Kugbo is one of the popular communities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) without government presence. In this report, PAUL OKAH unearths the pains being experienced by the residents.
Kugbo is a community under Karu Ward in Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC); it is situated on the busy Keffi-Abuja highway, sandwiched between the popular AYA and Nyanya. It boasts of a furniture market, which is said to be among the largest furniture markets in West Africa.
The community is divided into Kugbo I and ll, with an estimated 20,000 inhabitants; mostly traders, artisans, farmers and a handful of civil servants who suffer from dearth of infrastructure.
The community lacks infrastructure such as tarred road, hospital or health care facility, secondary school, pedestrian bridge, commercial bank, pipe-borne water, filling station and many other social amenities.
Blueprint Weekend investigations revealed that the community chiefs, Philip Jezhi; Chief of Kugbo I and Ayuba Knadna Kninya; Chief of Kugbo ll, respectively, have written several letters to Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC), Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), Minister of the FCT, House of Representatives and other constituted authorities about the lack of facilities in the community, without getting positive responses.
Letters made available to Blueprint Weekend, dated April 3, 2017, May 10, 2017 and August 1, 2017, addressed to the Executive Chairman of AMAC, FCT Minister and the member representing AMAC/Bwari Constituency in the House of Representatives, respectively, were all acknowledged by the recipients.
In the letters, the community requested for, among other things, a pedestrian bridge, hospital, secondary school, transformer, borehole, town hall, police outpost and youth empowerment.
Health care centre
Further investigations revealed that there is no health care centre or hospital, whether private or public, to take care of the health needs of the residents. Many residents rely on prescriptions from chemist store owners and unqualified nurses. In a situation whereby drugs from chemist stores cannot treat their ailments, inhabitants travel miles to visit ECWA Clinic in Karu, Nyanya General Hospital or Asokoro Clinic. In critical situations, some of them die on the way to the hospital; without getting the help they need.
A retired nurse, Mrs. Elizabeth Emeka, who is presently managing a petty provision store business, told Blueprint Weekend that she has witnessed many residents die out of emergency situations, for the past few years she had been resident in Kugbo. She said she is not practising as a nurse in order to avoid litigations, as she doesn’t have N500, 000 and other requirements to register with the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.
“Many pregnant women deliver at home here when the labour starts suddenly and they don’t want to risk going to the clinics situated miles away. They go to Karu or Nyanya for their health care or die at home. Also, one Mr. Stephen Wetben, an artisan from Kaduna state, died on May 7, 2018. He was purging in the night and died on the way to Karu hospital, because there is no health care facility nearby,” she said.
Another resident, John Musa, said the lack of a health care centre led to his almost losing his wife in 2015, because the bad road and traffic congestion from Kugbo to Karu made it difficult for him to take her to the hospital in time. As a result, she was operated upon to remove the child that died while she was in labour.
He added that the incident involving his wife led to his being the sole witness to a lady giving birth in the middle of the road on a rainy day.
“Her husband had gone in search of an okada that would convey us to the Express, but it was raining heavily. Before the husband could come back, she had already given birth to a baby boy in the middle of the road. We wrapped the baby and put in his shop, because of the cold and called one of the local nurses who bathed and dressed the baby. I still shudder to think about it,” he said.
LEA primary school
Sadly, the only government school that was established in 2004 to take care of the educational needs of the community is the Local Education Authority (LEA) Primary School in Kugbo 1. When Blueprint Weekend visited the school, the buildings were dilapidated and children were loitering. There is no fence to provide any form of security and the buildings are being threatened by erosion, while the ground is waterlogged. School children are being sent home: either because of a broom, N250 Continuous Assessment book or uniforms.
“Government does not care about the school. Parents say that education is free and refuse to pay N1, 000 levy per term, but we need the money to buy some materials for the effective running of the school and not rely totally on government. Since we resumed in September last year, it was only on May 21, this year that the school got seven cartons of chalk from the Universal Basic Education Board,” said a teacher who asked not to be named for obvious reasons.
