Reported by: Oahimire Omone Precious | Edited by: Oravbiere Osayomore Promise.
For more than ten years, the people of Lewe community in Fika Local Government Area of Yobe State have been forced to improvise healthcare in the unlikeliest of places: a dilapidated primary school classroom. Their Primary Health Centre, once a symbol of hope for families, pregnant women, children, and the elderly, has been abandoned and left to rot. Today, the structure is unsafe, its walls cracked, its roof threatening to cave in. No patient has stepped inside for treatment in over a decade because the building itself is a death trap.
During a recent visit, our correspondent found a facility stripped of every essential component of basic healthcare. There is no laboratory, no clean toilet, no electricity, no waste disposal system, no ambulance, no staff quarters, and not even a proper signpost to identify what the building was once meant to be. The only thing standing is a hollow shell of neglect, a monument to the failure of governance at the local and state levels.
Residents told our reporter that the Lewe PHC has been closed since the early 2010s. What little healthcare the community receives is now delivered inside a nearby dusty primary school, where pupils are supposed to be learning but instead share space with the sick and the dying. “Imagine a pregnant woman seeking care in an unkempt classroom. Imagine a sick child being treated where children should be reading,” a community leader lamented. “We have no safe place to run to in emergencies.”
The situation is not merely an inconvenience; it is a matter of life and death. Without a functional laboratory, basic diagnostic tests cannot be performed. Without electricity, vaccines spoil and emergency procedures are impossible after dark. Without an ambulance, a woman in obstructed labour must be carried on a motorcycle or a cart, often arriving at a distant hospital only after it is too late. The absence of staff quarters means that no qualified nurse or community health worker is willing to relocate to Lewe. Those who are assigned commute long distances or simply refuse the posting.
Community members say that the only time they remember the PHC is during malaria outbreaks, which occur with predictable regularity each rainy season. Yet even then, the building’s poor condition severely limits what can be done. “We treat malaria with paracetamol and hope,” one resident said. “We cannot test blood. We cannot admit severe cases. We just pray.”
Our correspondent held discussions with residents and convened a town hall meeting with the Ward Development Committee and community leaders. The message was unanimous and urgent: Lewe deserves a functional health centre. The people are tired of receiving healthcare in fear of a collapsing building. They are tired of being forgotten because they are rural, offline, and far from the cameras of the capital.
Yobe State, despite its challenges, has received billions of naira in federal allocations, donor funding, and internally generated revenue. The Fika Local Government Area, where Lewe is situated, has its own budget for primary healthcare. Yet this PHC, like so many others across northern Nigeria, remains a symbol of systemic neglect. The Primary Health Care Under One Roof policy, adopted by most states including Yobe, was supposed to ensure that PHCs are functional, staffed, and equipped. In Lewe, that policy exists only on paper.
The state government, led by Governor Mai Mala Buni, has in recent years commissioned new health facilities and renovated others. In 2025, the governor flagged off the construction of 140 new PHCs across the state under a World Bank-assisted programme. But Lewe was not on that list. Neither was it included in any previous renovation cycle. The community has begun to suspect that the government does not even know they exist.
The Chairman of Fika LGA, Hon. Abdul Bukar Gadaka, has been urged by community leaders to visit the site and see for himself what his administration has allowed to fester. The Ward Development Committee has formally written to the local government, the state Ministry of Health, and the Yobe State Primary Health Care Board. No response has been received. No official has visited. No assessment team has come.
Residents of Lewe are not asking for a state-of-the-art hospital. They are asking for a safe building with basic amenities: a reliable source of electricity, clean water, a functional toilet, a small laboratory for malaria and pregnancy tests, and a dedicated space where mothers can deliver their babies without fear of the roof collapsing on them. They also need a signpost so that even a stranger passing through will know that here, in this forgotten corner of Yobe, lives matter.
As one elderly woman told our correspondent, “We do not want to die inside a school. We want to give birth in a health centre. Is that too much to ask?” The question hangs in the air, unanswered by the authorities. For now, the people of Lewe continue to improvise, to pray, and to hope that one day, someone in power will hear their cry.
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