CLETUS UKPONG of Premium Times in this special report, writes that comminuties in oil-rich Akwa Ibom state have been abandoned in shocking poverty
Pathetic sight
It has just finished raining and it is cold this Tuesday morning in July 2017. This reporter is visiting the Annang Peoples Primary School, Ikot Iyire, Abak, in oil-rich Akwa Ibom state.
Three pupils between the ages of three and four lay fast asleep on bare floor inside a classroom. The doors and windows are wide open and the sleeping kids are not even covered with blanket, despite the cold wind.
It is such a pathetic sight. The kids are visibly shivering, teeth chattering, and bodies shaking. They coil themselves up ostensibly to conserve whatever heat remained in their bodies.
A few other kids sit idly on two desks. They aren’t looking cheerful at all. At a corner, in front of the classroom, sits a lonely woman – their teacher.
A teacher tells PREMIUM TIMES the pupils are part of the Early Education programme of the school. She says there is nothing teachers and the school authorities can do to help since the school lack even mats to spread on the floor for the poor kids.
Aside from this, the school has been in dire need of help, infrastructure wise. The two main classroom blocks are without roofs. The other remaining blocks are at various stages of decay, making them unsuitable and unsafe for pupils and their teachers.
Most pupils sit on bare floor
Most pupils sit on bare floor to learn because of lack of chairs and desks. Inside the Primary Two classroom, for instance, 42 pupils are made to share only three desks.
The Early Education classroom has only two desks. There are no toys or learning materials for the kids.
The school, built around 1947 by the community before it was later handed over to the state government, has no staff room, so the teachers sit under a mango tree to hold meetings and prepare for the day’s lessons. They scamper into leaky classrooms when it rains.
Also, like most of the public primary schools in the state, it has no urinary, no toilet, and no source of drinking water.
“Whenever it rains, the pupils feel discouraged to come to school because the classrooms are flooded,” one of the teachers tells this reporter.
“We are suffering because we don’t have any godfather in government,” the Village Head of Ikot Iyire, James Akpan, says while showing this reporter round dilapidated buildings in the school.
“I have been a village head for more than 22 years now, we have not received any support for the school from any government official or any politician,” he says. “Sometimes I have to use my personal money to buy chalks for the school.”
Akpan points at a minor concrete work in one of the classrooms, saying he used his personal funds to buy two bags of cement to execute the repairs.
“I have written several letters and forwarded several photos of the school to government, but there hasn’t been any response,” the village head says, adding that the school caters for the educational needs of more than seven villages around the area.
But as this PREMIUM TIMES reporter leaves the Ikot Uyire village head wondering why a government would allow its future leaders to learn in such a dehumanising situation, he soon happens on another school having what appeared a higher level of decay.
In ruins
At Ediene II, about 20 minutes’ drive from Ikot Uyire, the only government primary school in the village is in ruins. One of the classroom blocks in the school is without roof, while tall weeds sprout from the broken parts of the cement floor inside the classroom.
At St. Ignatius Catholic Primary School, Ukana Iba, Essien Udim Local Government Area, it is a similar horrible sight – a pupil is seen sleeping on bare floor at the verandah of a classroom at 12:16 p.m. when he should be attending lessons. The main classroom block in the school is without roof, doors, and windows.
A pupil walked past a dilapidated school building at Annang Peoples Primary School, Ikot Iyire, Ukpom Abak
Our investigation, spanning more than one year and involving several schools in urban and rural communities, shows that only a handful of schools in this state can be considered reasonably conducive for learning. The rest are in terribly appalling situation. Some are not even good enough for raising animals, says Mbebe Albert, a lawyer based in the state.
At the Community Comprehensive Secondary School, Nto Osung, Ekpenyong Atai, Essien Udim, the teachers and principal do not worry much about their decaying infrastructure. They are more concerned about the regular invasion of the school premises by criminals.
Armed gangs rob teachers in broad daylight
The school is unfenced, allowing armed gangs to keep invading the school in broad daylight to rob teachers and students of their belongings.
