PREFACE
This is the first of a series of reports to be issued by the Kainji Lake Research Project on an informal basis. Their purpose is to stimulate thought and discussion about research and development of the Kainji Lake area in a way that will benefit the people of the area.
We intend that the Kainji Lake Research Project assist the Government of Nigeria to develop practical solutions for important problems. This first report describes some of the problems facing early development of the resources around Kainji Reservoir and suggests some approaches for their solution.
Most of these problems have been described in some detail by the technical sub-committees and the National Advisory Committee. In fact recent changes in our work plan to employ a boat builder, a fishing gear technologist, an irrigation hydrologist, an agronomist and a range ecologist reflect the results of these descriptions.
This issue was written by Mr. J.J. Jenness, who reported to the Kainji Lake project as a sociologist in July 1966 and remained until June 1969. During his first two years Mr. Jenness studied the sociology of the Niger River fishermen and during the last year he served as Acting Project Manager. He is presently serving as FAO rural sociologist in Lesotho.
INTRODUCTION
The filling of Kainji Reservoir in 1968 and 1969 provided Nigeria with a new source of electric power and new industrial opportunities. It also provided the former inhabitants of the lake basin with unprecedented problems. Almost 500 square miles of land were flooded and 50,000 persons lost their homes and land. Resettlement of these people on higher ground around the new reservoir was carried out in good time and, with the exception of a few dramatic siting errors, in good order. Costs were highs roughly three times the original estimates, but dependency on welfare and major social disorder were avoided. The resettled population is settling in well. What are the opportunities for development? For the near future at least the isolated location appears to preclude industry, but fishing and farming and the wise use of wildlife offer attractive opportunities. The purpose of this report is not so much to describe those opportunities as to identify major factors that will hamper their realization and to suggest some solutions.
FISHING
Commercial fishing for the rapidly expanding fish stocks of the reservoir is already attracting numerous professional fishermen, mostly Sarkawa from upriver, to points with good transport access on the east bank. Unlike the great majority of the resettlement population, who are sedentary and for whom relocation requires a difficult, several-year adjustment, the professional fishermen are by habit migratory. An active programme for their immediate development would have rapid effect and allow efficient utilization of the initial reservoir fish bloom.
Extension demonstration (primarily in gillnet use), credit for purchase of increased amounts of gear, improved processing and storage facilities and a local supply of adequate boats are all present needs. Production is also being held down by lack of fishermen, the very high price of synthetic nets, lines etc. and, as a result of import restrictions and duties, the poor local availability of gear in general, but especially boats, and inadequate transport. The fish are in the water. There is an assured market, at an attractive profit with an established marketing network. Small input should provide good return.
FARMING
The resettlement population will require about two years simply to re-establish its basic upland subsistence farms, let alone developing a surplus for export.
As farmers, the previous onion growers are a valuable asset and initial extension should focus on helping them to rebuild their onion farms. There is still time to plan for the most effective means of expanding this industry to new areas along the reservoir edge. The drawdown area may also be usable over large areas for maize or early millet as subsistence crops and possibly for rice as a cash crop. There is an immediate need to develop plans for agriculture compatible with the seasonal changes in reservoir water levels.
Development of local cattle herds is presently impeded by loss of riverside, dry season, green graze, and in general Filani land-use has proved a gordian knot. Development possibilities for Kainji hinge on experiments being done elsewhere in Nigeria. No solutions are apparent and the arrival of a range ecologist on the Kainji Lake Research Project will be welcomed.
Attention should also be directed towards farming downstream. Basin irrigation depending on the flooding of the Niger River is very limited since the construction of Kainji Dam. Large areas of land along the Niger River could be easily cultivated during the dry season by pumping water from the river. One hundred and fifty thousand acres are thought to be suitable for irrigated crops.
WILDLIFE
Borgu Game Reserve already provides an exciting presentation of wild game. At the end of the last dry season, creekside fadamas giving clear view had more the aspect of a zoo than a forest.
The reserve should be opened, advertised as a national pride, and provided with carefully placed mud and thatch camp accommodations. A wildlife management ecologist is needed to put planning and management of the reserve on a long term basis.
