by Chinedu Brown
From city to slum, Satellite town has become a shadow of what it use to be, a sordid relic of the past. A painful reminder of how the performance of government, in terms of provision of basic infrastructure, as well as the maintenance of existing ones, has become a failure.
Satellite town use to be one of the popular areas in Lagos in the not too distant past, perhaps because notable government parastatals as well as top private organisations have their workers living there.
Currently, all support infrastructures in the estate have broken down completely without repairs. The geometric increase in population in an area surrounded by FESTAC, Snake Island, Ijegun does not help the infrastructural deficit in the estate.
Virtually all roads in the town are bad including the inner ones, it is perhaps obvious that satellite town is not in the plans of the state government. Water scarcity is also major problem in the area, as there are reports that only few houses that can afford boreholes seemed to be immune from the scarcity of water in the town; most water vendors are making a living out of the situation.
A resident living in the area shared her experience while growing up in the estate “Satellite town is now a slum, I live in NNPC estate, we use to have an estate clinic, and a generator for the whole estate, but non of these infrastructure is currently working, now we have articulated trucks, petrol tankers parked on the road, the situation is pathetic, all roads in satellite town are currently in a bad state, even the major ones”
Flooding is another major challenge in the area the the state government has been unable to address.
The estate located along Lagos-Badagry expressway is under Amuwo Odofin local government, the LGA has also done little or nothing to ameliorate the situation, Satellite town is a typical case of government neglect.
The estate located along Lagos-Badagry expressway is under Amuwo Odofin local government, the LGA has also done little or nothing to ameliorate the situation, Satellite town is a typical case of government neglect.