Dupeolu Street in Pipeline Area of Idimu: the Narrative of its Origin from Humanity Cause

WHEN Chief (Mrs.) Modepuolu Oseni was shortlisted for a place in the Alimosho Hall of Fame (AHF), it was born out of the foreseeable impact Project Alimosho Heriatges read to the overall community value in her philanthropic gesture that opened up the once benighted slum area that became Dupeolu Street today. She was shortlisted along other women that included the former Lagos State Deputy Governor, Mrs.  Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire and the late Engr (Mrs) Comfort Olufunke Ponle of the famous Micom Empire in Akowonjo area of Egbeda. This post is thus simply becomes a vindicated testimony to the non-pecuniary influence in the assessment of issues of interest to the project.

Last Friday, displaced traders at the Pipeline mini grocery market in Idimu, Lagos, were yesterday full of praises for the woman, Modupeolu Oseni, as they found immediate place of settlement at the newly opened Dupeolu Street beside the market.

After the quit notice and reminders earlier served on the traders, the government’s bulldozer finally arrived at the small market to pull down both the valuable grocery stalls and the menacing containers that were springing up on the opposite side along the Idimu side of the Pipeline Way to make nuisance of the area. This page agrees that was one step to curbing the motion of Lagos to lawlessness from the continuous influx of migrant from other states, particularly the North and East.

But for this post, the subject interest is the eventual value the Dupeolu Street came handy to serve the displaced grocery traders and the entire Idimu/Community.

The Dupeolu Street evolved as the sole gain of philanthropic gesture of the Alhaja Modupeolu Oseni. But for the discernible minds, it is far more a reminder of the once benighted swampy and slump closed road the place was before the golden touch of the woman.

As late as 2017, the Barlade Street Map (BSM) captured the squalor site of the area as shown in this map. It was the reminiscence of the absurd and unplanned physical development that characterised the menace of Omo Onile (land owner’s) arbitrary land sales.

The squalor of the area had defied solutions for years with its progressive destructive impacts on the surrounding buildings. The new school on Olo Street was once a dreamed edifice of the original property owner, which was abandoned for the sinking and water logged impact the swamp the place had become. The states of the buildings opposite this school along the Dupeolu Street (see pix below) are the relics of that past that is suffice for the imagination of the destructive impact of the perennial flooding of the area from the isolated standing swamp. In fact it turned the otherwise Olo Street to Olo Close with a single entry from the Gbeleyi Street only.

Egbe Iidmu Local Council Development Area (LCDA) was established in 2004 when the whole Alimosho Local Government was unbundled into six LCDAs for the primary objective to fast track attention of the grassroots government to this type of ubiquitous problems. But 13 years after the LCDA birth became as at 2017, the slum yet remained the squalor of the Folaga Community Development Association. Curiously and much annoyingly, the purported Pipeline grocery market evolved as a value product of the LCDA’s early years of administration. Unfortunately, however, while the LCDA continued to reap revenue from the market, the Olo/Olugbede slum that made the eyesore to the market never got consideration for rehabilitation. Rather, it progressively degenerated to becoming the community’s refuse dump site that the market traders eventually turned it to.

From the testimonies of many residents of the Folaga CDA, including a renowned school proprietor in the area, the many save-our-soul letters sent to the Ministry of Environment at Alausa, the State Government’s Secretariat, never produced the desired result, even if it could come as a half-hearted measure from the government’s quarters.

All this have been stressed to underscore the adventure of Alhaja Oseni into the path where the angels of the State and local governments feared to tread.  The arrival of Oseni in the community of Folaga CDA was less than a decade old by the January 2017 when she picked the gauntlet to solely solve this many decades old problem.

While the rehabilitation works was a product of an engineer’s improvised lasting relief measure estimated to cost about N1.8million, the execution was through a direct labour of the community youths led by one Wasiu, Popular in the neighbourhood as ‘small landlord’. The product of that relief measure was the clearing of the squalor and sand/gravel filling that opened up the slum into an arterial access road by-pass to Egbeda-Idimu High Way since February 2017.

The next immediate value to be noticed upon completion of the project was an unfolding economic potential of the area, which had been hitherto locked down by the squalor. The set of shops built along the slum path to take advantage of the new Pipeline market as established were never occupied. But as soon as the Oseni’s gesture opened up the place, the vacant shops were occupied and the open land behind it was quickly developed into a market quadrangle of lock-up-shops.

However, the service value of the philanthropic project as arterial road was to become more noticeable when the construction of Gbeleyi Street as a continuum of Isiba Oluwo stretch from Orelope (at Egbeda end) became grounded at the Pipeline (Idimu end). Private and commercial vehicles made the newly opened Dupeolu Street the alternative access road pathway needed to beat the now routine slow and often traffic gridlock on the Egbeda-Idimu High Way. This is value purpose the grounded Gbeleyi Road is meant to serve.

All this notwithstanding, it was never envisaged that Dupeolu Street would ever come to serve this big social value of keeping the Pipeline Grocery Market in operation. The market is about the only wholesales source of vegetables (talking about peppers and tomato) and wholesome soup ingredients supply to the vast area of Idimu Community. The demolition thus became a matter of serious concern to all residents, virtually from Abuleodu to Arobaba/Agbogunleri sides of Oke-Idimu.

But the Dupeolu Street came handy to the rescue. The displaced traders rushed to quickly occupy positions on its sideway, leaving a narrow path for vehicular movement. Otherwise, the traders would have been dispersed eternally to permanently close the market. With the coming of Ramadan, the Muslim community served by this market would have to observe their one month-long food dependent fasting under stressful conditions.

In spite of these gainful values of Alhaja Oseni’s humanity cause with community development service, giving the place the identity ‘Dupeolu Street’ as named after her did not happen by her design. It was rather a consequence of mischievous move to rubbish her self-inspired cause from some quarters.

While a section of this group began to impute a notion that the kind gesture of over a million and half naira project was meant to serve the economic benefits of her prospective business, another section had begun to claim undue propriety for opening up the place. Of particular interest in the latter group’s regard was a supposed parade of the toilet/water sales manager in the market as such. She would later reluctantly bow to pressure from the agitation of some appreciative residents of the Folaga CDA that it was imperative for her to preserve the legacy in her name in the face of that early denial.

Chief (Mrs.) Modupeolu Oseni made her way to the preliminary list of Alimosho Hall of Fame as a bureaucrat – a civil servant -- caught in the rare garb of philanthropist and generous community builder per excellence. The more significant note about her humanity cause she had undertaken beyond the Dupeolu project in a revolutionary fashion thus far in her brief years of settlement in Idimu community is her preference for silence over her social value impacts.

While PAH attempted to ascribe this to imperative demands of her career culture, she said “it’s her cultural philosophy of charity by creed of discreet to preserve the integrity of the beneficiary so that the kind gesture shall add extra value of high esteem on the person”.