OKEY MADUFORO 
Ifite Community, a section of Awka, capital city of Anambra State, known as ‘Yahoo Slum’, has over the years descended into an uninhabitable crime infested shantytown, with no past governments looking its way. However, it appears things are about to change as Governor Charles Soludo has beamed his transformative searchlight on the community. OKEY MADUFORO reports on the ongoing effort at changing the fortunes of the slum and its dwellers
t was 6.30pm on this fateful day that the heavens opened and it rained heavily, making it difficult for the dwellers of the Ifite community, that has degenerated into an urban slum over the years, to gain access to their abodes.
That has become their lot whenever it rained, with most of them left homeless and whatever property they have destroyed. Most of the over 3, 000 buildings, shanties and makeshift buildings, were literally submerged by the flood water that was mixed with sewage from their homes.
The tragedy is that they live comfortably in this hazardous community that is not only a breeding ground for all forms of environmental infused diseases. Of course, crimes of all sorts are a natural companion here too.
A number of students of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University (NAU), Awka are also part of this community as some of them who cannot afford decent accommodation elsewhere have made the community their home as well.
Basic amenities
The road to the slum fondly called ‘Yahoo Junction’ on this day cuts a picture of a war zone as vehicles and commuters battled to no end to make their way through what is a semblance of road that the flood has taken over completely.
The truth is that the community lacks any motorable road and other basic amenities, with what can be called drains had for decades since the establishment of the university, on July 30, 1980, have become blocked and destroyed.
The Ifite and Yahoo Junction came to existence when the university was established and that was a few years after the Logiana Construction Company that built the Awka-Enugu Expressway handed over its official construction residents to the Anambra State Government, which ultimately became the current Anambra Government House Awka.
As a result of this development most public servants, students and artisans came to settle in the area, with buildings of all sorts springing up over time and with no recourse to the laws guiding buildings by the Physical Planning Board of the state.
Land speculators were smiling to the banks while the so-called landlords were busy putting up buildings and all manner of houses in a bid to make bumper profits prospective tenants desperate to live close to their work and business locations.
The slum is also home for alleged cultists who at least four times in a year carry out killings and attacks on rival groups thereby creating moments of tension and anxiety among residents.
Stories have it that in the midst of cult clashes other miscreants had capitalised on the already overheated system to rip off innocent and unsuspecting members of the public. Mrs Adaora Nwokoye, a food vendor in the area, described the terrible nature of the place, disclosing that they have to battle flies and rodents to ensure the hygienic safety of the food they sell to the public.
According to her: “People come here to sell beef and other kinds of meats and you can imagine the environment in which we are doing business. “You would keep beans or yam in your shop only to come back in the morning to see that those food stuffs have been visited by rats and other undesirable animals that live with us.
“Even in our homes these rodents would attempt to go into your food cupboard to take food and you keep on buying rat poison and insecticides to reduce their population because you cannot stop them from coming as you do not know where they are coming from.”
Also, a student of NAU, who gave her name as Ogochukwu Chikelue, recalled an incident where two little children in his yard woke up early in the morning crying because some rats had bitten their toes while scavenging for food.
“It was a terrible thing and people linked it to witchcraft or some other diabolical things, but this has to do with the living conditions of the Yahoo Junction in Ifite community,” she lamented.
Succour in sight
Governor Charles Soludo recently visited the university to present a public lecture and while addressing the gathering, the students became somewhat restive, demanding the reconstruction of Ifite roads that have been in a state of disrepair for years.
It was on that occasion that he announced the award of contract for the reconstruction of the Arroma-Ifite Road linking part of Amansea community in Awka North Local Government Area.
Though the road project has been completed, however, the entire challenge on that road has now moved to Yahoo Junction requiring urgent attention before the rains begin in a few months’ time. During an on the spot inspection of the area, the Managing Director and CEO of Awka Capital Territory Development Agency (ACTDA), Ozo Ossy Onuko, discovered the urgent need to pay attention to the area.
According to Onuko: “For record purposes, the area is known and called Yahoo Junction, which encompasses Ifite where we have over 2, 000 students of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka who live off campus. There are a lot of hostels in the area and high rise buildings.
“For us as a government, we are trying to see how we can salvage what is left of the place in terms of physical planning and in terms of urban regeneration because it is part of the Awka capital city territory and it is also a place we have the future generations of Nigeria leaders of tomorrow.
“I also talked to the students led by the Vice President of the Students Union and most of the landlords built their houses without sewage plans and they channel water onto the road, but I told both the residents and the landlords that there are things that they can do for themselves before the government comes in.”
Onuko noted that the state government would soon commence the reconstruction of the roads in the area, adding that when work starts buildings that did not observe the mandatory setbacks would have to give way. This is as he disclosed: “We have set up a Joint Committee called ‘Ifite Regeneration Committee’ that would work together with the Physical Planning Board.
“While on inspection we discovered that a certain woman built her house at the fringe of the road and we had to start pulling down those walls and we shall ensure through the committee strict compliance with the laid down laws on physical planning and development.”
However, he noted that there are prices to pay for the area to become habitable, warning that the state government has zero tolerance to buildings that failed to comply with the laid down laws.
As residents of Yahoo Junction in Ifite community await the commencement of work in the area, it is being canvassed that the area being fruits market needs to have areas mapped out for such businesses in order not to deface the area after construction works have been completed.
