By Princess Simon (Bureau Chief, North-Central)
Trouble looms as the host community demands a review of compensation paid to the indigenes if the multi-billion Naira federal government’s 700 megawatts Zungeru hydro dam project must continue.
The community also insists that the project be renamed to reflect its true location, Gungu or Manta.
While the dam project expected to be completed later this year will generate 2.64 billion kWh of electricity annually, the host communities that gave up their ancestral homesteads and farmlands for the project were not adequately compensated, even as some of them are currently totally submerged in flood.
However, Concerned Shiroro Youths, a coalition of youth groups from Niger-East, a Gwari-speaking area, said the taking away of the community land without adequate compensation and refusing to reflect, Zungeru as the location of the dam in all documentations, must not be allowed.
Co-Convener of the Concerned Shiroro Youths, Comrade Bello Ibrahim and Malam Sani Abubakar Yusuf Kokki, made the declaration in a joint statement made available to journalists in Minna, Niger state capital.
They gave instances whereby villages like, Layi village under Gijiwa/Kato Ward of Shiroro Local Government Area which was captured during the enumeration, but surprisingly, none of the over 500 inhabitants enjoyed any form of compensation.
According to Ibrahim and Yusuf, “The people there have lost virtually all their personal belongings including farmlands and homes. Only a few of them managed to erect some sort of makeshift huts over their heads as houses”.
It was alleged that the agency saddled with the compensation over the dam construction started on a wrong footing, as they deliberately short-changed the host community. “In respect of proper compensation, a monumental and catastrophic scam took the centre stage by way of grossly short-changing virtually all the people directly affected by the dam project site.
“As the rainy season continues, villages like Layi, Gaviya are now completely submerged while others like; Fiyi, Kokki, Rango, Sundna, Yelwa, Kasumi, Sama, Karibo, Siyibo, Maganda and a host of others now survive at the mercy of the annual ravaging flood”.
On their clamor for the renaming of the dam, the youths insisted that the dam is located in Gungu in Manta district of Shiroro Local Government Area and not in Zungeru which is in Wushishi Local Government Area and so should be reflected.
“For rational justice and fairness, the Hydro dam should be named after its host village, Gungu, Manta or Shiroro 2 hydro dam, and not Zungeru hydroelectric power station as erroneously being documented by the Federal Ministry of Power and the contractors”.
They, therefore, called on the federal and state governments to immediately institute a special committee to look into the compensation issue comprising of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), the Media and relevant stakeholders to unravel those behind the compensation scam before it degenerates.
Meanwhile, the group has solicited for the intervention of relevant state and federal government agencies to come to the aid of the communities displaced by flood at various localities downstream of the Shiroro and the ongoing Zungeru hydro dams. NNL.
