Over 300,000 residents of the Jigawa community have been denied access to health care as Senator Sambo Mohammed’s multi-million Primary Healthcare Centre constituency project that serves as their only means of healthcare collapses two years after it was completed and commissioned.
Mr. Sambo Mohammed, a federal lawmaker from Jigawa state in the Senate, in 2019 carried out the construction of Primary Healthcare at Jama’ar Isah Village, in Kiwaya Local Government Area of Jigawa State as his constituency project.
The project that gulped millions of Naira was supervised by Border Community Development Agency (BCDA), and, was awarded to ELM Nigeria Limited, a company that has its address at the Gudu area of Abuja, the Nigerian capital city.
Two years after the project was awarded, “follow the money”, a public accountability organization has since exposed the collapse of the hospital within a short period of two years.
The collapse of the hospital according to follow the money has rendered over 300,000 residents of Jama’ar Isah Village, inability to access healthcare as that is the only means of them accessing any kind of medical care.
Constituency projects are nominated by the lawmakers for the needs of their constituents and recommend same to the executive during budgeting; this will help to improve the living condition of the people in their constituents through building local infrastructures.
However, Nigerian experience has shown that Lawmakers do not execute constituency projects as they appear in the national budget, and getting them to account for monies approved for such intervention is always difficult.
And, often, community residents are not aware such monies have been given to their representatives, and that makes accountability very difficult.
MAWA Foundation could not immediately reach out to the Jigawa lawmaker and Border Community Development Agency for a response.