It’s not OK to keep deceiving your people consistently with videos and pictures. If any governor deserves a huge award for optics, it’s our governor.
Deliberately, this video was done mostly at night and under very beautiful lighting carefully arranged for the shooting. The most important thing missing in the video is where patients are receiving treatment. If there is a hospital in that place, we will not be told. You will see a mammoth crowd of health services seekers and independent cameras will go there to tell you.
It’s 130 days to the end of Ayade’s tenure and I repeat again and again, that the only functional public hospital in Obudu right now as I write, is the Sacred Heart Hospital, which is owned by the Catholic Mission.
To be fair to our governor, the rice mill in Ogoja is completed but there is no rice paddy and no proper plan was made for that from the onset. The Cocoa factory in Ikom is completed but they don’t have any product out. Calachika is completed but there are no hatcheries. The Obudu Canadian school is completed but it is not functional. And a couple of others. Na winch dem do Ayade?
Even the Obudu German hospital, which is now fully owned 95 percent by Cosmas Maduka’s, Swiss Biostadt Limited, and 5 percent by Cedarcrest Hospital, leaving the State with zero holdings, has been well equipped by the private owners but it is not functional. That’s why that wasn’t shown in the video. It’s just a bunch of buildings, equipment, and lighting.
It doesn’t take anything for equipment like the ones in this video to deteriorate, more so, when they aren’t in use. These motion pictures here are not more beautiful than the pictures we saw from Tinapa under Donald Duke. The moment Donald left, Tinapa became and has remained a huge financial mess and burden on our State.
I am from Obudu, not all of us will be deceived. Until this facility is opened for our people to go in there and receive services, it is not a hospital. It’s a bunch of buildings. Na police fill the gate now. Only authorized government people get access. Governor Ayade promised that it will be ready for public use by December 2022. January 2023 is almost ending, and what we are still seeing is cosmetically treated videos to hoodwink the public. In 130 days, if that place isn’t opened, it will become another abode for rodents, reptiles, and juvenile lover birds.
Or can I send a patient to that place tomorrow?
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
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