Agu Umabor is one of the autonomous communities in Eha-Alumona, Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State.
During the Nigeria Civil war, it played host to displaced persons from most of the local government areas in Enugu North Senatorial zone. The IDPs enjoyed the hospitality of the community throughout the period the war lasted.
However, Agu Umabor remains the only community in Eha-Alumona town that is yet to be connected to the national grid. It is a community in the dark. Most of the residents of the community have never seen an electric bulb.
A trip to Agu Umabor is like a journey to nowhere. A stranger would likely have the impression that he was going to an evil forest. No access road, no electricity, factors combining to make the journey dreadful.
Ordinarily, a journey to Agu Umabor from Premier Junction, Eha-Alumona is not supposed to last for more than 20 minutes. However, with the terrible nature of the road, the trip takes more than 2 hours. It is hardly accessed with vehicles. The only means of transportation has remained commercial motorcycle riders, who have so much monopolized the journey owing to the bad nature of the road. The poor rural dwellers are forced to cough out between N1000 and N1500 each time they plan to visit their relatives outside the area or go to market. This is considering that once you get to the community, you cannot go beyond it as there is hardly any other road connecting it to other communities.
Although the community is very close to Enugu capital city, there is no connecting road. Consequently, the residents must mount motorbike, drive for nearly one hour in what could be explained as a ‘merry go round’, before they can board a vehicle to Enugu. Also worrisome is the discovery that the community has never been captured in Enugu’s budget ever since the State was created. No wonder it looks like a community in another world. Little wonder the residents look forgotten, dejected and neglected.
One of the worst scenes in Agu Umabor is the manner they convey dead bodies to places of burial. Owing to lack of roads, residents turn themselves to hearse. For a journey of more than three hours, members of the community lifts the coffin on the waiting head of two volunteers. Two of the volunteers would stand erect, one in the front and the other person slightly behind. The coffin is now lifted unto their heads and they will take off accompanied by wailing women. At intervals of 30 minutes, the corpse bearers exchange with two other persons while they have some rest. Most times, stench would be oozing out from the corpse in question, which may have lasted for two or more days. This is the agony of a people with no access road, where poverty does not just stink but speaks.
The situation is the same in the area of health and educational facilities. It is quite unbelievable that a community with a population of over five thousand residents has no single hospital. As unbelievable as it may sound, there is no functional hospital in the community. A dying person has to be transported for over three hours, with motorbike serving as ambulance. In most cases, the patient dies even before getting to the hospital owing to the stress and rigours involved in traveling via the death-path called road. Only few hardly makes the journey alive to the poorly equipped private church hospital outside the community.
Their primary schools is like a goat barn, not different from most of the residential houses found in the area. This is as over 80 percent of the buildings in the community are mud houses. The teachers, who helplessly reside outside the community, rarely comes to school more than once in a week.
Time has come for governments at various levels, international development agencies to take a trip to Agu Umabor and lift the helpless residents from this ocean of poverty. Indeed, their life could be made better.
Emmanuel Uzodinma Ugwueze writes from Umabor, Eha-Alumona, Enugu State, Nigeria. 08068404116. uzodinma.prince@gmail.com
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