Precarious Lives, Vulnerable Bodies: Socio-economic and Physical Insecurity and Neurodevelopmental Health Inequalities in Bwari, FCT, Abuja

Abstract

Rapid, unplanned urbanisation in the suburbs of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Nigeria has created an informal settlement landscape in the Bwari Area Council. Alongside poor socio-economic conditions, Bwari has also become one of the most affected locations for banditry and kidnapping in recent years. The paper builds its theoretical framework on three integrated perspectives: Judith Butler's precariousness/precarity distinction, the WHO Social Determinants of Health (SDH) framework, and the Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD) perspective. The paper adopts a qualitative methodology, based on documentary sources, scholarly literature, reports and policy documents. It synthesises literature on informal settlement conditions, security dynamics, and neurodevelopmental disorder prevalence and risk factors to propose a four-pathway model material, psychosocial/security, healthcare access, and structural/stigma, through which precarity is embodied as developmental disadvantage. It therefore synthesises literature on conditions in informal settlements, security situations and the prevalence of neurodevelopmental disorders, risk factors and family burden in Bwari, Abuja. Findings identified priorities for locally grounded epidemiology and provided recommendations, such as integrating neurodevelopmental screening into existing primary health care and immunisation touchpoints in Bwari. This way, health workers who already see children for other services will not need to make a separate journey for developmental assessment, which could be unsafe; commission a community-based prevalence and risk-factor survey specific to Bwari, disaggregated by housing tenure status and by household exposure to banditry, kidnapping, or displacement, or establish coordination mechanisms between the FCT Primary Health Care Board, security agencies, including the Violent Crime Response Unit, and community vigilante structures to 
enable health outreach to be scheduled around and protected during periods of heightened insecurity.