Headmistress to the rescue
Blueprint Weekend also gathered that when the headmistress, Hajiya Hauwa Abdulraman, assumed duties in September 2017, she used her personal resources to run the school.
“Since September last year, it was only this term that some of them bought uniforms. The headmistress supplies all educational materials. She buys tissues, buckets, etc. I am afraid that the school will be closed down if she is transferred out, because she is using her personal resources to run the school,” another teacher said.
Secondary education costing lives
Though the community has a public primary school that is not being funded, there is no presence of a single government secondary school in the community. Secondary schools in the community are still in their junior classes and owned by private individuals, but cannot cater for all the inhabitants. As a result, many students travel miles to attend Army Day Secondary School at Abacha Barracks or schools in Nyanya, Asokoro or Karu.
“Many residents, especially students, have been killed by cars travelling on the ever-busy Keffi-Nasarawa expressway, because there is no pedestrian bridge,” a resident, Shehu Adamu, told Blueprint Weekend.
Cars, Okada, humans on bad road
Similarly, the roads leading into Kugbo are not tarred and impassable during rainy season. Car owners have to abandon them in their houses to board Okada, because cars get bogged down in the quagmire and gullies that can be found everywhere on the road. At times, even the Okada will break down and the passenger would have to trek. Mr. Isaq Danladi recounted to Blueprint Weekend that he broke an ankle in July last year, when he fell off a motorcycle, because they ran into a gully. “It was nightmarish; as I missed work for nearly a month because of the injury,” he said.
Security challenges
Furthermore, if there is anything that gives the residents of Kugbo more sleepless nights than the poor state of the roads, it is the coordinated armed robbery attacks carried out on the community every year since 2015. The last attack that is still fresh in their memories took place in the early hours of Friday, January 19, 2018; which led to the death of a retired naval personnel, Nicholas Hizim, while eight others sustained various degrees of injury.
Speaking with Blueprint Weekend, Michael John, the younger brother of the deceased naval personnel, said his elder brother had political ambitions before he was killed by the armed robbers numbering about ten.
“The armed robbers used a very big stone to smash in our glass window and burglary proof and came into the room. They shot him point blank on the chest. They had a field day in rampaging through the community, robbing houses and injuring people. The police came and took my brother’s corpse to Asokoro morgue when the robbers had gone,” he said.
According to Chief of Kugbo II, Ayuba Knadna Kninya, armed robbers gain entrance into the community through unguarded bush parts from Asokoro, Kuruduma, Karu and Poroko. In order to checkmate crime, the community spent N76, 000 to erect a security post in September, last year, and formed a vigilance group. However, the N200 monthly security levy grudgingly paid by few residents is not enough to buy guns or bullets to ward off the coordinated armed robbery attacks.
“We went to the police station in Karu and met with the DPO for protection in February. He told us to bring N250, 000 to repair their patrol van, so that they can use it to patrol the border areas in the community. However, we don’t have that kind of money. We have been having armed robbery attacks every year and they rob, rape, injure villagers without those in the single police outpost in the community doing anything. We are building another police outpost and we need police officers. When you visit the police outpost there in the night, you will meet about five women sleeping on duty with no man on sight. What can they do?”
Community within a community
While residents are complaining about the dearth of facilities in Kugbo, Blueprint Weekend investigations reveal that there is another ‘community’ dwelling in Kugbo. This settlement can be regarded as the Abuja version of the popular Ajegunle ghetto area in Lagos.
The settlement is made up of artisans who can’t afford decent accommodations and are living below poverty level. Houses here, which residents call batcher are constructed with tarpaulin, woods and zinc for blocks on a stony surface; for easy dismantling, because, according to one of the residents, “they will soon be on the move whenever the owners of the land decide to make use of it and dislodge them.”
There is no provision for toilets or bathrooms, as many people go to the bush to defecate and bath in twilight. Some adopt the ‘parcel and throw’ method, which means defecating inside a polythene bag and disposing same in the hundreds of dumpsites that can be found in the community.
