The earth yields stone but withholds water. In Jakusko, the land collects floods but refuses to absorb them. Across these two communities, the ground beneath their feet has become a source of anxiety rather than sustainable sustenance.
Whether it is the precious gypsum being gouged from the depths of Fune or the relentless floodwaters surging through the streets of Jakusko, the outcome for ordinary people remains tragically consistent: a daily struggle to find water safe enough to drink.
In Daura, a quiet community in Fune Local Government Area, the rumble of heavy trucks provides the constant backdrop to village life. They come to haul away gypsum, the prized, “white stone”. But as the trucks depart so does the water, sadly.
“The excavators dig deeper every day,” says Shettima, a father of four, gesturing toward the scarred landscape of the mining site. “But our wells are crying. They have nothing to give”.
Two decades ago, residents of Daura could strike water at 21 metres. Today, even at 50 metres, they encounter nothing but dry rock and suffocating dust. Local leader, Malam Bukar believes the relentless excavations have effectively “chased away” the water table.
“We are sitting on a gold mine, yet we are dying of thirst,” laments Chiroma, another community elder. He explains that villagers must pool their meagre resources just to buy fuel for a vehicle that makes the eight-kilometre journey to Dogon Kuka, returning with water for daily survival. When funds fall short, the vehicle stays put-and families go without.
According to Chiroma, Daura has wrestled with water scarcity for more than three decades. For generations, residents have undertaken exhausting treks simply to secure enough water for their families and livestock. It remains a crushing burden for ordinary villagers striving to survive.
Meanwhile, some 120 kilometres away in Jakusko, the problem has flipped entirely. Here, the rains have betrayed the farmers.
“The rain no longer respects the seasons,” says Abba Maina, a weathered farmer who has watched nature’s rhythms unravel before his eyes. In Jakusko, water refuses to penetrate the earth and replenish the wells. Instead, it lingers on the surface, engulfing entire communities like Dachia, Yim, Karage, and Amshi.
When storm clouds gather on the horizon, residents do not pray for their crops. They pray for their homes. Jakusko sits on low-lying plains that act as a natural catchment-collecting runoff from neighbouring Jigawa State and swell from distant dams like Lagbo, whose releases travel downstream with devastating effect.
“Every year, we hear the warnings,” says Ibrahim, whose rice farm was obliterated by the 2025 floods. “But when the water finally arrives, we are still standing here with nothing but empty sandbags”.
For residents here, this is no abstract statistics- it is lived reality. During the 2024-2025 flooding cycles, widespread inundation across the region claimed seven lives and displaced more than 6,000 people in nearby local government areas. In Jakusko alone, the North East Development Commission (NEDC) distributed relief to 2,200 victims.
Though, the causes diverge mechanized mining in Fune, unforgiving geography in Jakusko – the human toll is identical.
In Daura, young men who once tended farms now toil in dangerous mining pits. The land can no longer sustain their ploughs, so they descend into its depths instead, trading one form of survival for another.
The government’s response has been largely reactive: emergency food baskets for the flooded, occasionally promises for the thirsty. But for those living through these crises, such “band-aid” measures no longer suffice.
“We don’t want rice and empty sandbags after our houses have melted away in the rain,” Ibrahim insists. And in Daura, Bakura adds quietly, “We don’t want to watch trucks with stone rolling away while our children go to sleep thirsty”.
For the people of Daura and Jakusko, this struggle transcends nature or resources. It is about survival and dignity.
In one community, mining carves deeper into the earth while wells run dry. In the other, relentless floods drown farms and swallow homes. Yet both face the same painful reality: water, the most fundamental necessity of life, has become their daily adversary.
For residents like Chiroma and Ibrahim, the ask is simple. Not temporary relief after disaster strikes, but lasting solutions, interventions that allow their communities to live, farm, and raise their children with dignity.
Until that day arrives, the people of Daura and Jakusko remain trapped in a cruel paradox: living on land rich with resources, yet struggling every single day for the most basic necessity of all- safe water.
