Water scarcity hits Begeye community

Among such communities is Begeye, a community in Kagarko Local Government Area of Kaduna State, located few kilometres from Bwari Area Council in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).  
According to a resident, Sherif Fagami, the inability of the residents to access potable water makes them to resort to fetching from the stream in the community, saying that the local wells used to be dug by the residents always get spoilt.
He said: “My father dug between three and four wells but they have all collapsed. The problem is that the soil is different from all other places, it is rocky, and hard, so getting water from the ground has been difficult for us.”  
The stream, according to Fagami, could not adequately address the water needs of the residents, who are left without an alternative but take turns to wait for hours before getting water.
“Women have to go to the stream as early as 6a.m. and they stay for hours on queue to get water, though it is not like that during the rainy season,” he said.
Continuing, he said, animals also drink from the stream used by the residents thereby exposing the residents to various health challenges.
Some of the women seen at the stream said they have been using the water for a long time.
“We come here every day; some even come as early as 4a.m. while some women could spend the whole day sometimes without getting the water,” one of the woman who would not want to be named said.
She said men in the community have dug several wells but they all collapsed due to the nature of the soil, calling on the government to come to their aid by sinking boreholes in the community.
Fagami appealed to the authorities of the local government area to provide the people with potable water.
“I have been drinking the water from the stream from the time I was born till now, likewise other residents, which does not show a good thing about the government and the residents at this period,” he said.
The community leader of Begeye, Maikarfi Bugbe, said other challenges facing the residents include lack of secondary schools. The residents build the only primary school in the community, according to him, and it is without qualified teachers.
“Some of the teachers might decide not to come to the school for a week, thereby making the pupils to play around the community within this period and the teachers would at the end of the month collect salaries,” Fagami added.
Fagami said that the primary school’s situation and the long distance residents have to trek to attend secondary school discourage parents from sending their wards to schools.
Fagami, who claimed to be averagely educated, said children would rather go with their parents to the farm than trek long distance to schools.
Bugbe said the community is also without electricity and residents trek long distance to access healthcare, calling on the authorities of the Kagarko Local Government Area to come to the rescue of the residents with the provision of the necessary amenities.