Gara is located on the cliff of the Plateau river that flows via Kano and Jigawa states. Over 4,000 residents of Gara are predominantly farmers and fishermen residing in the community. At the moment, they are desperate to secure a hinterland location to build a new town after flood washed over 240 houses in the community this year.
Families in the ancient community were not only separated as a result of the flood, they are currently displaced living miserable and hungry despite boosting of owning one of the most fertile farmlands in Zaki local government area of Bauchi State.
Amidst the flooding, all farmlands in Gara community were submerged, hence, food and cash crops ready for harvest at the end of the year were washed away the remnants decayed after the most devastating flood in over 50 years wreaked havoc on the community barely a month away to harvest period.
While residents grapple to meet up with the herculean task of adapting to the multi-dimensional setbacks which the ‘climate change-induced flood’ that befell them comes with, the children sleep under unhabitable tents and mosques while their parents spend nights under a thatch-made shed.
LEADERSHIP Weekend learnt that the primary and junior secondary school that has been providing basic education for students of Gara community over the years has no trace. In addition, the only dispensary serving the community was also lost to the flood completely.
The Village Head of Gara, Malam Ali Bulama Gara while speaking exclusively with LEADERSHIP Weekend lamented the deplorable living condition of the people.
He said, “The sick persons are now receiving healthcare services for minor illnesses in a makeshift tent made from zinc. We are indeed in trying times.”
After the flood, he said 10 members of the community mostly children died from treatable, preventable, and curable diseases. He added that their parents also searched for cures elsewhere as the local hospital is incapacitated and could not save them from dying.
“All the deaths recorded after the flood incident are a result of complications beyond the capacity of our dispensary. Children died oftentimes by the river bank here just before they were crossed,” the Village Head of Gara explained.
He recalled that residents who previously reside close to the bank of river Gara at the end of every rainy season when surface runoff water dredge the cliff of the river relocate northward of the community every year.
He, however, it became apparent to them that the areas previously considered to be safe zones are no longer safe.
At the moment, he said more than half of the victims could not afford to rebuild their homes out of fear of the unknown next year.
Hussaini Ya’u Gara told LEADERSHIP Weekend that “most of the people that lost their houses in previous floods incidents in Gara become despondent at ever living there with their families again.”
Pointing to a square shape that appears to be rooms inhabited by victims of the flood who lost their houses, he said “we make a room-like structure with stalks of corn where we sleep inside with our family pending when the government will give us land to resettle.”
He explained that Gara residents raising cattle took them away to safe locations but maintained that they either bought grass to feed them or engaged someone to look after the cattle.
“Gara is no longer habitable to us. We have never seen this kind of flood before. Not even our great-grandparents.
“Our children could not go to school while our children continue to die from illness after the flood destroyed our school and hospital. Life has become meaningless here despite the connection and attachment we share. We have lost everything to the flood.
“Since the flood that befell us, we have not received any form of succour from either state or federal governments. Gara and its residents were abandoned to toil in misery,” he said.
LEADERSHIP Weekend learned that leaders from Gara made case for relocation of the community to a safe area before the Emir of Katagum, Alhaji Umar Farouk II severally but are yet to be allocated land to establish a new community after falling out of love with their formerly ancestral settlement.
Gara residents are not bent that the government must build them houses. “What we want is to get a land where we can settle and call our village once again,” the Village of Head of Gara emphasised.
Behind the scene, traditional rulers are hesitant to make concessions about where people, if resettled, will be identified with.
A resident of Sakwa, Salisu Hashim said presently, Gara is under the Sakwa dynasty but it happened that the new location they asked for is under Sakwa District while the current location of the community is under Katagum District.
He said this imbroglio between neighbouring traditional rulers forms the greatest stumbling block preventing the final relocation of the community.
“People of the community only ask for land to rebuild their house to enable them to resettle with their families who are now squatting with families and friends.
“Because of the magnitude of the flood that wreaked havoc on the community this year, I don’t think that anybody who narrowly escaped will want life there again,” he said.
When contacted for comment, the permanent secretary Bauchi State Ministry of Housing and Environment declined to comment on plans to relocate the Gara community to a flood-free area.
However, the director of Operations Bauchi State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Dr Abubakar Umar said the affected community refused to be relocated to a safer place more than a decade ago when SEMA first recommended their relocation.
Umar said residents of the community initially firmly stick to the idea that flooding brings good tidings and prospects for fishing and farming.
“The relocation of Gara from Katagum District to a location in Sakwa District lies with the Bauchi State Boundary Adjustment Committee under deputy governor Baba Tela.
“On the issue of destroyed school and hospital, SEMA presented the case of the same Gara community to SUBEB and Primary Health Care Development Agency for consideration because SEMA does not have budgetary provisions for such works,” he said.
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