For the school’s dilapidated structures, the school authorities say they had since forwarded videos and photos to the state’s ministry of education and Governor Udom Emmanuel’s aide on education monitoring. They are still awaiting response from government.
Several other schools visited in Essien Udim and in the neighbouring Obot Akara Local Government Area have similar challenges of decayed infrastructure, inadequate teachers and classrooms, and lack of functional laboratories and libraries.
One school in Essien Udim, Government Secondary School, Nto Nsek, was fortunate some years back to have an information technology laboratory built there, a rare facility in secondary schools in the state. But the laboratory has since become an eyesore. The small hall, with leaky roof and broken furniture, has now been neglected and abandoned for years. The school’s electrical laboratory has suffered a similar fate..
The school, which caters for more than nine villages in Essien Udim and the neighbouring local government area of Obot Akara and has a student population of 2,414, no longer hold science experiments due to lack of laboratories, this newspaper was told.
The school is grappling with the challenge of inadequate classrooms, having shut its main classroom block – a storey building – a year ago when the 55-year-old building showed cracks on its walls and vibrated whenever students climbed its stairs.
The ensuing accommodation crisis compelled the school to abolish its long-established boarding system. The hostels were then converted to classrooms, officials say.
Out of the three blocks at the Methodist Primary School, Nto Obio Ikang, Obot Akara Local Government Area, one is dilapidated and abandoned, while another is without roof.
Friday Idot, the Chairman, Nto Obio Ikang Village Council, appeals to the state government to urgently renovate and equip the school. He says the school, built since 1940, is the only school in the village.
Aging classroom blocks
Still within Obot Akara, the Community Secondary Commercial School at Nto Edino, requires complete overhaul of its aging classroom blocks, some of which have had their roofs torn off and their walls broken down.
St. Raphael Catholic Primary School, Ndon Eyo II, in Etinan Local Government Area, built around 1930 by the Catholic Church, has just one school block which houses classrooms and administrative offices.
To make the best of a bad situation, the school authorities divided the classroom along imaginary lines, lumping Primary one and two pupils together at one end. Those in Primary three, four, five, and six were also combined and cramped at the other end, with four chalkboards at the different corners. It is a chaotic spectacle as the cacophony of sounds from the different corners remains a constant distraction for the pupils.
The roof of the ageing building is depressed in the middle, indicating that it might cave in anytime, therefore putting the lives of the 459 pupils and their seven teachers at risk.
Decaying rafter fell and hit a pupil
A teacher tells PREMIUM TIMES a decaying rafter once fell from the top and hit a pupil on the head. Luckily, the little boy only suffered a minor injury, the teacher says.
St. Raphael does not have a toilet or urinary. It does not also have any source of drinking water. Teachers and students rush into nearby bushes anytime they need to relieve themselves.
Within Etinan, there are several other schools with dilapidated structures like St. Louis Catholic Primary Sch, Mbiokporo 1, Community Secondary Commercial School, Ikot Nte, and even the once prestigious Etinan Institute.
Coastline oil-communities worst off
It is quite a bizarre sight at Ntiat/Mbak 1 Comprehensive Secondary School, Itu Urban, where some female students are seen chatting freely inside a partially collapsed structure meant to be a classroom. The rafters and the remnants of the ceilings dangle menacingly above them, making the place a deathtrap.
The school’s staff quarters are dilapidated and abandoned. Same with one of its major classroom blocks.
The assembly hall had collapsed, while the library and the laboratory are in a terrible state and could go the way of other collapsed structures if not urgently rebuilt.
Too many education officers, monitors, supervisors
The state ministry of education has Area Education Officers (AEOs) spread across the state with the mandate to monitor education in local communities. There are also senior ministry officials whose job schedules include paying supervisory visits to schools and submitting reports on the condition of schools to higher authorities.
Governor Udom Emmanuel has four special assistants on education monitoring alone, with three of them covering each of the three senatorial districts and reporting directly to a Senior Special Assistant, Idongesit Etiebet.
This is how corruption, poor budget planning and implementation, and outright neglect have led to the near collapse of public education in Akwa Ibom, one of Nigeria’s richest states.
