Pyakasa is a community between Alaita and Chika, along the Lugbe, Airport Road. It is a settlement for the indigenes of the area but most Abuja residents have taken respite in the area because of its affordable rent and its closeness to town compared to other areas.
Tony Eze, a resident there says houses there are mostly mud houses built by the indigenes and rented out at cheap prices as one can get a room for N3500, N5000 a month but added that the mud houses which were built by the indigenes were now gradually phasing out for cement erected houses.
“Mud houses are built by the indigenes. They rent the houses to people. Those who have their personal houses are those that were around before the demolition. Most of the mud houses are being demolished and cement houses erected. You can now see even storey buildings. There are at least three storey buildings here,” Eze said proudly.
Pyakasa, the residents say hosts many ethnic groups with different cultural backgrounds like Yoruba, Igbo and Ibira and others who live there, from where they go to the city everyday for work or business.
In Pyakasa, residents say that “you get everything there, the good, the bad and the ugly.”? Most of the good things in the area include police stations, secondary schools, churches, mosques and functional bore holes.
“We have a Police station and secondary schools. There is a Government Secondary School and Junior Secondary School. We also have a community health center and functional bore holes in the area. Different churches and mosques are also available. We also have a cultural center on top of the hill, even though it is not maintained,’’ Eze continues.
There were reports that some months past, commercial activities in the Pyakasa settlement were gradually shut down following eight months’ free-flow of darkness in the area, but Nzekwe Victor another resident reports that electricity there has become constant. “We have light now always. The problem we had was that of transformer but it has been fixed. See I can’t even remember when last I put on my generator. It is a thing of joy for me, I tell you.”
And with the removal of fuel subsidy, Nzekwe and many other residents have quite a lot to be happy about because they do not have to pay the exorbitant price to buy fuel for their generators.
What are the ugly and bad things in Pyakasa, one would ask?
Residents complained that there were issues of unhealthy environment and there was need for sanitising the environment.
LEADERSHIP gathered that most of the houses in Pyakasa have no toilets and it is therefore no surprise that a majority of the residents defeacate in the bush without qualms.
“One day, we went to the mountains to take pictures. There we saw two guys stooping down to defecate. The funny thing is that they were not even ashamed. They were even greeting us and doing the thing.? Some houses do not have toilets so people go to the bush. Most of the people who live there had to bring out their money to build toilets for themselves,” Terry, a carpenter said.
Peter Eselu, a resident complained that most landlords in the area do not mind if the residents have where to ease themselves or not as all they want is to get their money without having the comfort of the tenants at heart.
“I got some money and dug my own toilet but it was demolished because I was told that I built it on somebody’s land. But they say when you are in Rome, you behave like the Romans so I resort to the bush when I feel like it,” he said.
Like many other suburbs of the FCT, Pyakasa also have problems related to waste management.
Commenting on this, Jide Okeke, a civil servant and a resident of the area said, “Most people do not care about sanitation, they just pick their rubbish and drop it wherever they like which is very bad. I could be clean in my area but when other people are dirty, it affects everyone living in the area.”
Okeke stated that there was need for improvement on environmental health in the area by addressing behavioural change related to sanitation and waste management through the promotion of community participation “because when diseases come to the area, it would affect everyone.
“It is not everything we will leave for the government to do for the masses. In an area where people defeacate openly, there is tendency for high level of diseases. Flies will perch on these feaces and transfer it to food which brings about various diseases such as diarrhoea, dysentery and fever.? Even if you have good water and toilet facility in your own house and other people are practicing open defeacation, it will bring a circle of diseases to everyone around that community. So there is need for everyone to be involved with sanitation.”
But most residents say that the problem of waste management or not, Pyakasa is an area that has what other communities do not have and they would rather contend with the dirty environment than live in communities lacking in those things Pyakasa boasts of, such as constant power supply.