Community In Kano With Zero Social Amenities Cries Out
Tofar Leda community in Warawa Local Government Area of Kano State has suffered neglect by the state and local governments and is lacking social amenities.
Tofar Leda is one of the highest leather producing communities in Kano State, which has been a major business of the people for over 100 years.
Some of the challenges of the community are bad roads, the lack of healthcare facilities, potable water and schools.
Residents of Tofar Leda and other pressure groups in the community such as Northwest Youth Awareness Foundation, Tofar Leda Youth Development Council and others have made efforts to develop the community but the results have been minimal.
HumAngle learnt that over the years the community has not had a patent medicine outlet or hospital, no modern roads and is left with only a block of primary school building of two classrooms.
Because of the lack of adequate education opportunities, the primary school leaving certificate is the highest academic qualification that majority of children in the community possess.
Considering the lack of modern roads in Tofar Leda, the people buy sand collected during the rainy season to patch bad portions of the road to the community.
In an interview, a resident of the community, Alhaji Shuaibu Tofar Leda, said: “Our challenges are many in this our community. We have problems of bad roads, insufficient schools, lack of electricity and healthcare facilities.
“We have been encountering these problems for donkey’s years.
“Whenever we need medical attention we have to travel to Murtala Muhammad General Hospital in the metropolis or Dawakin Tofa which is so far from our community.
“We have complained to government countless times but no actions” (were taken), he said.
Shuaibu said the community once produced a local government chairman in the person of Mallam Ado Tofar Leda, who tried to address the problems.
“He did his best but not enough to wipe out our challenges,” he said.
The youth leader of Tofar Youth Development Council, Sani Adamu, said, “Our biggest challenges in this community is access to good healthcare facilities.
” In the whole of this community, we have only one block of classrooms, no teachers to teach; and education is the most important thing in life.
“We travel for as far as 30km in order to access health, the shortest journey is 10km,” Adamu said.
He said because of the absence of facilities, many had lost their lives, especially women who fall into labour at night.
“We hardly get motorists to convey us when serious medical attention is needed,” Adamu said.
Nura Madaki, the Ward leader of Tofar Leda, said, “The block we have as a school needs rehabilitation and also is not sufficient for our children, we have bad roads with no single chemist in our community”.
“We have made efforts to encourage the youth to fight for the development of this community. The youth associations had made efforts and met with various ministries towards providing facilities we lack”.
Dahiru Magaji, a resident of Tofar Leda, said “the lack of electricity, bad roads, schools and healthcare facilities has drawn our community backwards.
“Every year we spend over N100,000 contributions to patch our roads with sand, but due to yearly rainfall our efforts always end up in vain”.
“Bad roads in Tofar Leda community has affected our economy and daily business activities. Our business in this community is tailoring of leather, for export.
“Whenever we buy the raw materials for processing, motorists refuse to carry us with our goods due to bad roads,” Magaji said
He added that the cost of transportation finished products reduced the profits made after sales.
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