How COVID-19 Pandemic Worsens Plight of Poor Communities in Abuja

 

 Rural communities face the worst deprivation from the effect of the COVID 19 pandemic. Billions of Naira earmarked as COVID-19 funds to cushion the devastating effect of the pandemic were not accessed by rural communities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Research conducted by CITAD with support from Actionaid Nigeria under the Youth Digital Engagement (YDE) project shows that only an insignificant percentage of the population in the communities benefited from the COVID-19 palliatives in the FCT, Josephine Ejeh reports.

For years, Kadijah Sani survived from proceeds from sales of waterleaf which she uses to support her family until the outbreak of the novel Coronavirus which subjected her to the worst ever experience in her farming business.

 All over the world, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the livelihood of people especially the aged and young. For young persons, the pandemic led to more job losses and widened the social exclusion gap.

Young women and men occupy a central place in the development agenda of any country, yet despite their capacity to shape social and economic innovations, in Abuja, the Federal Capital City of Nigeria, they are increasingly excluded from access to livelihood enhancement programmes put in place by governments.

Amid the outbreak of the novel Corona Virus pandemic, the Nigerian government rolled out programmes to cushion the effect of the pandemic on citizens but investigation revealed that only between 1-3 per cent of the entire rural population in the communities understudied in the FCT benefitted from government COVID-19 palliatives in form of goods and services targeted at them during the very difficult times of the lockdown.

The above revelation was part of findings from research conducted on communities in the FCT under the Youth Digital Engagement project to unravel how the COVID-19 pandemic affected young persons in the territory.

Rural communities in the FCT face the worst deprivation from the effect of the COVID 19 pandemic.

The research was conducted to form a useful basis on how the welfare of the poor and neglected communities can be improved using digital engagement means.

The Youth Digital Engagement (YDE) project is a DANIDA funded project implemented by Actionaid Nigeria in collaboration with partners like the Centre for Information Technology and Development(CITAD) at the subnational level. Actionaid and CITAD are collectively working to achieve good governance, social justice, equality, and to eradicate poverty for sustainable development.

The YDE project seeks to leverage the use of the digital tool to enable young people to take charge of leading their communities. It also aims at enhancing public accountability of public officials as the capacity of youths to hold duty bearers to account would be enhanced.

Data were collected from Akwa Ibom, Gombe States, and Abuja for the YDE project to understand how the communities were affected and in what aspects, who provide insight into how to enhance the capacity of the young persons to be involved in the design and implementation of government livelihood enhancement programs.

However, this special report focuses on the outcome of the findings in the FCT.

It becomes very vital to address the factors hindering young people's access to programs aimed at empowering young people to increase their inclusion in civil space and ability to cope with the challenges of environment and climate change since the digital space is one of the sure places today's youths are found.

 Using Focused Group Discussion and random sampling technique, data were collected from December 2020 to February 2021 from five communities in the FCT: Tungan Ashere; Gofidna; Kilankwa; Leleyi Gwari, and Leleyi Basa.

 The choice of these communities was based on pre-survey stakeholder engagement with stakeholder meetings between the YDE team and staff of the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).

 Based on the population of the communities, a total of 2200 respondents were identified as the right sample size. At the end of the data collection period on the 18th of February 2021, however, a total of 2,088 respondents were collected by the community champions.

The data was collected by Community Champions and Action Aid Activistas in partnership with CITAD (Centre for Information Technology and Development) which served as state coordinators and State champions while the analysis was done by the YDE In-country Researcher (Nigeria) Terfa W. Abraham (Ph.D. Economics), for the YDE project.

When many people with disabilities loiter the streets begging for alms, Mohammed Adamu, a mechanic, and Vulcanizer stuck to his business because he does not want to be a burden to anybody. However, his business was grounded to a half following the pandemic.

 Report from the research made available to Humanity Watch revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic exposed young persons and their families in the communities to hunger, poverty, insecurity, and worsened access to health situations.

