Inspiring Community Stories

The acronym ‘TEACH’ (Technology, Education, Agriculture, Communication, and Health) deeply emphasizes how DDU will leverage technology to drive development, progress, and inclusivity among members by birth, relationships, marriage, etc., making DDU a global community with a unique interest in prosperity. Education will be pivotal in driving wealth, businesses, recognition, and global competitiveness among youths and professionals in every endeavor. The arable lands will be converted to Agric business hubs, churning out local productions that will be competitive in urban and international markets. This will create an enabling environment with ease of doing business, creating jobs, and prosperity for our people. There will be enhanced communication strategies and infrastructures that will connect the DDU ecosystem and community, thereby enhancing collaboration, promoting local content, and networking.  Investments will be made to improve the healthcare system to promote healthy living through the provision of amenities, infrastructure, and human capacity-based health support systems for the old and the young alike, with no gender bias. Health is wealth, as the saying goes. With all these and more in place, I believe the people will be happy, socio-cultural norms, and security will naturally thrive. There’s another saying that goes ‘the people rejoice when the righteous ruleth.’ Lets reminisce on the just concluded harmonious celebration of the Borolegbe festival. I believe it was born out of the recent peaceful reunion and engagements. Let’s do more and be determined with the quest for development and unity; every other thing will fall into place. Remember the broom mantra… ‘a single broom is easily broken but a bunch is hard to break’. This will uphold our collective strength among other weaknesses.  These and more were my take-homes from our last meeting. Aliu Boniface Member (Media Committee)

Preamble The Dagbala Development Union was recently formed as a body to champion the development of Dagbala community and the progress of its people in all aspects of life.  This union is open to all indigenes and members of the community who share in the common goal of bringing about a change in the lives and wellbeing of the people as well as create a peaceful habitable environment that will sustain the our joy, peace and good health. Development What does it mean when we say a place is developed?  What do we or should we as members of Dagbala Development Union aspire to in the development of Dagbala community? In simple terms, community development is a process that creates growth, progress and positive change in the physical environment, as well as lives of people in the community. The livelihood of people in a community is affected by the physical environment, their education, micro economy, the culture and the health of mind and body.  In this regards I will consider Dagbala developed when everyone in the community, resident, visiting or passing through, has peace, physical and mental wellbeing plus a sense of joy and happiness on the basis of what he has or own, the experiences, what he feels and what he or she observes in the community. To achieve the above state of balance peace and joy, we must address, in this process of growth, our micro economy, our environment, our culture, our education, our health, our security and all the infrastructure required to support all of the above.  Having said this, it is important to note that the key elements of development lie in education and culture. Individuals with good quality education tend to be more successful in life compared to those who lack it. Education here refers to both academic education to develop our minds as well as practical education that leads to skill acquisition.  Individuals with good quality education and who have gained knowledge and skills tend do better economically and in health of mind and body. Our culture defines our way of life and defines things that give us joy, peace and satisfaction which is critical for our mental health. It unifies our physical environments with our body  and soul and hence pays a key role in our wellbeing and happiness. Our culture help define our relationships and how we as a people live together in harmony with nature and ourselves. Our Strategy. Our micro economy The micro economy of Dagbala refers to the state of the community with regards to production and consumption of goods and services. It also involve supply of money which allow us acquire what we do not produce that we need for our health and wellbeing, education of our children, and the enjoyment of life in our society.  It involves all activities that result in wealth creation means all activities we engage in or can engage in that will allow us produce goods or provide services all of which will guarantee that everyone has sufficient money to acquire what he needs (goods or services) that he cannot produce himself. and the ability of everyone in the community to have a chance to improve their livelihood, our environment to guarantee our safety, good health, sustenance of our economic social and cultural activities, Engr. Wole Abu Chairman, Board of Trustees

It is a well-known saying that ‘united we stand and divided we fall’.  ‘utokani  akodine fialiku l’okani’ meaning, a single broom stick cannot clean dirt from our floor like the broom derived by bunching lots of individual broomsticks together. It is a well know strategy that those who want what we have can best achieve their objective by causing us to fight one another while they quietly take what belongs to us without opposition.  In matters like this, it is always better to show to the outsider, our strength and unity so that they know they cannot take us for granted. However unfortunately, even before a single block is laid, we have started infighting telling the outsiders that Dagbala is not one but a community of 4 or 7 different groups. This is a big shame because right now, all they have to do is prey on our weakness and squabble with one another and while we are fighting they will go to the land and get what they want. They may even arm one group to fence off all others by playing the game that the land belongs to them. Experience has shown that such people will forever remain slaves to the external invaders, being satisfied with petty rewards that will not benefit their future generations. Go to the Congo and see, go to Zamfara State and see. If Dagbala presents a single face and a single voice, we will be in a better position to negotiate as a community. We will harness the collective knowledge of our children and the information and wisdom they have gained from their friends all over the country and world and we will be better for it. Up till now, there has been no such voice or unifying body.  This is why the Dagbala United Development Union or Dagbala Development Union (DDU) for short has been born.   I hereby present to you DDU whose primary objective is to advocate for the Dagbala people and foster growth and development to ensure sustainability of our environment, health, education and happiness of our people and all passing through based on our collective social and cultural experience.  To this end, I invite all noteworthy Dagbala sons and daughters, at home or in diaspora, to join hands with us in this noble task of fostering growth, development and wellbeing of our people.  Registration fee is only N5000   and a monthly due of 1000 naira afterwards. The benefit of our work will be the community. For example we will monitor all infrastructure and ensure they are functioning as expected. We will put in place new infrastructure to make life easy for our people. A critical example is to take charge of all issues regarding water supply and the availability of toilet facilities.  We know for sure how our young girls and ladies are suffering from menstrual poverty due to the absence of sanitation facilities. We must protect the dignity of our girl child in all aspects of their life and ensure they are not forced to remain at home at certain periods of their life. We will facilitate the development of our local market and transform it to a place of daily trade by making stalls available for all trades. Barbers, hair dressing, supermarkets, pharmacies and food stores.  This means too that our market requires adequate water supply and sanitary facilities. It is not impossible to have borehole water piped to individual stores to facilitate their activities.  This is also true of our different quarters. No one should have to travel far to access piped water even if the source is a borehole. We seek your blessing for this Union as the Unified mouthpiece of Dagbala and the body to lead ‘Project Dagbala’ Join us to help make this and many more a reality. Prof. Victor Olori President, Dagbala Development Union