Hours After Saying Goodbye to Parents 7 Pupils in Lafia School Met Death in Stormy Floods

Little Hazara, a four-year old pupil of the Living Foundation Primary and Nursery School, Lafia was also washed along, down the stream. She was found floating a distant away from there – dead. Not less than seven families – including the one where Hajara lived with her young parents – around the school in Angwan […]

Little Hazara, a four-year old pupil of the Living Foundation Primary and Nursery School, Lafia was also washed along, down the stream. She was found floating a distant away from there – dead.

Not less than seven families – including the one where Hajara lived with her young parents – around the school in Angwan Yazawa section of Lafia-East, are living with the painful memory of children who dressed up that morning of Wednesday, June 27, in their uniforms, and sang school songs as they made their way to school, but ended up floating on the distant Rafin Girigi.

It happened barely an hour after the children bid farewell to their relatives at home, and rushed out to school, so as not to be late for the usually gladdening school assembly songs. On the assembly ground, they proudly sang Nigeria’s National Anthem, and said the National Pledge, pledging loyalty to their motherland. Like their parents who have paid taxes all their adult lives, the children, in their life time, came to patriotism at their tender ages.

In this section of the city, drainages are completely absent, 16 years after the creation of Nasarawa State. The only available drainage system was built by the federal government along the only good road – Jos Road – of about five kilometers, which took the federal government more than five years to construct. Even the drainage along this only standard road does not function to drain storm waters out of Lafia. It is silted, or broken down at various points because urban authorities have continued to look the other way, complaining of lack of funds, while its condition compounds the already bad topography of Lafia. Every rain drop in the metropolis of Lafia attracts fears from residents, who have had to contend with deluges, like the type that washed school pupils to early death, days ago.

Previous administrations in the state climbed the rooftops and claimed they performed. The last one – of Aliyu Akwe Doma – had a “Seven-Point Agenda”, to provide social services, much of which was infrastructural development, but that administration sleep-walked for four years. In his time, like during the administration of his predecessor, Abdullahi Adamu, Lafia, suffered from the breakdown in the infrastructure provided by the military. But he turned deaf ears to the cries of residents who had close encounter with death because of raging floods. But the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration had accruals of over N200 billion of revenue funds in four years.

But the disaster suffered by the people did not spare the PDP. When the rains poured in with increased tempo in the late days of August of 2009, a Peugeot Station Wagon belonging to the PDP in Lafia local government was washed from a street where it was parked, while party men who drove in it were meeting in a house in this same Angwan Yazawa, where little Hajara and her mates were washed to their early death. It was in broad daylight – between 1pm and 2pm when the rain lasted – but the occupants only came out of their meeting to discover that the vehicle was missing. Upon enquiries, the party men were told the PDP-marked station wagon was lying some distance away, in-between trees where a surging flood washed it.

It is still difficult to get a uniform figure about the death toll in the school. School authorities have reported four, but residents, much of who participated in the rescue effort on that day, have continued to insist that 13 pupils died. The rescuers even said they believe some children were still missing, although no parent has come up to say so.

Most of the pupils who died were in nursery classes. The school building sits just by the edge of the street. The tight street is not developed, and has no paved way, save for communal efforts of residents who are maintaining it. Few metres from the school, residents who own vehicles are compelled to park and trek home because a culvert, needed to drain water, was washed off several years ago, living a ditch for them to contend with.

When it rained that fateful morning, only a few houses were not submerged. They belong to privileged persons who provided the foundation to their buildings, high enough to stand such floods. Hajara’s school has just two blocks of classrooms; all of them makeshift provisions. So it was easy for the two buildings to collect surging water from the street.

A stump of a coconut tree washed along the wave, hit hard on the fence of the school, collapsing it, to allow water into the classrooms where the children were taking their first lesson that morning. It happened at about 8:30 am, residents who partook in the rescue said.