The community dwellers who are predominantly farmers were further exposed to the challenges of climate change as storage of farm harvest could not last due to market closures and poor patronage of the government to patronize the harvest of farmers.

Khadijah Sani, a vegetable farmer in Tungan-Ashere was one of such.

For years, she survived from proceeds from sales of waterleaf which she uses to support her family until the outbreak of the Coronavirus which subjected her to the worst ever experience in her farming business.

During the lockdown, there was an abundance of fresh waterleaf on her farm and though the demand for vegetable is high, there was no way to get the vegetable to the market due to lockdown order imposed by the Federal Government to contain the spread of the novel Coronavirus disease. Khadijah was overwhelmed with sadness as she watched insects feast on her vegetable and they rot away.

"Waterleaf business is my only source of income through which I feed my family and pay my children's school fees and meet other needs but because of the lock-down, I was not able to go to the farm to harvest and sell so they all got spoilt," she told the team of researchers in a video obtained by Humanity Watch.

Months after the lockdown was eased, Kadijat is yet to recover from the hardship brought about by the pandemic and the effect of climate change. She has yet to contend with the lack of rainfall which has slowed down her yield.

Khadijah who is also into dry season farming, says she resorted to irrigation farming to be able to farm enough vegetables to raise money to feed her children. Occasionally, she is forced to walk many miles to the stream in search of water to water her vegetable.

She is not alone in this, other irrigation farmers have suffered similar ordeals while they wait patiently for their harvest, but against their expectations, they were later counting losses.

 "Walking a long distance to fetch basins of water to wet the farm makes farming very difficult. I need assistance. If the government can assist us with tools for irrigation farming, like pumping machines to draw water from the stream into our farms, it will ease the stress we are going through," she says.

 Though Mohammed Adamu and Kabiru Adamu are miles apart, they both suffered a similar fate as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

 When many people with disabilities loiter the streets begging for alms, Mohammed, a mechanic, and Vulcanizer in Kilankwa, Kwali Area Council stuck to his business because he does not want to be a burden to anybody. However, his business was grounded to a half following the pandemic as there was no patronage. Mohammed lost some of his tools to rusting after months of no job.

 Like Kadijat and others, he is still battling to find his foot back in the business months after the lockdown was relaxed.

With the current situation, Sani Yakubu, the village chief of Tungan-Ashere community pleaded with AMAC and the FCTA to assist women, youth, and old people whose means of livelihood were badly affected by the COVID 19 pandemic in the community.

 "I was making more money before the outbreak of Coronavirus in the country. But the money I am making now is small compared to when there was no Coronavirus," he said.

 He believes that if the government subsidizes the prices of things in the market and provides shops for small business owners, provide fertilizer, herbicide, and insecticide to support farmers, it will cushion the effect of the pandemic on people.

 Kabiru, an electrician in the Gofidna community in AMAC shares a similar experience with Mohammed. His business was grounded to a halt due to the COVID 19 pandemic and has yet to pick up several months after the lockdown.

"Most of the people who had my contacts stop calling me. A few others who did, could not pay anything tangible for the service I rendered," he said while recanting his experience during the lockdown.

 The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the global economy further exposed the poor communities to hardship so people had serious financial challenges which made it difficult for business owners like Kabiru to get patronize him. He ended up having nothing throughout the period.

 For the SSS 3 school dropout who pulled out of school because his parents had no money to register him for the senior secondary school certificate examination, the situation has still not changed.

 Kabiru's dream of returning back to school appears bleak because the COVID 19 pandemic has blocked the chance of his survival so presently, he can no longer get the little opportunities that were coming in before the pandemic.

 "Getting to 2 years now, the highest money I have earned is between N500 to N1000. I was planning to register for WAEC this year but that is not possible again because I don't have anything," he said with a sad tune.

 At Gofidna community where Kabiru lives, there has been no electricity for 50 years. The absence of electricity is not helping the situation.

Kabiru who learned the vocation with high hope that the community will be electrified and he will have a lot of jobs coming in is despondent that his expectations have not been met many years on.

