Andy Esiet,, Calabar
Hundreds of students at Community Secondary School, Bumaji, in Boki Local Government Area (LGA) of Cross River state on February 6, escaped death as their six classrooms block collapsed.
Luckily for the students, a community leader and an eye witness said the incident occurred at about 4pm while the students were having evening games and no student or staff was affected.
The principal Abraham Ashike could not be reached for comment as Bumaji is tucked right inside the Cross River forest sharing boundary with Cameroon and over 300 kilometres from Calabar with no no means of telecommunications.
But an eyewitness said for years tha school has been threatened with erosion and “this particular day the children were outside playing when we heard a sudden loud sound and greater part of the six classrooms block was down” .
Former lawmaker and sponsor of the school project in 2001 as well as community leader, Mr. Cletus Obun said the school has “over 500 students from Jss 1 – SS 3 are in the school with a minimum of 54 students per class.
Obun said, “urgent government intervention is needed in the school to avoid students studying under trees” .
He decried current situation in the school saying, “for now government teachers are only four and the remaining 23 teachers are employed by the Parents Teachers Association (PTA). An uncomplicated three classrooms block is accommodating the over flow of students.
“There is no corp member or student teacher that accepts posting to the school. No mobile network, the earth road is only accessible from November to April. There are six primary schools in the community, one functional Health centre with only one qualified public health worker” .
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