Your community lacks some basic amenities. Write a letter to the Local Government Administrator explaining the importance of such amenities and how their absence affects the lives of the people.
This is a formal letter, so it must follow the conventions the examiner expects: the writer's address, the date, the receiver's designation and address, a formal salutation, a clear title, well organised body paragraphs, a formal close and a signature block. The task also sets two clear content demands, both of which must be developed: the importance of the amenities and how their absence affects the lives of the people. A top-band script names specific amenities, argues their value, and links each absence to a concrete effect on the community.
The following is a full model answer written to that standard.
17 Ogui Road,
New Layout,
Enugu,
Enugu State.
17 July, 2026.
The Local Government Administrator,
Enugu North Local Government Council,
Independence Layout,
Enugu State.
Dear Sir,
THE URGENT NEED FOR BASIC AMENITIES IN OUR COMMUNITY
I am writing on behalf of the residents of Ogui community to draw your kind attention to the absence of certain basic amenities in our area. My aim is to explain why these facilities matter to us and to describe, plainly, how their absence continues to disrupt the daily lives of our people.
The first amenity we sorely lack is a good motorable road. A road is the lifeline of any community, for it connects farmers to the market, the sick to the hospital and pupils to their schools. Because our only access road is a stretch of eroded earth, our farmers watch their perishable produce spoil before it reaches the town, traders pay double transport fares, and during the rainy season the community is almost completely cut off from the outside world. More painfully, when a person falls seriously ill at night, there is no vehicle willing to risk the journey, and lives that could be saved are lost.
The second amenity we urgently require is clean, pipe-borne water. Safe water is fundamental to life and to good health, and its provision would spare our women and children the daily burden of trekking long distances in search of it. In its absence, our people are forced to drink from a shallow stream shared with grazing animals. The result is a recurring outbreak of typhoid, cholera and other water-borne diseases, which fills our homes with avoidable sickness and, too often, claims the lives of the very young.
The third amenity we appeal for is a functional health centre with a steady electricity supply. A nearby clinic would provide treatment for common ailments, immunisation for our children and safe care for expectant mothers, while electricity would light our homes, preserve food and medicine, and power the small businesses on which many families depend. As things stand, expectant mothers are carried for several kilometres to the nearest town to give birth, our children study by the dim and dangerous light of kerosene lanterns, and our young people remain unemployed because no small industry can survive without power. This lack has deepened poverty and driven many of our youths to abandon the village for the crowded cities.
The combined absence of these amenities has kept our community trapped in hardship, ill health and want, and it threatens the future of a generation of promising young people. I therefore appeal most earnestly to your good office to come to our aid by providing a motorable road, a source of clean water, and a health centre supported by electricity.
The entire community will remain deeply grateful for your kind and prompt intervention on our behalf.
Yours faithfully,
Chidinma Okeke
(Community Representative)
Marking focus. WAEC marks a letter of this type across four areas, and a top-band answer must satisfy all of them:
- Format: the correct features of a formal letter must be present and correctly placed: the writer's address and date, the receiver's designation and address, a formal salutation (Dear Sir), a relevant title, and a matching formal close (Yours faithfully) with a signature block. A missing or misplaced feature costs format marks.
- Content: the two demands of the question must both be developed clearly. Named amenities must be justified by their importance, and each must be tied to a specific, believable effect of its absence on the community. General complaints without concrete effects, or effects without stated importance, lose content marks.
- Organisation and expression: ideas should flow in well linked paragraphs, one main amenity per paragraph, in a courteous and appropriately formal register. Varied sentence structure, precise vocabulary and a consistent tone are rewarded.
- Mechanical accuracy: spelling, punctuation, grammar, tense and agreement must be controlled throughout. Frequent errors, even in a well argued letter, pull the script down from the top band.
A useful reminder for this task: keep the register formal from first line to last (no contractions or slang), give each amenity both its value and the harm caused by its absence, and match the salutation to the close, since Dear Sir must always end with Yours faithfully.
