Feeling the intermittent pains of labour, Iyabo Ganiyu, a middle-aged mother of five who is a resident of Ariyibi Community, did not doubt the fact that her Expected Delivery Date (EDD) was close enough. Due to the absence of a functional primary healthcare centre in the community, the heavily pregnant woman, with the assistance of AbdulRahman Idris, her husband, had to travel as far as 25 kilometres to Ajikobi Cottage Hospital in Ilorin West Local Government Area of Kwara. Ganiyu later had her baby boy through a caesarean section in another local government area.

When Ganiyu returned home on the 31st of January, 2023, after spending 13 days at the hospital, she started experiencing some complications with the dissolvable stitches on her belly loosening.

Following medical advice, she was rushed to the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, where she spent another 12 days for remedial medical operations before she eventually recovered.

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“I nearly lost my life after the poor operation conducted on me during the birth of my last child, Ibrahim. I was told my stomach was not properly stitched, and I started experiencing severe pain,” Ganiyu explained.

“For us in Ariyibi, access to proper healthcare has been the major challenge we face. Even when our children fall sick at night, there is no functional health facility within our community. We have to travel as far as Oke-Oyi or Ilorin on motorcycles to receive treatment.

“The situation is even worse for pregnant women who go through much stress every week, visiting Oke-Oyi Health Centre for their antenatal.”

Ariyibi Health Post signpost. PHOTO CREDIT: Ibrahim Mohammed

Hajiya Hauwa Kulu, a septuagenarian,  in an interview with this reporter, lamented the problems posed by the lack of a functional health centre in the community, saying that it is an appalling experience for folks around her age who deserve constant healthcare to be deprived of such basic amenity.

Speaking with evident rage, the aged woman reprimanded the state government for not finding Ariyibi worthy of basic amenities.

Deplorable health post, truant health worker

All Ariyibi Community boasts of as a health post is a six-by-eight room with a ceiling made of Dangote cement bags to keep drizzles of water at bay during rainy days and block the hotness of the sun in the dry season. The building was put in place by the administration of Governor Muhammed Lawal to serve the immediate health needs of the villagers over 20 years ago. Since then, the facility has not gone through any phase of development or upgrading by successive administrations in the state.

PHOTO CREDIT: Ibrahim Mohammed

All Ariyibi Community boasts of as a health post is a six-by-eight room with a ceiling made of Dangote cement bags to keep drizzles of water at bay during rainy days and block the hotness of the sun in the dry season. PHOTO CREDIT: Ibrahim Mohammed

The health facility, in all ramifications, does not share any semblance with modern-day health posts, flanked back and front by maize farms, and without medical equipment to indicate a health centre.

The moribund building had two benches, a chair, a white locked box, and two tables, with one of the tables being occupied by dusty medical books. Offering the façade of a health facility are the three health-related posters hung on the wall of the building.

Towards the end of 2023, the community and other neighbouring villages were dealt a huge blow when the nurse, popularly known as Mama Victor, who diligently worked at the health post, was transferred to another health centre. According to Abdulsalam Aweda, the community head, the new health worker posted to the community was last seen on the day he came to report to the facility. During the visit, he berated the deplorable condition of the health post, asking the community to provide a more befitting and conducive apartment for him to enable him to continue from where his predecessor stopped.

“Following his demand, we arranged a room and parlour apartment for him to ease his work. But surprisingly, he has not set his foot in the village since then. We heard from a reliable source that he had been reposted to Okelele Primary Health Centre in Ilorin,” Aweda said.

“For about a year now, this community has been without a functional health facility and health professional. We only pray we don’t encounter serious health challenges or emergencies that demand urgent medical attention. Otherwise, it will be fatal.”

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While appealing to the state government, the community head charged Governor AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq to design a health initiative that would leave no community in the state untouched. Aweda lamented that Ariyibi and other neighbouring communities were unjustifiably abandoned.

Idris AbdulRahman, the secretary of the community, revealed that youths in the community, in a move to improve healthcare services in Ariyibi, commenced the construction of a new healthcare centre beside the dilapidating one. The project has stalled due to financial paucity and the unfavourable economic situation of the country.

He further stressed that several appeals to the state authorities to complete the ongoing project have not yielded positive results.

