KEMI OMONIYI
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has commissioned some projects funded by the Oil and Gas Sector as intervention in the six states of the Northeast region bedeviled by the Boko Haram Insurgency.
The Minister, yesterday, commenced the flagging off and commissioning of projects and also supervised some ongoing projects constructed by the defunct Petroleum Equalisation Fund (PEF) Management Board/Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCIN), in Yola, Adamawa State.
Some of protects commissioned by the Minister were Radiology Complex at Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital, Yola, and the overhauling of Nana Asma’u Maternal Referral Centre, Yola, and Ajiya Clinic.
The Minister also supervised some ongoing projects at the Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital, such as the construction of an Intensive Care Unit, Histopathology Laboratory Unit, and Neonatal Unit.
He said the intervention was done to upgrade the Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital to its new status of a Teaching Hospital recently inaugurated in May 2022 and also as an intervention to reconstruction and rehabilitation of the North East bedeviled by the Boko Haram Insurgency.
Sylva said the visit was part of his working visit to the state, adding that Adamawa will benefit from 58 Oil and Gas Intervention Projects.
He said the Radiology Complex commissioned at the Teaching Hospital in Yola has a City Scanner, a Neonatal Unit, Resident Doctors’ Quarters, Digital Radio, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), and a Histopathology Unit.
He said the 58 projects of the Intervention were in furtherance of President Mohammed Buhari’s administration’s pledge and commitment to rebuilding the northeast subregion.
Governor Umaru Fintiri, who was elated by the Minister’s visit, thanked the Federal Government for executing the projects, which he noted, will benefit the state tremendously.
He revealed that the state government has been according the healthcare sector priority in areas of construction, rehabilitation and equipping of health facilities.
While receiving the Minister earlier, the Chief Medical Director of Modibbo Adama University Teaching Hospital, Prof Auwal Abubakar said the hospital was established in 1999 with 175 beds capacity and over the years has grown to a bed capacity of 450.
“Therefore, we want to thank President Mohammadu Buhari for upgrading from a Federal Medical Center to a University Teaching Hospital this year in May (2022),” he said.
He said the hospital was able to improve human resources and had trained specialists in their various fields of specialisation.
“The intervention has aided the hospital to successfully separate conjoined twins brought from Belyasa state,” he said.
He said the Modibbo Adama University in Yola has admitted the first set of medical students and has submitted its list, adding that the students would have started lecture but that the ongoing ASUU strike was the reason why the students had not resumed.
