By IKENNA EMEWU
Gwagwa is a backwater spot of Abuja. With the Federal Capital Territory’s six area councils, the Abuja Municipal Area Council (AMAC) is the centre of attraction. That is the metropolitan city of Abuja. Apart from the city centre, there are adjunct towns and communities that are part of the prominent AMAC.
As you live and move around the city centre, opulence greets every step you take. High society is the name of the whole place, from architecture to automobile, the roads and the lifestyle.
But unfortunately, immediately you leave the cosy confines of Maitama through Garki, Wuse, Utako, Jabi, Gwarimpa, Life Camp into the farther reaches, what confronts you will make you believe you are no longer in the same city of wealth and modernity.
These places are actually just few kilometres from the big city but in comparison with the development of the city, they are worlds apart by several kilometres.
Some of these places where poverty and neglect stare you in the face and make you wonder if you have left Abuja and travelled 500km away include Karmo, Gwagwa, Dei-Dei and some other linking towns.
These areas have certain things in common. One thread of bad road traverses the entire chains of shabby and poor settlements. The road has a peculiar surface. It is in its worst state of disrepair. It is totally abandoned and the poverty that besets the settlers doesn’t spare the infrastructure. The area is the poverty district of Abuja. Therefore, poverty is another common denominator in the district.
Dingy settlements
The community arises from clusters of ramshackle structures that serve as homes. They are closely fused to each other. There are no streets in between structures and the tracks that serve as access roads are so narrow and ordinary and strewn with litters that are actually domestic waste indiscriminately disposed. With the quality and standard of life the people lead here, it would be out of place and amount to asking for too much to expect that the tracks would be in good shape. Poverty walks on four legs here and you don’t need to turn to see enough of it.
It is seen in the structures as in the businesses, means of transportation, the little and amoral joints where people relax and indulge in drinks and weed smoking, not, of course, excluding brothels. Poverty here exists in human beings – the adults, youths and children. It is also abundant there in the markets, just as it lives in the streets, schools, churches and others. It is so rife that you can never go to these places without having to embrace and interact with poverty.
Funny enough, these downtrodden fellows also are part of the critical crowd that makes Abuja. They are fortunately or unfortunately part of the people counted outside these shores, as a core of the affluent Abuja residents whose relation and family members wherever they live outside Abuja count as wealthy and powerful. At the farthest reaches of these areas, some of the settlements exist without electricity and rely on the Gwagwa River for daily water needs.
The businesses here are characteristically of the lowest class and quality in line with the people they serve. Most of the goods displayed at the numerous markets, apart from food items are mainly fairly used, from household items to clothing and furniture. Even those items like mattresses, pillows, bicycles etc displayed near the road have turned grey and dusty as a result of the sorry state of the road that generates tick and continuous churn of dust as vehicles pass by.
Market zone
From one end of the long road that traverses this region at the Dei-Dei building materials market to the Kado fish market, every spot is one form of market or another. While the Karmo Tuesday Market boasts of the cheapest foodstuffs in Abuja, the fish market is a depot for fish, fresh and frozen, and other frozen foods, including poultry. At the other extreme is the building materials depot, and between are furniture markets, timber market, a general purpose market where mainly fruits are sold and many others. This belt is the largest concentration of markets in the FCT.
And guess what, the bike riders (okada) that were banished from the city centre found home in Gwgagwa. Every spot is literally covered by okada riders. They have the entire world to themselves here and make it difficult for other road users to operate. Hawkers also abound as street traders take up every little space. One of the markets is a large display of umbrellas of varied colours pitched side by side. Those umbrellas serve as roofs over the heads of the traders who are mainly women that are there all day, in the rain or sun.
Waterless life
Abuja Metro spoke with the residents and some of them lamented their plight of living in a city large and modern as Abuja, and yet in neglect. The bike rider, Danladi Aminu from Kebbi State said he has lived in the area for five years and never saw any amenity from the government for the people. He lamented that the worst problem they face is scarcity of water. “You have seen the road already, and you know in Nigeria small people like us don’t matter to the government. We live here and ride our okada, as you can see. They are many of us poor people around here from all parts of Nigeria. That is the part of Abuja where we can afford the cost of renting homes and only people of our level live here. The government does not care about us and who do we complain to, so we just take life the way we see it. Our worst problem is water scarcity. There is no water anywhere here. It is only through boreholes that we get water and we buy it at very expensive cost. I would have asked you to tell the government to provide us water, but I don’t know how to say that because every time what we hear is that government will demolish the places we live in.”
Another resident, Nnamdi Peter from Abia State said he has resigned to the fate of the commoners in the area. “Oga, we are used to this lifestyle. We are poor people and don’t have anybody to complain to. You can see how bad the roads are, and we don’t even know if the government remembers us as part of Abuja. I am a trader here as you can see. I sell yams and other things. Before now, I used to sell ladies wears. But so very often the council men come around the market and chase us away. After the two times my shops were destroyed, I have no other place to be and I can’t stop working for a living. That is how I started selling yams hoping that things will get better. Everyday in this market we pay to the council boys who come around to collect revenue. Sometimes, they issue us receipt, and at others, they don’t, yet we must pay them. Even the places we live in, they threaten us every time that they would demolish the houses. They say there are illegal quarters and they will send us away from there. As you can see there are thousands of poor Nigerians living around here and all of us face the same problems. I am sure sometimes some people come around and threaten the landlords to get money from them and leave.
“We don’t have any amenities, even the electricity in some of the places where that exists was through the efforts of the residents, but we only plead with the government to leave us alone because they make us face so much trouble everyday.”
Petty crimes
The residents Abuja Metro spoke with would not admit that, but from our findings at the police, they area is infested with crimes. Most of the social problems in Gwagwa are theft, robbery, drugs and some others.
At the settlements, there is dense population and the way they live in the day suggests the place would be terrible at night. Churches are the commonest things in the Gwagwa zone. At any point you stand, the most abundant things in sight are signposts of different churches. They must be over 2,000 of them even along the road from Dei-Dei Market to the Fish Market. The next available option in the entire region is drinking spots that bubble all day.
It was only one okada rider that could admit that okada theft and snatching is common in the region. He said it is a daily issue for okada riders to be dispossessed of their bikes by armed men and sometimes unarmed men who attack in small groups.
Another said that the testiest times in the peace of the area are nights when football matches are on. At such nights, football fans gather at viewing centres and generate so much tension, especially with rival or opposite groups in support of their clubs. Any night such matches end late, people live in worse fears as the urchins hold people to ransom as they sometimes fight in the streets.
But if the Gwagwa area battles with poverty or crime, the worst they face according to the residents is government threats of dislodging them in addition to water scarcity.
Before they are dislodged as they government threatens, won’t these people get some little respite from government agencies in form of amenities and less charges they meant to pay in their businesses even as they go there daily to collect revenues from them in their hardship?
The post Gwagwa: The downside, shame of Abuja appeared first on The Sun News.
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