Last week, Dr. Faisal Shuaibu, the Executive Director/Chief Executive of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, was in Ibadan, the capital of Oyo State.
Reason for the visit? He came to inspect some primary health care centres in the state under the ongoing initiative of Governor Seyi Makinde to renovate and equip at least one primary health care centre in each of the 351 electoral wards of the state.
Upon completing the inspection, Dr. Shuaibu had words of commendation for Governor Makinde, which suggests that Oyo State has indeed set the pace according to its name in primary healthcare development.
Dr. Shuaibu’s takeaway from the visit was that the federal government would emulate the Makinde government by attempting to build/equip PHCs with a massive drive to bring healthcare delivery closer to the citizenry. According to the Chief Executive, though the Federal Government has done so much by building/renovating close to 4,000 primary health care centres, the way to go is to follow the example of Oyo State, which has completed one primary healthcare centre in each of the 351 wards in the state. In one fell swoop, the state awarded the contract for 299 of the Healthcare Centres early in 2021, while it added the reconstruction of 51 others thereafter, thus ensuring that 351 PHCs are functional across the 351 electoral Wards making up the state.
If the federal government follows suit, Nigerians can look forward to over 10,000 PHCs, amounting to healthcare delivery at Nigerians’ doorsteps. If and when the federal government eventually decides to build one PHC per electoral ward, that will be another worthy example that Oyo State can be proud to have set for the nation in search of an effective healthcare delivery system that leaves no one behind.
The use of the word ‘another’ is instructive, as the Oyo State government under Governor Makinde’s leadership has, in the last three years, introduced many policies, which the central government ‘copied’ having considered the soundness and the quality thought process that went into such policies on the part of the Oyo State government.
A few examples would suffice. The federal government declared a total lockdown in the heat of the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, Governor Makinde, following sound considerations within the Oyo State COVID-19 Task Force, a committee of thoroughbred professionals in and out of government, headed by the governor himself, decided to impose a partial lockdown, which enforced a dusk-to-dawn curfew rather than a total lockdown.
His justification: The country’s economy was too weak, and no functional palliative care system could help common people survive a lockdown. Ultimately, the Federal Government bought into Oyo State’s idea, cancelled the lockdown policy, and opted for a curfew after huge damage had been done to the economy.
It is noteworthy that individuals who are today grandstanding as governorship, senatorial candidates in the Oyo State APC, and other parties faulted Makinde by calling for a total lockdown. They predicted mass deaths because Makinde did not follow the bandwagon by locking down the state totally. But the governor did not flinch. Why? Because, as he often says, he relies on data, science, and logic before making governance decisions.
As members of the public would also recall, Oyo State bellied the cat in the area of reopening of schools during the COVID-19 pandemic. The governor, again upon sound advice by the COVID-19 Task Force, declared that terminal classes such as Primary Six, JSS III and SSIII students should return to school, but only after teachers had returned to school two weeks earlier to put proper COVID-19 precautions in place. As that decision was taken, arm-chair critics in the Oyo APC, mostly unsound elements who always jump into a frenzy to criticise Makinde’s policies, went to town with doomsday posturing on how it was dangerous to reopen schools. But this time, they had the backing of a federal minister, who also criticised Oyo State for daring to reopen schools. Regrettably, however, the minister and his APC caravan in Oyo State backed down, as the Federal Government followed Oyo State’s lead two weeks later by announcing the return of Primary 6, JSS III, and SS III students to school. Again, science, data and logic prevailed above banal sentiments and not-well-thought-out political criticisms.
Another worthy example set by the Makinde government, which has resulted in the health sector reforms being witnessed in the state, was the governor’s refusal to yield to pressure to allow private organisations and development partners to erect temporary isolation centres in stadia and other public places.
Instead, the governor insisted that anyone desirous of helping Oyo State with an isolation centre should pick one of the existing health facilities and upgrade it to meet the standards of isolation centres. The state government also did the same. In the end, the Infectious Disease Centre, Olodo, 100-bed Saki Specialist Hospital; Agbami Chest Clinic, and other world-class health facilities with top-of-the-range equipment came into existence in Aawe, Oyo, LAUTECH, Ogbomoso, Igbo-Ora, and Saki.
Today, under Governor Makinde’s governance, which is driven by science, data, and logic, Oyo State has an energised and reformed healthcare delivery system. From the primary healthcare system to the secondary and tertiary healthcare systems, Governor Makinde has made great marks on the health sector, with many general hospitals brought back to life. At the same time, the Adeoyo State Hospital, Ring Road, can now boast of world-class equipment.
One of the quality reforms also brought into the system is the Oyo State Health Insurance Scheme. Though our friends in the APC would quickly say that the previous administration introduced the policy, thousands of Oyo State residents can witness that the scheme inherited by the Makinde government was nowhere near where the governor had taken it. Apart from putting in place quality policies to drive the scheme, the governor has enrolled thousands of residents into the scheme from his own purse.
However, given the nature of politics and the impending start of the campaign season in a few weeks, the opposition is likely to fabricate false narratives about various sectors within the state. When they do, residents of the state who have been benefiting or will start to benefit from the multifarious interventions of the state government in the health sector will have solid facts to measure the lies of the opposition against the truth. One of such facts would be the fact that a top player in the APC-led Federal Government, Dr. Shuaibu, the Executive Director of NPHDC, openly commended Makinde government’s effort in the area of healthcare delivery.
Opposition elements in the state, who have continued to shop only for the bad things to market about the state, can, for once, bury their pride [and their faces in shame] and agree that healthcare delivery is another area where the APC government before Makinde failed for eight years, but where Makinde has succeeded.
Mischievously, these same elements went to town with pictures of some PHCs in a bad state, trying hard to drown out the administration’s achievements in the health sector, especially the renovation of about 299 PHCs in just three years. Sadly, what they tried so hard to rubbish has received the world’s attention, as demonstrated by the commendations of the NPHDC boss.
In a few days, when the window of opportunity for electioneering will be opened officially by the electoral umpire, INEC, which will allow all candidates to market their ideas and brands, Oyo State residents must take note of those who will seek to deceive them with what the Makinde administration has not been able to achieve instead of talking about what they can do differently. They will aim to target Governor Makinde directly, concentrating on areas his government has not fully addressed, as if a single government could resolve all the state’s issues in just three years. They will come with sweet words and untested ideas. Though these cannot stand the test of quality against the solid ideas and policies of the Makinde government, they will still claim to be the best thing to that could happen to politics after Awolowo.
If and when they do, relying heavily on lies and empty promises that cannot be subjected to empirical evaluation, residents of Oyo State must bring them back to reality with the laudations of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency’s boss.
*Alao is the Special Assistant (Print Media) to Governor ‘Seyi Makinde.
