The Nigerian Navy Forward Operating Base (NNFOB), Bonny, has begun an intervention at a remote Community Secondary School, Burukiri, that is more than 30 nautical miles off Bonny Town in Bonny Local Government Area of Rivers State.
The school can only be accessed by navigating a swinging spiral of creeks, where pupils, students, and teachers face the challenge of travelling by a small wooden boat to and from the school daily. Sometimes the boat is not available, and only those who can afford the exorbitant fare can make it to school, which is a negligible few.
Worried by the sad development, the Navy in Bonny, at the weekend, adopted the School, Burukiri, as part of its community engagement efforts in line with its non-kinetic approach to delivering its ongoing Operation Delta Sanity.
The school has no fence around it and lacks basic amenities like toilets, water, a sickbay, classrooms, desks, a staff room, teachers’ accommodation, offices for administrative staff, a playground, laboratories, a principal’s office, hostels, and an assembly hall, among several others.
But the Commanding Officer of the NNFOB, Bonny, Capt. Maksum Mohammed, announced that with the adoption, the Command will provide the necessary amenities.
Speaking when he led senior officers of the Base on a visit to the School, Mohammed announced the donation of educational materials, including school bags and writing materials to the students, as well as to pupils of St. Bartholomew’s Primary School, Burukiri.
The team was also at Lighthouse Fishing Settlement in Finima Community, where the Commanding Officer, represented by the Executive Officer of the NNFOB, Bonny, Commander Gideon Daloeng, also donated life vests to fishermen in four fishing settlements: Lighthouse, Ajalamonigha, Ajaokolo 2, and River 7.
He said the exercise, which was on the directive of the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, is part of the Nigerian Navy’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) to communities in its areas of responsibility.
He explained further that part of the success story of the ongoing Operation Delta Sanity is etched in continuous engagement with communities in its various areas of responsibility with a view to leveraging local support to identify and neutralise security threats and ensure the safety of lives and property.
“We will just adopt the school. As long as the Base is concerned – you know that soldier goes, soldier comes. Tomorrow, I may not be here – for the period that the CNS keeps me here, I’ll try to make sure that we improve what we’re seeing.
“All I have said is in line with what the CNS has told us to do. You know the Navy is not a humanitarian service. It is one of the fighting arms of the country, and our primary role is to go after bad people; identify them and neutralise them.
“But we have discovered that in the process of doing that, we see people around too that are not bad people, and we think we can help them. So, based on that, the CNS has directed that from time to time, we should assist the communities that we find around us. It’s either we do medical outreach or we do an outreach like this.
“This is resumption month; some people call it school fees month. Everybody’s efforts are geared towards gathering school fees to send your child to school, and we know that everywhere is tough now, and parents will be struggling with one or two things. Based on this, on behalf of the CNS, we have decided to see where we can touch.”
Responding, Principal of Community Secondary School, Burukiri, Caleb Richard, expressed appreciation, noting that the gesture by the Nigerian Navy Forward Operating Base was outstanding and deserving of accolades, assuring that the donated items would be properly utilised.
A student of the CSS Burukiri, Joy Adawari-Jumbo, also expressed gratitude to the NNFOB Commanding Officer as well as the Chief of the Naval Staff for what she described as “a kind gesture to the suffering students of the school,” appealing to the State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, to come to the aid of the school by providing necessary facilities to aid learning.