Nchicha

When you touch the dead, you might be lucky enough to see a head lift, eyes locking with yours. But if you fail to meet the tides of time; if you do not touch your departed at precisely 11:59 PM on the 29th of February, in whatever year—you may doom their souls to wander the mortal world while their bodies lie buried beneath the earth. These souls will stand by their windows, waiting, hoping that someone will sense their presence and use nchicha to guide them back to their rightful place.

In 2018, I was a human nchicha,a midwife volunteering in a village miles away from the city, far from electricity, far from the kind of network that could connect me to the rest of the world.

I was the hands that resuscitated their babies when women gave birth at home and their newborns arrived in silence, refusing to let out life’s first cry. I was the touch that steadied them when blood gushed because a piece of placenta had been left behind. And when malaria struck, I was the nchicha that administered the antimalarial medication, pulling them back from the brink.

Yet, for almost three months after my arrival, I was a monument—seen, but only sought when desperation struck. I fought to bring them back to the health centre, to let them see me before sickness became an emergency. But they had lost faith in the very structure meant to save them—a building that stood at the heart of the village, yet felt as distant as the world beyond their reach.

I first heard about the health centre from the village priest. The villagers called it Oro, and it had been built years ago by the Catholic Church, sustained by church funding. Medications, supplies everything it needed to function came from the church, until Father Ezekiel passed away. With his death, the support crumbled. No plan for sustainability was in place, and so Oro fell into ruin.

Left with no choice, the villagers turned to what they had always known. Native doctors became their healers, preparing herbs to treat ailments like malaria. Older women stepped in as midwives, delivering babies and tending to the sick. Over time, they stopped believing in the health centre, stopped seeing it as a place of healing. It became just another abandoned structure, swallowed by neglect.

And then, pop—there I was, a midwife volunteering in a village the government may have forgotten. I became an nchicha.

The Primary Health Centre is more than just a building. It is home to the villagers, the very first point of contact for anyone who falls ill. It is where a baby receives their first injection,the vaccines that shield them from childhood killer diseases. It is where women are introduced to contraceptives and where men, often for the first time, hear about prostate cancer. It is the place where life is preserved, where sickness meets care, and where hope should be restored.

But what happens when that hope is lost?

When I arrived at Oro, the villagers had already turned away from the health centre. It had failed them before, and they had learned to survive without it. It was in this void that the Red Cross stepped in, salvaging what was left, offering more than just a human nchicha, but something structured—staff, supplies, audits, and treatment.

This brings my mind to USAID.

For many years, USAID has contributed significantly if not predominantly to funding public health in Nigeria’s primary health centers. If you find families receiving free insecticide-treated nets or pregnant women getting prophylactic treatment for malaria, it is most likely funded by USAID. And what about the free distribution of ? antiretroviral therapy (ART) That too, provided by USAID.

USAID has been a lifeline.

Currently, the Trump administration has announced a 90-day freeze on USAID funding, placing critical health programs including malaria prevention initiatives in a state of uncertainty. This decision, pending review, could have severe implications for communities that rely on external support to combat life-threatening diseases such as malaria.

According to the Guardian Newspaper UK, In sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 450,000 children under the age of five die from malaria each year, making continued intervention essential.

Yet, while external support is vital, true sustainability must come from within. The government cannot continue to rely on foreign aid to fill the gaps in its healthcare system. Primary health centres like our Oro should not crumble when funding dries up. With proper investment, training, and infrastructure, these centres can thrive not as temporary lifelines but as permanent solutions. The International Red Cross played a fantastic role in primary Health centres in Cross River State, Nigeria but something happened! The loss of continuity.

That is the real fight: ensuring that when the world looks away, when policies shift and funding is withdrawn, healthcare remains not as an act of charity, but as a right, embedded in the very fabric of the land.

Nchicha is a fallacy, touching your dead and having them look you in the eye is nchicha. If we cannot shift the wheels of leadership to favor us from the grassroots, then one day, we might open our social media apps to see midwives those who stood by women in communities, improvising to keep them healthy, those who once received chickens and vegetables instead of money, sitting for exams and leaving the country in drones.

Because how long can an empty can pour clean water into a field?

Is there even a February 29th? Could there ever be a government that truly sees the primary health centers?

Emmanuella.