Kado Kuchi is a settlement within Jahi, a community in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). It is largely inhabited by civil servants, artisans, and petty traders. A visit by Blueprint Weekend PAUL OKAH revealed untold hardship residents face given absence of basic amenities.
Kado Kuchi is a settlement within Jahi 1, a community located behind Next Cash and Carry, a popular shopping mall in Abuja. When our correspondent visited the settlement within the week, he discovered that residents of the settlement are facing hardship given the absence of basic amenities.
Blueprint Weekend checks revealed that until 2010, Kado Kuchi was a slum inhabited mostly by Gbagyi people. Houses in the community were dilapidated. There was no electricity supply and pipe borne water just as most houses lacked toilet facilities. Residents had to go into surrounding bushes to ease themselves.
However, development started coming to the community in the late 2010, when there was massive influx of people seeking accommodation.
Accommodation problems
Among the basic necessities of life, including shelter, food and clothing, shelter appears to be the greatest challenge of Kado Kuchi residents, though they have many other challenges, as investigations by Blueprint Weekend revealed.
With the high influx of people into the community and subsequent development, price of accommodation took flight. A single room apartment that was hitherto rented for N30,000 increased to N60, 000. The original settlers, who hitherto embraced a life of farming, relinquished their lands to estate developers. With time, there was no land to farm again and the aborigines turned their attention to renting their homes to would be tenant. At the moment, since the community is situated very close to the city centre, there is hardly an original settler who is not an estate agent in the community.
Shylock landlords
According to Mr Timothy Ude, a trader in Kado Kuchi, landlords milk tenants dry in the community. He said that the landlords are so exploitative that they keep increasing rents indiscriminately. He said that tenants hardly spend more than three years in a particular apartment, as landlords would find one excuse or another to eject the tenant in order to take in a new tenant that can pay double the rent paid by the previous tenant.
He added that landlords also find a way to include outrageous bills in their tenancy agreement such that the tenant may not know he is paying for what the landlord is supposed to pay to different agencies.
He said: “Some tenants living in apartments think that the water, electricity or other facilities they are using is free of charge. The truth is that landlords charge double the amount the tenant is supposed to pay for electricity or water at the point of paying rent, which is one of the reasons why accommodation is very expensive here, despite the houses not being in good condition.”
No drainage system
Regrettably, Kado Kuchi has poor drainage system. There are no gutters to channel erosion as a result, dirty water can be found everywhere around the community. Hardly can you find a house in Kado Kuchi without a stream of dirty water running a ring around it. As a result of the situation mosquitoes keep multiplying, to the extent that residents can’t sleep at night excerpt they fleet their premises with insecticides but that would be for just the night as the mosquitoes usually stage a comeback the following day.
Speaking with Blueprint Weekend a house wife, Mrs Chinyere Chukwu, said that she cannot wait to leave the community as the environment is not healthy for human beings to live in.
“I can’t say in a few words the inconveniences we encounter living in this environment. Honestly, I will leave here once the economy of my family improves. You can’t imagine what we pass through because of the dirty environment, murky water everywhere and poignant smell. Even at night, mosquitoes will not allow us to sleep. It is only by the grace of God that we are still alive.
“The only good thing is that the community is very close to town. It is not like Nyanya or Mararaba where you have to spend endless time in traffic, you can actually pay just N50 to go to Wuse from here. Nevertheless, it is very discouraging that people here live in subhuman conditions and have been totally neglected by government. However, you can’t expect much from a settlement living in fear of demolition.”
Healthcare centre
There is no hospital in the community. However, chemist stores litter the community. In case of serious ailments that cannot be treated in the chemist stores, the residents visit the only clinic in the community, Jahi 1 Clinic, where they have to show their cards to be attended to. There is always a beehive of activities in the clinic, as many, especially pregnant women, make the clinic a resting place.
The nurses, who assist visiting doctors, are abusive to patients. Having realized that many “patients” abuse the privilege of free healthcare being provided in the clinic, many of the nurses do not think twice before pouring their frustrations on whoever “stepped out of line” while being attended to.
