Despite unfulfilled expectations that adversely affected the country’s healthcare delivery system, there are monumental achievements in some key areas that may ultimately redefine the fortune of the ailing sector. In this special report, BOLAJI OGUNDELE writes that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration will leave behind a world-class State House Medical Centre that has a new VIP wing equipped with state-of-the-art facilities
One outstanding episode in the eight-year rule of President Muhammadu Buhari, to many who has taken time to record it, is definitely that period when vicissitudes of nature forced the him to take a compulsory leave of absence for about three months in 2017 – a turbulent period that tested the strength of the Nigerian Presidency. Though the nature of the President’s ailment still remains a mystery, everyone knew back then that the number citizen was actually out in London to attend to his health.
On his return after the extended medical vacation, he once said in an engagement that the nature of his ailment had to do with hearing difficulty, which he had managed for a long time. This explanation has not been able to vacate a narration claiming the ailment was as a result of poisoning – through the President has also confessed that that period was one of the most difficult times he has ever had to go through in his life; to the point that he feared for his life at some point.
It is believed, however, that some life-threatening experiences are often the elixirs that spur strong men to embark on some unusual decisions. While this might not have exactly been the case with the decision of President Buhari, his administration is going to bequeath to the incoming administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu a world-class medical facility right within the premises of the State House in Abuja, Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
While the unforgettable episode of the President’s medical ailment was midway into his first term in office, he has consistently been keeping dates with his foreign doctors. Yet, President Buhari is a man who has consistently been averse to frittering the nation’s meagre resources on foreign goods and services. This contradiction (the frugal Buhari, champion of ‘matching production with consumption,’ having to condone consistent foreign medical trips) must have weighed heavily on his conscience all along. Therefore, when his administration decided to bring something comparable to the White House Medical Unit or the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in the United States, it was hardly surprising to many keen watchers of events in Nigeria.
However, it must first be established that whatever brought the idea of upscaling the State House Clinic from what it was to a Medical Center, with a newly constructed VIP wing within the Presidential Villa, could not have self-serving. The thought of building a state-of-the-art facility for the sole care of the President, Vice President and their immediate families became manifest in November 2021, with the groundbreaking ceremony of the VIP wing. The project, which was scheduled to have become operational by December 2022, though completed with world-class medical equipment, is yet to be inaugurated. This is despite having just a few days to the end of the Buhari administration that conceived and built it.
The VIP wing of the State House Medical Center
This implies that there is yet a wing that is not designated as VIP. Prior to the recent decision to upscale the medical facility a medical center, there has always been the State House Clinic, which is located opposite the Mambilla Barracks, within the Asokoro District of Abuja. It runs a normal hospital system, but still believed not to be standard enough for the care of the number one and two citizens. This, it was believed, was reason for the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan to conceive the idea of a VIP wing in 2012.
The new facility, which will continue to be regarded as one of President Buhari’s touches on infrastructure in the country but particularly around the vicinities of the seat of power, is a 14-bed world-class hospital that sits on a 2,700 square meters area, situated within the approaches of the main State House Complex. Describing the then-dream facilities to the Senate Committee on Federal Character and Intergovernmental Affairs during a budget defense pitch in October 2021, the Permanent Secretary of the State House, Tijjani Umar, said a N21 billion budget had been earmarked and that the construction and equipment had been assigned to the same firm that constructed and had been maintaining the Aso Rock Presidential Villa since 1991, Julius Berger Nigeria (JBN) Plc.
Umar took time to paint a mental picture of the planned facility to the senators. According to him, it was designed to have underground facilities, first floor, two operating theatres, two executive suites, two VIP sections, two isolation areas and one of six-bed isolation area in the building. He further said the design included a laboratory, a healing garden, a pharmacy and X-ray facilities.
“The project was conceived in 2012 by previous administration and the brief was produced. It was estimated at about N21 billion and the facility contains 14-bed space without total area of 2,700 square metres. There will be underground and first floor. Two number operating theatre, two number executive suites, two VIP, two isolation rooms and one number of six-bed isolation areas. Most of the preliminary work has been concluded. Mr. President has approved the project. We have gone to the Bureau of Public Procurement to get Certificate of No Objection,” he had told the Committee then, adding that the facility’s importance extends beyond just caring for the President, Vice President and their families; it will also serve the purposes of reversing or discouraging medical tourism. According to him, it will be opened to leaders from other African countries, as it is a world-class hospital.
Now, the facility is completed, equipped and just a few more dotting of ‘I’s and crossing of ‘T’s being undertaken. The Permanent Secretary Umar has updated on the works when he took the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, and the Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, round the facility, showing off a completed, tastefully equipped facility. He also used the occasion to assure that the inauguration will soon hold and that Buhari will do the honours, explaining why the initial December delivery date was not achieved. He also used the occasion to announce the President’s decision to properly re-designate the facility as a medical centre.
