A fresh field investigation paints a grim picture for communities that help fuel Nigeria’s wealth. The only primary health care facility serving Ndon Eyo 2, Ikot Inyang and Ikot Iyan stands in ruin.
Residents who number more than four thousand between them are forced to travel long distances or go without basic treatment because the PHC has no wards, no running water, no toilets and no functioning electricity.
The facility, according to on-site monitoring by civic accountability activists, now operates out of a rented three room apartment. Roofs leak, doors have fallen off, windows are absent and snakes have been seen on the premises.
Medicines cannot be refrigerated. Night time care is impossible because there is no power. The activists described the building as a symbol of abandonment and systemic failure.
Local people say the state of the PHC is not simply inconvenience. It is a daily threat to life. Pregnant women, infants and the elderly depend on frontline primary care.
When the nearest functioning clinic is hours away and there is no reliable referral transport, treatable illnesses escalate into fatalities.
One community leader told monitors that residents now weigh the cost of travel against the risk of staying home and often choose neither, hoping minor ailments resolve themselves. The official monitoring notes mirror the stories from the compound.
Why this neglect persists in communities inside Nigeria’s oil producing region is the central question.
Billions of naira have flowed through the Niger Delta Development Commission in recent years ostensibly to upgrade infrastructure in oil producing communities. Yet the spending has left visible gaps on the ground.
Activists and residents alike demand to know whether allocations meant for local infrastructure ever reached this PHC or its host communities.
The pattern documented here raises fresh questions about transparency and the true impact of NDDC allocations.
Civic tech organisations have not held back their condemnation. MonITNG described the neglect as unacceptable and reiterated that access to quality healthcare is a fundamental right not a privilege.
The group urged the NDDC, the Akwa Ibom State Ministry of Health, the Federal Ministry of Health and the National Primary Health Care Development Agency to intervene urgently, rehabilitate the facility and ensure it is properly equipped to serve the people.
The monitoring records show that the centre lacks basic infection control and sanitation. Without clean water and toilets, routine care risks spreading disease.
Without windows or doors, patient privacy and the security of medical supplies are compromised.
The presence of reptiles and the structural hazards described make it hard to imagine the facility as fit to deliver maternal and child health services, immunisations, malaria treatment, or basic emergency care.
These are core functions of primary health care that, when absent, shift the burden onto already strained secondary health facilities.
Accountability activists say the problem is not just one site. The PHC accountability platform that carried out the monitoring has catalogued similar failures across the state and the wider region.
Their dashboard shows many tracked facilities scoring poorly on basic infrastructure indicators.
To activists this points to systemic weaknesses in how primary health care financing and project implementation are executed and monitored.
For officials the case presents a simple three point test.
First, establish whether capital or project funds were ever allocated to this facility and trace the flow.
Second, verify whether any contracts for rehabilitation or equipment were awarded and whether deliverables match payments.
Third, if no funds were allocated, ensure emergency funding is released and a time bound plan for renovation and staffing is put in place.
Communities cannot be left to wait while paperwork circulates. Independent monitors have offered to work with authorities to verify documents and progress.
What happens next will show whether the rhetoric around resource transfers to the Niger Delta translates to improved lives.
The residents of these three communities do not seek grand projects. They want a clean, secure building with potable water, a functioning toilet, reliable power, basic equipment, medicines and a trained health worker on site.
That is the minimal expectation for places that contribute to the country’s oil revenue. If state and federal agencies act swiftly they can close this gap. If they do not, the pattern of abandoned promises will continue to cost lives.
Recommendations from the field monitoring and community leaders include an immediate emergency rehabilitation to make the structure safe, installation of solar powered electricity to keep cold chain and lighting functioning, provision of water and sanitation, a baseline audit of what NDDC or state funds were allocated for the site, and an enforceable timetable for full reopening with staff.
Activists also call for a transparent public account of project budgets and delivery to rebuild public trust.
The story of the Ndon Eyo 2 facility is a local tragedy with national implications. It is a test of institutional will.
The agencies named by monitors can begin with a single simple act: acknowledge the findings, publish the funds and contract trail, and open the site to a verifiable rehabilitation.
Until that happens the people of Ndon Eyo 2, Ikot Inyang and Ikot Iyan will remain among those who pay for the nation’s bounty and receive little in return.
