• • •Host Community to Oil Watches Legacy Rot Away
Uboho David, Inido Abaikpa & Bassey Blessing
In Ibotio and Ndon Ibotio, two oil-bearing villages in Ikpa ibom clan, Mkpat Enin local government area, there is a grief that does not make the news. It is the grief of watching your fathers’ legacy rot away.
It is the grief of a once-proud boarding school that produced Akwa Ibom’s best, now reduced to one leaking classroom, palm trees growing through laboratories, and cattle grazing where students once marched during inter-house sports.
This is the story of Government Secondary School Ibotio, formerly, Ibotio and Ndon Secondary School. This is the story of a community that feels forgotten, blacklisted, and buried under 16 years of broken promises.
Eteidung Engr. Sunday Gaius Bassey of Ibotio still remembers when the school was the pride of the area.
“When I was in secondary school age, our parents built that school. It was fully boarded, with everything. It was one of the number one schools in Akwa Ibom,” he recalls, voice breaking.
Today, the village head says only one classroom block is in use, and it leaks everywhere. Another block awarded for rehabilitation by EMOIMEE HCDT has been abandoned mid-work.
“The school pains us. That was one of the reasons I wanted to be Eteidung. Our parents left us a legacy and we cannot maintain it. The Government does not even know anything about it,” he said.
He has written to three administrations — Akpabio, Udom, and now Eno. “No response. Sometimes I wonder if government has blacklisted us. If we offended them, let us go and beg. But don’t kill our children’s future.”
The pain is doubled because the land that hosts Utipkate oil facilities belongs to Ibotio and Ndun Ibotio. “Government is benefiting from our land. The company has not even visited us. It is a tearful thing,” the Eteidung added.
Chief Uduak Sunday, PTA Vice Chairman from Nung Essien Etukudo, resumed in July. What he met broke him.
“There are no chairs, no tables. Students sit on wrappers. The roofs are damaged. The environment is in ruins. It has become a place to rear cattle,” he said.
He remembers the glory days: hostels with beds, a school bus, fully equipped labs and workshops, hundreds of students, and cars trooping in for inter-house sports.
“Now the school is covered in bushes. The lab was vandalized. A palm tree is growing there. Tools in the workshop are gone.”
With no good roads or bridges, teachers barely come. “They come to farm, then harvest. That’s all,” Chief Uduak lamented. “We are pleading: reconstruct the school, employ teachers. PTA has no funds.”
Nsima Okon Udoekpo of Ndun Ibotio works as security in the same school he attended.
“Back in the days we had a bus and hostels. Now nothing. Rain disturbs us at our duty post,” he said.
The most painful part: “This school used to have 300+ students. Now parents won’t release their children. Personally, my children school in another village. This place is not conducive.”
He counted two security men for morning, two for evening — for a compound that used to hold hundreds. “If government doesn’t help, everything we’re doing here is pointless.”
The road that killed the community:
Beyond the school, the Ibotio–Ikot Ekong road and bridge linking Ukam, Ata Nnuk and Onna has been impassable for 16 years.
“It was the nearest road to market. Now we take longer distances. We are farming people. How do we sell our products with no roads?” the Eteidung asked.
Children also cannot cross the dilapidated bridge to neighboring schools. “We wouldn’t endanger our children,” he said.
The Youth President of Ibotio, Ekemini Koko Bassey, an alumnus, says the primary school is worse.
“The fence is gone. Snakes come from the bush. Ceilings are rotting and could collapse on children. Parents are always scared,” he cried.
“We youths do our best to watch the kids, but it’s not safe. Government should at least renovate classrooms and build a fence.”
Village Chairman Uko Thomas Udofia Ndoh put it plainly: “This was a very good boarding school for boys and girls. Students came from everywhere. Important people today passed through here. We had workshops and science labs.”
After government takeover, “buildings collapsed. No doors, no chairs, no equipment. Teachers posted here ask for transfer immediately. Children now trek to other communities.”
Ibotio and Ndun Ibotio host oil. They gave land. They gave a school. What they got back, they say, is silence.
“We are not asking for too much,” Eteidung Bassey said. “Just help us rebuild what our fathers built. Help us so our children can learn in their own land. Help us so we don’t die with this pain.”
As rain drips through the only classroom left standing, the question hangs in the air of Ikpaibom:
If a community that feeds the nation’s oil cannot get a school and a road, who then will government remember?
The Eyes Newspaper calls on the Akwa Ibom State Government, NDDC, EMOIMEE HCDT, and all relevant agencies to urgently audit, rehabilitate and adopt Government Secondary School Ibotio, and to fix the Ibotio–Ikot Ekong road/bridge before another generation is lost.
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