Criminals in the ghetto
Chief of Kugbo 1, Philip Jezhi, alleged that criminal activities being carried out in the community emanates from the ghetto, which is named Bakassi after the controversial boundary between Nigeria and Cameroon, and appealed for government intervention in dislodging the notorious residents of this part of the community. When Blueprint Weekend visited this area situated behind the furniture market, boys of school age and girls of easy virtue were seen buying and smoking marijuana and concoctions without a care in the world.
Frog, lizard infested water
The community also lack potable water. It was discovered that members of this community get the water they use for cooking and doing domestic chores from wells. However, thewater is neither clean nor safe, as dead lizards and frogs die inside to contaminate them.
“There is a pipeline from Asokoro to Karu and we need it to be connected. In May and December last year, we met with our councillor, Mr. Daniel Shanyibwa Michael, who is also the Speaker of AMAC, and told him about the challenges we are facing in terms of facilities, and he assured us that he will meet the AMAC Chairman to address the situation, but we have not heard anything from them. The solar borehole that was drilled by Senator Philip Tanimu Aduda is not enough to take care of the water needs of the community. It has a bad taste and smell; therefore it is even more harmful than the water we fetch from wells.”
Transformer overload, AEDC extortion
The community is also faced with the issue of epileptic power supply, occasioned by over reliance on the beyond-repair 3000KVA Distribution Transformer that has been serving the community for the past twelve years. The light trips off at random, to await tinkering by AEDC staff before it can supply light again. As a result, AEDC officials in charge of Kugbo earn extra cash extorting money from residents to fix electricity problems.
Residents also expressed concerns about the arbitrary billing system as many of them have not been provided with prepaid metres. Many residents alleged that the unavailability of prepaid metres is premeditated, because AEDC officials are fond of exploiting them through illegal connections and disconnections, which can only be checked when they have prepaid metres.
Kugbo not captured in AMAC budget
On February 6, this year, AMAC Chairman, Abdullahi Adamu Candido, signed into law N6.92 billion 2018 Budget of Reality and Consolidation “aimed at addressing growing needs of the communities and build on the existing foundation for grassroots development.”
The chairman explained that the budget was to focus on “activities that has direct bearing on the lives of the citizens.”
“AMAC allocated N3.7 billion for recurrent expenditure, representing 45.77 per cent and N3.7 billion for capital expenditure, representing 54.23 per cent of the budget. The works and housing department, which is saddled with the supervision and provision of critical infrastructures, got N1.8 billion of the entire budget making it the highest,” he said.
Pathetically, there is no single project in Kugbo community to prove that it was remembered in the entire budget.
FCDA shifts blame to AMAC
When Blueprint Weekend visited FCDA to get the reaction of government on the dearth of facilities in Kugbo community, especially lack of a health care centre, the FCT Minister, through his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Abubakar Sani, said infrastructure development in Kugbo and other communities around it is the primary responsibility of AMAC.
He said: “Every infrastructure you see is based on budgetary provision. Instead of putting pressure on FCT Administration, put pressure on AMAC, because Kugbo is under AMAC and they are the ones collecting revenue from the community. Nobody is harassing the people that are collecting the money and failing in their duties, yet you expect the FCT Administration to do everything. FCT doesn’t touch a dime of AMAC budget. As the money comes from the federation, we push it to AMAC. Yet, instead of them to do the small roads and primary healthcare centre, which are their primary responsibilities, they are still expecting FCDA to do that. It is like a child whom you have paid his school fees and he has graduated, yet he still wants you to continue to feed him. It doesn’t work that way.”
When the member representing Karu in AMAC, Mr. Daniel Shanyibwa Michael, who is also the Speaker of AMAC, was contacted to get his reaction, he ended the call as soon as the subject matter was mentioned. Repeated calls and text messages to his phone were neither answered nor replied.
However, investigations by Blueprint Weekend revealed that the Speaker is currently facing impeachment charges, following allegations of misconduct and abuse of office: a situation that led to the controversial disappearance of the mace of the House in AMAC on Friday last week. Efforts by this reporter to get the reaction of AMAC Chairman proved abortive, as he didn’t pick calls and text messages to his phone.