Areas surrounding the reserve are beginning to profit from a spin off of game from increased population within the reserve. Sportsmen are increasingly coming to the area for big game. Provision of camp accommodations and special licensing would provide a new source of local revenue.
TRANSPORTATION
The lack of transportation is a major bottleneck to local development. The Kainji region is isolated. Kainji is on neither a main road nor a railroad. Water transport is undeveloped. Its main market is the high population area of the Lagos-Ibidan-Oshogbo arc. The Jebba area, for example, which is a competitor with Kainji for development investment, has the advantage of being closer to this market area, being near highway A-1 and the railroad, while sharing with Kainji access to potential water transport and electricity.
The construction road from Wawa to A-1 at Mokwa and some of the streets in New Bussa are the totality of hard surface roads in the Kainji region. With one exception, development for the immediate future must contend with tracks and laterite roads.
A major assistance to development would result from paving A-15 from Jebba through Yelwa to Kontagora. The Kainji region would then be on a major north-south route. However, the basic argument for paving A-15 is that it would shorten hard surface road from Sokoto to Lagos by 200 miles. It cannot be justified on the basis of Kainji development alone.
A case based on local development can be made for paving A-15 from Yelwa to Kontagora. This would greatly increase good access to the major population and cash crop zones of the reservoir area as well as to Yelwa itself, which is a major trans-shipment site for river cargoes, there being no direct road access to the Niger from Yelwa to the Niger Republic border.
Unfortunately, the main west bank resettlement road was built far to the west of the resettlement villages, apparently to minimize construction costs by building a minimum of bridges. The old villages in this area had immediate access to the old road which ran near or through them like beads on a string. The villagers valued this access and in choosing their resettlement sites did not realize that this would not continue to be the case. Excepting New Garafini, all of the resettlement villages between Wawa and Papiri (some 4,000 people in ten villages) are sited on sections of the old road not under water. At present, as in the past, these villages attract little traffic and can only be profitably served en passant. The resettlement road network leaves them as dead ends off spur roads. This cut back on their supply of. lorries and is discouraging. Many of the-people are relocating onto the main road and abandoning the expensive resettlement villages. This will continue unless commercial water transport becomes satisfactory. However, fishermen will stay by the water and immigrant fishermen will be attracted by points with road access on the water. Similarly, if a good crop can habitually be gained by irrigation or drawdown farming near the ends of the spur roads, population at waterside in this area may again pick up. Few of the resettlement villages need road access on the basis of their present lorry use, but most desire such and in the absence of adequate water transport little development can take place without such roads.
Unfortunately, the west bank north of Rofia and the east bank south of Yelwa, except at Zamare and Wara, have access only by dry season tracks. This is particularly difficult in the case of the heavily populated east bank with its considerable irrigation potential. Improvement of these tracks will be a definite incentive to development of production for sale outside the region. State help is needed for roads linking market villages to the national network; communal labour can improve those from peripheral villages to market villages.
The excellent laterite west bank resettlement road stops at Agwarra where it meets the old road that continues on to Yelwa. This old road slows traffic for the whole west bank as lorries usually make the whole run between Wawa and either Rofia or Yelwa. Further, it is more than 100 miles between Wawa and Yelwa with no service station, petrol etc. A station at Guffanti or Agwarra would profitably alleviate time lost to breakdowns.
Good water transport would give impetus to commercial fishing and reservoir edge commercial farming. Unfortunately, at present, barge transport is non-existent and canoe transport inadequate. Advent of barge transport, like paving A-15, depends on transport needs and possibilities outside the Kainji area, however much it would profit the reservoir region.
Local transport canoes (abara) are in short supply because of the war. An opportunity exists to begin plank canoe building in the reservoir area. The local source of plank canoes (kanke) is in Mali.
An outboard engine dealer is badly needed in Yelwa. Transport canoe owners go to Lagos for parts. The dealer should help to train mechanics.
Two reliable ferries are needed at Rofia, with one primarily in a back-up capacity. Ferry service should be on call twenty-four hours a day.
