FCT female student treks 8km daily to school

Hadiza Danlami, 15, wakes up early every day to trek for at least one and a half hours to cover the distance of over 4 kilometers to get to school. At that distance the school she attends, Junior Secondary School Gwargwada, Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is apparently the nearest to […]

Hadiza Danlami, 15, wakes up early every day to trek for at least one and a half hours to cover the distance of over 4 kilometers to get to school. At that distance the school she attends, Junior Secondary School Gwargwada, Kuje Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is apparently the nearest to Dnango,  her village.
Her parents have heeded to intense public advocacy on the promotion of girl-child education by sending their daughter to obtain western education.
 She has to walk back home after school hours under the hot sun and in most cases with her uniforms soaked in the rain.
There were many other students younger that her who trek long distances to get to schools around the area.
There were reportedly poisonous reptiles and wild animals along the bush path to Danlami’s school and though she has not been attacked, she had to overcome the threat of crime to get to school. 
Fatigue seems to have become a permanent feature of her physique, and she shows it in her movements, even when handling some household chores for her parents at home, let alone her daily routine obligation of about 8 kilometer trekking to and from school.
However, she looks immensely gifted with the determination to suppress this fatigue and the despair accompanying it.
This determination powers her to pull through, doing whatever life requires of her, most importantly ensuring that she doesn’t lose going to school every schooling day, with the hope to acquire the education that would salvage her and her parents from hardships in life.
Beasts of burdens, bicycles and commercial motorcycles otherwise called Achaba were seemingly the most efficient means of transportation in the village, yet her parent could not afford any, she told Daily Trust.
She said she had to walk through the forest daily, to reach school and trek back home.
“The road is not motorable and traverses through the forest. That is the only road to my school, there is no other road. I spend hours trekking. I wake up early every morning and reach school by 8.00a.m. or thereabout. There is Achaba but they are very few and are very expensive; the fares are between N500 and N1, 000. Most students cannot afford it and virtually all of us trek to school,” Danlami said.
She said she narrowly escaped being attacked by a fox on her way to school one early morning. She had to go back home, trembling with trauma.
“I woke up early and started trekking as usual to school. I was in a hurry to get to school. On my way, after crossing a stream, I suddenly saw a fox few meters in front of me. I quickly hid behind the trees and ran back home after it had gone. My parents said I should stay at home and go the following morning. I would have been ferociously attacked by the animal,” She said.
Danlami said the forest is a sanctuary of very dangerous reptiles like snakes, scorpions and so, she and her school mates agreed to move in group to enable them withstand the fright of the dangerous animals and reptiles, and even scare them away.
“As a group, sometime we would see many dangerous animals and poisonous reptiles but we just feel normal. We never felt afraid. There was a time we killed a snake when it attacked one of our schoolmates,” she said.
She said there were instances when bandits attacked merchants on their way to markets and even raped women. Hunters too frightened students while pursuing animals in the forest, she added.
Danlami said she would not get married until she finishes her education to avoid being distracted by marital challenges. She said she would further her education to degree level and will like to become a medical doctor in order to assist her people.
“I have to finish my school before getting married. I want to become a doctor if I finish my school. I prefer becoming a doctor to assist my people. I like doctors. I have passion for them. I like the way they they attend to patients. They are my role models,” she maintained.
One of the teachers at Gwargwada Junior Secondary School, who pleaded anonymity, confirmed to Daily Trust that most of the students come from villages far from the school. He cited the example of students trekking more than five kilometers from Jigba village to the school which, according to him, saps them of the required energy for learning.
“They trek several kilometers to school. Some of them come from far villages like Jigba. The children are trying. There are some who stopped coming to school because of the distance. They stopped when they finished primary school. Apart from Gwargwada Secondary School there is no other secondary school in this area. Other secondary schools are far away from here,” he said.
He called on government to build additional secondary schools in the area to reduce the children’s walking distance to school. The Executive Chairman of Kuje Area Council, Shaban Isiaku Tete, recently announced plans to build more schools in the area and provide social amenities in rural communities.
Dr. Kabiru Kurfi, a lecturer in the Department of Education Federal University Dutsin-Ma, said schools are expected to be child-friendly and child protective, adding that in a situation where schools are not spread across the populace, students will face difficulty in making it to school. He said “the minimum distance expected of a child to trek is half a kilometer, that is what we call trekable distance.”