The original vision of Abuja was to be a place where all Nigerians irrespective of their social status will be accommodated, a city of shared prosperity. A city designed and developed according to a Masterplan, the Masterplan provides the blueprint on which every infrastructure is to follow. As with every creation of man, it is not final or absolute but must be subjected to test, amendment and review as reality becomes evident. Although there are aspects of a masterplan that cannot be altered easily, some other parameters can cause the alteration of a Masterplan, one of such being population growth and rapid urbanization.

In the recent times, the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) has embarked on several demolition and eviction exercises that has led to the dislocation of local economies with women being the most affected.

These series of demolitions and evictions begs the question of what the Masterplan plans stipulates for the urban poor and their concerns as it relates to housing, access to mobility, access to basic healthcare, access to markets etc.

HipCity Innovation Centre is currently working with 5 urban poor communities and with women whose voices and concerns are usually not heard or sort when decision making is carried out. HipCity Innovation Centre is working to equip these women with the knowledge of relevant urban laws and policies, the stakeholders to better place them in a position where they can mobilize, self-organize, contribute to the development of their communities and be active players in the urban development of Abuja.

For example in Durumi III, HipCity Innovation Centre is working with the women to access land where they can set up markets that are approved by government and design strategies on the governance of the government.

HipCity Innovation Centre will be working with other communities – Sabon Iddo, Durumi 1&2, Durumi IDP Camp to support women in advocating for their rights as residents of the city and members of their communities. .

It is a great step that the day was celebrated in Nigeria to create awareness on the lack of clean water in rural communities, but it should not stop at picture posting or storytelling, something must be done about the issue. Creating awareness alone on the lack of access to clean water in rural communities once a year isn’t enough to drive the sustainable change that will bring about the realization of SDG 6 in Nigeria.

Stronger and intentional political action is needed to bridge the widening gap between the entire population and the number that have access to clean water.  Without actions being taken of what use is the knowledge.  According to J.W Von Goethe, “knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do”. And no truer words have been spoken, the knowledge is simply not enough it must be applied.

The importance of water in our lives cannot be overemphasized. Water is life, it is more than just a basic need it is a fundamental human right. We need water just as much as we need the air we breathe. The sacrosanct nature of water is heightened when issues bordering around hygiene and sanitation are put in perspective.

It’s really a thing of concern how persons in marginalized communities survive with little access to clean water. Their daily struggle to access water which in many cases are unclean and contaminated predisposes them to a lot of dangers and hazards. For many women and girls; they are exposed to sexual and gender-based violence, their menstrual hygiene is threatened and productive time is lost. For school children; they lose productive school time simply because they have to go in search of water. In general, many rural communities are vulnerable to disease outbreak that are water related such as cholera and these also contribute to money lost to emergency aid provided by government thereby impacting the GDP of the nation.

In Nigeria, poor access to clean water and sanitation has been a developmental issue plaguing numerous communities around the country. Lack of access to clean water seemed more or less a rural area problem but slowly this problem has started creeping its way into some peri-urban and urban areas. According to UNICEF, “seventy-three percent of the diarrheal disease burden is associated with poor access to adequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), and children from poorer homes are largely affected by this”.

These WASH related illnesses sometimes lead to poor performance in school and even malnutrition in children. Some other studies show that poor access to water and sanitation leads to open defecation. It is quite evident that poor access to water has a domino effect in our society. Issues pertaining to water can never be isolated, because in its absence it creates more problems and hinders our progress.

Nuhu Joseph a community leader in Rije community of Kuje Area Council, spoke with HipCity Innovation Centre (HipCity Hub) on the lack of clean water in his community. He said, to them water is more of a luxury than a necessity, most of the boreholes in his community are either nonfunctional or inadequate to cater for the residents of the community.

They have resorted to getting their water from a stream close by as they lack the funds to repair the damaged boreholes and help from the government is not forthcoming. The source of water Joseph spoke of was clearly unfit for drinking and other domestic uses, but this is reality for the residents of Rije community and several other suburbs in the Federal Capital Territory.  

