceptualized as purely a residential area, how did it become such a cesspit of vices and a coven for anti-social elements? A priest with Holy Family Catholic Church, Rev. Father Sam volunteered: “What we are witnessing now did not start today. It has been building up for several years. If you look at the infrastructural facilities in the estate, they have become dilapidated. in Europe and America, where you have an estate such as this, you will find police stations, police patrols and 24-hour security. But what we have is just one police station and before they will get to a scene of a crime, the perpetrators would have escaped. The estate is not well secured and monitored. Whatever is happening in Festac Town is a manifestation of what is happening in the larger society. Of course, residents of the estate are products of the society.

“Most of the boys were born in Festac and they did their primary and secondary education here as well. They have not been to anywhere. The only time they may have gone out is when they are in tertiary education. Their worldview is just about Festac Town alone.

 There is also something that is not being understood by the people and that is the fact we do not know who is in charge. Is it the Federal Government? We are told the FG acquired and developed the place. Is the state government? Of course, we have been told the estate has been inherited by the state government. Or is it the local government? If you call on the council authorities, they will tell you to go to the state and when you turn to the state, it is another story altogether. So who really is in charge? The council is trying, but there is a lot to be done. And if something is not done urgently, in a few years to come, we may resort to the use of bicycle to ply the roads in Festac Town.”

On the issue of criminality which has afflicted the estate like an epidemic, what is the cure? Father Sam offered: “What has motivated the current malaise in the estate is the unbridled appetite of the youths to get rich quick and they feel the sure way is through criminality. Again, we have to trace the genesis back to the parents of these youths. Today, many parents want to go through the backdoor to get their wards into schools. Having learnt from their parents, they will come to appreciate the fact that it is better and easier to get through the backdoor to be successful. For the fours they are in the university, they will go through the backdoor to pass their courses. Having learnt how to pass exams without the rigours of reading, they would have acquired the skills on how to be successful without sweat. Their psyche acquires a new orientation.” 

Equally lamenting the upsurge in violent crimes in the estate, Okafor (surname withheld), said the relocation of the spare parts markets from Idumota to the Trade Fair Complex and ASPMDA has given rise to people with questionable character taking up residence in Festac Town as a result of its proximity to the Trade Fair Complex. 

According to Okafor, “Not everyone in ASPAMDA and Trade Fair has a genuine means of livelihood, as many of the boys are touts who have to devise a disingenuous means of eking out a living.”

 But in spite of the obvious crime rate and sundry vices occasioned by the influxes of spare parts dealers into Festac Town, rents in the estate are on the upward spiral, hitting the roof every year. Asked why this is so, Mr.Nweke, an architect and estate developer offered an insight: “Spare parts dealers are often willing to pay more than any prospective tenants. So, who is that landlord that will not let out his apartment to them?"  

While Okafor believes the crime rate is fallout of the relocation of Idumota spare parts dealers to the Trade Fair Complex, Chinedu, who resides on 52 Road, identifies the growing number of hotel business, which he said has impacted negatively on the residents. 

Many of the hotels, Okafor insisted, “do not even have their names on display as hotels and they are not registered. They provide hideouts for muggers and robbers, making it impossible for police to track down criminals in the estate, needless to say that they do not pay taxes to the government.”

Further investigation by “The Nation” revealed that in 2010, there was a murder in a certain hotel (name withheld), which culminated in the closure of the fun spot. The discovery of the murder, a source disclosed, was what revealed the existence of the hotel to its neighbours. They were, however, benumbed with the jaw dropping murder in a neighbourhood that served as a nest for criminals.

Another resident, Gabe Okpoye, a businessman, who has lived in the estate since 1977, also learnt his voice on prevalent rate of violent crimes” “I have been living here since 1977. Every environment has its own problem and Festac Town cannot be an exception. It is still a peaceful estate with its good and bad sides. On the issue of ritual murder and Facebook crimes, it is a youth problem and this has close association with joblessness. There is no job, yet everyone wants to live life to the hilt. Since they need money to do that, nothing is too heinous for them to do. Same goes for ‘Yahoo Yahoo’, rapes, kidnappings etc. Competition is another factor that has fueled criminal activities in this community. There is an unhealthy rivalry among most young men to get rich quick without bothering to know how the other person made his money. During working hours when able-bodied young men should engage themselves legitimately, you find them drinking beer and holding meetings at beer parlour and scheming what crime to perpetrate.

Of course, these vices are not peculiar to Festac alone.”

Okpoye, however, pleads: “But the governments at federal, states and local levels must wake up to their electoral responsibility to provide employment and security for the citizenry.”

ATM as easy target    

A source who was once a victim told “The Nation” that the fear of those he calls ‘bad boys’ is the beginning of wisdom in Festac Town. According to her, everyone ATM card user always looks over his/her shoulders before bringing out his card to make a withdrawal at any of the ATM points. He relived his experience: “Not long ago, I needed to use my ATM card, but little did I know that the guy behind me had a different motive. As soon as I slotted in my card, he tapped on my shoulder, directing my attention to a pistol tucked under his belt. He ordered me to withdraw a hundred thousand naira for him which I did.”

With 22 banks’ branches scattered in Festac Town, ATM card holders are said to be frequent targets of criminals who accost them openly to make large withdrawals for them. Sometimes, banks’ customers are reportedly stalked to unsafe spots upon leaving the banking premises after transactions where they are disposed of their hard-earned cash.    

With the cultural village now turned into a full blown nest for robbers, scammers, ritualists and rapists who will bell the cat? This all important question is in urgent need of answer. This paper was at the secretariat of Amuwo Odofin Local Council Area to get the authorities’ response strategy to the ugly nightmare that has besieged the cultural village like an incubus. But a source hinted that the Chairman along with his colleagues from other councils was away on a European tour. Neither was the vice-chairman available for comment.

With Cynthia’s grisly murder bringing yet to the fore the morass to which Festac Town has sunk, and the slaughter slab it has been reduced to, opinions by worried resident on the need to address the plethora of challenges buffeting the estate cannot be said to be misguided. According to them concerted efforts must be made to claw back the pristine ambience the cultural village was renowned for. Until then, Festac Town is seriously gasping for moral and infrastructural salvation