In the heart of Gwagwalada, the Kaida Sabo community had long suffered from a non-existent Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) for over 5 decades. This community with over 12,000 residents have been denied basic healthcare, forcing them to travel long distances for treatment or endure preventable suffering. The elderly, pregnant women, and children bore the brunt, their pleas for help echoing unanswered through the corridors of neglect.
They remained in this despair until the then Area Council Chairman approached in 2011 to give them a health facility. This news was received with overwhelming gladness and dancing, giving the belief that their long term suffering would be ending soon, little did they know that such was a promise to be abandoned along the line.
The abandoned Kaida Sabo PHC
In 2021, TrackaNG, the service delivery and citizen’s engagement arm of BudgIT, stepped in. Our initial visit to Kaida Sabo revealed a grim reality: a PHC abandoned by authorities, despite its critical role in the community. Determined to spark change, we documented the situation, a decaying structure with blown off roofs devoid of windows and doors and testimonies from frustrated residents like Kabiru Yusuf Pada, who had once lost a friend’s wife.
In his message to Tracka, the community leader, Comrade Kabiru Yusuf Pada said, “My friend lost his wife in 2015 due to the lack of a health facility in the community. After the chairman came and told us that they have given us a hospital, we were happy and thought our health challenges would be over, not knowing that it was going to get worse. He left that day and the week after, two staff sent from the area council were posted to our community without any existing infrastructure. These people met the chief and were warmly welcomed, but because they don’t have anywhere to stay, they left us in our ugly situation, where we have lost countless of our brothers and sisters.”
As a follow up to our initial meeting in 2021, we organized another one with the community in February 2024, bringing together the community, and the health workers who were now operating from the community leader’s apartment. The meeting’s atmosphere buzzed with frustration but also hope as residents voiced their struggles—stories of lost lives, delayed care, and a community trapped by inaction.
At the meeting, the community was also encouraged and guided to take the bold step of writing their representatives on the needs at the centre and this they did to FCT CSDP with their letter head.
The letter submitted to FCT-CSDP
We did not stop there, we reported the case on our social media platforms and also drafted follow up letters sent to all relevant stakeholders: the FCT Minister (Mr Nyesom Wike), FCT Senator (Senator Ireti Kingibe), the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Ministry of Health and FCT CSDP. The letter outlined the dire state of the PHC, the community’s plight, and a clear demand for completion and total overhauling. It was a call to action, backed by data and the collective voice of Kaida Sabo.
The acknowledged copy of the letter sent to the FCTA minister
By September 2024, the advocacy bore fruit. The FCT CSDP, spurred by the townhall meetings and letters, renovated the PHC. The once lifeless carcass of a building is now resembling a place of healing. Residents watched in awe as their persistence, channeled through Tracka’s efforts, transformed despair into progress.
Aisha, one of the community residents expressed excitement as she can now access the health centre conveniently with her entire family. And just like Aisha, the entire community is grateful to Tracka for providing guidance and facilitating the advocacy for this befitting PHC to be delivered to them.
Story by Osiyemi Joshua and Garba Abdullahi
