This is a building.
This building is pretty.
This building is in the University of Lagos.
The University of Lagos is in Lagos.
The above 4 points are facts.
What is also a fact is that, this building belongs to a family and has a father, a mother, and quite a number of older and younger siblings. It stands tall over the rest of its siblings, a product of good genes.
However, its height has come with a price. Like Leviathan, he has gobbled up its smaller brothers and fed fat on them. You should really meet one of his younger siblings.
This is a building.
This building is not pretty.
This building has cracks at its base.
This building is in the University of Lagos.
The younger brother of the Senate Building sits close to the Lagos Lagoon, and houses books and other articles for student use. Its large size accommodates many students who go there for various reasons, some not even for reading at all. This sibling is so “mature”, it has children inside it; the law library and the e-library.
However, the parents of this child probably stopped feeding it with breast milk at 3 months and deprived it of much needed calcium, and finally discovering that they couldn’t cure his weak legs, did the next best thing.
They decided, as if being Abraham and Sarah, to birth another child in their old age.
“If something ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
This is a building.
This building does not exist yet.
This building is meant to be in the University of Lagos.
If your favourite toy gets broken, you buy a new one and this stands to reason that, if your favourite child gets broken, well, you make a new one. The logic might be absurd, but isn’t it as absurd as the idea of a “building” family?
Therefore, using “Lagos building logic”, our dear parents got together the resources to make a new building after determining that they couldn’t fix the cracks on the legs of the Main Library, and it would probably sink in the next 30 or so years.
So, new library, then. We don't care about you, main library...“Oh, you’ve been quite a naughty boy, here’s your replacement. You should know your feelings don’t matter here as much as the safety of the people who stay within you.” The plan this time was to make sure the new child didn't stop drinking breast milk until it was 2; it was Project Man of Steel.
But in the words of the great Thanos,
“Reality is often disappointing.”
A BUILDING IN LAGOS?
This is a building?
“I have seen everything that has ever happened. Ever will happen. Ever could happen. And yet, what the hell is this?”
They say that “those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat it.” But I say, “those who repeat history are bound to not learn from it.” Have you watched humans who recently suffered heartbreak jump into another relationship almost immediately? Yes? This is worse.
Our lovely parents decided to feed this child with cerelac for breakfast and garri for dinner, right from the beginning, after drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes while pregnant. The child was born premature, jaundiced and with a hole in its heart. A living syndrome.
Reminds you of a certain building in Ikoyi that recently collapsed as well. It was probably the uncle of this child.
One big happy family.
AN AWESOME COLLAPSE
Lamentations 1:9
This is a building, you know?
The building is in the University of Lagos.
The University of Lagos is in Lagos.
This is a Building In Lagos.
Its older sibling, the Senate Building, looks on as its parents’ child stands, collapsed and unfinished, languishing under the incompetence of its parents.
The ugly head of lethargy and impunity rears its head once again. One imagines if the collapse and cave in had happened while students were in the building. One wonders why the building has remained like that since 2019. One seeks to determine who the contractors were and why substandard materials were used. One wants to find out how much was paid to erect this flaccid structure.
One is me, The Watcher, who happens to stay in Lagos and tell his stories that no one listens to.
This building in Lagos is a reflection of the standard of life and education, even in UNILAG. Dilapidated facilities, overcrowded hostels, inadequate lecture halls and the battle of students against all these odds stacked against them.
This is a building in Lagos and it sings a sad song of destruction.
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