Eshawa Community: The Face of Neglect

With over 262,000 people according to the 2006 population census, many of whom have made their mark in all fields of human endevour, with 10 large political wards, over 13 clans and 16 sub-clans, over 50 towns and communities, abundant human and natural resources, a rich and diverse cultural heritage and history, a very hard working and hospitable people, headquartered in the ancient town of Igarra, analyst say Akoko-Edo LGA has all it takes to be a model LGA not just in Edo State, but Nigeria as well.

 However, reports coming to light from majority of the communities in the LGA suggests that since the advent of civil rule in Nigeria in 1999, the good life expected as a standard in places so blessed like this area, has continually evaded majority of the people of the LGA.

 In this article, our editor Albert Afeso Akanbi, after a visit, examines the situation in Eshawa community and ask if the reality in the community as is the case in many communities around  the LGA, will feature in discussions in electioneering campaigns in the coming elections.

On a journey through the recently upgraded Ibillo-Igarra expressway (Kogi State born Natasha Apkoti, a one time governorship aspirant is credited to have upgraded sections of the one time impassable road from Igarra/Ibillo/Mangogo to Okene axis of the federal road)  in Akoko-Edo LGA of Edo State, Nigeria, one would need to be thoroughly familiar with the terrain to know that there is a sleepy, quite, and a very lush community in the backwaters of the area, sandwiched between Ugboshi-Ele and Aiyegunle communities, called Eshawa.

Yet there it is, small, lonely, quite, and exuding a certain kind of regrettable bluster in the air around it, a palpable sadness that even a first time visitor would immediately notice in the faces of her residents. And Eshawa continues to maintains this sadness, something that is not only so real, but is also so thick one could literally slice through it with a knife… for me, it is sadness mixed with anger, anger at the world for daring to move on without her, anger at those saddled with the responsibility of fixing things but yet refused to do so after countless promises, thereby leaving her in her pitiable bluster…

It is not as if the other 50 something towns, communities and villages in Akoko-Edo LGA, one of 18 Local Government Areas that makes up Edo State, are necessarily fairing much better, it is just that the story of Eshawa is one pathetic tale of a people living in what I choose to describe as an open grave… How else can one describe it?

For example, as we speak, the community, although under the royal Somorika clan, another heavily disadvantaged community in the LGA area, is not only without a king since the death of the former king, late Oba Johnson Jimoh Adomokhai, the Abesha of Eshawa land, it is also embroiled in some form of land ownership dispute with the bordering Ugboshi-Ele community. Why the community remains without a king since the demise of the late royal father, over five years today, remains a matter for another day.

If this was just all there is to the story of Eshawa community, it may have been fine, but from what I gathered, the last time the people of the community saw electricity was 5 years ago…

That is despite raising over 300 thousand naira for fixing the only transformer which former Senator Olajumoke from Ondo State donated to them in 1994. I sat with the son of the late king, Prince Ekesokhare Adomokhai, a tireless advocate for a better community for his people and now a staff of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, and another son of the land, Omolayo Olusegun, a traditional healer and a medicine man in the community, and the only thing both of them could do was lament bitterly how they had formed a committee that made each home pay the sum of 4,000 naira each in order to at least raise money to fix the existing transformer. They decided on this line of action after pleas upon pleas to have the authorities procure another transformer for them fell on deaf ears. The money raised went into fixing the transformer, but unable to cater for the total cost, it was not long before they realized that their time in darkness would not end with the money they were able to raise, because the money could have as well put in the toilet and flushed as it couldn’t meet the need for raising it.

Despite the total blackout, if you must make a call in Eshawa, you must engage in what I call “network hunting” from one corner or the community to the other to be able to do so, sometimes even climbing the hills around the town.

As a typical face of neglect, in Eshawa, you will find no roads except the old road constructed years ago which is in a state of disrepair as we speak. There is no Primary Health Care Centre, no town hall, no schools in the community. The only primary school in the community is the one-block primary school that the late king influenced stakeholders to build for the community in 2008 before his own passing ten years later in 2018…and as of today, there are no teachers, no learning materials and the only block of building is without tables and chairs…what is the use of all those by the way, when there are no pupils to attend the school?

As a matter of fact, Eshawa kids have to trek for miles every day, to neighboring Aiyegunle community today, just to attend school…

Although the dam in Akoko-Edo LGA, the Ojirami dam in Ojirami community, one time the pride of the LGA but now moribund, forcing indigenes of the area to rely on wells, streams and boreholes for their water needs, Eshawa has been without water for as long as it can remember, even when, according to some analysts, Ojirami dam was performing at optimum! The only borehole sunk for them a while ago no longer functions, and so today, they rely on the Makilo and Okebilogu streams for their water needs…

Again, like the rest of the towns in the LGA, Eshawa is rich in mineral deposit, but again, like the rest of the area, it is outsiders and foreign companies, perhaps aided and abetted by what analysts have described as “poor government policies” and some locals, that appears to be benefiting from the resources. And so, as we speak, the Chinese and Indian companies like Auqa Exploration Company, who were already mining precious mineral resources like white stones in the community, just recently left he place…

Apart from land bother dispute with neighboring Ugboshi-Ele, the hospitality of Eshawa people has led to the influx of a large population of Egbira people from Kogi State who are fast becoming the major tribe in the community also…some analyst say it is just a matter of time before they overrun the Eshawa people themselves.

Prince Ekesokhare Adomokhai, son of the late king explains that the member representing the area in the Federal House or Representative Rt. Hon. Peter Akpatason, a man whom he said recently donated a 500 KV transformer to Ugboshi-Ele, has given assurances that he will do something about the situation in the community. And so, for this reason he joined residents of the community in appealing to the honourable and the other member representing constituency I at the State and Federal levels, like Rtd. Hon. Yekini Idaiye, and in fact every other aspirant for various positions in the forth coming elections, to please come to the rescue.

It is my hope that the calls and pleas will be heeded because our people, though have been suffering for long, deserve these basic amenities, and whether or not the plight of Akoko-Edo people will be the focus of the upcoming elections, remains a matter for the coming days!

Albert Afeso Akanbi is a writer, filmmaker and humanitarian. He is also the editor of Akoko Edo Community Newspaper.