At the Wamba Emir Palace area in Nasarawa state on a Tuesday evening in March, an offensive odour emanated from a dilapidated house where Aisha Isah, a food seller served her customers some rice and porridge. The stench made many passersby spit on the side of the road in disgust. The brown doors of the building were flung open, letting the odour out to the nostrils of men waiting to collect their plates of porridge. To stave off the stench, many of them collected their portions and changed positions.
The cause of this hazardous odour was a health store located at the heart of Wamba Local Government. According to residents, health workers had stored drugs, cotton of saline drips, packs of syringes, HP laptops, and some motorcycles meant for an immunisation exercise, only for the building to be left in the wreckage for years without adequate maintenance.
“This building is almost five years old in this condition, we don’t know why,” said Bashir Tanko, a resident in Wamba.
Peering through the broken windows of the abandoned health store, this reporter saw that the building had been ruined with faeces, dead rats, and decaying containers, and it looked like a junkyard of ruins. Some unused syringes were laid bare in abundance on the cracked floors, while empty cartons of filthy saline drips were mixed with empty bottles from different corners of the rooms. Apart from the heap of trash in each room, the wall edges and the back of the building were darkened with marks of urines.
“I have been selling my food here at night since this building was in good shape. All the doors were once closed but I don’t know why they left it in bad condition,” the food vendor told this reporter.
“The health workers stored their items like laptops and other medical equipment in here. When the building started to collapse, I saw some of them coming in the night, but I don’t know what they were doing there. I can’t tell where the items were taken to,” she added.
The deteriorating condition of the health store shows a lack of maintenance and infrastructural development in the Wamba Local Government, despite constant budgetary allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) in the past four years. A windfall of funding has been allocated to the Nasarawa state government, in a joint account with the local governments to foster development in both infrastructure and other projects.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in 2021, the Federal Government released over ₦835 billion to federal, state, and local governments. The allocation for the Wamba Local Government was over N133 billion (₦133, 198,540,03) (only appeared in the 2021 budget, but was not included in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 FAAC budgets). In 2022, out of almost ₦905.53 billion, Nasarawa got over 4.4 billion.
Fast forward to 2024, the budget increased astronomically, with the federal government getting over N390.41 billion, states receiving N403.40 billion, and LGCs pocketing N293.82 billion from a total of N2.19 trillion. Nasarawa State, for instance, received N6.008 billion in 2023 and N8.118 billion in 2024.
However, a visit to the Wamba local government reveals a stark reality. Despite the huge allocations, an abandoned health store is rotting away, without help in sight.
This reporter spoke with many Wamba residents who expressed deep disappointment over the mishandling of the public health store, blaming the local authorities for their wasteful spending, despite the economic hardship in the country.
Abdullahi Usman, a Wamba resident, said local government authorities are culpable for the neglect, stressing that even he alone can turn the building into a better place if he was given the opportunity. “I could have used the place for a cooking business if they would give it out,” he bragged. “The building will make a great place for business. But the government abandoned it to decay for nothing.”
Residents told this reporter that they feared the abandoned health store is being turned into a criminal den, as it has now been perpetuated by miscreants in the area. John Johnathan, a concerned resident, warned that the location seems to be a perfect hideout for local thugs who perpetrate crimes in darkness. Already, residents said, they are experiencing a new wave of criminal infiltration in the area.
“It’s better to transform the building into a library; it can help reduce crime if managed well,” Mohammad Zakari, a concerned resident of the area, suggested when asked to advise authorities on the proper use of the place. “Many will have access to knowledge and resources because the library provides a wealth of information and learning materials, which can help youths develop their skills and interests.”
In a telephone interview with Rahila Augustine, the Director of Health in the Wamba Local Government, she disclosed that proper work would soon commence to rebuild the abandoned health store, noting that the reconstruction of the dilapidated structure is the responsibility of the head of the local council.
“It’s the chairman Mr. Bala Asiru that is handling things. I heard that they will renovate the building and will also provide facilities. They even told us to prepare that our offices will be rehabilitated soon,” she said.
Efforts to reach Mr Asiru via phone call proved abortive as at press time.
This story was funded by the Next Gen/Campus Reporter project of the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID).
