Comprehension: A Wandering Stranger

          “What is the whole essence of street naming and house numbering in this city if one cannot locate the house that has a number and a street name attached to it?” queried a visitor who had been invited to one of our cities. He was apparently quite worn out and exasperated after a fruitless search for his friend’s house.

        This is really the situation in some parts of our cities where it is quite a herculean task to locate streets let alone houses. It is not uncommon for one street to bear two or more names. Often, two, three or more streets in a locality have the same name. So when a stranger inquires about such streets, the chances are that he may be directed to the wrong ones.

        This confusion is further complicated by the haphazard way the houses on some of our streets are numbered. In most parts of the world, there is an ordered method of numbering houses, especially in urban centres. Usually, those on the left, from the starting point, bear odd numbers while those on the right carry even numerals.

        But in most of our cities, this is not the case. It is common to see houses on the same side of a street bearing both odd and even numbers. Not that alone, you may see, for example, house number 10, hoping to, see 12 next, but you are mistaken. The adjacent building may bear number 113. Then your problem starts. Some people may ask you to go forward and others may suggest that you should go back, so that you spend hours before you succeed and, in some cases, you may not find the house at all.

          There is no doubt that some of our streets are fairly well numbered but the figures are hardly permanent. This is because most of our cities lack proper planning. Plots of land between two existing buildings which have been vacant for years suddenly have houses built on them. The numbers of the existing houses will therefore change to accommodate the new buildings. And so a house that is number 25 today, for instance, may bear number 40 tomorrow. And in such instances, both the old and the new numbers are conspicuously written on the wall. Of course, this only helps to confuse an inquirer.

Adapted from NOSEC Book Six