Water problems
Though many buildings have water running in their homes, it was gathered that supply is rather unpredictable hence most residents fall back on water vendors popularly called mai ruwa make brisk business selling water to those in need. Our correspondent reports that a 20 litre water container is sold for N30. The hawkers place themselves in strategic positions with their trucks.
One of the hawkers, Isa Mahmoud, who spoke to our correspondent through an interpreter, said he makes between N2,000 to N3,000 daily selling.
“Truly, water business is lucrative here. People cannot live without water so we are always here to help them out with the commodity while we make our own money.
“Our customers cut across different classes. Some have boreholes in their homes, but when there is no power supply to pump water, they turn to us. Some have water supply from Water Board, but then there are times when the board will not give water for some time, may be because of fault but we are always here to satisfy their water needs.
“There is also a group of customers who live far away from boreholes, so we’ll always be at their doorsteps to lend a helping hand.”
Speaking further he said, “We are many in the business because the population of people in Kado Kuchi keeps increasing, so there is not much competition as we are not even enough to cover every building here. We buy at N10 per gallon and sell at N30, so the business is profitable. It is not costly to triple the price, as we take care of every inconvenience on your part. All you have to do is to show us where we can empty the water and relax while we do the job. Some of us have special customers whom we interact with on phone and fill their containers at amenable prices.”
Educational facilities
Kado Kuchi can only boast of a public primary school and a junior secondary school for thousands of children of school age. However, cashing into the inadequacy of schools to take care of the educational needs of children, private schools have started springing up, though the fees are too exorbitant for those who can afford them.
Some of the private schools however charge cheap fees with untrained teachers and poor school administrators who are only in the education system because of lack of white collar jobs and the need to make ends meet.
The private schools include: Best Lead Academy Nursery and Primary School, Blistine International Academy, Royal Excel Nursery and Primary School, Agape Primary and Secondary School, among others.
Security
According to a resident of the community, Musa Bello, the crime rate in Kado Kuchi was so high five years ago that residents usually woke from sleep to discover that valuables in their rooms had been stolen by robbers. He said that many of the criminals used charms to lure their victims to sleep, while they stole even the bed the victim was sleeping on.
Bello said that the robbery was going on despite the presence of a police station in the community, which led to residents forming a vigilante group to curb the excesses of the rampaging robbers.
He said: “The crime rate in Kado Kuchi has reduced unlike what it used to be in the past. We can now sleep with our eyes closed, as only petty thefts take place now, unlike when you would wake from sleep to discover you have been robbed.
Our correspondent also reports that graduates resident in the area are embracing a life of crime. A resident, Godwin, who spoke with Blueprint Weekend said that many graduates in Kado Kuchi have embraced a life of crime, as there are no job opportunities for them in the civil service. He said that the graduates visit sport betting centres in order to try their lucks to see if they can win money to support them or lift them out of poverty.
He added that many of them join the growing business of serving as estate management agents to tenants seeking accommodation in order to make ends meet.
He said: “Kado Kuchi can boast of many graduates, though some of them are jobless. In order to make ends meet, many of them engage in petty crimes. You can see them in sport betting centres placing bets. You can also see many of them driving keke. Some of them even work as estate agents, interfacing between landlords and would be tenants. Honestly, I wish government can create more job opportunities. Even the N-Power job is difficult to get at this time. ”
More challenges
Speaking of the myriads of challenges facing the community, an estate management agent, Mr Godwin Onuh, said that the settlement has been abandoned by government.
“Government is not doing anything for us. We have been so abandoned by government that we basically have to provide basic amenities for ourselves. It is only during elections that they come here to canvass for votes. However, they disappear again after elections.
“We need gutters. The poor drainage system within the community is very discouraging. There are places you cannot even pass because of the dirty water or quagmire. We hardly sleep at night, because the dirty water breeds mosquitoes. There is no amount of insecticide or pesticide that can terminate the mosquitoes because they keep multiplying.
“As for power supply, we are the ones that provided transformers to be connected to electricity. However, we need prepaid metres, to curtail the exploitation by AEDC, because of overestimated billings. For instance, some houses receive bill of N25,000 per month from AEDC, whereas they may not even spend up to N2,000 on cards if they had prepaid metres. However, it seems the AEDC officials deliberately refuse to distribute the metres to willing users, as those who applied for the metres since last year or even two years ago are yet to get the metres.
