By Archibong JEREMIAH

This investigation reports on the dire situation faced by residents of the neglected Ekukunela community in Ikom, central Cross River State as the only health post serving six villages is collapsing before their very eyes. The construction of a comprehensive health centre for the people started in 2010 but remains uncompleted after 14 years. 

Roseline Awu Ayang is a businesswoman in Ekukunela, Ikom Local Government Area (LGA) of Cross River State. The mother of five is worried about the health situation in her community due to the deteriorating state of the only health facility.

“Many women deliver their children there but some lose their babies. The place is not nice, it is small, and not okay for us. The workers are trying, it is just that the place is not nice,” troubled Roseline told TheInvestigator.

The Ekukunela health post serves six villages, including Nkwan Enim, Obioko, Nkanibin, and Nsamengbe 1, 2, and 3. The facility used to be the community’s town hall but was converted into a health post about thirty (30) years ago due to the need for a health facility.

The health post has no ceiling, electricity, water, essential drugs, nursing station, laboratory, or wards. The hall used as a waiting room is also used as the makeshift ward, it has just a bed donated by a good-spirited individual and offers no privacy at all to patients.

The labour room has just a bed and nothing else; the drip is hung by the door frame. The store is used as a pharmacy and record room, but it is too small, so some files are arranged on the table used to attend to patients. For over three years, no doctor has visited the health post.

Anthony Enya Odum is the facility’s Community Health Officer (CHO). His dreams of saving lives led him to volunteer, and he has been doing so for close to a decade.

Like Odum, Nsan Igbor Nsan, a volunteer for over 16 years, the unsatisfactory working conditions is killing their morale. They have no monthly take-home and survive on the goodwill of people and handouts when they attend to patients.

Records from the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) PMIS Portal show that the Commission contracted Jismac Nigeria Limited on May 27, 2010 to build a block of standard cottage/comprehensive health centre in Ekukunela for N43,436,040.60.

Construction began the same year, and in 2013, when roofing was done, it stalled for another three years before plastering was done around 2016. TheInvestigator’s findings show that the contractor received a total of N23 million in three tranches (N6 million, N8 million and N9 million).

From 2016 to the time of this investigation, the project has not been attended to and the yet-to-be-completed building is now used as a church by the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).

The chairman of the Ekukunela Community Town Council, Nzan Nzie Nkwan poured his heart out to TheInvestigator, painting a picture of neglect and a desire to survive at all costs.

Nzie described their situation as “living in bondage” because a project meant to boost quality and affordable healthcare within the region has failed and after 14 years, there is no hope.

Fuming, he said, “We discovered that this community is large enough to have a cottage centre where we would have doctors.”

He identified healthcare for pregnant women, particularly during delivery as one of the most pressing challenges of the community.

“We have been having issues, especially during delivery. For operations, labour and other severe illnesses our people have been trekking to make sure their lives are safe especially now that we have a high cost of price caused by fuel. We have been recording deaths because of the lack of a functional health centre and amenities. Between 2010 to now we have recorded between 15 and 20 deaths. We are rejected by the government.”

Nzie said that the community lacks more than a health centre. “The road construction (referring to the entrance) is by the community; we are donating money to see how to scale through. As I am talking to you, we have taxed people compulsorily to enable us to have access roads; otherwise, by this time, you would not have come in.”

About electricity, Nzie stated that they have been in darkness for over two decades, adding that “since Donald Duke left office, we have lacked light till today, who can we turn to and who can we write through is our challenge today.”

Corroborating the Ekukunela Community Town Council Chairman’s position,  the Clan Head of Ekukunela/Alesi Clan, Ofutop 2, Ntun Moses Eyam, said death robbed them of their community advocates who championed their course.

The Clan Head said, “I was told that about 50 per cent was completed but as I’m talking to you it is one late Dr Mike Nzan Nkwan that was the person fighting to make sure it was completed.”

Until his death last year, late Dr Nkwan ran a subsidised medical outreach in his community which metamorphosed into the County Specialist Hospital, a secondary facility on June 1st, 2000, located at Calabar Road, Four Corners, Ikom.

Furthermore, he added “Here, the people we have are all dead and gone. Those we have, have not gone to that level that they can move a motion to say I want this and this to be done in this community.”

Despite their importance during an election, he lamented that they still get cheated by politicians.

“I feel bad because we don’t have people who will fight for us and each time an election is around without us here a candidate cannot win but once we vote them in, they forget about us, the challenge is that we don’t have people in politics to speak for us,” he stated.

Lack of water drives open defecation

The Ekukunela community also lacks potable water. There are two main sources of water – contaminated stream and a borehole.

Nzie noted “We have three boreholes and none has been working for about 15-20 years. When I came into government (2023) I invested over N1m before our people had access to water from one of them, with community money. If I take you to the source of our water, you will pity us.”

