PRESS RELEASE

Re: Ibom Specialist Hospital is not fully equipped: putting truth to the lie by mischief makers.

We have read with amusement the banner headline in some local tabloids and on the social media to the effect that His Excellency, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, Governor, Akwa Ibom State had stated that Ibom Specialist Hospital is not fully equipped.

Our initial reaction was to studiously ignore the story as the handiwork of mischief makers and agent provocateurs who are bent on starting a narrative that is at best geared towards drawing some political capital out of a decidedly non-existent issue, but doing so, would have amounted to ceding the ground for the lie to hold.

Let me state here categorically that His Excellency, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, Governor of Akwa Ibom State did not; within the context and tenor of the statement categorically say that Ibom Specialist Hospital is not fully equipped. The said statement was taken out of an excerpt of an interview His Excellency granted a cross-section of the media recently in Lagos, of which Thisday newspaper reporter, Olawale Olaleye was one of those reporters who interviewed him.

For the avoidance of doubt, this is exactly what the Governor had said when the reporter asked him why some prominent Nigerians still do not deem it fit to patronize the hospital. “it is one thing to have the facilities; it is another thing for the facilities to get to where they produce optimum results. So, where we are today, WE HAVE GONE SOMEWHERE. But I can say that we have not fully equipped it to the level of the vision we have that is why we called on the Minister (of Health) that we need to partner the Federal Government.”
What His Excellency meant with the above excerpt was that Ibom Specialist Hospital is on solid ground and that we have made tremendous progress with the facilities the hospital has, but that more facilities are needed to take it to the vision that led to its establishment by the State Government.

It is therefore, the height of mischief for someone to misconstrue the statement and gave it a narrow and politically expedient narrative that suits their notion. All over the world, medical science is an evolving enterprise with new technologies and updates, hospitals as a result, are equipping and re-equipping to keep up with the pace of new technologies, and if the Governor said that though the facilities we have currently are great, but we need to equip the hospital with additional facilities to meet the vision, it is very sad for people to try to play politics with such an honest and globally acceptable fact.

We recognise that the political season is upon us, and desperate individuals will, as a result, attempt to cause division and create imaginary issues, Governor Udom Emmanuel, however, is determined to continue the erection of a skyscraper for the good people of Akwa Ibom State from the solid foundation and structure that his mentor and the immediate past Governor, the Senate Minority Leader of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio (CON) had erected. Every attempt by certain individuals or politically sponsored groups to derail His Excellency from that vision will amount to a waste of their time and resources.

Governor Udom Emmanuel is a bridge-builder, and one of the planks in his Five-Point Agenda is political inclusion. He has gone the extra mile to ensure that all Akwaibomites are invited to come on board the train of the Akwa Ibom Project no matter their political affiliations. He remains dedicated to that noble ideal.

Signed:
Ekerete Udoh
Senior Special Assistant, (Media) and Chief Press Secretary to Governor Udom Emmanuel

When Akpabio built the hospital, it was to be a wholly state-funded hospital built by the people of akwa ibom state with their money...

Which partnership are they talking again with the FG??

Will the FG be the ones to equip the hospital so that it can function optimally??

That hospital to me is a white-elephant project.....nobody is even patronising it for ordinary malaria not to talk of life threatening diseases