Hamza Labaran, a young man close to Hajara’s father, was in the street that morning, taking Koko, a corn formula, when the rain began. “We rushed back into our houses. About 30 minutes later, our houses began to collect water. We have lived with this for years now. And we were always prepared for rain.

“But we were ignorant of what was happening outside of our homes. The street had a collection of trees uprooted from other parts of the area. A stump of a coconut tree, washed along, had hit, and broken the fence of the school, taking water straight into the classrooms”, Labaran told Sunday Trust, as he stood before the woman selling Koko, the very point where the rains of June 27 caught him.

On that day, eyewitnesses reported that six pupils were traced and picked far off, including inside of Rafin Girigi. Two more pupils were said to be missing on that day, after they were washed away in the powerful currents that concentrated, and swelled up to above knee level, submerging the school.

But Labaran argued that “no, more than that figure was recorded. I helped most children that day. I was around, we heard them screaming outside and we ran into the street to discover the school children were floating. I rushed into the street with my brothers and joined other people. We rescued about 10 children into my house. We followed up, and traced some more floating dead far off this place. We counted 13 dead bodies. Some of them died in the hospital, some died on their way to the hospital, and others were picked dead. That is what happened”, he said.

Labaran said a few young men gathered up in the rescue effort. “We were there; many of us. But at first, it was difficult to know how to start; who to rescue first. We were confused. I went for the children drowning inside of the classrooms, and then rushed out for those floating in the street. Most of them could not cry. They had taken too much water, and only struggled”, he said.

He said he was broken down in the rescue operation, not because he was not fit, but that the sights of little ones struggling and raising their hands for help which came only in trickles touched him.

“I helped and helped. But the more I grabbed the children, the more I saw others struggling to raise their heads and hands up for help”, he said tearfully. He turned away from this reporter, and raised his T-Shirt, which he used to clear his cheeks of running tears.

He is not married yet, and has no child of his own yet. “But I know most, is not all the children. They are like my children, I send them most time. Oh, how can this nightmare clear from my eye”, he said. It happened, and he witnessed it, but Labaran has continued to hope that it was a mere nightmare.

He said the flood stormed water into the classroom, to above knee level. But for the children, most of them, barely four years, it was like an ocean. They struggled and gasped for breath. Instead of breath, they took in more water.

“They were weak from taking plenty of water, and from struggling and gasping for breath”, he said. “The current was powerful, so we were also careful. At one point, I fell twice with children on my back. I don’t know how many climbed on my back at that time. But many hopped unto me and gummed.”

Sunday Trust proceeded to talk to Zakari Dantani, and Aisha Barki, father and mother of little Hajara. The father sat on a bench in front of his house, located adjacent to the school building, while the mother was preparing breakfast. The deceased siblings played around the overcrowded compound, with the children of neigbours.

“I have rested everything to God”, the father said, just as the mother added “our daughter was brought to us dead, but that is the will of God.” It took neighbours to convince them to speak to this reporter on the incident which they insisted they want to forget. They reluctantly allowed for their photograph to be taken. The father said “I want to forget of what happened.”

Labaran toold this reporter to one Auwal Mohammed Mainama, father of Kadijat, one of the kids killed by the flood. He lives on an adjoining street where his four year-old daughter, of same class with Hajara, left that morning, singing a school song.

“She was a very happy girl, full of life. You just can’t help loving her on your first meeting. That day, she sang a school song, and headed for school, happily. She returned in our arms, a dead child”, Mainama, the butcher, who was at work at his slab, said. Without little Kadijat, he added, their home was very cold.

“I was called and asked to rush home. I took the next motorcycle and rushed down. My daughter was in the arms of my wife, lifeless”, he said, and avoided commenting on questions about whether his daughter died in the class as was the case with some of the kids, or she wqs among those washed down Rafin Girigi.

The cheeks of his wife, a youthful Laruwa Auwal, were soaked in tears as the butcher raised his hands up in air, and looked up, in demonstration of his belief that his daughter is up in Heaven with God. He offered a brief Muslim prayer for his late daughter and her mates who died in the incident.