Despite the availability of educational facilities for basic primary education in the communities,  research indicates that out-of-school cases remain high in these communities. 3 out of 5 girls are out of school, while 2 out of 5 boys are out of school.

With the current situation, Sani Yakubu, the village chief of Tungan-Ashere community pleaded with AMAC and the FCTA to assist women, youth, and old people whose means of livelihood were badly affected by the COVID 19 pandemic in the community.

 Corroborating other villagers he said, many farmers in the community like him who are into dry season farming suffered a lot of losses as a result of the lockdown.

 "The women cooperative group in our community were benefiting from the government before but since two years ago as COVID 19 occurred, they have not received any assistance from the government," Yakubu said.

 Other challenges facing the community of over 3000 population are lack of good road, absence of electricity and hospital.

 According to the YDE FCT Fact Sheet on FG 2020 COVID 19 fund for FCT made available to Humanity Watch, no less than N500 billion was earmarked as the Federal Government COVID-19 intervention fund for programmes the FCT.

 Findings, as contained in the Fact Sheet, showed that while the projects were spread across various aspects of social intervention, job creation, and building a resilient health sector, the absence of a budget breaks down as provided by the Federal Ministry of Finance makes it difficult to track what projects have been carried out in the FCT.

 While the budget breakdown was provided for road maintenance, important details on budgeting allocation for projects meant to cushion the effect of the pandemic on the people were conspicuously not available, a development Actionaid Nigeria described as rather "ridiculous."

What is clear, however, is that the sum of N1.2 billion was domiciled with

FERMA(Federal Road Maintenance Agency)for the general maintenance of Abuja-Keffi road and reinstatement of failed pavement within the FCT, the fact sheet stated.

 "We find it strange that details were published for roads that will be maintained or fixed while projects bothering directly on minimizing the effect of covid-19 on the welfare of citizens was not provided."

 "Knowing the projects that were implemented in the FCT and at state Specific level will allow for better tracking of COVId-19 intervention funds,"Actionaid Nigeria stated in the Fact Sheet.

 Details of the N9.589 breakdown of the billion for post-covid-19 Job creation scheme for youth and women could not be obtained at the geopolitical zone and specifically for the FCT, N32.457 billion was set aside from Social Intervention Programme.

 The organization noted that the Senate approved N199.2billion as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) budget for 2020 fiscal year."The budget was revised downward by 28.45%.

 According to the YDE research, more than half of the villagers complained of the severe impact of the COVID 19 pandemic on their means of livelihood and their households.

Report from the research stated that 57.41 per cent of the respondents interviewed (about 6 out of 10) agreed that COVID-19 had a severe impact on living conditions in their communities.

Some of the ways COVID-19 affected the communities include hunger, poverty, economic recession, insecurity, and health challenges due to poor access to health care services.

Though 13 per cent of the respondents surveyed in the communities were Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), 91.7 per cent of them were young persons of which seven out of ten said that their welfare was severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Findings from the YDE research also showed that the communities had very limited access to government programs such as N-Power and CCT that serve as the government's primary vehicle for delivering social investment programs to those affected by the pandemic with a very poor percentage of beneficiaries in the communities.

"Whereas 31.9 per cent of the respondent agree that they were aware of the N-Power program, only 1.7 per cent had benefited from it," the report indicated.

Similarly, the awareness of the CCT program was 25.6 per cent compared to the proportion of 3.1 per cent of persons who had benefited from the programme.

Access to health care, education, and community policing help to build resilience against health shocks, illiteracy and insecurity but evidence from the data collected for FCT show that the "COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of health care systems, worsened targeted outcomes for school enrolment and attainment, and increased cases of gender and domestic violence."

Of the five communities surveyed, only 33.6 percent of the respondents agreed that there is a presence of a primary health care center within reach. Yet, 53.5 per cent of the respondent noted that these facilities are not easily accessible by pregnant and nursing mothers.

Yusuf Shuaibu a resident of Leleyi Gwari community in Kwali Area Council said the only health centre available in the community was shut down during the outbreak of COVID 19.