“I think we are putting everything that needs to be put in place, including the instrument and the equipment that have been calibrated and tested and then there’s the training of personnel that is going on here. It’s absolutely important that it’s hands on, and that when the facility is commissioned by Mr. President, it is not going to stop working. So, I think it’s really important, we’re taking the time to do that. By the time that is done, the training is concluded, and the calibration and testing of equipment is also concluded and that is going to be also on time because what is sure is that Mr. President will commission this project very soon.
“Finally, he has just approved that, before now in 2018, he had given approval that the State House Clinic, Medical Center then, there in the other part of Asokoro, that had challenges about equipment, about aging, issues, resources, funding everything. It was scaled down from Medical Center to a State House Medical Clinic. Now he has approved with everything that has been improved in the other place and with this state-of-the-art facility, we can no longer operate this as a clinic. It is now State House Medical Center. He has just granted the approval,” Umar revealed.
Right there and then, the facility received its first accolades and validation as both the guests (Mustapha, Ahmed and Agba) and the tour guides (the State House Staff, led by Permanent Secretary Umar) could not high their delight and showering praises on what they were seeing. To the SGF, it was a moment of nostalgia, recalling what the old clinic in Asokoro had become before approvals for its upscaling. “For me, it’s with a great sense of fulfillment that I am seeing within the period of two years this edifice standing today. Those of you that were part of the coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it involved the entire nation in 2020, you will notice that we have inspected health facilities in and around Abuja, particularly the State House Clinic, in Asokoro. My impression coming out of that inspection deepened my desire to see that we have a standard world-class facility, which has basically produced this with a lot of satisfaction and great joy I’m seeing this standing today. So, this money is well spent, and it will be for the good and betterment of our country,” Mustapha said.
Continuing, Mustapha explained that the facility will address the frequency of the country’s Presidents traveling abroad to seek medical treatment. “It would to a large extent deal with it. This is a clinic; I believe that all procedures can be conducted here, if need be through modern sciences. Telemedicine now is very common; somebody can be sitting in his office in Germany, or in the United States directing diagnosis and prescriptions, and also even procedures on a patient in this place.
“The other thing that this facility will do for us is that we receive visiting heads of state, heads of government; peradventure there is an emergency, we need a facility that will provide the kind of care that is internationally acknowledged and recognised and a standard kind of care before even that particular head of state or government is evacuated out of the country. And this facility provides for that. We have ageing former presidents; I believe that they will have access to this facility. The sitting President will have access to it, and other top government functionaries as may be prescribed by the administrative structure that will be put in place. I believe that this is money well spent,” he said.
Also expressing her delight, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Ahmed expressed delight over the quality of work on the facility, adding that “we have supported this process in terms of making sure that the funding is provided on time. This is a project that has been delivered dead on time and on budget. So there has been no overrun and the facilities here are world class. We’re looking forward to the commissioning very soon and to put the facility to full use,” she said.
Continuing, Ahmed expressed willingness to make herself available to be used for testing some of the equipment in the facility whenever the need arises, saying “I have donated myself as one of the people that can be tried in this facility. On test runs, I’m willing to come and do a medical here to testify that anything you can see here is what you can see anywhere you go in the world.”
Buhari came in 2015, after a hard-fought election, promised a lot and did as much as he could, like he will usually put it, “with available resources”. In a matter of days he will be on his way out of the office of the President of Nigeria, leaving the seat for another to occupy. No one can say with an exact certainty that when he was promising, building a new hospital, with a particular intent of ending medical tourism for Nigerian leaders, was one of the things he had in mind. He came and ensured he is leaving a footprint within the precincts of the sprawling facility he lived and worked for eight years.
Years back, precisely in October 2017, Aisha, the wife of President Buhari, followed the footsteps of her daughter, Zahra, by criticising the management of Aso Rock Clinic. Zahra Buhari had earlier taken to her Instagram page to criticise the Permanent Secretary of the State House, Jalal Arabi, for his inability to provide even Paracetamol tablets to the clinic despite a budget of N3 billion for the provision of drugs to the hospital. Mrs. Buhari said then that she recently fell ill and was advised to travel to London for treatment, but she refused.
“I called the Aso Clinic to find out if they have an X-Ray machine; they said it’s not working. In the end, I had to go to a hospital owned and operated by foreigners 100 per cent. There is a budget for the hospital and if you go there now, you will see a number of constructions going on but they don’t have a single syringe there. What is the purpose of the buildings if there are no equipment there to work with? You can imagine what happens across the states to governors’ wives if this will happen to me in Abuja,” she said.
The complaint then by the Aso Rock Clinic management was that the hospital was short of funds for major projects and purchases, which would necessitate the commercialisation of the clinic’s operations for efficiency. Hopefully, all this would be a thing of the past when the new VIP health facility comes on stream soon.
