By Ike Uchechukwu

For residents of Shikpeche community in Obanliku Local Government Area of Cross River State, the ground tells a story of desperation. Not of fertile soil yielding harvests, but of parched earth that residents claw open with bare hands and rusty hoes, chasing elusive drops of water.

Mama Grace Eteng’s fingers are raw, her nails broken, her back bent from another morning spent digging into mud that smells of decay.

The 45-year-old woman said: “I dig until my fingers bleed. This water? We drink it, cook with it, bathe our babies in it. It’s brown. It smells. But what choice do we have?”

Beside her, 12-year-old Blessing nods silently, her scarred palms held out like evidence of a crime no one has come to investigate.

The people of Shikpeche 1 and 2 have lived this way over the years, scratching the earth like animals, waiting for water that never comes. Not a single borehole. Not one pipe-borne supply. Just 5,000 souls trapped in a ritual of survival that kills slowly, year after year.

Election goldmine

Shikpeche is one of the largest voting blocs in Obanliku LGA, with four polling units that consistently deliver some of the highest turnouts in the state. When elections approach, politicians swarm the community like locusts, bearing promises, bags of rice, salt, and sweet talk.

A community leader, Elder Peter Odey lamented: “They come with rice, salt, and sweet talk. We queue to vote, they win, then vanish. Roads? Forget it. Schools? Crumbling. Water? A mirage.”

“After the 2023 elections, candidates pledged boreholes. Today, not a single pump hums,” the locals lamented.  

My grandson died last year — Pa Emmanuel

The cost of this neglect is written in hospital ledgers and graves too small for comfort. At Obanliku General Hospital, health workers confirm that Shikpeche consistently records among the highest cases of water-borne diseases in the region. Cholera outbreaks claim lives every year. Diarrhoea ravages children. Typhoid and malaria fester in contaminated pits that pass for wells.

“My grandson died last year from cholera,” weeps 68-year-old Pa Emmanuel, his voice cracking. “He was six. The clinic said bad water. How many more must die?”

During the dry season, eight long, merciless months, the shallow holes shrink, then vanish. Families trek kilometres to the next muddy spot, repeating the ordeal. Only the rainy season brings fleeting relief, a brief deluge that fills puddles and streams before the torment returns, NDV learned.

We live in hell

Godwin Ogbang, spokesperson for the community, said: “I am not speaking as a stranger. I am the scribe of this clan. I’m telling you that we live in hell.

“Cholera and diarrhoea are common. Malaria and typhoid are kings here. Sometimes, you cannot even use the water to cook because it is too muddy. We use alum and other materials to purify it. But how many people can afford bags of pure water?”

He added: “The funny part? Once it is campaign and election season, we are remembered because of our voting strength. It is a very sad development.”

We need action now

Petitions have been written and town halls held. Agencies like the Cross River State Water Board, the Rural Electrification Agency, and even federal interventions have turned a blind eye.

“We can’t continue to cry anymore. We need action now. No more promises. Our children wash their legs and hands just to go to school. That is not living. That is surviving,” Ogbang noted.

“Water is life,” they pleaded softly. “We are dying of thirst. Help us live.”

Government response

When contacted, the SSA on Media Advocacy to Governor Bassey Otu, Mr. Friday Awade, told NDV that he had tried to raise funds through crowdfunding to solve the problem.

“I tried very hard to reach out to well-meaning individuals from Bekwarra and beyond, but only one person responded, the Commissioner for Finance. But as I speak, my people are suffering.

“A mechanized solar borehole will cost at least N10 million. At some point, I had to back down because I was assured that something would be done immediately. But till this moment, my people are still in pain.”