Bwaje: An over 100-year-old FCT community without school, electricity presence

Bwaje is an agrarian community in Gurdi ward of Abaji Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). According to the traditional head of the village, HRH Aliyu Isah, the community has been in existence for over 100 years. In all these years, the chief said, his subjects have not felt the presence of government, […]

Bwaje is an agrarian community in Gurdi ward of Abaji Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

According to the traditional head of the village, HRH Aliyu Isah, the community has been in existence for over 100 years.

In all these years, the chief said, his subjects have not felt the presence of government, either at the FCT or at the area council level.

According to him, his subjects have not seen a school, health centre, road, or borehole they can call their own, except if they travel to other communities.

Even to vote during election period, the chief said his subjects have to travel to the neighbouring villages as the community is also denied a polling unit.

The chief said the situation has put his subjects, numbering over 2,300, into serious social crisis.

When Abuja Metro visited the community last weekend, women were seen fetching water from the only well dug by the locals themselves.

In an interview, the chief particularly complained about the absence of a primary school in the community, saying pupils use the village mosque as a classroom for lessons.

He said the absence of basic amenities such as pipe-borne water, a health centre, a school, and a dilapidated road, as well as a lack of bridges and culverts across the rivers linking the community, has continued to pose hardship to his subjects.

He said the community has a population of over 2,300, comprising Fulani, Hausa dry-season farmers, and other indigenous tribes, but they have no access to social amenities.

He said the only source of water in the community is from the Gurara River, saying it was not until last year that he summoned elders and youth of the community to dig a well that now serves as the only source of water in the area.

“Even the Gurara River is far from this village as our women wake up early to trek nearly two kilometres before they can fetch water. It was only after we later dug a well that we began to have some relief,” he said.

He also complained about the lack of a health centre in the community, saying patients travel on motorcycles to neighbouring Gurdi village before accessing medical treatment.

He recalled how two pregnant women died while being conveyed to a health facility at the neighbouring Gurdi village.

“Last year, we recorded two deaths of pregnant women who were in labour. Before they could reach the Gurdi village health facility, it was already late. So, you can see the challenge my people are facing due to the lack of a health facility in this community,” he said.

The village chief also lamented the lack of a primary school in the community, saying pupils attend classes in the village central mosque.

He said last year, he summoned parents and advised them to enroll their children at a primary school at Gurdi village, which, he said, is more than two kilometres distant from the community.

“And the worst of it is that, whenever it rains, there will be no school that day because the river becomes flooded, making it difficult for our children to cross,” he said.

He added that the deplorable state of the road linking the community and neighbouring Kwakwa, Kutara, Gulida, Kache, and Gurdi communities has become a nightmare to his subjects, especially farmers who transport their crops to the markets in Yaba and Abaji.

“As you were coming, did you see any culvert across the streams you crossed before reaching here? There is no culvert, let alone a bridge across the big river, which has also been affecting our children who go to school at neighbouring Gurdi village,” he said.

Isah reiterated that since the community was founded over 100 years ago, there has never been any government infrastructure.

He added that his subjects always travel to neighbouring Gurdi village to cast votes during every election.

“We don’t have a polling unit here in this community, as our people trek or they use bikes to Gurdi on election day to cast votes,” he added.

According to him, politicians always come around during electioneering campaigns to promise them social amenities, saying after the election, they will be left in pains and agony.

The village chief, therefore, appealed to the authorities of the Area Council under the leadership of Alhaji Abubakar Umar Abdullahi to come to the aid of his subjects by providing a borehole, a health centre, a school, the construction of a road, as well as building a bridge across the river that links the community.

Reacting, the Chief of Staff to the council chairman, Mohammed Kandi, said the chairman had already directed the Head of Works of the council to visit the community and take a record of some of the challenges facing the villagers so that they will be captured in the council’s next year’s budget.

“And apart from that, the council chairman himself, during his campaign to the community last week, also promised to look into those demands you mentioned,” he said.