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 known 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 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. Olori Victor (President, DDU)