By Bose Adelaja

The Christmas and New Year are periods of dining and winning in many homes all over the world. While some Nigerians visited relaxation and tourist centres and fast food joints, others spent a lot of money on shopping for the season.

Many religious bodies, corporate organisations and individuals also put together several activities to make the period a remarkable one. The popular adage that fingers are not equal also played out during the festive season.

While some people enjoyed and had a fun-filled yuletide season, there were some others, the less privileged Nigerians who did not even know that it was Christmas or New Year. Such indigent people have lost count of days and months and the only thing that gave them an inkling that people were celebrating was the sound of fireworks and the shouts of Happy New Year to herald 2012.

One of those less privileged Nigerians who did not know it was New Year, is Friday Elimoya. While affluent Nigerians bought new furniture or renovated their houses and others who may not be very wealthy, bought new clothes, enjoyed good meals or visited recreations spots during the period, the only dress Elimoya wore was a dirty shirt and trouser which he washes once in a while.

...Elimoya in a hopeless condition.

Protracted illness

The 48 -year old Elimoya is unmarried, lives by road side and begs for food daily, not because he is insane but because he has lost contact with his family following several years of protracted sickness. Elimoya who hails from Ukwuani in Delta State attended Jubril Martins Grammar School, Iponri, Surulere before later training as a vehicle mechanic. He lived in Surulere before he was struck by the infirmity which left him abandoned by his family and friends.

He told Vanguard Metro VM that his parents were separated while he was just five. His father remarried few years later and moved to Surulere where the family lived together for many years.

Elimoya said he became a street boy when he was ostracised by members of his family as a fallout of the sickness. The affliction prompted him to seek spiritual healing/deliverance from a Pentecostal Church in Lagos. He remained in the church for two years and when it appeared that healing was not forthcoming, Elimoya went back to the streets.

His situation improved with time because he came back to his senses. His efforts to reunite with his family fell flat because they had relocated from the house where they before he took ill. Efforts to locate their new place of abode did not yield any positive results.

Since then, Elimoya has been living at bus-stop shelters, under various pedestrian bridges, uncompleted buildings and market places.

With age now taking its toll of him, Elimoya said he has been compelled to live the kind of life he did not bargain for. According to him, he has on several occasions being beaten by street urchins popularly called area boys who dispossessed him of his savings from begging.

Some of them even forced him to take hard drugs like Indian hemp. Life, he said, becomes very unbearable whenever it it rains as the place becomes flooded and very cold.

He also lives in fear because of touts who might pounce on him and cart away everything he has on him. Elimoya said he has found solace at Wemco Road junction in Ogba area of Lagos because it is better especially now that the rainy season is over.

VM met him around 7.30 pm last Friday sitting on a worn out carpet and clutching a polythene bag and and two sacks. Sitting alone at the bus-stop, he shared his bitter experience with VM which initially took him for a lunatic.

When asked how he became a street boy, Elimoya who responded sensibly, narrated his ordeal in tears. ‘’ I started living here since 2010. I was born in1965; I trained as a mechanic for five years and completed my training in 1990. My parents were separated when I was five. My father remarried and relocated to Lagos where his new wife gave birth to other children.

We lived at No 5 Somade Close, Surulere for many years. I have never set my eyes on my mother. I was struck with a protracted ailment which made all of them to abandon me. Having recovered from the ailment, I went back home but met some strange faces in the apartment. They told me my father had sold the house.

The last time I saw my father was in 1998. I could not see properly for many years as a result of hard drug. I am presently in need of accommodation and a job. I have stopped begging for money because touts will come here, beat me up and take the money I get from begging.

Right now, I only beg for food and go to a nearby stream to take my birth. I have lost count of days and months, I only know there is a festival or weekend due to the way passers -by dress. I celebrate the Christmas and New Year anywhere I find myself,’’ he said.