Deliver on your campaign promises, rural dwellers urge govt

Government officials and agencies have been urged to stop playing politics with the needs of rural dwellers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).  Some residents of Gurfata, a community in Ibwa Ward, Gwagwalada Area Council who made this call while speaking with Aso Chronicle said government is quick in making promises but slow in fulfilling […]

Government officials and agencies have been urged to stop playing politics with the needs of rural dwellers in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
 Some residents of Gurfata, a community in Ibwa Ward, Gwagwalada Area Council who made this call while speaking with Aso Chronicle said government is quick in making promises but slow in fulfilling them.
 Gurfata, situated after Ibwa some minutes’ drive from PaikonKore, is made up of predominantly peasant farmers who said the government needs do more in developing rural areas in the territory.
 “We have not benefitted anything from the government but they use us as bulldozers when they come for campaigns during elections,” Adamu Pada, the community head, said.
 Pada, who spoke in Hausa, lamented that the residents drink from streams, trek to schools in neighbouring villages and use local lamps in place of electricity.
 Zubairu Pada, another resident said the only functional borehole in the community was dug in 1993. He said the residents have been maintaining it to augment water fetched from streams.
Habiba Mohammed, another resident said she spends about 20 minutes trekking to the stream, where she said she would only gets enough water to last her family for a day.
 Zubairu Pada said several visits of government officials and agencies to the community have not transformed the lives of the residents, adding that they only promised but do not fulfil.
 He said for more than a year, a secondary school approved by the education authorities has not started despite the chief apportioning a land for the project.
 Zubairu said nothing works in the community. “The healthcare centre we have is without equipment and drugs,” he added.
The residents also bemoan the deplorable state of roads in the community, adding that it usually cuts them off from neighbouring communities.
 “But we will not give up because we do not know who will help us,” Zubairu, the most educated man in the community said. He however, implored the authorities of the area council to revisit the needs of the community by providing them more boreholes and resuscitating their primary healthcare centre.