The Arewa Awareness and Solidarity Movement (AASM) has advised northern politicians not to allow themselves to be fooled by reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has fallen out with President Goodluck Jonathan because of Obasanjo’s insistence that power return to the north in 2015.

A statement by the spokesman of the Movement, Alhaji Garba Bafashi, said the latest media report of the purported rift between Obasanjo and Jonathan over the transfer of power in 2015 was a smokescreen by the former president to confuse, disorganise and throw the north off the scene politically, with a view to weakening it even further.

The statement explained that political treachery is in Obasanjo’s nature and therefore warned the north against falling prey to his latest antics.

It recalled that Obasanjo aided and abetted the disruption of the zoning arrangement in 2010 shortly after the death of President Umaru Yar’Adua.

According to the statement, in 2007 Obasanjo imposed power shift to the north on his own terms with a hidden agenda, which manifested itself even before President Yar’Adua died.

Having been humiliated in 2007 and 2010, it said, the north no longer has any basis to trust the former president.

It maintained that the purported split between Jonathan and Obasanjo was a make-believe script his former aides were acting out to mislead the north once again.

The statement further warned northern leaders against leaving the political future of the region in the treacherous hands of Obasanjo, who, it alleged, was once again seeking the opportunity to punish the zone because of the grudges he had against its leaders.

Alhaji Bafashi, in the statement ,advised the north to be wiser rather than take the risk of repeating the same mistakes of trusting a man to whom honour means nothing.

