Life Needs Undertakes Baseline Survey of Informal Settlements

The baseline survey of informal settlements in Enugu metropolis undertaken by Life Needs and Empowerment Initiative has revealed that these settlements are in deplorable conditions and many of the residents groaning in poverty. The settlements are neglected as they have hardly benefitted from the human development and infrastructural provision initiatives undertaken by the government over the years in the state.

During the survey, we administered a questionnaire which among other things sought to collate information on the new projects provided in these settlements and the residents elected or appointed into political offices since the return to democracy in 1999. We also sought to take an inventory of the residents who have benefitted from the several poverty alleviation initiatives that the government have been floating.

Our findings reveal a worrisome pattern of neglect and marginalization even as many of these settlements are located right in the heart of the metropolis and not tucked away in some remote and inaccessible part of the city.

In Camp 1, Iva Valley, what could pass for a project brought to the community since 1999 is an abandoned rest room designed to have 21 toilets started by a serving senator and located near the residence of the leader of the community. The soak away pits were dug, the block work, roofing done and doors and windows fixed. Till date, the WCs have not been fixed and to worsen matters, the doors and windows have been vandalized.

In Ogwuagor community in the Abakpa axis of the metropolis, the residents taxed themselves, bought and installed a transformer to improve the electricity supply to their area. But the transformer has been lying idle, not put to any use now because they cannot afford to pay the amount the electricity distribution company is demanding as a condition for firing it. Assisting them to put the

transformer to use would have been the only social service rendered by the government to the people in the community since the transition to democracy in 1999, the residents said.

In Agu- Owa in Trans Ekulu, the Women Coordinator mobilized the women there twice and went online to register for the stipend promised by government under the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme to very poor households to alleviate their poverty. They have not as much as received an acknowledgement of their registration and the portal on which they registered has since been taken down.

What could pass for good news from these settlements came from Camp 2 in Iva Valley where, with the assistance of Rev. Sisters of the Christian Services Society of the Catholic Church, government brought a truck load of cassava stems to the settlement and distributed to farmers, alongside herbicides and liquid fertilizer. About 40 people were beneficiaries of this gesture.

Our team also harvested another “good” news in Ugbo-odogwu, another informal settlement in Trans Ekulu where the Councillor representing Ward 13 in the Enugu East Local Government Council said 70 bags of 25 kilogramme rice and 40 bags of 25 kilogramme maize were brought to the Ward and shared, with about 80 residents in the units he supervised going home with at least a paint bucket of rice.

Overall, residents of these settlements are still yearning for the “dividends of democracy” because the measures so far taken have not filtered down to a significant portion of their population.