From Abdulrazaq Mungadi, Gombe
There is growing pain and agony among residents of Tumfure, one of the thriving communities in Gombe State. The community, which is in Akko Local Government Area, has since been connected to the Gombe metropolis.
However, despite being about six kilometres from Gombe State Government House, Tumfure still struggles for government recognition in terms of infrastructure and other amenities. During a visit to the community, Daily Sun interacted with some members of the community, who listed facilities urgently needed in the area.
Abbas Yakubu, a graduate of building engineering, who is now a petrol black-marketer in the community, explained that one of the major needs of the community was a full-fledged and functioning health facility, as well as a well-equipped public school.
He said: “We have been pleading and calling for government’s intervention and nothing has come. This is in spite of the fact that the community is along the highway to Lawanti International Airport, Gombe. Both past and present leaders of the state pass through this community.”
He added that lack of pipe-borne water has been an issue in the community of over 20,000 people: “We are very close to the beautiful city of Gombe but still far from civilisation. We have a very large number of government workers and others and yet we don’t feel the presence of government.”
The father of two further revealed that residents of the community are paying dearly to get drinking water. He explained that a drum of water is sold at N500 while a 25-litre jerrican of water goes for N70.
He said: “The only places you will see water running in the tap once or twice in a month in the community are around the streets that residents were able to contribute millions to buy the pipes and tap the water from the main pipe. The reservoir that supplies water to almost the whole of Gombe metropolis is located at the back of our houses and yet we suffer to get water.”
Daily Sun gathered that the community was in anguish not just from water scarcity but also the lack of other basic social amenities. According to Malam Amadu, a 45-year-old trader in the community, “the last time we felt the presence of government in Tumfure was in 2001 when Danjuma Goje was serving as minister of state for power and steel.
“He facilitated the installation of electricity in Tumfure and other surrounding communities and the project was later commissioned by Aliyu Moddibo, the former minister of Abuja. Later, when Goje became the state governor, he built a primary school for us. Thereafter, nothing was brought to us until when Dankwambo came and also built a junior secondary school and extended the water supply to us down to the NTA office. That was all; no single distribution pipe was laid.”
Umar Muhammad Gadam, chairman of Tumfure Youth Advocacy Initiative (TYAI), a non-governmental organisation established by the youths to champion the cause of development of the community, told Daily Sun that the organisation had been advocating and appealing for the government’s intervention in the issue of a health facility and school.
He said: “As a youth organisation, we have been engaging some officials of the government, including our councillor, to see how they can facilitate the intervention of the state government.”
According to him, a full-fledged health facility, a primary school and secondary school are amenities mostly needed in the community. He said: “We have a high number of out-of-school children and, at the organisation’s level, we have been trying to sensitise parents and other youths in the community on the importance of education. But there is very little we can do to get the children back to school because the facilities are not available.
“The closest school to us is the one in Orji estate and it is far; it is about three-kilometres, trekking from the community on a federal highway. Most parents are afraid of risking the lives of their children, even though many are still sending the children to the school.
“We recently noticed that even female teachers don’t like going to the school. When we asked for the reason, we realize that it was due to the lack of toilet facility in the school. We then mobilised, tasked ourselves and built two blocks of four toilets.”
The chairman further explained that intervention of the government is highly needed in the area of health and education. “So many pregnant women are going through hell due to the lack of health facility. They have to travel to the state specialist hospital for health services. The facility that is serving as maternity in Tumfure is a three-room building that was donated by a corps member as his community development service long ago,” Umar stated.
Daily Sun observed that both officials and patients at the maternity share the same space as the office and consulting room. The head of the facility, Mrs Habiba Auta, disclosed that they were overwhelmed by the number of women and other patients coming for service.
“As you can see, we cannot do more than referring them to other facilities in the town. Our services are only limited to ante-natal and post-natal care. We also take delivery here, but we don’t work overnight because there is no space for the that. We do register between 20 and 30 births every month and I believe if we are to have the needed space, personnel and equipment, more will be coming here,” she said.
Reacting to issues raised by the community, the Gombe State commissioner of health, Dr Habu Dahiru, confirmed that the government had noted the health challenges in the community and that they were working towards addressing them.
“It is a good idea and good initiative for people living in Tumfure, which is the western part of Gombe to raise issues regarding health facilities. However, it is the policy of this government that at least there should be one health facility in each of the wards we have in the state. There are some with more than one; some have two, some have three.
“Like in Garko ward where Tumfure is located, we have two Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities and a general hospital that is under construction, even our new college of nursing and midwife is in the works,” the commissioner told Daily Sun.
He added that even though the Tumfure community was within the catchment area of the state specialist hospital and the Federal Teaching Hospital (FTH), the government had planned to upgrade the maternity in the area to a PHC. He said: “It is in our plan since the area is expanding rapidly and we know that the place is densely populated.
“Their request and plight are noted, it is in our projection before they even come requesting. We have envisaged developing additional facilities in those places and in no distance time we will roll out new projects that we want to do and Tumfure community will have not just hospital but other facilities including access roads, water supply and schools,” Dahiru explained.