Source: http://news.naij.com/8249.html

By S.A. Aniyi
The time honoured aphorism that: ‘health is wealth’ can hardly ware out of relevance as long as human beings continue to exist. This is as a result of the centrality of health in the organogram of human needs, which is a pointer to the fact it is only a healthy body that can aspire to the promise of human possibility. Without a sound health, every aspiration will only thaw into a liquid of a vast mirage. In fact, the ‘Caring HEART’ sloganeering, which should be the acronym for the sector by sector focus of the government rightly placed ‘H’ which stands for Health in the first position.
It is therefore a thing of great concern to any perceptible resident of Ondo state that such a critical department of government could be criminally neglected and wickedly left to bleed to death. No hyperbole intended! Whereas, most distant observers of the happenings in Ondo state could have been fed with the toxic of unending media theatrics, the reality of the state of the health services in the state is one that brutally contradicts the euphonious rhapsody of an Eldorado which the government of the Dr Olusegun Mimiko has been serving the hapless media consumers with, through devious media manipulations. Like everything else, the government in the state has elevated lurid deceit to the state of government policy.
At the inception of the administration, the government said it was going to focus on the enhancement of primary health care with special interest on maternal and child care services. The governmental policy could hardly be faulted with the unenviable record of the state as one of the most notorious in maternal and infant mortality, with statistics that bested the widely alarming national average limit. It was indeed a great relief that a supposed medical doctor being the head of government and with previous experience as two term commissioner of health in the state, would be in a better position to do the right thing. Unfortunately however, the Labour Party (LP) administration has replaced ‘eye projects’ with high service performance. Almost four years later, the ugly reality in the state hospitals at all levels, is that of descript and comprehensive decadence.
Many would find it hard to reconcile this revelation with the products of propaganda tonnage being churned out daily by the well fortified lie factory of the government. What is being shown is a ‘beautiful showroom’ created to give the impression of an unusual development. The truth about health matter in Ondo state is that, this government decided to clinically kill the existing health facilities across board in order to justify the humongous, but hardly sensible creation of centralized maternity hospital. A project which many concerned patriots have dubbed a conduit pipe used to siphon the tilt of the state. For instance, the two MHCs in Akure and Ondo have gulped close to a billion naira so far, to erect.
The argument of many observers is that, there existed and still extant in the state, four State Specialist Hospitals in Akure, Ondo, Ikare-Akoko and Okitipupa. These hospitals were established by the late Oloye Adebayo Adefarati when Dr Rahman Mimiko was in charge as commissioner of health. The specialist hospitals were designed to provide tertiary health services; with all major departments of human health present; including the Gynaecology Department (which houses the Obstetrics and Paediatrics Units, and) which provides same functions that the so called Mother and Child Hospital in Akure provides. Besides, the state has what is called five ‘tier B’ and 10 ‘tier C’ general hospitals, while there are 18 Comprehensive Health Centers, enhanced with Basic Health Centers across the villages. Building of physical infrastructure has never been a major problem, especially in the urban area, if ever existed; it would be in the often neglected, hinterlands. The problems had been and still remain: poor and outdated facilities, poorly trained personnel, lack of essential drugs, traditional beliefs and shortage of medical personnel.
These obvious challenges were left unattended to, while building of new huge Obstetrics Hospitals was considered more expedient. No doubt any uncritical stranger in Ondo state would be mesmerized by the sprawling edifice called Mother & Child Hospital (MHC), but beneath, is a cancerous rot and an exemplary case of resource mismanagement. Worse still, even though about 80% of the state’s capital votes on health are expended on the MHC buildings; the state has only delivered one that is located in Akure. The second one in Ondo town has not been completed three years later. Similarly, the Abiye Safe Motherhood programme lunched with fanfare in Igbara-Oke three years ago has remained product of elusive sophistry. In theory, the public is made to believe that the state has attached each pregnant woman with a doctor, given a preloaded mobile phone and can call for ambulance services at any time of the day, free of charge. It is nothing but an oversize whopper; people know this is one of the hallmarks of the chicanery which has patently defined this government. It is a mere fanciful phantom idea, projected in power- point presentation to hypnotize the easily impressed Western donor houses. Apart from the publicity intended and showy demonstration centre in Igbara-Oke, the Abiye fantasy has virtually become an idea in the grave yard.
It must be added that one of the promises of this administration is the provision of free health services. Any semblance of this only exists partially in the MHC and Igbara-Oke showrooms. Patients pay for everything but consultancy services in the other health facilities across the state. For instance, drugs are permanently out of stock in the State Specialist Hospital, Akure which ordinarily should be the most fortified, being the biggest and foremost medical institution of the state. If gold can rust, what is the hope for the iron! Unlike what is obtainable in other neighboring states which have free health coverage for age 0-12 and for the elderly from age 65-above, the free health provided in the MHC only covers age 0-5. Which means the service only takes care of obstetric services. This service does not also cover post natal services for the mother. Already, the MHC Akure has been overstretched and always overcrowded as people scramble to benefit from the partial free health provided in the hospital which is denied the other existing health facilities. Pregnant women have to keep vigil so as to wake as early as 4am to board motorcycle to MHC so as to get tally for antenatal booking as the registration only takes place once a week and closes 10am. The hospital has become a huge corruption racketeering center where people have to tip the staff of the hospital to get a tally. Many fail to get booked, end up frustrated and are forced to opt for traditional birth attendants, because of the lack of money, in spite of the known risk attached. With all the hypes about this hospital, it is shocking and inconceivable that it cannot handle not-too-serious medical cases such as post-partum hemorrhage, which is often referred to the senselessly abandoned State Specialist Hospital, Akure.
Many have equally asked the question as to why MCH is not under the control of the Ondo State Hospital Management Board which is statutorily empowered to superintend on the state owned health institutions. The MCH is directly in the Governor’s office and is being managed by a governor’s nephew who is the Chief Medical Director. He gives no stewardship to anyone and award of contracts are never discussed with any known management committee. Even though the bulk of the personnel are employees of the Hospital Management Board, the board is an onlooker in matters of emoluments, discipline, promotion and redeployment. To borrow the PDP’s mantra, ‘it is a family affairs’!
Whereas the MHC might not be entirely useless especially in Akure, and can even be seen as an extension of the State Hospital, what is disheartening is the deliberate policy of its systematic castration through willful abandonment. This seems to be consistent with the idiosyncrasy of this government which tends to project itself as the only government that has ever done something great in the state. Thus, existing legacies are left to decay while money is spent to reproduce the same value through fanciful nomenclature and colour coating. Let us x-ray the litany of challenges facing the once enviable State Specialist Hospital, Akure which remains the highest medical institution in the state.
Most of the buildings in the hospital are dilapidated and need total overhaul, expansion and refurbishing. Cases of leaking roofs, including consulting rooms; broken beds, and stinking lavatories as a result of inadequate water supply persist unattended to. It would be recalled that this government sunk six boreholes for which it receives tons of appreciation, but it is regrettable that the boreholes did not see another six months when they broke down irretrievably. Since then, the hospital has been made to depend on the old borehole and periodic water supply from other sources. The hospital’s children ward remained abandoned since 2008. The ward was blown off by the wind and almost collapsed then, which prompted the last administration to award the contract for renovation. It is shameful that this government has abandoned the project. The hospital conference hall is now converted to children ward. This has resulted in situations where children with cases that demand isolation treatment are being lumped together in a crowded ward which has led to high child mortality incidents in the hospital. The state hospital doesn’t have a morgue, it rather uses embalming room where corpses are embalmed and then left on the floor. An unflattering incident occurred recently when the remains of a man deposited with the mortuary had his feet mutilated and lacerated. The family of the deceased swooped on a hapless mortuary attendant who was promptly accused of mutilating a part of the deceased for diabolical purposes, the man was rough handled; it took the intervention of the hospital authorities for the man to be left off the accusation. Investigation later showed that rats often saunter into the embalming room regularly to dine on human fresh. The sad part of it is that, we have it on good authority that the Oloye Adefarati government procured one morgue which never lasted a year. The morgue was alleged to have been supplied by a proxy company of the then commissioner of health Dr Rahman Mimiko, who instead of supplying a new morgue, was alleged to have supplied a refurbished one. Now that he is the state’s chief executive officer, a provision of another one, even at the expense of the state would have been a pardonable atonement.
Free health is a mirage in the hospital as patients buy every bit of the drug themselves: from tissue papers, hand gloves, syringes and many other minor consumables, you pay through your nose. They are never provided. In fact, to have a caesarian delivery in the hospital, the patient will have to cough out between N30, 0000-N50, 000. What is called the theater room is a dignified slaughter’s slab, nothing modern, nothing inspiring! The outpatient department is the worst hit, as there is no waiting room; patients clubbed around in sun and rain and hardly get desired attention, as many returned home worsted. The hospital doesn’t have a radiologist; a contract radiologist only visits from Federal Medical Center, Owo once in a week. Even doctors in the hospital do not trust ultra sound scan done in the laboratory because of the antiquated machine still being used. The x-ray machine is outdated while the modern Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) cannot be procured by a government that spending so much on endorsement freebies. In fact the general hospital Iwaro Oka -Akoko does not have a functional x-ray machin., You find cases of broken ceilings, craters on the hospital interlink road and many other evidence of lip service to public health.
It is a shameful thing that Ondo state is the only state that doesn’t have teaching hospital in the south west. What this will mean in the long run is that the opportunity for promising Ondo state indigenes to get admission to study medicine is slim. The services of specialist consultant on critical medical services cannot also be received here, while residency experience cannot be obtained in the state’s hospitals. There is no hospital that can attend to serious orthopedic care in the state, this is a reason why Ondo state has the highest density of trado-orthopedic homes (Arogun) in the south west. The import of this is that Ondo state which should lead in the parade of large number of medical professionals as she used to, will now trail her sister states in critical specialized medical professionalism. These are some of the critical issues which this administration has irresponsibly avoided while concentrating on marginally valuable architecture wannabe.
The story of the health sector in Ondo since the beginning of this administration is a sad prologue ending in a tragic epilogue. It is a shambolic affair; a monumental neglect too wicked to be real. It is a product of poorly conceived and digested health policy that is healing the symptoms while hiding the sickness.

