The residents of Gwargwada, Yenche and Gumanyi in Kuje Area Council have expressed concern over the poor state of their road which has cut them off from neighbouring villages and markets.
They told Aso Chronicle that the road, has been neglected by successive area council administrations for years. The say it is nightmarish to travel on the road any time of the year. They added that it has also affected residents of Dnago, Zogye, Paso, Yaba, Rubese, Jigba, Gurfufu, Gumanyi, Gatsana and Achimbi who, they said, are also located along the road.
The Agabe of Gwargwada-Ugbada, Alhaji Hussain Agabi Mam, who spoke with our reporter, said the Gwargwada-Yenche–Gumanyi road leads to many neighbouring communities but lamented that it has been in a deplorable state for many years.
He said the communities are mainly peasant farmers who cultivate different varieties of crops in large quantities but that successive governments had failed to even grade the road to enable them transport their farm produce to the market.
He said the chiefdom is worried over the effect of the dilapidated road on the socio-economic activities of the people, noting that motorists hardly ply the road especially at the peak of the rainy season. He said people of the various communities were always cut off as a result of the bad state of the road when it rained.
He said the Gwargwada-Yenche-Gumanyi road was graded about 12 years ago, and since then, the residents have to mobilize themselves every year during the dry season to fix bad portions on it, including erecting wooden bridges over streams to enable farmers convey their farm produce to the market.
“In fact, even on motorcycle, you can hardly ply the Gwargwada-Yenche–Gumanyi road, especially at this period of the rainy season. I implore the FCT minister, Malam Muhammad Musa Bello, to come to our aid,” the Agabe Gwargwada-Ugbada said.
He stated that the road, if graded and drainages and bridges constructed across some streams, would no doubt bring relief to not only residents of the affected communities, but people who come from the city to buy farm produce and for other businesses in the surrounding villages.
“Some years back, one of the council chairmen paid me a visit in this palace and I used the opportunity to draw his attention to the state of the road but he said the area council had no money to fix it,” he recalled.
The traditional ruler expressed concern that there was over-concentration of projects in the capital city, saying the satellite towns have been abandoned, leaving rural roads to deteriorate.
He lamented that that was hurting the agricultural and socio-economic lives of the rural dwellers.
“I think, at least the government should be able to make a budgetary provision for projects in satellite towns, especially for rural roads, where there are a lot of natural resources, apart from agriculture, which government can gain from. But a situation whereby a budget was for only the city centre, will not augur well for the masses,” he said.
Mr. Elisha James, spokesman of Paso community, who spoke with Aso Chronicle, also noted that the people of the community find it difficult to get to any of the neigbouring villages due to the bad state of the road.
He said the only means by which residents sometimes ply the road is motorcycle, noting however that “but whenever it rains, it becomes difficult because of steep gradient which is also slippery at some points not to talk of the bridges that have collapsed.
“So any day it rains, nobody can ride even motorcycle to Gwargwada because water takes over everywhere,” he said.
He noted that the only part of the road that was graded was from Leda to Yenche village which, he said, was done by the past council administration under Mr. Shaban Ishaku Tete.
“Apart from that section, no other part of the road has been graded by any government right from Gwargwada down to this community. Our politicians only come here during election campaign,” he said.
James, further complained of lack of potable water at the community, saying residents trekked to the stream to fetch water. He appealed to the council authorities to provide a borehole for the community.
Also speaking, Mr. Solomon Israel, spokesman of Achimbi, a community under Gwargwada, said there is no bridge over the stream on the road that links them to Gatsana village, which has been a major challenge over the years.
He said the stream always overflowed its banks whenever it rained heavily, a situation which, he said, prevents farmers from going to their farms. He added that farmers were the worst hit as some of their crops get rotten at the farms due to lack of access road and bridge.
“That stream you crossed to this village is our nightmare over the years because whenever it rains heavily, it overflows,” he said.
He also complained over lack of portable water at the community, and appealed to the council authorities to come to their aid by providing a borehole for them. Now, he said, the residents always go to the stream to fetch water.
Reacting, the chairman of the area council, Alhaji Abdullahi D. Galadima, who spoke through his Special Adviser Media and Publicity, Haruna Usman, said the council was aware of the state of the Gwargwada-Yenche-Gumanyi road and promised that the council was planning to liaise with the FCT Administration to grade it.
On water scarcity, he said the council had already commenced drilling of boreholes across the 10 wards to cushion the effect of water problem facing some of the villages.
Galadima said the present administration has rural infrastructure as one of the top priorities it would embark upon as soon as its finances improve.
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