"Children and women had no access to health facilities. People had no access to drugs. They had to travel a long distance to a neighbouring town which is about an hour before they could access medical care.

"Pregnant women also faced the same issue. Some even lost their pregnancies in the process due to the bad state of the road linking the town and our community when they were being rushed to the hospital during an emergency to the nearest hospital in Baku which takes up to an hour."

As reflected earlier in the account of some of the respondents echoed earlier, most communities within the FCT have no access to electricity supply. According to the report, "Nearly all the respondents (98.9%) agreed that there was no electricity supply in the communities."

 Access to clean and potable water is equally a challenge as 55.8 per cent of the population were reported to have agreed that they had no access to clean and potable water in the communities.

 Cases of domestic violence were reported to have soared as the research showed there is a high proportion of women and girls who are abused in the communities in the FCT during the heat of the pandemic.

 When asked if there have ever been abused verbally, asexually or physically, 37.7 per cent said Yes.

 The near absence of police presence in the communities was associated with high cases of domestic and gender-based violence in the FCT.

Asked if there is police in the community, 97.6 per cent of those interviewed answered no.

 But "Strengthening community-based systems are vital for resolving and halting cases of domestic and gender-based violence. Enhancing the access to government empowerment programs and embarking on stakeholder holder engagement that addresses the socio-cultural drivers of gender-based violence would help to expand opportunities for Male and Females alike."

The challenge of land grab is also prominent in communities within the FCT. Most dwellers are farmers or engaged in the trading of agricultural harvest/ farm produce. Continuous loss of land for other forms of economic activities without addressing the land need of community dwellers as observed in the report will therefore affect their livelihood.

 Whereas the national approach is to engage stakeholders at the federal level on how to tackle this challenge using sustainable means, the engagement at the level of the FCT is to raise awareness and put out advocacy campaigns that involve the locals in the governance process.

 In Leleyi Gwari community residents said the lockdown provided an opportunity for land grabbers to grab as many lands as they could from villagers.

"During the COVID 19 outbreak, people were using the lockdown as a privilege to grab our lands. They will come with papers and claim that the area council or the government sold our lands to them before the lockdown and no office was open for us to lay our complaints and confirm whether the area council actually allocated the lands to them or not. They will start erecting structures and there was nothing we could do about it."

"We need the government to help us especially in this area of land grabbing. Even if the government is selling the land, at least they need to give us something to compensate for the land they are taking from us," said Yusuf.

Presently, residents are struggling to feed or pay their bills as many of them lost their farmland to land grabbers during the lockdown.

"Due to the land grabbing, we don't have any place to farm again. We have lost our means of livelihood because we no longer have farmland to farm which is the only source of income through which our parents were paying our school fees. We can no longer go to school because our parents can no longer pay our school fees," said Aisha Sarki-Mohammed.

 When asked to identify the aspect of development needs that will enable their communities to build resilience and improve their livelihood, many respondents identified employment and Gender Responsive Public Service as the priority area.

Advocacy and programme implementation to help support these communities, however, would require paying attention to how these areas of need is influenced by age, gender, and the needs of persons with disabilities.

According to the research, the priority area for females in the understudied communities is gender-responsive public service and employment, while for the male, it is employment creation and inclusion in the civic space.

For PWDs who formed 13 per cent of the respondents, the finding showed their most preferred needs was also employment, therefore, "Enhancing the access to government empowerment programs for PWDs in a manner that is consistent with gender needs, expand access to job creation opportunities for PWDs."

Stakeholder engagement with PWDs organized as associations will also provide a better platform for their voices. Through digital means, their inclusion in the design and implementation of government programs will also be important," it was further observed.

 The report noted the need for capacity building to enhance the digital literacy of persons in FCT communities as findings showed that only 3 in 10 persons agreed that they could operate a computer.

 In view of the outcome of the research, the report recommended that based on findings which showed that 7 out of 10 young people (especially females) were exposed to verbal, sexual, and physical abuse amidst the pandemic, empowering young persons with access to digital tools will enable them to engage stakeholders; as reporting these cases in remote communities was mostly difficult due to the absence of an effective community policing system.

