Seasonal Flooding: Kumbotso Community Continue to Lament Loss of Lives, Properties
Mohammed Dahiru Lawal
Residents of Gaida in Kumbotso Local Government Area of Kano State have continued to lament the unbearable condition they are seasonally faced with after downpours which leads to destructive flooding in their communities.
In August last year, Arewa Agenda reported that for over seven years, the people of Gaida Sangalawa, Gaida Charanchi, Gaida Unguwan Kwari and Gida Dubu, communities have been suffering countless loss of lives and properties after heavy downpours every rainy season.
This is because these communities host waterways that takes in large volumes of flood from the Sabon Titi (Madobi) underpass, Ja’in, Dorayi and Sharada Industrial areas, but lacks a concrete drainage system that will properly manage an over flooding of the banks, thereby causing recurring destruction for local residents.
Arewa Agenda gathered that when the Administration of former Governor Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso constructed the Sabon Titi (Madobi) underpass, water usually rises to submerging levels, making it impossible for motorists to ply the route after heavy downpours.
However, recent maintenance work by the Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje Administration solved this puzzle by channelling a drainage that leads into these communities but caused even a greater nightmare for the residents as the drainage channel was left halfway, right behind the Abacha Youth Centre.
Residents of the area are lamenting the situation bitterly. For them, counting loss and grievance is now a seasonal thing as all efforts including official communication for the government to come to their rescue have proved abortive over the years.
Saminu Lawal Danbaba, Chairman, Gaida Development Association in Gaida Sangalawa explains that the situation is making life unbearable for the residents.
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“The have is just too much, from loss of lives to lack of development in terms of even access to hospitals and mutual coexistence among neighboring communities because the water has cut us off, we can’t cross over for days so in such cases most of our sick die as a result. Nobody will understand the magnitude of what we are talking about unless they witness it themselves. We are in a dilemma, and we need serious help,” Danbaba explained.
He further revealved that several efforts by the community to get reprieve from concerned quarters have proved abortive.
On why there was no communal effort to address the lingering matter, Danbaba explains that “we are a very poor community, the biggest contribution someone here can afford is five thousand naira, and we have galvanized such effort and built something that is according to our resources, yet it doesn’t serve if the flood comes, getting something durable and better will cost millions of naira which we cannot afford at all, we need interventions.
“Just three days ago we saw someone swept off the water here, he would have died if we didn’t discover him on time, infact when we saw him, we thought he was already dead. The number of lives we loss here in situations like this is mind boggling, in cases of maternal labour or disease outbreaks like cholera, we have no choice than to watch our loved one die because nobody can dare cross, even professional swimmers won’t dare when the current is high,” he further stressed, expressing optimism that if concerned authorities will spare the time to inspect the community immediately after down pour, they would have no choice than to have mercy on their condition and intervene appropriately.
Based on checks by Arewa Agenda, the maintenance work put up by the Ganduje administration led to construction of drainage system on the flanks of Dorayi, Sharada, and the Federal Government Bypass that leads to Bayero University Kano new site from Na’ibawa which were all centralised to pass through these communities.
The water flows through Gaida Kashu to the back of Abacha Youth Centre through Gaida Sangalawa down to Unguwan Kwari, Gaida and Gida Dubu where it wreaks havoc.
