By Adeyinka Adeniran
Oyo state government and the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Tuesday exchanged banter on the intervention of the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu on resolving the issue of power outage that had rocked the University College Hospital (UCH) in the last 120days.
The APC, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare had commended the Minister’s effort while throwing a jibe at Governor Seyi Makinde for turning a blind eye at the tertiary health instruction, despite its proximity to the state government Secretariat.
But in a swift reaction, the Special Adviser on Media to the Governor, Dr Sulaimon Olanrewaju said the problem at UCH was not caused by the Oyo State Government. Rather, it was due to the failure of the Federal Government to live up to its promise of subsidizing cost of electricity to hospitals.
Sadare statement reads, “It is a thing of joy that the Minister visited Ibadan yesterday with a magic wand and all issues between the managements of the UCH and IBEDC were amicably resolved as reports have it that power supply has been restored now.
“We hereby express our profound gratitude to President Bola Tinubu who gave the Minister his kind permission to intervene and save the situation for the sake of the citizenry as well as the image of the country in view of the fact that the UCH is a globally recognized teaching hospital.
“Interestingly, the rescue mission which brought the Minister of Power and his team to Ibadan yesterday was not all about brokering peace between the managements of the UCH and the electricity distribution company, While addressing the press after the meeting, Chief Adelabu disclosed that UCH would also be added to the list of teaching hospitals and ivory towers that had similar issue but which were able to surmount it through the Federal government intervention of Solar mini grid.
“He assured that a 50 megawatts solar mini grid will be installed by the federal government to serve the University of Ibadan, the University College Hospital and the College of Medicine and the project will be completed within the first and second quarter of the year.
“With this development, the age-long erratic power supply crisis which the three institutions have had to battle would become a thing of the past and the hope of betterment would be renewed.
“Be that as it may, we are very much aware of the various efforts of the ministry of power under Chief Adelabu to guarantee steady electricity supply to the nooks and crannies of the country and we urge patience and cooperation from the citizens to facilitate the quick realization of the goal by the Tinubu administration.”
Reacting to the APCs statement, Olanrewaju said “It is unfortunate that the APC is so shameless that it is thumping its chest on the issue of UCH-IBEDC imbroglio instead of covering its face in shame.
“But we are not surprised because APC will play politics with anything, even the agony and pains of the people they were elected to serve.
“The fact is that the problem at UCH was not caused by the Oyo State Government. Rather, it was due to the failure of the Federal Government to live up to its promise of subsidizing cost of electricity to hospitals.
“Last year August, the Minister of Power, Chief Adebayo Adelabu, publicly declared that the Federal Government would subsidise electricity in teaching hospitals following the categorization of electricity users into bands. That was six months ago.
“The question to ask is, has the Federal Government fulfilled its promise? So, why should the APC now choose to blame Oyo State Government for a problem created by the insensitivity of the Federal Government?
“Had the Federal Government fulfilled its promise of subsidizing its own institution as it promised would the UCH be in this state?
“Now, shall we ask the APC that after the Minister has intervened in the UCH-IBEDC face off, will he also go to Lagos to resolve the issue between LUTH and Eko Disco should there be a problem, or go to Maiduguri to plead with the electricity distribution company not to disconnect University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital?
“Come on, governance is a much more serious business than that. Governance is for serious-minded people, not clowns. Nigeria surely deserves better than these jesters who are just junketing all over the place glamorizing common problems instead of thinking out of the box to get permanent solutions to them.
“In Oyo State, we don’t paper over the cracks; we go to the roots of issues to get permanent solutions.”
