By Awaal Gata and Donald Iorchir
In the rainy season, anytime newsmen ask the chairmen of the six area councils in the Federal Capital Territory on the construction of the numerous bad roads in their councils, they would say, “everything is ready. We have finished discussion with the contractors. They are now waiting for the dry season to commence work; you know construction companies don’t like working in the rainy seasons because the rains spoil their works.”
However, it is now almost four months that the rainy season ended yet, when our correspondents went round the roads in question recently no work was going on on them.
For example, in an interview with Blueprint during the rainy, the Secretary of Gwagwalada Area Council, Alhaji Usman Yahaya, assured that the construction of Gwako road will be completed in the current dry season, but no work had been carried out on the road since the season started.
“I am assuring you that Gwako road will be completed before the end of 2014. Once the rain stops, contractor would start working and everything will be ended before 2015 so that we can move to other areas,” the Secretary said.
The construction of Gwako road started about two years ago, during the administration of the former Chairman, Zakari Angulu Dobi. A quater of the road had been leveled with gravels before the construction company handling it abruptly stopped work on the basis of non-mobilization, sources told Blueprint.
An opposition politician in the community, who pleaded for anonymity, also alleged that the former Chairman started the project in order to “win votes” for his political godson” Abubakar Jibrin Giri, who is now the council Chairman.
“Since he is now the Chairman, they don’t care about the road again. What they were looking for they now have; anyhow our people fare over the bad road is not their concern,” he added.
Similarly, in 2013, Mr Abubakar Giri told journalists that they were waiting for the dry season before the expansion of Gwagwalada township roads commenced. The dry season came and passed but no expansion was carried out.
The council officials however blame “lack of enough allocation from the central government” for not carrying out enough capital projects in their respective domains, including construction of new roads and repairing of old ones.
In Gwagwalada, the opposition party would not agree, saying that the allocations that now go to the council are channeled into funding the campaign of the former Chairman, who is now contesting for Member of House of Representatives under the platform of All Progressive Congress (APC). APC is the ruling party in Gwagwalada Area Council.
The situation is the same in other area councils especially the ones with large concentration of rural areas despite the fact that a massive road networks had been done carried out by the federal government in the city centre in a bid to present a befitting capital to Nigerians and the rest of the world.
However, in the rural areas, majority of the roads are begging for attention. The rot is more glaring during the rainy season because flood ‘severs’ and ‘dig’ the roads the more.
Speaking to Blueprint over the situation, Malam Mohammed Yunus Garzo, lamented that “the difficulty we face while commuting on some of the roads in this council is indescribable. The last time some of the roads are repaired is over 20 years ago. More so, some communities don’t even have road yet they will take polling units to them to vote for them. They are politically relevant but they are not relevant when it comes to enjoying the dividends of democracy.”
Garzo added that, “For the rural communities who engage in agriculture as a major occupation, good roads are important for conveyance of harvests to the market as well as social interaction, but year in year out little attempts are made to grade or tar them. It raises the question whether the area councils are genuinely responsible to the plight of the rural folks.”
Consequently, the Chairman of Kuje Area Council, Hon. Ishaku Shaban Tete, in a chat with newsmen said they (the council officials) could just not help the situation because of lack of enough financial allocation.
He said, “We don’t have road networks linking the ten political wards. So, we are calling on the authority to come to our aid by constructing feeder roads in rural communities”.
From Tete’s appeal for help from a higher authority, ostensibly the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), it is fathomable that the area councils alone cannot carry the burden of revamping most of the bad roads or providing other basic social amenities to the rural areas.
