The dilapidating situation of some schools in Rivers State may be taking a turn for the worse. Children sitting on the bare floor; roofs of classrooms looking like they are about to cave in anytime soon; and foul stench from feces in classrooms seems to be the order of the day.
Nigeria Info visited the state school in Umuebulu, Etche Local Government Area of the state as well as Community Secondary School, Okoro-N’Odu in Obio Akpor Local Government Area. Both schools share similarities in the rot and decay bedeviling some institutions in the state. 
In Umuebulu, stakeholders complained that the “situation has lasted for more than five years.”
“Everywhere is messed up. No chairs, no windows, no doors. The children sit on the bare floor. Before we learn in the morning, we must first of all sweep out excreta from the classes,” one of the stakeholders, who prefers not to be named, told Nigeria Info.
But that’s not all the problem.
Some persons, allegedly women in the community, have turned the school to farmland.
“You can see even women are using our environment to do waterleaf,” another stakeholder noted.
“If you look at our board, sometimes they will remove it, when we come, we'll look to improvise to help our children. Every weekend, they come and remove our zinc, we need security,” she added.
Nigeria Info also discovered that in most schools without good security measures like fences, most equipments are usually not kept within the school premises.
A visibly worried stakeholder confided: “some community people usually take our chairs to use as firewood. Even the computers and accessories that government give to us, we cannot leave in our offices else they will be stolen.”
At the Community Secondary School, Okoro-N’Odu in Obio Akpor Local Government Area, the National Examination Council (NECO) examinations are currently ongoing but similar problems exist.
Classrooms are overcrowded.
There are no toilets or water supply and students defecate outside.
At the junior secondary section, students sit on dusty floors to copy notes from the board.
When contacted, the Rivers State Universal Basic Education Board promised to look into the state of some schools in the state.
Director, Administration and Supplies/Public Relations, Karibi George said that the state government has taken note of the report by Nigeria Info and will include the affected schools in its plans subsequently.
“I want to think that your investigation in Etche must have shown the couple of schools that the government has recently intervened,” George noted.
“There's an open bidding process for renovation and reconstruction of schools. So, resources are limited but where there's a need for urgent intervention.
On the issues of insecurity in some of the schools, the RSUBEC Director wants the affected school authorities to take “personal responsibility and bring the report in writing,” to aid government.
“There is a queue and our action plan for Federal Government intervention project for this year is already concluded. We cannot add that school,” he admitted.
The Rivers State Government allocated over thirty billion naira to the education sector in the 2021 budget. While presenting it last year, Governor Nyesom Wike had promised to deliver comprehensive access to quality public education for Rivers people.
Tertiary institutions in the state like the Rivers State University received 16.6 billion naira from the state government for the upgrade of facilities in March this year. The state government also donated N500million to PAMO University of Medical Sciences a couple of months ago, a year after it gifted the same school 500million naira.
Additional report by Emeka Ortuka
