A foul smell hits your nose as you make way into the tiny, unkempt room. Dirty dishes scattered everywhere, decaying foods attracting flies and other insects - the sight is as unpleasant as you can imagine. Floor, bed, wardrobe and even window - complete mess is all you see. Yet it is inside this filth that Ejiro Ben sleeps and wakes despite being the owner of the huge and exquisite house in one of the plushest neighborhoods in Ketu, a Lagos suburb.
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The 62 years old landlord has been living in this unhealthy enclosure for more than seven years.
Once a bubbling and handsome man full of life, Ben had everything going for him during his younger days. The last of six children, he had managed to struggle his way out of poverty, completing his beautiful house in Ketu by 1992 from the little savings he amassed in the course of hustling.
Starting out his working career as a tally clerk at the Apapa Wharf, the 62 years old later got a job with Flour Mills of Nigeria where he worked as a technician at its Iganmu, Golden Pasta before being transferred to the another subsidiary within Lagos. Two years after joining the company, he left to start his own business. He was into the sale of electrical and electronics parts. It was a period of boom for him.
"I left flour Mills of Nigeria in 1980s to start buying and selling of electrical and electronics parts. Then I was living at Surulere, at the time and things were very going smoothly. I made so much money that I soon went into contract jobs before later establishing a thriving transportation business"
But in September 1998, everything changed. A speeding car rammed into him around Ojuelegba bus-stop as he made to cross the road, claiming his legs and incapacitating him for life. Efforts to get a solution at the National Orthopedic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos, did not yield any positive outcome. Ben has been bedridden since that time, only moving around these days through the help of a flat wood fitted with two small tyres. Life has not been the same for him.
"I was a very healthy and agile man before I had this accident," flashing a soft smile as he made for a bottle of red wine at a corner of the tiny room. "I was in the house that fateful day but later decided to take a walk after I became disturbed. It was in the process of trying to cross the road around Ojuelegba bus-stop that I was knocked down by a vehicle. I lost my legs in the process. The painful part was that the driver of the vehicle did not even wait to check and rescue me; he sped off and left me to die".
Though, he did not die from the wounds sustained from the tragedy, the accident has hampered and changed Ben's life in more than a few ways. From having so much at his disposal, the landlord now lives like a beggar, enduring humiliation every day from people all around him.
"The accident changed my life for the worse. I had a lot of plans for the future before the accident. What has happened to me is the will of God.
When things became very rough, wife left with six children. Later he went to take the children away from her but she came back to take them through the welfare board.
He miss his children every day; he had not set his eyes on them for the past 12 years.
"You only have friends when things are good for you, a lot of people say that I am being punished for the means through which I got money to build my house and began life. They say it to my face all the time. But I do not let all of those bother me because I know my hands are clean. Many of those people who spread these wicked lies are individuals that have benefitted so much from me."
To console himself and escape the frustrating feelings the ordeal has left on him, Ben now takes to alcohol. Morning, afternoon, night - liquor is never far away from his reach. It is the only friend he has and trusts these days. But rather than provide the needed succour, it has aggravated his situation.
To be honest, life has been very tough for Ben ever since he lost his legs and every penny he ever worked for, but he still believe that things will get better again. "My faith in God is unshaken".
His greatest wish is to walk again and have his children back with him. Everybody he has tried to love and trust has betrayed and harmed him instead. He doesn't know whatever he has done to deserve this type of treatment from life. He had been a victim of emotional and psychological torture all his life. But he believes that at the right time, God would bring back smiles on his face.
