Africa’s leading civil society organization, Connected Development (CODE) has admonished the Rivers State government to address some of the infrastructural decay and deficit impeding development in the oil-rich State.
As one of the States in the Niger Delta, a major region for Nigeria’s oil and gas industry, Rivers State has suffered prolonged conflict resulting from the negative impacts of oil exploration and tension between host communities and oil-producing companies.
In 2021, with support from Ford Foundation, CODE initiated the second phase of the project “Empowering Oil-Rich Communities for Improved Service Delivery (EMOC) in Rivers State aimed to amplify the demands of oil-rich communities through reinforcing our evidence-based advocacy strategy. After an appraisal to ascertain the state of social infrastructure in the region, the report shows that the Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) in Rivers state are in appalling conditions capable of undermining or sabotaging the well-being of rural dwellers and consequently, the local economy.
Majority of the Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) lack potable water, an overwhelming majority (83%) of the PHCs are disconnected or unconnected from the power supply, and a significant proportion of the PHCs across the local Government areas lack proper waste disposal points. The fact that large populations of the grassroots depend on these facilities (without adequate environmental assets) highlights the urgent need for intervention.
Also, schools are unable to meet the requirements and standards of education in the twenty-first century which breaches the human rights of the citizens of Rivers state by purposefully or unintentionally preventing them from receiving basic education.
Furthermore, Ministries, Departments & Agencies (MDAs) are underfunded, which restricts their capacity to execute and complete initiatives that benefit rural areas.
The citizens should benefit from strategic infrastructure investments to compensate for the overt and covert effects of oil exploration since they suffer the brunt of oil extraction, loss of variety and other natural productive assets.
CODE is calling on the Rivers State government to address personnel and infrastructural gaps in the hope of positively impacting health outcomes and the education profile of the state.
We also advocate for a comprehensive audit of social infrastructures in Rivers State, beyond the oil-producing communities to support the transparent and efficient deployment of public resources and consequently improve health and education outcomes.