The Disrupted Market Network
The pre-inundation network of market villages was highly integrated in terms of market timing, spacing, access, population and production. Resettlement requires a new network for the present realities of village spacing, transport access, area production etc. This will take some years
Each old village with a market took the market to its resettlement village, regardless. However, adjustment has already begun. The market of Dugga, for example, has moved from the resettlement town to the main resettlement road in order to improve access. The village is likely to follow the market :
Unpredictable population movement and production make it unwise to plan the resettlement market network at once, by fiat; however, government can assist in speeding up and improving the natural development. Additional markets can be encouraged in areas with highly promising and increasing production, especially for sale outside the region. Markets can be assisted by improving access or by allowing market shifts to adequate access points. Assistance in the provision of storage facilities would be a significant development incentive.
LABOUR
Local labour is illiterate and generally not healthy but neither unemployed nor markedly underemployed during the latter part of the dry season. There is little seasonal labour migration. The dam has given a powerful impetus to the desire for cash and the willingness to try new techniques. The young men in particular are a promising target as they still like to farm and fish and are not immigrating to the towns in order to seek cash jobs. The irrigation, onion farmers and the professional fishermen are particularly valuable assets.
CAPITAL
Local small scale capital; is available because of compensation money and savings from construction wages. Government has an opportunity and an interest in seeing this used as much as possible for productive investment.
The area has aroused great national interest. It has good advertising, in itself a powerful aid in attracting capital,
EDUCATION
Highly effective agricultural extension work is being done among the resettlement farmers, particularly on the. west bank. Expansion of this effort, particularly in Yauri, and focusing on the onion farmers, would be particularly valuable.
Unfortunately, there is as yet no extension work among the fishermen. The Kainji Lake Research Project could play a valuable role in assisting the north-west and Kwara states in training such workers.
In the long pull, public health extension should be developed.
Adult education materials are beginning to catch on in the larger towns-Bussa, Yelwa, Wara. Borgu even has a driver training school. Teaching of engine maintenance and repair would be a welcome addition. This is particularly pertinent as Kainji especially with its compensation money is clearly on the verge of mini-mechanization with increasing numbers of outboard engines, portable irrigation pumps and motorbikes.
There are not enough schools. Probably less than ten per cent of the resettlement children of 6–12 years attend primary school. The area has only one secondary school, opened last year in Wawa. Primary schooling is especially avoided by pagans as they feel it leads to “Hausaization” of their children.
HEALTH
As with schooling, need is great and provision subminimal. However, Kainji must compete fully with other areas of equal need. The hard fact is that although health and schooling can quicken the pace of the early stages of economic development in an area, it is basically successful economic development, national or local, that will allow major expansion in health and school services and not vice versa.
Nevertheless, the resettlement area should have special assistance if the dam and reservoir lead to deterioration in local health because, for example, of increase in malaria, or explosive development of bilharzia as on Lake Volta.
COORDINATED DEVELOPMENT PLANNING
Kainji, like all dams and reservoirs, created a commonality of problems and possibilities which require coordinated area development planning. This is especially true at Kainji as the area has no urban focus and is cut by Divisional, State and Federal zones of administration. Further, the definition of areas of responsibility is still occurring because of the newness of the states, the recent local government reforms and the novelty of the Kainji works per so. Such complexity and uncertainty, when combined with the traditional rivalry of Yauri and Borgu, makes ad hoc coordination, as at present, insufficient.
A development planning committee composed of representatives of NDA and other key Federal, State and Divisional governments could coordinate and elicit cooperation, assist outside private investment, and direct government investment along the most promising lines.
CONCLUSION
Fishing and farming, and to a small extent exploitation of wildlife, appear to be the base for development of a viable economy for 50,000 people displaced by the Kainji reservoir. There are numerous restraints on that development, including such things as the lack of fishing boats and gear, credit, predictions of water level fluctuation, description of potentials, and both land and water transportation. There is a large supply of intelligent, ambitious labour and sufficient local capital. Well-planned extension work would be well received and pay high dividends. Three additional needs for successful development are an improved road system, a simple water transportation scheme and a development planning committee. There appear to be no attractive prospects for large-scale capital investment at Kainji and, at least in the near future, development must proceed by patient enhancement of the pre-reservoir economic pattern.
