Posters, posters everywhere

In Lagos, it is common to see graffiti, banners and life-size posters of all sorts on electricity poles, flyovers and other public and private properties, turning such properties into eyesores in many instances.  In the same vein, there is a feeling of lingering competition among religious houses, especially modern-day Pentecostal churches in their bid to […]

In Lagos, it is common to see graffiti, banners and life-size posters of all sorts on electricity poles, flyovers and other public and private properties, turning such properties into eyesores in many instances.
 In the same vein, there is a feeling of lingering competition among religious houses, especially modern-day Pentecostal churches in their bid to win more members to their individual folds, which translate to circulation/pasting of handbills and posters as well as the erection of signboards. Thus, it is common to find many churches flagrantly paste posters advertising various church programmes on any available space in many parts of Lagos, seemingly oblivious of the implications of their action on the environment.
Culprits of infrastructure defacement also include some companies that advertise job openings, especially for casuals, in their establishments. They indicate such openings via writings on walls of buildings or poles, itemising the available positions such as factory workers, office assistants, clerks, sales persons, marketers and many more, each with the attached salary and telephone numbers to be called by interested persons also on display.
The Nollywood industry is not left out in the defacement of Lagos. Every now and then, posters announcing upcoming and newly released films in English and Yoruba languages, featuring popular Nigerian actors are pasted everywhere, adding to the ‘posters craze’.
However, many Lagosians have expressed worry over the defacement of the city through indiscriminate pasting of posters and inscriptions on walls and public/private places. Many see the situation as a drawback to the beautification projects being carried out by the state government, as some of the gardens and parks recently constructed or renovated by the government have not been spared from being used as free advertisement platforms.
Alhaji Ayinde Lukumonu, a landlord and property owner at Olusosun in Ojota area, called on the government to intervene and stop “the unregulated and indiscriminate pasting of posters in Lagos.”
He further said to our correspondent: “I am a constant victim of this posters menace because my house is situated very close to the Ojota main bus stop. This automatically subjects my building to all sorts of abuses by miscreants and posters vendors. The government needs to do something about this fast.”
Another concerned resident, Mrs Funke Oloja who owns a shop at Ketu, lamented that shop walls had become an extension of information boards in the state as the walls are now constantly abused by people who paste and write various things on them.
She said that all kinds of information are being written with chalks and paints on the wall of her shop, including contact details of brick layers, electricians, borehole drillers and the like who seek patronage. She called on the state government to act fast “before Lagos becomes a jungle of posters, banners and inscriptions.”
 Indeed, the Lagos State government, through the Lagos State Signage and Advertising Agency (LASAA) had in the past clamped down on individuals, organisations, religious bodies and other privately owned bodies who defaced Lagos walls or buildings with posters, in a bid to ensure the cleanliness of the city.
LASAA was established by the Lagos State Structure for Signage and Advertisement Law 2006, and is responsible for the management, regulation and control of the branding opportunities, signage and outdoor advertising in Lagos State.
 Immediately after the 2015 general elections, LASAA embarked on a rigorous cleansing exercise with a view to ridding the state of posters and banners, many of which were put up then by politicians seeking elective offices. But some deviants have continued to deface both public and private infrastructures with their indiscriminate pasting of posters and inscriptions on walls.
The agency, however, said it would continue in its efforts to stop the defacement of Lagos. An official of the agency, who did not want his name in print, told our correspondent that personnel of the agency regularly move out into the streets to remove the posters and banners indiscriminately placed in the state.
 He noted that the agency also came up with a unique way of putting an end to the menace of indiscriminate pasting of posters, through the use of the slogan: “You won’t deface yourself, why deface Lagos.” He added that the agency aimed to create awareness among the populace via this slogan.
Despite these moves, however, the agency has not found it easy to deal with the continued flooding of Lagos with posters, as it has been unable to control the manner at which the city is defaced.
 One of the people usually employed to paste the posters in Lagos, Ifeanyi Ugwu, urged the state government not to make pasting of posters an offence, saying that people like him who engage in the ‘job’ have no other means of livelihood.
 Ugwu, who said he works for a poster-pasting agency called ‘Spread the News’, said the agency provides him with the posters to paste, starch and a list of the areas where he would paste the posters, adding that he is remunerated based on the volume of posters he is able to paste within a time limit. “The least money I collect is N5,000 for 5,000 posters besides collecting starch and transport money if the job requires me to go far from my base,” he said.
Asked if he had ever been accosted by government officials while doing the job, Ugwu said he usually pasted the posters in the night when government agents were not on duty. He was however quick to add that he was slapped by a landlord on a fateful day for pasting posters on the man’s fence. “I apologised and promised him that I would not paste posters on his wall again and that was all,” he said.
On indiscriminate pasting of posters across the city, Ugwu said: “There is nothing I can do about that; it is what the agency asks me to do that I do.”