The UN Water Global Analysis and Assessment of Sanitation and Drinking Water put the figure of Nigerians who do not have access to safe drinking water at 67 million while 42% of households do not have access to clean water. This number is alarming and bodes ill for the public health and safety of citizens.

It is the duty of the State through its appendage Water Boards and the Rural Water Supply and Sanitation (RUWASSA) to provide safe and clean drinking water for all citizens. For efficiency and greater output, they are expected to work with local governments in their various states to ensure each local community is adequately catered for. There is an obvious need for the government to re-strategize and double their efforts in ensuring the provision of clean and safe water for all Nigerians.

With proper monitoring and evaluation; progress can easily be tracked and areas that are still lacking or in need of maintenance can effectively be given the attention they require. It is not enough to just create awareness on water challenges, the government must keep their promises and be held accountable because they owe the people this duty.  

Joining the global commemoration of March 22 shouldn’t just end at government making political statement it must be matched with strong political will and commitment to rescue over 60 million Nigerians facing water poverty.

Dumebi Oduah.

HipCity Innovation Centre-Abuja.

The two most practiced religion in Nigeria (Christianity and Islam) promotes modest dressing with some extremists preaching complete cladding (from head to toe).In all of these, the most targeted gender are women and girls; from infancy until death, girls and women are trained to wear certain kinds of clothes, walk certain kinds of way, sit in a certain way, behave in a certain kind of way.

One would think that with these overwhelming body policing of the female gender, they should live in peace devoid of bodily harm but yet they are the most victims of sexual and gender based violence.In retrospect, one can see that the patriarchal society promotes and accepts rape in a subtle way and that is why the solution to curbing rape isn’t targeted at the root cause rather at the victim. If our laws both secular and religious align that women exposing certain parts of their body is responsible for them being targeted by rapist, how come women in Buba (wrapper) are raped, how come babies in diapers are raped, how come girls and women in long flowing hijabs are also raped?

A recent report by Education As a Vaccine (EVA) titled “What was she Wearing”; a collection of stories from women and girls chronicles the stories of several women and girls who suffered rape wearing different kinds of clothing from hijab, long skirts, wrappers, diapers, trousers etc. Every one of them raped for just one singular reason; they are women and girls and not because of what they wore.

The continuous censoring of the female body and the kind of apparel they put on is clearly not the reason why the prevalence of rape is soaring daily in Nigeria, instead it is the trivializing of rape by men. We have condoned the rape culture for too long using the machinery of victim blaming; we are quick to ask; what was she wearing, where was she when it happened and some other ridiculous questions that serves only one purpose “SILENCE THE VICTIM” instead of naming and shaming the sexual offender.

Isn’t it worrisome; that thirty-six (36) years since Nigeria ratified the convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and Girls (CEDAW 1985) 25 years since we signed up to the Beijing Declaration in 1995 and most recently the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act (VAPP Act) of 2015 we are still battling to adequately tackle the menace of sexual perversion against our women and girls. Since the passage of the VAPP Act in 2015; only 21 states have domesticated the Act, after painstaking lobbying, advocacy, campaigns and multi-level engagements.

It is a shame that a country whose supreme law (the constitution) guarantees the right to dignity of the human person is hesitant to stamp out sexual and gender based violence and is waiting to lobbied, begged and pushed to do right by its people.Rape should never be mentioned in the same sentence where women apparels are mentioned as a push factor for sexual abuse. Rape is enabled by the government at all levels else relevant laws not targeted at the victim would be enacted and implemented passionately to rid our society of these moronic behavior and make our communities, streets, schools, parks, walk-way, workplace etc. safe for women and girls

Written by Bassey Bassey

Executive Director

HipCity Innovation Centre

Over time, the Skills Gaps Assessment report from the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) highlights various industries where skilled manpower are lacking, these reports remain largely unknown to young people in tertiary universities, colleges of education and our technical colleges.

