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Humans, animals wait for turn to get water
By Akanji Olowolodu, Bauchi
Gabchiyari is a hard-to-reach community, in Darazo Local Government Area of Bauchi State, though 25km away from Darazo, headquarters of the LGA, it takes not less than 3 hours to access due to the nature of the only road to the village which is a political ward headquarters in the LGA.
The area has not less than 200,000 people based on the population census, the dominant tribe is Kanuri while there are Fulani settlements, the inhabitants are predominantly farmers and cattle rearers, they cohabit peacefully considering that a large percentage of the people are Moslems with a handful of Christians and traditional worshippers.
Those the people are living happily together, they are suffering in silence having cried so loud with nobody hearing their cries not to talk of soothing them and wipe away the tears from their eyes, over the years, the story has remained the same, a pathetic situation, no development.
The residents of the area are in dire need of most importantly, potable water for domestic and other use ages considering the fact that water is life and the driving force of existence. It is however a pathetic scene to behold, watching the people and animals wait for turns to have water to drink in order to keep life going.
They also need other social amenities to make their communities more habitable and also give their children an opportunity to reach their full potentials in life, through sound and quality education and improved healthcare services.
Recently, our Correspondent took a tortious journey courtesy of Bauchi Field Office of UNICEF to the community to see how the people are coping with existence, though close to civilization and modernization but, yet, very far away from enjoying it.
The journey from Darazo to Gabchiyari will seem a smooth one for the first 10km because, there is an ongoing construction of the road awarded by the Federal Government since the inception of the APC led administration as influenced by one of the sons of area, Yau Shehu Darazo, one of the aides of President Muhammadu Buhari.
However, for many years now, the work has stopped a development that has dashed the hopes of the people of the communities who continue to groan in sadness. It was therefore not an easy ride to the village as the bus had to sink in sands on three occasions before arriving.
The first sight as one enters Gabchiyari is a borehole which gives water to both humans and animals who take turns to be served at the payment of the sum of N200 per drum, 250 liters. It is indeed, a pathetic sight to behold.
The situation has brought a lot of untold hardship to the lives of the people but because they have no choice, they have accepted to live on, until such a time, God will bring succour their way through a government at the three levels, local, state and Federal which will hear their cries and wipe away their tears.
Going round the village, the major sources of water for both domestic and other uses including animals are wells that are not less than 250 meters down and are difficult to draw water from due to the depth. Something urgent must be done to correct the situation.
This was the clarion call made to the Bauchi State Government, International Development Partners and other well meaning citizens of the State and LGA by the residents of Gabchiyari Community when select group of Journalists went on a field visit on Thursday 16th March,2023 , preparatory to the commemoration of World Water Day, set aside by UN every 22nd of March to highlight issues around water globally.
The District head of Gabchiyari Community, Mallam Muhammad Garba, while welcoming the Journalists, said that the man hour being wasted by surrounding hamlets in seeking for water from paid boreholes is taking its toll on the citizens of the community.
According to him, “Our community is a hard-to-reach area whose water challenges is being compounded by the absence of good road. Surrounding hamlets travel between 3-5 kilometers to access paid potable water. So, you can imagine the productive hours spent in getting water.”
Mallam Mohammed Garba added that, “Ordinarily, it will take about 20 minutes to get to Gabchiyari from our LG Headquarters, but due to the absence of feeder road, it will now take an average of two hours to get here, that is if the vehicle does not get stuck in the sand dunes that dotted our terrain. It is even worse during rainy season.”
He lamented that the situation has negatively affected education in the area as children must first go distances to get water for use before going to school later in the day, stressed and exhausted therefore no sound learning.
The traditional ruler also said that, the lack of adequate source of water has a negative impact on effective healthcare services delivery as the only PHC in area lacks water to function as the community use to contribute money in order to buy water for the facility.
Mallam Garba then appealed to Bauchi State Government and other stakeholders to see how water can be made available for them as well open up the community for ease of transporting their farm produce and also attract development for the community.
While sharing some insights into how lack of adequate potable water affects other critical areas of human development, the Ward Development Community (WDC) Chairman of Gabchiyari, Aliyu Alhaji said that, lack of adequate water is negatively affecting school enrollment and retention.
This is because according to him, the children spend school hours looking for water and thereby missing school or in some instances, abandoning it all together.
According to the WDC Chairman, those children that made the efforts to fetch the water and still attend school, “you discover that they attend classes late and were usually fatigued to comprehend any meaningful exercise in the class.”
A politician from the area who has served as Councillor representing the ward on 3 occasions, Suleiman Gabchiyari lamented that the area is really suffering because of the lack of sustainable sources of water making life unbearable for the people especially in this dry season.
He said that he made several efforts to get something done for the people but his efforts did not yield positive result due to the lack of political will by the government to do then needful to ameliorate the suffering of the people.
According to him, “There was an occasion I had a personal discussion with the former Governor of Bauchi State, Malam Isa Yuguda, he promised to do something about our situation, but, nothing positive happened.”
He also said that the immediate past Governor of the state, Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar promised to come to their aid but could not do anything in his 4 years tenure.
Suleiman Gabchiyari however expressed hope that in no distance future, the problem will become a thing of the past particularly with the visit of the team of Journalists which will highlight their suffering to the outside world.
One of the Fulani cattle rearers, Abdu Jodi lamented that they pay money every day to get water for their cattle, something that ordinarily should have been free but because it is not available, they have to pay for it.
Jummai Habu and her friends must first fetch water, fill up the available containers in the house before going to school every day a development that has made it very difficult for them to cope.
But all hope is not lost as disclosed and assured by the Darazo LGA Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Coordinator, Ibrahim Mohammed Hassan.
While speaking with Journalists, he said that the Bauchi State Government has mainstream the LGA into a WASH project under the African Development Bank (ADB) intervention signed by the State Government.
The WASH Coordinator was also quick to add that the only water scheme that will be productive in Gabchiyari community would be a motorized or solar powered borehole considering the terrain of the area.
“It takes a minimum of 90 feet before we could hit water level here. This is because of the topography of the area. So, you can see that a hand pump borehole will not serve the purpose here”, Hassan said.