Any progress since the North have been ruling this country? They're at the fore front in backwardness
Though I don't like the way GEJ does his things, but I'll go for him in a thousand time to those uneducated bunch of illiterates.
Nonsense

whatever.

OK

Na look i dey look dem

LOL.

Obj and his friends. You gotta love the way elites manage to turn personal fights into ethnic/zonal fights.

only one man is the portal right now to ASO ROCK, GEJ. Alas! the north has to wait till Gej is done with the power of incubency.

Did they want power or Developments, i don't know what is wrong with our peaple. I may not be in support of Oga jonathan, but the ethnicity and regional colouration in which we choose leaders is making me go gaga. I don't mind who is the president ijaw, igbo, hausa, yoruba, fulani, nupe, ishekiri, edo etc in as much as it inprove health, transportation, electricity, employment, education, security and it guarante the future of generation to come. Am a Yoruba but what did i benefit from Obasanjo's tenure 7years for 5years course due to ASUU strike, am Hausa what did i gain from Yaradua's tenure economy slowdown and birth of Boko Haram, am an Igbo what did i benefit from ironsi when he was in power a choking unitary system of government that is affecting us till today. We better stop all ds nonsence of tribalism, regionalism, ethnicity and pull him down politics and support the man that will take Nigeria to prosperity.

Arewa at it again. Can these guys allow Mr Jona to concentrate.

Every group now comes to utter rubbish in the name of Arewa.. I hope the Arewa hasn't reduced themselves to NURTW? The core north won't still be mature to rule Nigeria in another 12 years. They shd concentrate on schooling themselves on leadership instead of hasty gasp @ power.. I prefer a weak GEJ to a vocal and virile northerner..