Fubara speaks on ‘unbelievable’ state of Rivers hospitals, schools

Ninety per cent of primary schools in the oil-rich Rivers State are dilapidated while 75 per cent lack adequate number of teachers, the State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has said.

Governor Fubara said this in a statement by his chief press secretary, Nelson Chukwudi, on Wednesday, Punch newspaper reported.

Mr Fubara said the state government got wind of the deplorable standard of the schools through a firm, New Global, which indicated interest in partnering with the government to enhance the capacity of teachers in the state.

The governor said he asked the firm to carry out assessment of the schools, when the firm contacted the government and expressed its intention to invest $5 million in providing software and other equipment to enhance learning at primary schools level.

“I told them to go round and assess the primary schools in the state. After their assessment, you won’t believe it that 75 per cent of our primary schools have no teachers; 90 per cent of the schools are dilapidated.

“So, how will you now put in the $5m? So, when I talk about education, I really mean it. It’s not education where we renovate schools, and call people for inauguration. We are talking about touching what is important, because, for us to develop as a society, for us to get it right from the foundation, it is at the primary school level.

“If we don’t get that aspect right as a foundation for preparing our youths as the leaders of tomorrow, then, we have lost it,” Mr Fubara said.

Besides the dilapidated infrastructure in the public primary schools in the state, the governor also said that health institutions in the state were overstretched because primary and secondary health facilities were not functioning.

The only functional health facilities in the state, Mr Fubara said, “are the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital, and maybe, the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital.”

The governor said he would revisit five zonal hospitals in the state, make them functional so as to reduce the pressure on the two tertiary health institutions.

“The other aspects of the healthcare system that should be functioning are primary and secondary healthcare. We have to do everything that is within our power to make sure that they function.

“Now, you see, there is so much pressure because the primary healthcare centres have a limit in terms of what they can attend to. So, the pressure is always on the tertiary institutions, what you call the teaching hospitals.

“Now, when they function, they will give support to the primary healthcare centres. A lot of people die because of minor illnesses and unavailability of health centres, not well-equipped with qualified personnel. So, we know it is important.

“It might not be something people are seeing, but those are the key things to development and the things that people need, and to prove that, yes, we have a functional government,” he said.

Rivers State Government under the administration of former Governor Rotimi Amaechi (2007 – 2015) built model primary and secondary schools in the state.

Mr Amaechi had also built modern primary health centres in the state during his tenure. It is not clear if the infrastructure was not maintained after he left office in 2015.