Our intention for this baseline study is to engage with the Skills Gaps Assessment Report recently released by the ITF and UNIDO and to drive a campaign to universities and other institutions of learning to enlighten young people on the array of opportunities that exist instead of hanging on to white collar jobs are daily being replaced with Artificial Intelligence and/or robo

Our objective is to understand the depth of urban poverty and why government tailored propoor interventions has not the altered the poverty compass in over four decades now.

Our methodology was to select a pilot urban slum (Mabushi village), a slum settlement in the heart of the federal capital territory with all the indices of a slum. We embedded ten (10) trained young individuals with ethnographic research skills, relationship and psychological human analysis skills, photo—documentary skills into the slum without altering the natural sequence of the slum life.

Our team of researchers lived in the slum, and experienced all the phases of life by seeking for jobs in the day and bustling with the people at night. This approach helped our team bond naturally with the people and their acceptance by the people opened up space to probe into the personal lives of the people they had contact with, shared in the pains and celebrated their little successes over life daily struggles.

With a sense of awareness by our team in the slum, they were able to guide the to guide the locales into organizing themselves and seeking to harness their social capital into solving their most pressing needs through a platform tagged “Local solution Lab”. The local solution lab facilitated by our team members who were not embedded into the slum created a sharing opportunity for both the young and old to discuss freely about their shared problems and interest ( this is something that seldom happens, as only the council of chiefs hold meetings and then announces their resolutions to the people).

The identified prioritized needs and solutions became a charter of demand for the people, a tool with which they now will use to engage with political candidates who come seeking for votes and attempting to lure some youths into nefarious acts.

Our overarching goal is to expose our findings to government, policymakers and development partners on proactive sustainable pro-poor interventions that will have meaningful impact on the economic status of urban poor, build sustainable business in slums; operated by slum dwellers and also create a learning system through which young people in slums can acquire trainings that can change/break the cycle of poverty that envelops them.

In 2017, our organization was one of the few organizations that reviewed the Nigerian National Youth Manifesto on Agriculture, the manisfesto describes in clear terms how youths can be the drivers of the revolution in the agricultural sector, being aware that the Agricultural sector still remains the highest sector that offers employment to the ever-burgeoning youth population in Nigeria.

In terms of Advocacy, we were actively involved in catalysing young people to demand from their respective law makers to support the passage of the Not Too Young To Run Bill, and at the moment we are a coalition member of the #FundNationalLibrary Campaign- a movement of CSOs and NGOs who have mandated themselves to engage government to increase budgetary appropriations for the completion of the National Library Complex Abuja that has been abandoned, 16 years since the project was commissioned.

Yearly, we lead campaigns and advocacy to primary schools and communities to sensitize them on proper handwashing and the importance of toilets in a bid to dissuade the people from open defecation. During these periods we trained school kids and community members on the construction of Tippy-taps to promote proper handwashing.

As members of the Partnership Against Violent Extremism (PAVE)- A network of CSOs and NGOs working in conflict prone exposed communities, we have been active in developing counter messaging strategies with the network and
have mainstreamed preventing and countering Violent Extremism (PCVE) into all our activities and programs.

Over the years, more than 100 youths have gain new knowledge, developed new skills that has helped them secured career growth and success.

Through our “Youths Without Boundaries” project – a brain child project of the organization that targets young people especially the skilled, entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs. Through this project we have successfully hosted about four (4) mini conferences on several issues that militate against the progression of young people in business, as well as guide youths who are interested in career jobs how to attract jobs that they desire.

HipCity Innovation Centre was the first youth-focused organisation with the support of Heinrich Boell Foundation to host a conference on Circular Economy: Green Jobs; Trends and Opportunities for youths. Our Youth Without Boundaries (YoWiB) has continued to serve as a knowledge management platform where young people find peer-mentors and also discuss freely their daily challenges as they wade through the waves of survival.