Despite the challenges faced by Ariyibi and other communities in terms of poor healthcare services, the Kwara State Government was rated the best state in basic healthcare delivery in the entire North-central in 2023, beating Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, and other five states.

Kwara Government turns deaf ears to Ariyibi’s plights

Speaking with a tone of indignation, AbdulRahman tongue-lashed the state government for failing to provide basic amenities for his community.

He said that Ariyibi and other neighbouring communities — Oke-Odo, Afunkikin, Kuro, Ago, Megun, Agbaku, Asunnara and Idi-Ose — have been clamouring for the establishment of secondary schools several years ago but successive governments have refused to consider their requests.

“We have taken a lot of steps to bring development to our community by writing a series of letters to different administrations in the state, but unfortunately none of the moves has yielded positive results,” AbdulRahman said.

“The nine communities jointly requested a secondary school, but up to date, our request has not been granted. With the current economic reality, parents spend not less than N1,500 on each child as transport fare from here to Oke-Oyi, where their secondary school is located, excluding feeding. Students whose parents can not afford such humongous transport fares have to stand by the roadside seeking a free lift, and that option is risky based on the prevailing security situation in the country. No parent wants his or her children abducted by kidnappers all in the name of free lift.

“Among other basic amenities we lack in our communities is drinkable water, especially during the dry season. We only rely on the borehole provided by a philanthropist from this community, Alhaji Issa Ibrahim Elelu. But it is not enough to serve us as our population continues to increase virtually every day. He also donated about 22 pieces of solar light lamps that illuminate the community against security threats at night.

“The state government has completely neglected us. The community itself provided 98% of the few basic amenities you see around, including the electrification and establishment of the primary school in the community.

“The only primary school we have here was established by indigenes of this community in the 1970s. As you can see, we are always at the receiving end.”

A letter from Ariyibi Community to the Kwara State Commissioner for Water Resources. PHOTO CREDIT: Ibrahim Mohammed

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No school for pupils of Oke-Odo during the rainy season

Oke-Odo, a village within Ilorin East LGA, shares the same primary school with Ariyibi owing to the communities’ agelong cordial relationship. Unfortunately, the two neighbouring communities suffer relative levels of negligence from the state government in terms of social amenities. Oke-Odo’s condition is much more complicated, especially during the rainy season.

The two neighbouring communities are interconnected by a makeshift wooden pedestrian bridge, enabling free flow transit inward and outward between the two communities. But during the rainy season, the makeshift bridge usually betrays the purpose it is meant to serve, collapsing whenever there is a heavy downpour and trapping the Oke-Odo pupils in their community. The children stay without access to education from the school in Ariyibi throughout such periods.

Ariyibi and Oke-Odo, neighbouring communities, are interconnected by a makeshift wooden pedestrian bridge. PHOTO CREDIT: Ibrahim Mohammed

According to Abdulrauf Omotosho, the Chief Imam of Oke-Odo village, “During rainy seasons, our children find it difficult to attend school at Ariyibi village because the flood usually destroys the wooden bridge and it is dangerous for them to pass through it because it can lead to loss of lives. So we encourage them to stay at home until we repair the bridge.

“At least, in the current rainy season, we have repaired the bridge four times with wood from the bush because we don’t have the resources to build a proper bridge ourselves.

“In addition, there is no adequate teacher in the primary school. From Primary One to Primary Six, we only have three teachers, including the school head. Whenever they transfer teachers to this community, they are immediately transferred to the state capital because they don’t want to stay here and work. So, we implore the state governor to employ indigenes of our communities who live among us to turn the school around.”

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Kwara Health Commissioner reacts

When contacted, Dr Amina Ahmed El-Imam, the state commissioner for health, acknowledged the healthcare delivery challenges the communities in Ilorin East LGA are currently facing, noting that the issues would be addressed as soon as possible.

El-Imam also maintained that Governor AbdulRazaq was making plans to improve the remunerations of health workers to measure up to the federal government salary scale and to recruit more health professionals through all the local government areas within the state.
The post Kwara Women Travel Across LGAs to Give Birth Because of Empty Health Centre appeared first on Foundation For Investigative Journalism.