SOS: NYUKURU COMMUNITY’S PHC, POWER SUPPLY AND EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM

The Nyukuru Community and its environs in Khana Local Government Area of Rivers State are at a breaking point. What was once a vibrant Ogoni settlement known for farming, trade, and resilience now battles daily survival. The roads are deplorable, youth restiveness is rising due to idleness, and public infrastructure has collapsed.

Market women trek long distances with farm produce, yet buyers avoid the community because of access and insecurity after dusk. Yet, the people remain hopeful, organized, and resourceful through their CDC and town union.

Total neglect has turned Nyukuru into a forgotten corridor despite its strategic location and contribution to Khana’s food economy.

The Rivers State Government must declare Nyukuru an “Area of Urgent Intervention.”

Immediate budgetary allocation, constituency project funding, and direct engagement with Nyukuru Community Development Committee will restore dignity, rebuild trust, and ignite development from the grassroots before frustration turns to despair.

Nyukuru has an absolute absence of primary health care. There is not even a dilapidated building or any structure that existed before. No clinic, no maternity, no drug store, no health worker posted to the community. Pregnant women travel over 40 minutes to Bori or even Port Harcourt on bad roads, leading to preventable maternal and infant deaths. In 2024 alone, community leaders recorded three home births that ended in tragedy because there was nowhere to run in an emergency.

Malaria, typhoid, untreated wounds, and hypertension dominate because residents rely entirely on trado-medical alternatives and roadside chemists. Even routine immunization is impossible because there is no cold chain, no facility, and no staff to receive outreach teams.

Zero PHC has left over 15,000 residents medically exposed, with mortality rates rising by the day.

Government must urgently construct and equip a fully functional Nyukuru PHC with solar power, a maternity and child welfare unit, essential drugs, a motorcycle ambulance, and at least two resident nurses and a community health officer. Partnering with RIVCHEP, RSUTH outreach, and credible NGOs will make healthcare accessible, affordable, and lifesaving within months of approval.

For years, Nyukuru has been in total blackout. The community was never fully captured on the PHCN grid after the Ogoni crisis, and the few transformers donated by stakeholders are vandalized or obsolete. Small businesses, cold rooms, barbing salons, welding shops, and phone charging points have collapsed. Students cannot read at night, and insecurity thrives under darkness as hoodlums exploit the void.

A palm oil processor, Mrs. Barine Nwile, closed shop after spending ₦200,000 monthly on diesel, only to fold. ICT startups and POS operators migrate to Bori because they cannot function off-grid.

Zero electricity is strangling the local economy, education, and safety. Solution: The Rivers State Government, through the Ministry of Power and REMPDC, should extend rural electrification to Nyukuru, install a 500KVA transformer, and deploy a hybrid solar mini-grid for critical areas like the market, PHC, and secondary school. Light will mean life, jobs, security, and digital inclusion for a generation tired of waiting.

Nyukuru Community Secondary School and the lone public primary school are shadows of what they should be. In Nyukuru and environs most government primary and secondary schools are just indoor playing centres for pupils and students from the period of 8:30am to 2:00pm, because of inadequate teachers in the community schools.

There are fewer than 12 teachers for over 400 pupils, no science laboratory, no ICT center, and classrooms with leaking roofs and broken desks. WAEC and NECO results have declined sharply, forcing parents to send children to Bori at high cost or withdraw them entirely. Bright minds like Master Promise Kpobari, who scored 9As in internal exams, now hawk sachet water because his parents cannot afford boarding fees.

Again, the level of special needs children is worrisome, completely in every compound and so obvious. This might be a resolution of poor maternity and ante natal health care because of no presence of primary health care. A pregnant woman from day one to nine months could not visit a health centre because none exists in her community except the trado-medical alternative, and this is definitely increasing mortality rates in Nyukuru, despite the ongoing construction of road from Taabaa passing through Nyukuru to Buno Banga. Without early screening, nutrition, and safe delivery, disabilities rise while hope falls.

A broken education system, teacher shortage, and untreated maternal health failures are breeding illiteracy, disability, and hopelessness.

SUBEB and the Ministry of Education must post qualified teachers with rural incentives, renovate classrooms, provide desks, books, and solar-powered ICT labs. A special education unit and screening program should be established to support children with disabilities. Scholarship, feeding programs, and a functional school health clinic will keep children in school and restore Nyukuru’s academic pride.

Nyukuru is not asking for charity; it is demanding justice. A community that feeds Khana, votes in every election, pays taxes, and maintains peace deserves more than press releases.

If Primary Health Care remains absent, mothers and babies will keep dying. If there is no light, the economy will remain in darkness. If schools stay broken, the next generation is lost to hawking, migration, and crime. Youths who should be in classrooms or workshops are idle, and that idleness is expensive for all of us.

Silence from the government has created pain, out-migration, and rising frustration among families and leaders.

Governor Siminalayi Fubara’s administration must treat Nyukuru as a matter of urgent emergency.

We call for a Special Intervention Taskforce, a 12-month action plan with milestones, and visible projects in health, power, and education before 2027. Budget lines should be tracked publicly, and the CDC must be in the room.

To the Rivers State Government: Nyukuru is waiting. Act now, and history will remember you as the government that brought light, life, and learning back to Ogoni land.