Bayelsa governor, lawmakers spend millions on foreign medical care while women, children die in neglected PHCs

On the humid evening of Monday, 29 September 2025, in Otuabagi, Ogbia Local Government Area of Bayelsa State, the faint cry of a newborn briefly lifted the spirits of a community long accustomed to subdued sorrow.

Patience Bulus had just delivered her fourth child after a long night of labour, assisted only by a weak flashlight with dying batteries.

There was no electricity at the Otuabagi Primary Health Centre, no doctor, no midwife, and no proper delivery bed. Her only support came from a volunteer Community Health Extension Worker (CHEW), whose stipend had been owed for over five months.

Twelve hours later, Mrs Bulus bled to death, a preventable tragedy in a state that receives some of Nigeria’s highest allocations from the Federation Account, in a community that helped launch the country into the petroleum age nearly 70 years ago.

Her widower, Bulus John, recounted how his joy at the birth of his child quickly turned into grief.

“I was very happy when the health worker called to tell me that my wife had given birth,” he said.

“She told me to wait for at least an hour before I could come and carry her and the baby. After an hour, I went to pick up my wife and baby. They were all fine.”

But before the community had even awakened, everything changed.

“My wife started bleeding heavily around 4 a.m., the next morning,” Mr John recalled.

He immediately informed Rejoice Raymond, the CHEW, who had assisted with the delivery. Realising that the situation, which she suspected was a postpartum haemorrhage, was beyond her capacity, Ms Raymond immediately referred Mrs Bulus to a doctor at the hospital in Ogbia town, the local government headquarters.

At the hospital, a blood transfusion was administered, but it failed to clot the blood flow.

“After observing that the situation remained the same, the doctor recommended that I take my wife to the Federal Medical Centre in the capital city, Yenagoa,” he said.

Mr John spent hours looking for a vehicle before finally reaching the hospital, where, tragically, his wife died.

Carrying his wife’s lifeless body back through the same journey that had earlier held hope, Mr John confronted a reality shaped not by chance but by the priorities set far from Otuagbagi, in the air-conditioned offices where budgets are written and resources allocated.

“If doctors were here, I don’t think she would have died because there would have been a prompt and immediate action,” Ms Raymond, the health worker, told PREMIUM TIMES.

Mrs Bulus is not the only pregnant woman to fall victim to a preventable death in Otuabagi.

Ms Raymond, the CHEW, recounted a story of Thank-God Dagogo, who died in November 2024 due to internal bleeding from a suspected ectopic pregnancy.

“Thank-God had a shortage of blood because she was bleeding internally. Before she could be referred to the hospital within the capital city, she was confirmed dead.”

The community that built Nigeria left without care

Otuabagi in Ogbia LGA is one of Nigeria’s earliest oil-producing communities. Yet, seven decades after Nigeria commenced commercial crude oil extraction in 1956, in Ogbia LGA, Otuabagi cannot provide a pregnant woman with even a source of electricity during childbirth.

Doris Egba, a community resident, insisted that there is no justification for the community to remain without a well-equipped health facility and adequate personnel.

“When we have an