So that Zungum will benefit…

Communities often benefit when individuals and organizations stick their necks with their endowments to raise the standard of scholarship and inculcating the notion of sacrifice on their people. The case of the people of Zungum of Kanam LGA in Plateau State presents a classical case for study. KATDAPBA Y. GOBUM takes a look at the efforts of the SOS Foundation for Democratic Governance and Political Research (SOSFDGPR) in its efforts to change the narrative in community service.

AT the foundation laying ceremony of his pet project, on Thursday, October 7, 2021, a date had been conceived for December 27, 2021 when the project would be commissioned. Supported that day by a retired school administrator and community leader, Alhaji Sani Shapwai, Talban Namaran, High Chief Nyimbas Sabo, Danburam Zungum and other community members, it was a reminder that lots have happened; for on April 23, 2011 a block of two classrooms was commissioned and handed over to PSUBEB.

Since then, Save Our Soul (SOS) Foundation (an acronym that has become his name) founded and financed by Usman Muhammad Kanam, a former journalist, has consistently thought of what the organization would do for the Zungum; and indeed, by extension, the whole of Kanam local government which desires such initiatives that are powered by sons and daughters of the area.

In many communities, there are yawning gaps are needed to be closed by sons of the area who can use their resources to transform them beyond recognition. In the present dispensation, many communities have been transformed on account of the contributions of a son or daughter.

If you choose to refer to the gesture as a payback effort, it wouldn’t be out of place; for time has come for those who have benefited in one form or the other in their lifetime to bless their communities. As at the time his NGO was just seven years old, he already had discountenanced the idea of waiting for government to come to the aid of his community.

He had then said: ‘My NGO is just seven years old and we have no funds for major projects, but our situation in this village is pathetic to wait until there are enough funds. I resolved to start with the meager funds available so as to ginger others to come and contribute their quota’.

Communities are not made better only by those who have the resources. Indeed, those that don’t even have the capacity to help their communities are in the majority; always rising up to the occasion to wipe the tears of their people. The seed sown by Usman Muhammad SOS is a clear case to boot; not wanting the children of Zungum community to suffer neglect, he has been available to stand in the gap.

Championing causes have become common place with him over the years, having grown in an environment where such may have been denied them. But the struggles for them do not come easy. This explains why issues of governance, community development, the protection of the rights and privileges of the downtrodden and the promotion of social cohesion are a past time here. Those who get involved know that they have gotten involved as a result of the greater needs of their people.

Becoming a community-oriented person has both the positive and negative parts. It is positive as a result of the impact on the community, while its negative part is when those the project is meant for do not appreciate why it was brought. The usage of hard-earned resources for the community for any development is an indication that a genuine heart does not forget his roots.

The seed that has been sown over the years by Save Our Soul (SOS) Foundation are well documented; they adorn the Zungum landscape serving as constant reminder. That has been confirmed by lots of those who have followed the activism of the child of Basu Aliyu of Zungum, a suburb of Gyambar in Kanam LGA of Plateau State over the years.

Favoured to have acquired western education out of 17 other siblings, Bung, a name given to him at birth (literally meaning fine in Bogghom), the doors to helping people began when he briefly worked with the National Population Commisssion. The tentacles for activism were midwife when he worked as reporter with The Nigeria Standard, before going to work with the ECOWAS Inter-Governmental Action Group against Money Laundering in West Africa (GIABA). His sojourn to other countries must have served as education in returning to society what God has blessed him with over the years.

As a younger person, he yearned to represent Dengi constituency in the Plateau State House of Assembly under the ANPP in 2007. A community long neglected over the years, in fact, Zungum used to be regarded as the most neglected and remotest village in the local government area. If it came by just a coinage by the people, it would have been regarded as merely politically associated; however, but for the absence of essential infrastructure for even development.

As the roads lead to Zungum tomorrow, December 27, 2021, four things which are all geared to help the community are lined up for commissioning. They include: Three classrooms block of Islamiya School, residential mosque, fencing of a cemetery and house dedication.

The construction of the three classrooms block was mainly to develop infrastructure to help cushion the sufferings of both staff and pupils, who had no choice than to make do with whatever space that was available for learning.

