COVID-19: Shun Politics for Public Good, Ogun indigenes tell Abiodun

… ‘Amosun’s 250-bed specialist hospital can’t be idle now’

As world powers continue to knock heads together on the best way to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, some indigenes of Ogun State have called on Governor Dapo Abiodun to put the state of the art hospital built by the government of his predecessor, Senator Ibikunle Amosun, to good use at this critical period.

While lauding the foresight of the former governor, the indigenes said the facility positioned Ogun State as one of the best if not the best, in terms of preparedness for the unfortunate pandemic.

A former Head, United Nations Industrial Development Organisation’s Investment and Technology Promotion Office (UNIDO-ITPO), in Nigeria, Mrs. Bisi Olumodimu, advised the governor not to play politics with a matter as serious as Coronavirus.

Olumodimu, an indigene of Ogun State, said, “While other states are at a loss as regards where to start, his predecessor’s foresight has laid a solid foundation for us as the gateway state, in tackling this crisis.

“The governor must shun politics for the common good. I personally saw that hospital. Very great investment. Why on earth should it be lying idle?”

Our correspondent, who visited the 250-bed MTR multi-specialist hospital, in Abeokuta, commissioned by President Muhammadu Buhari in May 2019, confirmed that despite the availability of medical equipment said to be highly essential for handling the medical crisis, the hospital is lying idle.

The emergency and recovery units have state of the art equipment that will be very useful at this time, The Point can confirm.

Mr. Segun Showunmi, Spokesperson for the 2019 Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, said he would have to write a letter to the President if nothing was done to put the hospital to use.

He said, “It is unacceptable that at this time, the government of Governor Dapo Abiodun will leave to waste, a 250-bed equipped, newly built hospital in Ogun State, 11 months after its commissioning.

“The entire world cannot be at the highest level of alert as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and it will be acceptable for facilities that can be useful to lay to waste under whatever untenable excuse. It is in public consciousness that the hospital was commissioned by the President.”

An economist from Ogun State, who resides in Maryland, United States, Dr. Funso Ogunleye, said, “We have a hospital with full ICU equipment, adequately-bedded ICU, high end brand new ventilators, patient monitors, efficient infusion pumps, syringe pumps, Blood Gas Anlysers, and so on, in Abeokuta. And it’s lying idle? At this time in the history of world medical crises? What manner of politics!”

Efforts to get the response of the state government through the Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Kunle Somorin, were unsuccessful as at the time of filing this story.