IBADAN (A city in the South Western part of Nigeria)

If you’ve heard about Ibadan, you most certainly have heard about the famous brown roofs. For a tourist or anyone who loves sightseeing, the brown roofs would most certainly give goosebumps. A set of roofs, brown together in harmony looking as if they are about to render the perfect choral tune. To me, they are an art of history, ringing from door to door the story of families. Bordered by mountains around them as if they were protecting a revered personality.

Together, the brown roofs play a tune to culture, to how close knit the system used to be.

Growing up in Ibadan for me was probably the most beautiful thing. Living in the suburbs rarely seeing the city (Yeah I was one of the “get inside” kids). It never occurred to me that there was more to the city than school, home, my friends house, church and my uncle’s house. Ibadan is like an onion bulb, keep peeling and a new part jumps at you screaming “Hey you! I bet you didn’t know I existed right?”…

This is exactly what I’ve been going through these past few weeks.

I’ve always known about the brown roofs, and they never struck me as anything important (it was just another place where people live), but taking a trip past the brown roofs recently has got me thinking… A lot.

As beautiful as the roofs look, the sad truth is that people live in these houses. In my mother’s words “you can literally leave your living room and the next thing you know you are in another person’s bedroom” (don’t ask me if this is true).

The brown roofs represents the ghetto of the city, the tiny little people who have to grind their bodies daily to survive. They remind me of a beautiful looking food that tastes really terrible.

The first time I passed by recently, I just loved the scenery but consistently going past the roofs the harsh reality started to sink in. That under the brown roofs, dreams are limited, and if ever there are dreams they are quashed by the harsh reality of their reality. If you own a cab of your own in the brown roofs, I so totally feel that you would be considered a rich man. The schools not really educating the kids and whatever little education they seem to be getting, the brown roofs slowly surely rip it out of their hands and quietly tell them “to make it here, you have to crack the nut”.

The brown roofs represents the frustrations of men who’ve tried to make it out of the ghetto, who’ve worked their lives out but the roofs keeps pulling them down quietly, slowly but surely. Men who’ve found solace in sex and bearing children they can’t take care of and women who’ve found husbands they have to please and at the same time keep the kids fed and in school and kids who have to hawk or beg daily to help their families.

The brown roofs represents a tired generation that may never make it out…

A generation stuck under the brown roofs.

The brown roofs may indeed be beautiful to everyone who has seen them. Beneath the beauty however, is a gem that may never see the light of day!

‘Fikayo

The beauty is in the ancient feel that comes wit it...

Ancient city of Ibadan

Some are attributing this torture to preservation of culture...

Yoruba amaka

Even Ancient Rome looks finer than this

WaleBuraimoh:


Monks often take a vow of poverty - what does this mean in practice, and how does it affect the way they live their lives?

This is what you should know;
There's a correlation between people in Ibadan living under these brown roofs and monks that have taken a vow of poverty

Oga, they are NOT the same thing.

Monks vowed to live in poverty because they don't want their quest for wealth to drive them into sin. This is strictly a religious obligation. In fact, most reverend fathers and sisters vow to reject the material things of this life because of their religious beliefs.

That is not the same thing as people wallowing in abject penury in Ibadan because they couldn't achieve something in life. No offence intended, but that's the truth.

If you give a monk certain beautiful gifts, he will reject them because that's what he swore to. But if you gift a man living in a shack with a brown roof a decent house at Challenge or Lekki, he will move to the new house with his family the next day.

Let's stop fooling ourselves comparing monks with the poorest of poor who have been neglected by an irresponsible government.

PS: I won't reply you again.

It is known for poverty and squalor. Don't glorify it.

Adaisback:
Very beautiful o. Sophisticated brown roof of the great ebi npia wa azu capital

Bad belle kill you there.

David Hinderer said he saw a crowd of 100,000 people in Ibadan in 1851. There is no doubt that Ibadan was the biggest urban centre in sub Saharan Africa as at then. You would appreciate this if you consider the fact that the treaty that transferred Ibadan to the British was signed only in 1896.
The current reality is that most of the indigenous Ibadan people have deserted these buildings. They are now being occupied by the less privileged and many are even strangers.

However, nothing exposes the irresponsibility,thoughtlessness and lack of foresight of past and current governments in Oyo State more than these gory sites.
Why can they not invest in urban renewal? How come they didn't see the potential for tourism in this?

WaleBuraimoh:

There's dignity in poverty

Just take note

I mean if poverty doesn't dignify someone, what in Gods world will?😁

Leave our Ibadan beauty for us, don't you know that the rusty roof induce ancestral inspiration for us?