Hear him speak about the predicament of what used to be on ground: ‘I was born and brought up in this village. I am familiar with the educational challenges facing the people and government of the state and I decided to use my Foundation to uplift the status of the primary school in the area’.

The pains of the lack of such infrastructure in his community served as a spring board to keep helping not only his home village: I feel severe pain in my soul each time I visit home to see our children sit under tree shades to receive formal education. I thought that a provision of even one classroom can make the difference in this community.

‘This was what motivated me initially to establish this Foundation to enable me source for funds from anywhere to assist my people including neighbouring communities with similar challenges. Because I have realized that we, as individuals must find a way of helping our community since government’s intervention has been hard to come by. I have it at the back of my mind that with good education from our community will be able to compete with their age mates anywhere in the world.’

His ‘achievements in community development are fast becoming legendary’, even more as the target goals of his aims are unquestionably tilted towards the promotion of understanding, of peaceful co-existence amongst the citizenry which has led to the establishment of a foundation. The people of any society need a voice, even if not through community initiatives, as such would be to create the needed platform for the common good of the community.

The Kanam people are better and always informed; and are made to think out-of-the-box, to find solutions to commonplace problems that affect them. If anything, government needs the presence of such foundations if only to wake them from the stark reality that more can be done to salvage communities that are in dire need of attention for development.

The establishment of SUBEB was the best thing that has happened to primary education in Nigeria, however, the demonstration of the fertile ideas by the Foundation directed towards community service remains at best what the board must encourage. The establishment of the foundation has been largely successful in creating awareness for people’s involvement in different areas of human endeavour.

Several years ago, the Foundation lit the Kanam local government area with the invitation at different times Prof Rotgak Gofwen, Dr. Muntasir Yahaya Kanam during those heady days of the struggle for the realization of June 12. Kanam has been the center of ideas; therefore, bringing them there was by far what any society full of ideas could ever bargain for. Not done, the likes of Imran Abdulrahman, Awwal Mari, Professor Habu Galadima, Nankin Bagudu, including the current Nigerian Ambassador to Russia and Belarus, Prof. A.Y Shehu were brought to add to the body of knowledge to the ever willing youth who needed to listen to fresh ideas about things happening around them.

Many have helped the Foundation grow into what it is today, despite hiccups and death of some people who gave verve to its survival. The likes of Comrade Al-Zubayr, Bege Wakkai, Tanko Lawatla, Pharm Ja’afar, Adamu Adamu, Umar Allahbura, Barr Adamu Nuhu, Kalamu Idris Dal, Garba Ya’u, Wada Haruna, Haruna Mazadu, Danbuzu, Justice Sale Musa Shuaibu, AA Sambo, Eng. Tahir,Hon. Ahmed Haladu and Comrade Ishaya Gazuwa, just to mention but few have made the initiative worth the trouble in founding it. Othman Sambo Dan Auta, Bashir Tsohon Al-Gargi, Yakubu Haruna Mandate, Musa Sale Gwaram and Sa’ad Suleiman Maigoro, may have gone but looking back, their struggle can never be in vain.

The roles of any NGO in a community is principally to complement the efforts of government in developing and promoting citizens’ participation in community services in order to bring social or political change on a larger scale. The SOS Foundation for Democratic Governance and Political Research fits the bill since its establishment before the 1999 transition to democracy in Nigeria and carried out its programmes by way of contributions from members, philanthropist and spirited individuals.

SOS Foundation has remained an intellectual marketplace of ideas for the youth and elites, as well as a center of public discourse. It made people remain passionate and enthusiastic about what value they could to their community without in turn receiving any financial gain for their sacrifices.

It is the hope of members of the Foundation that more can be done individually or even collectively to raise the standard of living of communities we come from. Government has a responsibility to make things happen, however, when they don’t advance such causes; the luxury of waiting endlessly should not take long. Those people with ideas must wake up to change the narrative, and quickly too as SOS Foundation has done.

As the projects are commissioned tomorrow, those who come in the euphoria of having people around may not get the import of the event: It will be to the good of their communities if they arrive at the venue with a mindset of replicating the same where they came from.