Sunday Trust could not locate some other families grieving over the lost of their children in that deadly flood. Labaran had no good time on his hands to go farther from his chores that morning, but promised to link Sunday Trust with them, some other times.

It was difficult to locate school teachers to enable them give an account of the tragedy. The headmistress, Mrs. Theresa James, was around when this reporter visited her house for a recount of the incident. But her husband pleaded that she needed to be allowed to sleep.

“Her BP (Blood Pressure) is high. It has been so – coming down and going up since that day. The doctor insisted that the incident should not be mentioned to her again. Please, I am begging you, if you can allow her”, the husband pleaded.

He said his wife insisted that four children, and not 13, died. He said his wife had continued to live with the immense trauma since then.

The heavy downpour lasted for only about an hour, but the devastation left the school teachers and parents with immense trauma.

When Sunday Trust visited, the school – which once burst with recitations and songs from happy pupils – was deserted. Two flags, one with the school colours, and the other, Nigeria’s Green-White-Green – stood at its entrance into the rubbles that is now the remains of the school. But the flags did not fly that morning, as though to tell this reporter – independent of their owner – that the school was grieving for Hajara and her mates.

Not far from the flags, stood hordes of male adults and children residing in the area. They clustered around a woman whose name Sunday Trust heard only as Maimuma. She sold koko, the favourite of many families at breakfast.

When this reporter asked them of their feeling about the absence of school activities around them now, one of the men said “it is as if we don’t have children anymore.”

Hassan, as he gave his name, said the songs and recitations during assembly, and in the course of the day’s lessons reminded him of his days when he was in primary school. He specifically talked about the closing time, which most, if not all pupils look forward to, and tried to sing a song snag in the early 80s when he schooled in Keffi.

He managed to sing only parts of the song: “Goodbye teacher, goodbye friend, we are going to leave you now. Tomorrow shall come again, come again, come again….” He said the presence of a school beside his home keeps taking him back to his days in school. “But that is no more”, he lamented.

This reporter walked into what is now a ghost of the Hajara’s school. The walls were still soaked, and looked as if the water just dried up. There is a swing in the premises of the scmall school, but it had no child playing there.

Most residents had blamed the flood on the ongoing construction of roads around Sabon Pegi and other sections of Lafia-East, where construction companies are opening up drainages, trying to channel storm waters.

State police command spokesman, Cornelius Ocholi confirmed the incident.

Men of the Fire Service Department in Lafia, also confirmed the incident, but had added that they had no access to the place. They tried frantically, and could not make any success to rescue any child. Dalhatu Dogara, the director of the department in the state, confirmed the efforts made by his men.

“It was difficult for people around here to know that such a thing was happening. You know people ran and hide from the rain”, an eye witness had told newsmen on that day.

“We rushed outside, to discover their classroom had collapsed. We saw some pupils being washed away in the currents. We tried our best to catch up with them, but we were also careful because our area is not good. There are no drainages, no paved ways. The whole area is slippery. We tried. But we could not rescue some of the children”, said another eyewitness.

Alhaji Bello Mohammed, one of the parents of the deceased, said a few words to reporters on the day of the incident. Then, he rushed off to bury his daughter according to Muslim rites.

Acting Managing Director of Nasarawa Urban Development Board (NUDB), Engr. Edward Dauda confirmed the incident, but denied that the ongoing construction work around there caused the flood.

“If you look at the topography of Lafia, you will understand that that area has always suffered floods. In fact, last year, at about this time, we went there on inspection with the governor (Umaru Tanko Al-Makura), and we could not proceed because the area was completely waterlogged. It was why his Excellency decided that the area will be the first to attract the ongoing construction of roads and drainages”, Engr. Dauda said.

He admitted that “it’s possible that water will concentrate there because of ongoing construction, but the ongoing project was initiated to salvage this kind of yearly situation in Lafia. The construction firms working on the project are technically competent, and blaming this incident on them is very unfair. During rainy seasons, anything happens”, he added.