MIDAT JOSEPH discovers the squalor and pains that have become the lot of the Kaduna Lepers’ Village, known as Hayin Gabriel.
The signs of despondency and squalor are latent. They take a firm grip on the decrepit landscape.? Penury is written all over the faces of the wearied inhabitants, whose sources of livelihood is unpredictable as the winds. Welcome to the poverty-stricken leper village of Kaduna, where the basic amenities of life are lacking and men, women and children are living as lower animals, putting their hope on fate daily.
Hayin Gabriel is a creation of circumstance. It does not really exist in the map of the Kaduna State Government. As a result, the government does not make any financial commitment for the dwellers of the slum, who have to fight for their survival in a turbulent environment, which thrives on a rat race.
The village derives its name from a retired soldier, Hayin Gabriel, who was abandoned by his relatives after being attended to by officials of the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Training Centre, Zaria. Hayin, a native of Benue State, had to journey to the area in Kaduna to be cured of his leprosy but did not get the kind of attention and care he needed from his family. Thus, after his initial treatment and discharge by the leprosy hospital, he had no place to go having been abandoned by his relatives, who apparently were ashamed of his despicable health condition.
But the man, who eventually died, put up a tent and started live in that settlement in Kaduna. Within a few years, other stranded leprosy patients treated and discharged by the hospital in Zaria, joined Hayin and erected their huts near his legendary ‘house’.
Today, Hayin Gabriel is a slum and a leper colony with over 2000 population in the heart of Zaria bubbles with ‘life’ although on the wrong side. The physical state of the village is appalling while the basic things of life are either non-existence or in a shoddy state.
The deprivation that has defined the colony is well-rooted. Right from the road that leads from its entrance to the place itself is awash in squalor. There is not potable water, no school and medical facilities for the dwellers, who depend on dug wells for their drinking water.
Gaining access to the leper village is by strength and luck. Motorists are not in a hurry to take passengers to the village because of the deplorable condition of the only access road that leads from Kaduna to Zaria and from Zaria to Saye, a journey of about two hours.
The make-shift houses that are erected with reed straw and mud are subjected to the vagaries of the weather-most of them are easily blown off by heavy winds and rains.
Deprived of the basic needs of life and bereft of the mandatory medications they require to sustain them as leprosy patients, having been rejected by their friends and loved ones, the people have resorted to begging as a means of survival.
“It is not easy to survive here but we have no other option than to go begging in order to live. We have children, many of who are in school and we have to cater for them and ourselves,” one of the residents of leper colony said.
That is why many of them have foisted themselves on vantage positions on the Kaduna-Zaria Highway in search of public-spirited individuals to beg for alms.
Begging for alms does not come easy for people with broken limbs and gnarled legs and fingers. Under the scorching sun and inclement weather, they jump about in search of aid to keep their bodies and souls together. In their bid to scout for alms, some of them skip on their buttocks while others are rolled about in wheeled barrows like goods. Those who cannot move at all, sit under ramshackle huts on the highway and flag down motorists to seek for help. In some cases, they come across the Good Samaritan and in many instances, return home dejected.
Just a few meters to the entrance of the National Tuberculosis and Leprosy Training Centre, which serves as a government referral centre for tuberculosis and leprosy, one could hardly control his tears at the sight of pitiable elderly man, Ali Audu, a 55-year-old leper.
Audu, a father of one, who was abandoned by his relative many years ago, had to accept the idea of living for the rest of his life in the village because that was the option open to him and his son. But his main occupation now is begging.?
“We just have to thank God; we cannot question God, and we cannot say why God made us this way. We are suffering here. Our children are not in school, we cannot afford to send them to schools.
“Majority of us depend on begging to feed. I have been begging for 30 years since I left the hospital. I am forced to beg by circumstances beyond my control. Life is indeed difficult for us. Our family members deserted us as soon as we were taken to hospital to be cured of leprosy. But we thank God that we are still alive till today. Our families that abandoned us thought we had died but God has continued to keep us,” Audu said.
Lying besides Audu, is an elderly woman in torn clothes who is also blinded by the effect of years of leprosy. She groans continuously, as she begs for alms. She is clutching a dirty plate that might not have touched water for ages.
Usman DanKawo, a leper, 67 who has been living in the village for over ten years, is settled in his mind that begging remains the only sure way for him till the day God calls him home and he does not mince words about it.
“I beg for alms to send my only child to school”.
“I became a leper at the age of 13, I am 67, with one childand I have been begging to feed my wife and child since left the hospital ten years ago.
I took to begging because I do not have legs to walk. I am ready to leave this begging business as soon as I get money to start a business.
As you can see most of us do not have hands and legs and we really need assistance from the government and the people to be able to survive. Please beg the government to come to our aid,” the man pleaded.
Ibrahim Mohammed, 70, a leper and father of 14 recounted his pathetic story in a way that can break hearts.
“My name is Ibrahim Mohammed who was not born a leper. But circumstances brought me here for treatment in 1946. I am 70 years. I decided to stay here with my fellow lepers, because my relations who brought me to the hospital ran away. They thought I was not going to survive. By the grace of God I am now married and have children, my children are the one helping me now.
“I have 14 children and manage to beg to feed them, and some of my children are doing menial jobs while some are into petty businesses. I wish government would help me with some money to enable me to start a little business,” he said.
The story of abandonment is the same for Sale Shuaibu, 65, who was thrown away by his family because of leprosy and he has been depending on aid to live since then.
From the youngest to the oldest, their jeremiad is the same: they need urgent aid to be able to live and take care of themselves and their dependents. Although afflicted by the disease that has separated them from their loved ones and exposed them to infamy, their spirits remain strong just as their sense of hope rekindles as each day rises.
They may have been beaten by severe ailment that comes with scorn and social dislocation but they are not defeated in their spirits and determination to move out of their predicament to the next level of their lives.
The inhabitants of Hayin Gabril have a strong hope in one thing: they look intently to that day that they will stop begging and live comfortably like other Nigerians. A forlorn hope, one would say.