‘Efforts to improve our condition came to naught’

The road construction project in your area is abandoned. What happened?When we met the contractor who handled this Area F by police station [road], he said he was not properly mobilised to site. We complained about the way he was doing the job. He said that was how the engineers gave it to him. For […]

The road construction project in your area is abandoned. What happened?
When we met the contractor who handled this Area F by police station [road], he said he was not properly mobilised to site. We complained about the way he was doing the job. He said that was how the engineers gave it to him. For almost three years they started this job, yet they haven’t completed it.
You can see, they put only the first layer of asphalt. Since then, nothing has been done. We don’t see them on site again—over a year. Our children fall in the open gutters. The gutters are small—when it rains, instead of water passing through the gutters, it overflows and enters compounds.

The houses equally look bad.
The condition of Nyanya houses is terrible. You look at the roofs from outside. They are falling.
Go and see the soakaways. They are filled to the extent that you see faeces flowing. This is not good for our health.
How long have you lived here?
I’ve lived in Nyanya for almost 27 years now.
Are you sure it’s FCT administration that is doing these roads?
These roads—there is confusion here. Some say they’re being done by FCDA while some say they’re done by MDGs [Millennium Development Goals office]. So we don’t know who really is doing the Nyanya road network.
When [Tanimu] Aduda was elected in his first tenure as member of House of Assembly, our roads were unmotorable so we used our Nyanya Youth Forum to fill the potholes with shovels. Tanimu now senator knows it.
We wrote the minister [Mallam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai] telling him the condition of Nyanya. In fact, he took his time, came to Nyanya and saw the roads himself. He also looked at the houses we talked about. He sympathised with us. I remember, he set up a committee.
el-Rufai came three times, supervised Nyanya himself—he would come alone, enter the houses one after another and see the condition.
I can remember vividly, the last house and the last block he came to was in Area B opposite Nyanya General Hospital. He went into these houses, entered the toilets, saw what was happening. In fact, he nearly shed tears for the residents of Nyanya. He promised that he would do all he could to bring joy to Nyanya residents.
At that time, we wrote him a letter saying we would love Nyanya to be reconstituted. We wouldn’t like to vacate Nyanya because when Nyanya was nothing—when it was not recognised, we were here with animals. Anybody who has lived here or around here in the past 27 years will testify. There was time no one could come out once it was 8:00pm. The only bubbling area in Nyanya that time was Area F by police station because of the security there, everybody moved freely.
We wrote el-Rufai and quoted General Mamman Kontagora of blessed memory—because during his [Kontagora’s] time [as FCT minister] he came to Nyanya almost seven times. He always came as early as 6:00am with his rain boots. When Area A could not be easily accessed even on okada [motorcycle], Kontagora would enter inside the mud and see things for himself. He promised that he would reconstitute Nyanya and it would be on owner-occupier. That was when he was building Gwagwalada and Kubwa owner-occupiers. Unfortunately for Kontagora, the time he had in office elapsed.
el-Rufai constituted a committee headed by Jumai Kwanashe. The day she called us, we went. Unfortunately Jumai was not present but we explained to her delegates how we wanted Nyanya problem to be tackled.
What has your association done to help yourselves?
We as association—Nyanya Youth Forum, Nyanya Elders Association, and Nyanya Site Association, we’ll never forget el-Rufai because he did a lot. When we wrote el-Rufai in respect of Nyanya residents’ health, how we used to suffer going to Asokoro, Wuse hospitals to seek medical care and the traffic jam problem between Nyanya and Asokoro, some patients even died on the way—some pregnant women died in the process of going through traffic jam, el-Rufai came to our rescue.
el-Rufai came to Nyanya hospital to see things for himself. Dr Yelwa Usman was chairman of Nyanya hospital that time. That woman did a lot. el-Rufai awarded contract for the expansion of Nyanya hospital, for the building of the storey building we have today in Nyanya hospital. That is the intensive care unit we have.
You have seen the return of illegal structures in Nyanya.
Yes.
What have you done about it?
Really, el-Rufai dealt with all these illegal structures most especially those built along the roads and on the sanitary lines. Now people bring containers and put them in between buildings. Instead of fresh air coming into the rooms, the containers take position. el-Rufai dealt with this but since he left office, residents brought these containers and mounted them. It’s bad. Since this government came we have not seen anything we can point at.