“I have had the misfortune of paying estimated bills until last year when I received my metre. Before then, I was usually charged N20,000 for operating a barbers shop. Even if I paid N18,000 out of the N20,000, they would still disconnect me. However, imagine my relief when I finally received my metre. I now spend less than N1,000 in recharging the metre per month.
“The individual managing water distribution to Kado Kuchi is dishonest and causes a lot of inconveniences to us. In fact, last two years, he embezzled about N2 million meant for payment to water Board, which led to water supply to residents of Kado Kuchi being disconnected. The poor management has led to Water Board disconnecting us at will, despite our paying about N2,000 per month.
Residents seek govt intervention
According to a resident, the people of Kado Kuchi are so poor that they can hardly afford three square meals. He faulted the federal government Tradermoni programme, saying that it was a misplaced priority, as the money was being given to the wrong people. He said that traders in Wuse, Utako and Garki are already self made and have little no use for Tradermoni, as they can afford to rent shops for N400,000 per annum. He implored government to come to Kado Kuchi to help petty traders who really need the money. He said: “Some people don’t have money to fry akara and not the people in Wuse or Utako who already have established businesses. N10, 000 is not a lot of money, but it will go a long way in helping them solve their financial problems through establishment of businesses.”
Village chief makes case
In a chat with Blueprint Weekend, Chief of Jahi 1 (the community overseeing the affairs of Kado Kuchi), Alhaji Adamu Dogo, said the community was facing huge challenges, especially in terms of basic amenities and that there was need for government intervention.
Speaking through his eldest son, Prince Idris Adamu, he said though government is trying its best to make sure residents of the community have potable water, quality education, better heath care and steady power supply. However, like Oliver Twist, it would not be out of place for them to demand for more from government.
He said that the population of the community is more than five thousand people, but that there is no tarred road, drainage system, steady water or steady power supply to serve people of the community.
Adamu said that security was one of the challenges being faced by residents of the community, as members of the vigilante group they formed were not being motivated by payment to carry out security services.
He said that, as a result of lapses in the security system, the community has witnessed the kidnapping of three children from the community between November last year and January this year.
Adamu revealed that police officers in the police outpost in the community does not have a patrol van and therefore refuse to patrol the community on foot.
He said: “I cannot say that government is not trying for us, because we have a clinic, primary and secondary schools established for us by government. However, we are in dire need of basic amenities that will make us enjoy life like residents of other communities within Abuja. For instance, when it rains, the community is not passable. The road is not tarred and therefore very bad, especially during the rainy season.
“Apart from the road, if there is no light, we cannot get water from the public borehole. Many homes in the community are not connected to water supply from the Water Board, even as we have to endure the problems posed by AEDC officials who issue us with electricity bills we did not use. Taskforce people also harass our people who operate Okada as a means of survival by impounding their motorcycles and demanding N20, 000 before they can be released.”
Adamu implored Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) to remember the community as they are basically living with dirt as roommates. He said that the poor drainage system was not helping matters, as dirty water running through the community combine with dirt to pollute the atmosphere.
He said: “Dumping of refuse is a problem. We need government to be sending AEPB officials to be visiting the community to cart away our dirt. We don’t have land even to farm, let alone to reserve for a dumpsite. More discouraging is the fact that there is no drainage system. As a result, dirty water is just finding its way across people’s houses. It is health-threatening. Therefore, government should remember us, because a health is wealth.”
Threat of demolition
Continuing, Adamu said that the community has had several run-ins with estate developers who have been coming with documents suggesting that lands in the community have been sold to property buyers.
He said: “Developers come with papers that government has allocated lands in this community to them. However, we tell them that Jahi has been in existence even before the headquarters of Nigeria moved from Lagos to Abuja, so there is no way government can allocate our land to them.
“Even in 2014, a man came here with Development Control and marked some buildings for demolition. However, we strongly resisted them, even in the face of the military officers they came with.
“A man even came one day with documents that he was allocated nine hectares of land, which is almost half of the entire community, so where did he expect us to run into? We will continue to resist them. Nobody can demolish our homes.”