TheInvestigator visited the stream which is their main source of water apart from the one functioning borehole and observed that open defecation is practiced there. From a kilometre to the stream, the stench of faeces and urine was so strong it could upset the stomach.

The stream environment was not clean, and the water looked contaminated such that, if not boiled or treated properly could lead to waterborne disease or illness.

“The level at which people have used the path has channeled erosion down to the stream. During the rain, we will not be able to fetch for about a day or two so that the gutter water that enters will clear off.” Odum told TheInvestigator.

Confirming the practice of open defecation, the Community Health Officer added, “Another thing is that we are still practicing open defecation and at the end of the day the erosion will wash them down to the stream. This is the major source of water outside the one functional borehole repaired this year.”

Shoddy job

To alleviate the water situation in Ekukunela, the Federal Government spent N10 million from the 2023 budget to provide a solar-powered borehole. The Federal Cooperative College, Ibadan, is the implementing agency.

Rather than install the borehole in Ekukunela, it was diverted to Agbaragba, TheInvestigator uncovered in this six-week investigation.

Further finding shows that rather than deliver a solar-powered borehole as contracted, the contractor provided a second-hand generator which hardly powers the pumping machine.

Nkwan Patrick, in whose compound the borehole is located, said they are not feeling the impact of the project because it was poorly done.

Sharing more about the challenges of the borehole, Nkwan said “If you pump water for like 15 minutes, it will seize, and you’ll have to wait for over two hours before you can pump again.”

Furthermore, he said the water needs to be cleaner and often comes with mud.

TheInvestigator went through Open Treasury, GovSpend, EyeMark, YMonitor and the Federal Cooperative College (FCC) Ibadan websites and found nothing relating to the contract or the contractor.

High cost of materials dtalled the job – Contractor

To understand the challenges that have left Ekukunela in a state of despair, TheInvestigator got in touch with the contractor and the facilitators of the cottage/comprehensive health centre and solar-powered borehole.

The contractor, Zack Agba, told TheInvestigator that the high cost of materials led to the project’s stalling.

“When they awarded the job, we did everything. The problem was that the value of cement was N600 and it went up to N2,000. The material went up, and I bought over N2 million and kept them. I don’t know whether the tiles will still be there,” he said.

Zack said that outside the N23 million received, his company invested an additional N10 million making a total of N33 million that has been spent on the project.

To recover his money and complete the job “We applied for variation, nobody was answering. During Ndoma Egba we wrote” Zack lamented.

He confirmed that he gave the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) permission to use the place “instead of leaving the place wasting away”.

The NDDC was contacted multiple times, but calls, SMS, and emails went unanswered. On Thursday, November 7th, 2024, TheInvestigator called twelve times, the same day an SMS was sent. The next day another reminder was done via text.

On Tuesday, November 12, 2024, another round of calls went unanswered, and a text message was sent that also did not elicit a reply. Following two weeks of no response to calls, SMS, and the contact form on their website, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request was also sent. This, too, went unanswered.

Information requested include the contract description, date of contract award, the amount paid, the contract execution period, the contract value, the approved budgetary provision, the level of completion, and remarks on the project status of.

Our reporter called the Provost of the Federal Cooperative College in Ibadan, Stephen Oyeleye, over the phone in November to speak to him about the solar-powered borehole contract supervised by his institute,

He was out of town, he said, and promised to provide the details of the contractor and answers as to why the borehole was taken to Agbaragba and not done as specified the following week.

After three reminders between November 7 and 9, the Provost has not provided answers until the time of filing this report.

Abandoned health project leads to loss of trust in government, warns expert

The Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Healthworks Development and Research Initiative (CHEDRES),  Felix Ukam Ngwu, was contacted by TheInvestigator to analyse the impact of the yet-to-be-completed health centre and water situation on the community members. He noted that when a contractor abandons a community health project, it has several implications for the community, for the government and the overall health.

“One of the implications to that of the community is you see that by abandoning that project, the community now faces more health risks,” he averred.

According to him, part of the impact of the community’s state is losing trust in the government. “The community will no longer trust that kind of contractor, or even the government and any organization that goes to do any work there.” Mr Ukam maintained.

He went on to assert that when a contract gets stalled for any reason it leads to “financial loss,” adding that “There are also accountability issues. You know, poor project oversight.”

He called on the community “to take ownership of the project. It’s important to seek partnerships with other development organisations to ensure the completion of the project.”

The government was urged to “Consider re-awarding the contract if the current contractor is unable to fulfill it. It’s crucial to take action through advocacy, partnerships, and re-awarding the contract to ensure that the project is completed.”

TheInvestigator produced this story through its Environmental and Accountability Reporting (EAR) project with support from the International Centre for Investigative Reporting and the MacArthur Foundation.