 According to findings, 9 out of 10 PWDs do not have access to government programmes. the report, therefore, advocated for the inclusion of PWDs in the decision-making space will expand their involvement in the design and implementation of government empowerment programs using digital means.

Furthermore, it recommended stakeholder engagement with PWDs organized as associations will also provide a better platform for their voices. Through digital means, their inclusion in the design and implementation of government programmes will also be important.

"There is a higher potential in the FCT to enhance access to government programmes by young people using digital means. Public awareness and engagement campaigns with stakeholders using digital means will therefore provide wider access to livelihood enhancing programmes by young persons," the also report noted.

 Despite the availability of educational facilities for basic primary education in the communities, the research indicated that out-of-school cases remain high in these communities. 3 out of 5 girls are out of school, while 2 out of 5 boys are out of school.

 "To enhance the attainment of school enrolment and completion in line with the SDGs, implementing safe school initiatives and expanding the space for e-learning, would be relevant," it was further recommended.

 Whereas 96.5 per cent of the respondents have access to a mobile phone, only 6.7 per cent had access to government programmes during the COVID-19 lockdown period. In view of the above finding, the report recommended capacity building to enhance the digital literacy of persons in FCT communities as only 3 in 10 persons agreed that they could operate a computer.

Providing an insight earlier into the YDE project, CITAD FCT Coordination for YDE, Mubarak Ekute told Humanity Watch that the tracking of the COVID-19 budget in the FCT aimed to find out how the Federal Government spent the money in FCT.

 In the same vein, he said the research conducted on the impact of COVID 19 on the communities as part of activities embarked on to drive home the overall objectives of the YDE project aimed among others to foster a people-driven advocacy.

 "What we set out to achieve is to find out how these communities benefitted from the funds. We also want to know these so that we can advise the FCT on how best and in what areas they can spend the money for the people. We realized that for us to really know the impact of COVID-19 on these communities we needed to conduct research," he said during an interview.

 "The YDE is people-driven advocacy where the community Champions were trained to engage their leaders and stakeholders. We are building their capacity to be playing their part in advocacy while we are playing ours," he said.

 Ekute said a copy of the report from the research has been submitted to the AMAC chairman to avail him a first-hand report of what the problem of the people are, adding, the YDE team will also be visiting Kwali to do the same.

 As part of the digital advocacy strategy, messages drafted from the content collated from the communities will be displayed at strategic locations in the FCT in form of artistic painting for people to see.

 "We will invite social media influencers who will be covering the artistic creation live on Facebook so that people can be seeing it. Our youths Community champions and Actionaid activistas will be doing that too."

 "We have already trained the community people on how to use the social media so there will be the sustainability of the project so that after the project they will be the ones to be engaging the government now," he added.

The YDE team had earlier paid a courtesy visit to AMAC Chairman, Abdullahi Candido on 16th December as part of the activities under the project.

The courtesy visit was attended by officials of Actionaid Nigeria, CITAD, the AMAC chairman, and other officials of the council.

As part of the project indicator, the visit to the AMAC Chairman was to brief the council on the progress of the project.

During the visit the National Coordinator for the YDE project, Paullette Eigbedion introduced the project to the chairman and his team while, Joseph Augustine, the state Lead for FCT gave a rundown of what has been done so far, requesting the council to support the project by making available secondary data required, in the company of other team members such as Josephine Adokwu, Sanusi Abubakar(CITAD) and Yahaya Idris.

 The AMAC Chairman had appreciated ActionAid for carrying the council along in her plans and pledged to support the FCT team in any way necessary.

Meanwhile, the Special Adviser on ICT matters to the AMAC chairman, suggested that for subsequent time, the council should be carried along in the inception planning of the project and selection of communities of intervention.

 After the research, contents were collected from the communities to enable people to see the problems of the communities from their own perspective.

 The YDE Coordinator for FCT said the content collected would be used for media engagement.

