In the poor neighborhoods of Lagos, "they will let us starve"

The doors of the truck open, the crowd gathers and jostles, and cries of joy break out when they see the hundreds of bags of food aid inside. The inhabitants of Alimosho, a poor and overcrowded district of Lagos, a sprawling megalopolis in Nigeria, do not believe their eyes: "for once they are thinking of us!"

But the euphoria will be short-lived. Their hope showered on the dented dirt track with sewers overflowing with a black liquid that gives off a putrid odor. We understand that food, there will not be for everyone. And praise quickly turns into insults.

"Liars! Thieves!" scream women with children clinging to their backs or to their legs, in the oppressive heat.

Around the crowd, stalls lined up with iron sheets looking like shanty towns, all closed since the coronavirus appeared and life came to a standstill in the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa.

Lagos, the economic engine of all of West Africa, has been placed in total confinement for 14 days since Tuesday. The announcement, by President Muhammadu Buhari, fell like a hammer blow in this city in perpetual effervescence, a temple of resourcefulness.

Only stores continue to be supplied with food, oil and electricity, but you still need to have some savings to be able to afford the essentials.

The federal government has promised to immediately pay two months in advance to habitual welfare recipients (5,000 naira per month, about $25), but for others it relies on the solidarity of states and communities. local.

Lagos State has planned emergency food parcels targeting the 200,000 most vulnerable households, or about 1.2 million people. Priority to the elderly, the disabled, single women.

A rare gesture of social assistance, but which represents a drop of water in an ocean of misery. Twenty million people live in the Nigerian megalopolis, the vast majority below the extreme poverty line, on less than two dollars a day.

As Gbolahan Lawal, Lagos Minister of Agriculture, reminded AFP that morning, "more than 60% of people are in the informal sector and earn a daily wage".

So in Alimosho, a district which alone has one to three million inhabitants, hunger and money are already a problem when confinement has only just begun.

- "They provoke us" -

Under the dumbfounded eyes of the inhabitants, only 50 bags are finally unloaded - each containing 5 kg of rice, 5 kg of cassava flour, 3 kg of beans and 2 loaves of bread, supposed to last two weeks.

To avoid a riot, the authorities delivered them first to the local traditional chief, the baale, who will have the thankless task of selecting the few beneficiaries.

In front of his court, anger rises on the closed faces and they are now hundreds, perhaps more, shaking the gates, threatening to break the chains that hold the leaves.

"They want us to kill each other or what? It's very risky to come and give 50 bags of food like that. Obviously we won't have anything, as usual they're going to let us starve," gets carried away Abiola Okudukun, a young hairdresser who has five children to feed.

"They provoke us, if it's like that, we'll go back to work tomorrow, what do you think", the vociferous cut Akandi Kausara, a chubby fifty-year-old who sells small portions of boiled gari (cassava semolina) with sachets of "pure water" (filtered water).

State agents are overwhelmed, fear can be read on their faces, but what more can they do? They hastily close the truck doors, make their way to their cars, and rush off to continue their rounds.

The day before, another incident had already almost turned into a bloodbath in the neighboring district of Agege, reputed to be violent, where a "task force" of the Lagos police was trying to enforce the confinement, between the improvised football fields at the middle of the road and the bars packed.

After chasing around sixty prostitutes and their clients from a brothel as night fell, the patrol attacked the central mosque where hundreds of worshipers were praying, in total contravention of the ban on gatherings of more than 20 people.

Within minutes, thousands of young people, some armed with knives, came out of the adjacent dirt streets, the rumor rumbled, and the tension culminated with the throwing of broken bottles at the police cars, which again managed to s extirpate in extremis from the compact crowd.

"The frustration and the anger are there", whispers to AFP a police officer, who admits to having "been hot". "At the slightest spark, it can explode. So imagine in a few days, when they will be really hungry".