Bad road, rain compound Zhiko’s problems
While rain is generally considered as a blessing, there are times that residents of Zhiko wish the rains don’t come down when their women in labour, for example, Kande Zaka was pregnant but after failing to deliver at the community’s dilapidated primary health care centre, she was taken to a hospital in Kubwa on a motorcycle. The motorcyclist had to manoeuvre through several bad roads, which were made worse by torrential rainfall. When they finally got to the hospital, it was too late; she had a set of stillbirth twins.
Solomon Zaka said his younger brother’s wife, Kande, took in again last year but they were wrong to have hoped that the situation would be different.
“When she was in labour, rain started in the morning till evening. She had complications again and we couldn’t take her to the hospital in Kubwa because the road was flooded. She died before day break,” he said.
Zaka said several people had become widowers and widows due to the situation.
The community’s head, Bulus Wakili, said on several occasions, people; especially women, die due to the inability of the residents to get them to hospital.
“There was a time an old man was sick, we could not carry him to the hospital because rain fell from night till day break and before the flood on the road subsided to allow access to the road, the man died,” he lamented.
Wakili said the situation had made people always pray for their wives not to deliver during the rainy season. He said even during the rainy season, they always pray for a clear weather during child delivery.
“Sometimes we see the rain as punishment, if someone is sick we don’t have anywhere to take him, we are like fish in a bottle,” one of the palace aides, Philip Yohanna, said.
Yohanna said the community’s bad roads, which got worse during rainfall had cost many families their loved ones.
He said none of the roads that led to the community, either from Kata Sarki in Niger State or from Byazhin Across, Kubwa, was better even with several attempts at reconstructing them.
He said the community had recently constructed a culvert on one of the streams but was surprised that after spending much money the water started flowing through another channel.
Yohanna said despite community efforts which saw youths expend several hours on the road, residents either slept in Kata Sarki or Kubwa whenever rain caught them outside the community, while those within the community were usually unable to leave until long hours after the rain had stopped.
He said they had been living in that situation for more than 20 years, adding that the situation could have been better had the community primary healthcare centre been in good shape and good enough to handle some emergency health cases like child delivery.
Wakili said the centre which serves more than three communities was short-staffed and with inadequate drugs and facilities.
“We had to contribute money to buy some needed drugs for the centre,” he said.
When Aso Chronicle visited the PHC at bout 2:00p.m., it was locked as residents said the two workers at the centre, a doctor and a volunteer health worker, had closed for the day thereby leaving the residents to their fate.
“Many people have died due to the bad road, we have been suffering here a lot, we want the government to assist us,” Peter Wakili, another resident pleaded.
Wakili Musa, a farmer, said rain boosted his yields, but that it also destroyed some of his farm produce before they were taken to the market.
He said the deplorable roads scare taxis from plying them, thereby making the farmers use crude means of conveying their farm produce to the market.
“Our women carry farm produce on their shoulders to the market,” he said.
Musa said women trekked more than three hours to Kubwa market carrying at least 15 tubers of yams, some twice daily.
Musa, who harvests more than 2,000 tubers of yam annually, said he was yet to device means of taking the tubers to the market without incurring losses from poor means of transportation.
Yohanna, another resident, said the roads also affected the educational pursuit of residents. Though he commended teachers at the community’s primary school for their doggedness in teaching the pupils, he said heavy rainfall sometimes stopped them from coming to school.
He said residents that attended secondary school in neighbouring communities often missed classes due to the road, while he alleged that there were reports of herdsmen assaulting them on their way to school.
He said the bad nature of the road posed a security risk as robbers had waylaid several motorcyclists.
While rain cuts them off, he said, residents dread coming to or leaving the community in the evening due to the activities of hoodlums.
The community’s head, Bulus Wakili, said electricity was another challenge facing the residents.
He said past area council administrations had failed in completing the electrification project which was started about 10 years ago.
He said the project had not seen the light of the day despite a transformer and electric poles were already kept in the community.
He said during the Musa Dikko administration, the electric poles hitherto kept at Kata Sarki, were erected while they waited on the council’s boss to fulfill his promise of completing the project.
Wakili said the project, when completed, would benefit more than five communities.
Yohanna said with the continued black out, residents went to Niger State to grind corn used for food and that; “some families go to bed without food because there are times that their corn would be stolen at the grinding mill.”
He said the abandoned project had taken its toll on economic activities in the community as they had to go to Kubwa to get frozen food or ice block.
Yohanna said such trips cost N600, 00.
“It is sad, see transformer yet no light,” he added.
Bulus Wakili doubted if the transformer could still be functional due to the years of abandonment.
A resident of Pasepa, Aliyu Pasepa, another community expected to benefit from the electrification project, said they had been waiting since the poles were erected in 2016.
He said the residents had lost hope in the completion of the project despite several letters written to the area council.
“Past administrations marched us down. What we want is peace if not we would have pushed them also. This government should please help us even before another electioneering campaign,” he said.
He said several politicians in the past had turned the community to a cash cow; gaining from their predicament in campaigning for votes and turning them down after they assumed office.