Advocacy messages targeted at addressing the challenges the people are facing have also been developed from the contents and Video contents were edited and uploaded on the website of Actionaid, CITAD and other implementing partners for proper engagement with organizations, government, and stakeholders.

Ekute said the youths will ensure that the messages reach the relevant agencies and authorities responsible for meeting the demands of the people by sharing the contents widely on all social media platforms.

Given the powerful effect of pictures and its impact in invoking emotions and better telling a story, the YDE team also engaged the use of visual arts as part of strategies to draw the attention of government at all levels, non-governmental organisations and other well-meaning Nigerians to the plight of the neglected communities in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria.

Speaking at an event tagged: ‘Artistic Creation,’ held on Saturday, May 22, 2021, which was part of the activities executed under the YDE project, in Abuja, the FCT State Coordinator for the Youth Digital Engagement project said the Artistic creation is all about digital engagement using digital tools to engage duty bearers to ensure that they work for the people who voted them into the respective offices they hold.

At the event, youths from the organisations engaged in painting works which they used to express the problems facing communities in the FCT which were accompanied with messages such as: “Give social development programs priority in budget planning and implementation for job creation,”  “in rural communities in FCT, at least 9 out of every 10 youth has not benefited from any government intervention program: Make government intervention programs accessible.”

On the choice of the form of art to drive home their advocacy messages, Ekute explained that the organisation believe in the powerful effect of the pictures which can evoke emotions.

“Even someone who is not educated can decipher the message being passed across. Seeing from the artistic presentation, he or she will be able to understand that this is the problem the communities are passing through. So, we think this artistic creation is a louder way of showing the public the problems of these communities,” he explained.

The coordinator said the organisation had held radio programmes to drive out the points or messages, adding, “We are going to do a social media engagement to share these contents with the public on Twitter, Facebook and other media like TV, online media and newspaper.”

“We’ve helped them identify those problems so, we want to make sure that the message reaches any person responsible for ensuring these people live a normal life by acting on the information we shared,” he said as he called on government, other civil society organisations and well-meaning Nigerians to come to the aid of the suffering communities.

Also speaking, the FCT  Coordinator of Activista, a global youth network of Actionaid, Idris Yahaya said with the help of an economist, data gathered from the communities which are being used to create messages for the rest of the activities the organisation is carrying out carryout of which the artistic creation was one, were analyzed.

“We have about 25 messages already that we want to push out so, we decided to pick two for this artistic creation, using images to explain, knowing fully well that a single image creates more than a thousand words in our minds when we look at this.

“Our goal is to push them out on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and ask our members to share wide to reach a different audience so that it can reach the appropriate authorities that can affect these change of the problem they are facing,” he said.

He emphasized that findings from the research conducted in the communities showed that the major problem confronting the understudied communities are unemployment and hope that subsequently, the social intervention programme will focus more on rural communities instead of the urban communities which have more opportunities than those in the rural communities.

“If the government is doing a social intervention programme and one-out of 10 which means 10 per cent of young persons and girls in the communities get this, that means it is not reaching the right people and secondly, their means of livelihood which is either farming, petty trading or handwork was badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic so,  if we can push these materials to the public and it reaches the government, NGOs and other humanitarians and they see them and go to the communities to help, we would have achieved our aim,” Yahaya said.

As part of the digital advocacy strategy, messages drafted from the content collated from the communities will also be displayed at strategic locations in the FCT in form of artistic painting for people to see.

"We will invite social media influencers who will be covering the artistic creation live on Facebook so that people can be seeing it. Our youths Community champions and Actionaid activistas will be doing that too."

"We have already trained the community people on how to use the social media so there will be the sustainability of the project so that after the project they will be the ones to be engaging the government now," the FCT Coordinator for YDE project said.

Aside from these, there was also a live radio engagement programme during which the YDE team spoke on the issues facing the communities and the effect of COVID on the Nigerian citizenry as well as how the COVID-19 funds were spent and a football match brought together youths from all the communities to foster togetherness and unity of purpose.