By Chimezie Anaso
The people of Enugwuabo-Ufuma Community in Orumba North Local Government Area of Anambra faces a number of development challenges like bad road, education and health, and have taken it on themselves to rectify for their benefit instead of waiting on government.
A largely agrarian community, Enugwuabo community shares boundaries with Inyi and Akpugoeze both in Enugu State with the Mmam and Ozhi Rivers serving as natural boundaries between them.
The people said they felt forgotten with no sense of inclusion, adding that this may be attributed to their location in the border side of the State, though they are one of the major gateways into Anambra from Enugu State.
Mr Willie Okafor, the President General of Enugwuabo said the community lacked basic infrastructure and social amenities such as access road, electricity, functional healthcare and school infrastructure.
Okafor said to alleviate these situations, the community leadership, under the aegis of Enugwuabo Oganiru Union, resorted to mobilising resources from indigenes both at home and in the diaspora.
According to him, the access road that stretches from Ufuma junction to Mmam river, is about 9.5km and when constructed will connect it to the Enugu State-end which is in good shape.
The President General said the road would open up the economy by boosting agriculture and commercial activities of the area as people from Achi, Oji, Inyi and Udi all in Enugu pass through it to markets across Anambra.
“Enugwuabo is completely cut off from the rest of the world. That is why immediately after I became the President General on Jan. 5, we commenced an effort to make our major access road motorable to enable people to come into the community any time of the year.
“We are here because it is the dry season, but during the rains, our children march on stagnant water and mud with their sandals and uniforms messed up. Of course, they do not have an alternative, they must go to school.
“We are an agrarian community and serve as food basket of the state because of high fertility of our soil but we have a big problem with evacuating our produce to markets.
“Nobody comes into Enugwuabo through Inyi or through Ufuma junction. Instead they bypass the community and go all the way to Akpugoeze in Enugu State and connect the junction to Awka.
“We set a target of N3 million to do palliative work on our road but we realised about N8 million from our people because they are ready to see that this road is in good shape,” he said.
On education, Okafor said Enugwuabo was at the verge of losing the only community secondary school to infrastructure decay and erosion and total neglect by the state government responsible for it.
He said that as recently as three years ago, the administrative, laboratory and some classroom blocks of the Community Secondary School were almost lost to decay.
The president general said through community effort, the infrastructure in the school got a facelift with the renovation of the one-storey administrative block and the science laboratory block.
He said that Dr Raymond Obieri, an illustrious son of the community, facilitated the renovation of the administrative block by Fidelity Bank Plc at the cost of N25 million while the indigenes of the town in diaspora fixed the laboratory block at the cost of over N20 million.
“The laboratory block we handed over is empty, we rely on the State government to see that the students here have the basic laboratory equipment to function effectively,” he said.
He said that the Enugwuabo community is also taking steps to close the healthcare gap in their community through an annual medical outreach and construction of a primary health centre while waiting for government to cover for the other basic facilities.
Okafor said they have also raised money for the construction of a health centre and that the foundation of the project has been laid.
He said the projection was that by the end of January, the ultra-modern health centre would have been completed and inaugurated.
“The Enugwuabo Oganiru Union has been running an annual healthcare fair where we bring medicines, eye glasses and medical support from the USA and Canada to administer to our people between Jan. 2 and Jan. 3.
“We have been running this health fair consistently since 2011 and it is no longer for Enugwuabo people alone, people from neighbouring villages in Ufuma and communities in Enugu State also come for free and quality healthcare.
“There is a limit to what we can do as a community because the work is huge. So, we are begging the Anambra government to meet us where we are and take these projects up from there,” he said.(NAN)(www.nannewsng)
**If used, credit the writer and the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
