By Kasim Sumaina
The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has donated a five million naira Solar Powered Borehole to Gaba community, in Bwari Area Council of the nation’s capital, Abuja.
The project, NSE disclosed, is one of the deliverables it promised during the inauguration of its present Bwari Executive Committee of the branch which it aimed to achieve within the two-year leadership.
The Chairman, NSE Bwari Branch, Engr. Halimat Adediran, while speaking to the press on the sidelines of the event in Abuja, noted that in the middle of COVID-19 pandemic, the branch undertook a study of the host communities and found that the community had no portable water.
According to her, Gaba and Igu communities were among the villages with very high population but had a stream which makes them prone to sicknesses and waterborne diseases.
She said: “I took over the mantle of leadership of the branch in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic and top of the challenges we were faced with was to proffer some engineering solutions to further mitigate the spread of COVID-19 should there be an outbreak in any of our host communities.
“Availability of water for frequent hand wash was one of the measures advocated by NCDC to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, we also know that availability of portable clean water would also mitigate the spread of waterborne diseases and we know that we have to quickly put efforts together to sink a borehole for them, not just a borehole but solar powered borehole to avoid incurring electricity bills.”
Adediran further added that the project could have been abandoned as some individuals and corporate organisation they reached out to for support were not forthcoming.
She said: “This project could have been delivered earlier if we had the support but at the end of the day, it was the branch itself that had it done, thanks to our senior colleagues who rose to the occasion and provided fund for the project completion.”
Continuing, she explained that the branch initially estimated the sum of N2.5 million but as the project started and due to the price of building materials, we expended five million for its completion.
“We have delivered and handed the project over to the community and they have promised to own it, take care of it.”
Speaking on behalf of the community, the youth leader, Mr. Francis Musa Zakwoyi Gaba, stated: “On behalf of the good people of our community, we want to show our profound appreciation to you for this wonderful gesture displayed towards us by remembering us in the scheme of events.”
Zakwoyi Gaba, however noted that the community requested for a modern senior secondary school that will address the educational agitation of their children within the community.