‘On recruiting specialised manpower, our hands are tied’

Vacancies for employments are normally advertised in the media, but the information is that the university does not follow this procedure. Why is that? And to what extent have you resolved compensation issues with your host communities?The Federal Character Commission determines the mode of what they want to do in matters of employment. In the […]

Vacancies for employments are normally advertised in the media, but the information is that the university does not follow this procedure. Why is that? And to what extent have you resolved compensation issues with your host communities?
The Federal Character Commission determines the mode of what they want to do in matters of employment. In the letter to the university we were granted a waiver. That waiver means go into the pool of candidates that have applied and shortlist and send the list for approval. The letter also states to make sure the list covers the geographical spread of the country. And that is exactly what we did. And when you do that if they are satisfied with what you have done, they will fix a date to come. And if they are not satisfied they will throw the letter back at you. So, it’s not all cases that you are expected to advertise. It all depends on the number of people you want to have and the extent of the geographical spread; it’s purely at their discretion. On the issues of compensation, part of the agreement when the federal government acquired that land was that the state government should pay the compensation. That is the aspect we have been pursuing with Governor Godswill Akpabio, and he has assured us the matter will be settled very soon. It’s unfortunate that it has been delayed for this long.

What is the total staff strength of the teaching hospital and how many of them are from the host communities?
I may not be able to tell you offhand the total number of staff but I can say emphatically, that the number of people from the host communities is more than double what my predecessors have done since the establishment of the teaching hospital. I have told them time without number, but whenever we have recruitment in specialised areas like surgeons or physician, somebody will go and bring ordinary people, forgetting that this is a hospital that needs only specialised personnel in most cases. And we cannot for the sake of pleasing them compromise standards.
I want to know whether the security threat has any correlation with the last time we heard of secondary school consulting in the hospital.
There is no correlation. We issued a press statement on that already. Even the army, in the police there are impostors. In this case it was not true that the impostor was consulting for three months. We went to the police, but we were surprised that journalists went and wrote that the impostor was consulting for three months without getting feedback from the management. This is what we have been stressing, because people would always want the negative aspect of it, they will do everything to run people down. The most important thing is how did the person come in and what are we doing to prevent another impostor. The impostor has nothing to do with the host communities but one thing I have made them realise is that when we are looking for skilled manpower we will not compromise standards because there are basic requirements for that and we must maintain standards. The issue that happened last time was unfortunate, and since we have learned our lessons. It is the problem of the Nigeria society and we regret that.

Apart from the threat messages, was there any physical assault on your members or the members of the interview panel by the host communities?
There was none. What happened last year: they disrupted the exercise, nobody was assaulted. This year again, we knew that, the same people would come back again. And it is quite natural for them to seek neutral ground, nobody wants to wait until he or she is assaulted, it has happened before and they said well, why is it that whenever they come to Akwa Ibom they don’t have peace and the same thing is happening over and over again, and they are not happy. So I had to go to the clan head, try to talk them into a dialogue in order to allow peace to reign. I know that there would have been peace for now but for the fact that we have factions among the youths. Now there are factions, it is difficult for us to deal with them.

Apart from the challenge from the host communities, what other challenge are you facing in the Hospital?
There are many uncompleted buildings scattered all over the place. I thought before now we will have money to complete them. So, funding has been our major problem in the hospital like in any other federal establishment. This has really slowed us down, because by now we should have moved to those new buildings over there, because they are more spacious- the Laboratory Unit, the MRI, the radiological unit that are still under construction. But I am optimistic that we will still complete them and do more because, as a young teaching hospital the problem of infrastructure is still very much there, but gradually we will overcome.

Aside these problems what other plans do you have for your second term in office?
Basically, I want to consolidate on what we have achieved for the past four years; I want to say that by my second term we will be operating from the new buildings. The [outpatient] complex which is still uncompleted is capable of taking up to 400 patients at the same time. It is also designed to accommodate 10 consultants and 10 surgeons at the same time. So when you have up to 10 doctors consulting at the same time, it will ease the problem a bit. My plan is to get an MRI, when I came in here there was no CT Scan,  but we have managed to have one; for now it is the only one in the state. We are planning to have a MRI, which is more sophisticated. There is no point for our patients travelling to Port-Harcourt, Enugu and other places for critical cases because by the time the patient gets there he or she would have been worse, his situation more complicated because of stress of travelling. So, we cannot continue that way.