*HOW GERMAN HOSPITALS SAVED AKETI’S LIFE*
*Dr. Akeredolu O.N.*
*After collapsing the health sector in Ondo state due to his government’s harsh environment for medical doctors, Aketi accessed good healthcare facilities in Germany for his undisclosed ailment. It’s a matter of fact that Arakunrin is no better than wicked African leaders like Ali Bongo of Gabon and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. After spending several years in power, they had no functional hospitals in their countries when they were sick but flew to the Western world for medical care, as described by Mr Femi Falana SAN.*
The hired social media defenders of the inept government, currently in Ondo state, accused me of rabid hatred for Aketi and his family members but failed to convince people whether all the points being raised through my innumerable articles were false or true. I remember that Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the finest anti-corruption wizard cum Czar produced by Nigeria. This Adamawa-born former professional police officer was alleged to have been used by Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, then president, to witch-hunt his perceived political enemies.
The response from Mallam Ribadu destabilized the journalists who were interviewing him.
He simply replied that being anti-Obasanjo is not a license to steal, and they should tell him who was innocent among those he prosecuted.
In a nutshell, the argument should be whether all my points against Aketi, his family members, and the government are valid or not.
Ordinarily, I am supposed to keep quiet like other politicians in the state and await my turn to steal like them, but for how long will the current heartlessness continue from African wicked leaders?
One of the presidents in the country who knows Nigeria inside and out, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, said that Nigerians need more rebels for the country to move forward.
In his context, the popularly called Ebora Owu i.e Baba Iyabo means people who would hold the governors vis-à-vis leadership of Nigeria responsible instead of the current praise singers.
It’s no doubt that Africans are under a spell of bad leadership. I recently listened to a speech from Mr. Femi Falana SAN, a human rights activist par excellence while enumerating the African problems at a conference, mentioning the recently deposed president of Gabon, who reigned for several years, following the demise of his father who ruled the country for over four decades.
The younger Bongo, Ali, had a stroke, and there was no functional hospital in Gabon to treat him; he was flown from his country to the Western world for treatment.
This great and revered lawyer, Falana, also mentioned Mobutu Sese Seko, who was the Head of State in DR Congo (Kinshasa) i.e Zaire for 32 years without building a functional hospital for his people; he accessed good healthcare in Europe when he was sick.
In Ondo state, with over 4 million people, we have never had it this bad in terms of government. The adventure of Aketi as our governor seems more like a curse on the Sunshine State.
Some of us supported Aketi as the gubernatorial candidate of ACN/APC; we were beclouded by his record as the former NBA president, projecting from his apolitical background, believing Ondo state would be better under his leadership; however, the reverse is the case.
Our attention was first drawn by Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, then LP gubernatorial candidate, seeking a second term while Aketi was the ACN candidate in the 2012 election. Iroko alleged that Aketi was almost impeached by two-thirds of exco members as the president of NBA because of financial impropriety, and he used his family company to bid for contracts while he was in charge of the association of learned colleagues.
This open allegation by Aketi’s age-long friend, Dr Mimiko, was held with a pinch of salt by Ondo indigenes, counting it as a political jab in which we are currently regretting our forewarned action of electing him twice to oversee the affairs of the state.
The health sector in Ondo state was among the best in the country before Aketi took over in 2016. Though Dr. Olusegun Mimiko inherited a good health system from his predecessor, the late Dr. Olusegun Agagu, who lost to him following an appeal court judgment in 2009.
There were a lot of initiatives from the Labour Party government, from the popular Mother and Child hospital in Akure and Ondo, where several pregnant women had free antenatal care and delivery rendered for the citizens of the state and beyond.
The Trauma Centre in Ondo was established to care for surgical cases, and many medical consultants were employed en masse. The youth corp doctors were struggling to be assigned to the state.
This was the situation until Aketi became the governor; he started by cutting the monthly salary of the copper doctors and maltreating the other cadres of Hippocratic brothers.
As of today, the entire sector has collapsed without any functional hospital. The last time when medical personnel in the state went on strike, Aketi said they didn’t have two heads, openly insulted them on air, and he was busy using the available resources to construct a new governor’s Lodge.
As fate would have it, the doctors in Germany sustained his life to this hour, and he hasn’t enjoyed the new executive apartment built for himself.
Assuming the Deutsche (German) government treated their doctors like Aketi, definitely, he definitely wouldn’t be alive today.
These African leaders don’t think. How many times did Europeans leave their countries for medical help in Nigeria? A governor who presided over the worst health sector in his state, even collapsed it due to his misrule but spent several thousands, if not millions of dollars/Euros to be treated in German hospitals; there is no way that person is better than Ali Bongo of Gabon and Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire.
The medical doctors are leaving Nigeria in large numbers. The pitiable situation now is that Nigerian doctors are migrating to African countries like Liberia, Rwanda, and Southern African countries because of the better environment, while our ailing leaders are busy patronizing European hospitals, and the citizens are engaging themselves in fasting and prayers to God for their healing. What a foolish nation called Nigeria !
The near-death experience of Aketi hasn’t changed anything; he has resumed with the same attitude that nothing will happen. Aside from that he failed to greet the good people of the state who had been praying through a broadcast; he ordered the entire Ondo state’s political and administrative structures to Ibadan, the headquarters of the old Western region where the governor lived his entire life.
The signing into law of the bill for the newly created LCDA was also done in city of Oluyole. I’m not a lawyer; it’s left for the learned colleagues to authenticate its legal uprightness;
However, politically and morally wrong for Aketi to unofficially make Ibadan the new seat of power in Ondo state, the first of his kind after the creation of the state in 1976 by the late Gen Muritala Muhammed.
*Dr. Akeredolu O.N, Leader, Aketi Medical Team, 2016, Vice Chairman, Aketi-Aiyedatiwa Medical Committee, 2020.*
