Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
Counselling and deliveries are conducted out in the open. Life‑saving drugs are stacked on a narrow staircase landing. Three years after a contract was awarded for a permanent health centre, the community of Edjeba in Delta State is still waiting, while its only primary health facility operates from the veranda of the village town hall.
Edjeba Primary Health Centre (PHC) currently has no functional building of its own. The centre serves more than 1,200 residents of Edjeba town and the adjoining Okumagba Avenue – but it runs from an exposed veranda attached to the community’s town hall. The veranda serves as the consulting room, the treatment area and the space where women sometimes give birth. There are no walls, no privacy and no protection from the elements.
“We see patients on the veranda, we counsel them there, we even attend to labour cases there,” a health worker at the facility told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview published on Monday, 27 April 2026. “When it rains, we have to stop work completely.”
Vaccines and essential drugs that must be kept under controlled conditions are stored in a tiny space inside the staircase that leads into the main town hall. There is no dedicated drug cupboard, no reliable power supply for a refrigerator, and no secure storage for medical equipment.
The absence of a permanent building has already stalled routine treatments. Health workers said they have had to turn away mothers needing antenatal care and children requiring immunisation because the veranda is often overcrowded and unsuitable for even basic procedures. “We improvise every day. But there is a limit to improvisation,” the health worker added.
The community’s ordeal is not for lack of a plan. A permanent site for a new primary health centre was identified years ago. The foundation level of the proposed facility was completed, and then the work stopped. The site has remained abandoned ever since.
According to the contractor handling the project, Mr. Oghonemu, the contract was awarded by the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) about three years ago. Speaking to NAN on condition that his full identity be protected, Oghonemu said the project was well‑designed and the foundation properly laid. “But funding has been very slow,” he said. “I continue to work only when money becomes available. That is why the project is dragging.”
DESOPADEC is a statutory agency of the Delta State Government charged with developing oil‑producing communities. The commission has been criticised in the past for abandoning health projects. A 2019 investigation by an online newspaper found that DESOPADEC had awarded contracts to dozens of health centres, many of which were never completed or were left to decay after commissioning.
The state government, for its part, has repeatedly claimed that primary healthcare is a priority. On 8 February 2026, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Joseph Onojaeme, told a journalist that the Oborevwori administration had renovated 150 primary healthcare centres across the three senatorial districts out of the state’s 441 health facilities, with another 150 centres already being scoped. “Delta State remains the only state in the country with over 60 functional, government‑owned hospitals, and this administration is only getting started,” Onojaeme said in an interview with Advocate.
Yet none of those renovated facilities is in Edjeba. The health commissioner’s claims of progress, while containing accurate data, do not address the plight of the more than 1,200 residents who rely on a veranda for their primary care.
In February 2025, the state government signed a memorandum of understanding with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) to revitalise primary health centres across the state. The federal agency has a nationwide programme to upgrade at least one PHC per political ward. It is not clear why Edjeba’s permanent PHC – whose foundation was laid under a DESOPADEC contract – has been excluded from the state’s upgrade list.
Edjeba is not an isolated case. Across Nigeria, thousands of primary health centres built by state and federal agencies remain incomplete or abandoned. In Delta alone, a 2016 report by a civil society organisation identified multiple PHCs that were locked up by contractors who claimed they had not been paid. Edjeba is one of the luckier communities – it can still offer some services, even if from a veranda. Others have no services at all.
Life‑saving commodities such as oxytocin for the prevention of post‑partum haemorrhage and vaccines for preventable childhood diseases must be kept at specific temperatures. The staircase storage at Edjeba provides no such guarantee. Health workers said they have had to discard expired vaccines because there was no functional refrigerator. They also disclosed that during the rainy season, the veranda becomes so wet that they cannot lay out any equipment, and patients often refuse to come because there is nowhere to sit.
The community has now appealed to Governor Sheriff Oborevwori to intervene directly. In a letter addressed to the Governor and copied to the National Primary Health Care Development Agency and the Federal Ministry of Health, the Edjeba Development Union requested the immediate completion of the abandoned permanent site. The letter also asked the state government to release the outstanding funds to the contractor so that work could resume without further delay.
“We are not asking for a new contract,” a community leader, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, told NAN. “The foundation is already there. We need the government to finish what it started.”
The leader also criticised what he called a “pattern of neglect” in oil‑producing communities. “DESOPADEC was created to bring development to us. Instead, we are still using a veranda for a clinic, while money is spent on other things.”
The Delta State Government has not issued a formal response to the community’s appeal. Calls to the Commissioner for Health were not returned before this report was filed. DESOPADEC also did not respond to requests for comment.
For the residents of Edjeba, the issue is not about politics. It is about survival. They want a building with walls, a refrigerator that works, and a place where a mother can deliver her baby with dignity, and not out on a veranda under the watch of curious passers‑by.
As the rainy season approaches, the health workers at Edjeba PHC do not know how much longer they can keep the centre running. The veranda is already showing signs of wear. The town hall roof leaks in several places, and the staircase where drugs are stored is often damp.
“Every day we pray that the government remembers us,” the health worker said. “But prayers are not the same as bricks and mortar.”
The contractor, Oghonemu, said he was still willing to complete the project if funds were released. “I have not abandoned the site,” he insisted. “But I cannot work without money.”
The community has said it will continue to agitate until the permanent site is completed. “We will not stop speaking out,” the community leader said. “Our children deserve a proper clinic. Our women deserve a safe place to give birth. That is not too much to ask.”
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