He said that the Buahri-led government failed Nigerians in the healthcare sector.
Omoyele Sowore, the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), has knocked President Muhammadu Buhari for junketing to London, United Kingdom while his government failed to build any standard hospital in Nigeria for over seven years in office.
Sowore, while addressing Nigerian pharmacists on Thursday at the 95th annual pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria held at Crispan Suites and Events Centre, Rayfield, Jos, Plateau State capital, said that the Buahri-led government failed Nigerians in the healthcare sector.
According to Sowore, although Buhari knew from the beginning of his administration that he needed a world class standard hospital for medical services, he rather chose to patronise the UK, leaving over 200 million Nigerians to languish in the country with a dilapidated, non-functional healthcare system.
Speaking at the conference with the theme, “Medicine Security In An Unstable Economy”, the AAC presidential candidate for the 2023 general elections said that it had become obvious that Nigerian leaders were “wicked and useless,” having failed to factor the country’s healthcare sector into their governance.
He noted that the conference came at a crucial time in the life of Nigeria as a country because “we are discussing healthcare and because it is a time when the president of this country has run away because there is no healthcare.”
Berating President Buhari for his incessant foreign medical trips while Nigeria’s healthcare system got rotten on a daily basis, Sowore affirmed his determination to revive Nigeria’s health sector if elected in 2023, the #RevolutionNow convener said, “I am a presidential candidate that has said that any healthcare problem that Nigerian doctors and pharmacists cannot take care of, that healthcare problem better kill me. That is my promise to you today.”
Speaking further, Sowore also berated his opposition candidates including Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), who were all supposed to be at the conference for their absence.
“It is also crucial for you to understand that some other presidential candidates who should be here today are not here, particularly, the ones that need your help. We all need your help no doubt, but some people need your help more than the others,” he said.
Sowore decried the high rate of exodus of Nigeria’s medical experts, saying “One thing that we must all agree is that Nigeria has failed us. Your president (Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria) was saying that over 6,000 pharmacists have left (Nigeria). I think since the end of COVID-19, some 8,000 doctors have left. We can't count how many nurses who have left.
“We must thank those of you who stayed back because some of you are not only pharmacists, some of you are university lecturers who have not been paid for eight months and you are still here.
“Regardless of what we are going through in our healthcare sector, our leaders are so wicked, useless; I'm sorry to say this, that they refuse to care of healthcare in the healthcare sector, which is their most important need.
“This country has had a president who died in office. For five months our president was in a hospital in Saudi Arabia. You would think that the next presidents, who of course know that they are not too well, could help us build hospitals in this country, so that in case of emergency, they could be attended to, but as you know, they have learned nothing and they have forgotten nothing.
“You would think that those other candidates would be here today to discuss with pharmacists, learn from them, hear from them but as you know, they have learned nothing and have forgotten nothing.
“You would think that Nigeria will think about governance in the healthcare sector but guess who is the Minister of State for Health, a lawyer because Nigeria has learned nothing and forgotten nothing.
“Out of 177 countries in the world, Nigeria ranks 144 in healthcare performance. Today, we have nothing that could be called healthcare.”
President Buhari who is currently on a medical trip to London, which according to his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, will take him two weeks, has embarked on about 51 foreign trips since he assumed office in May 2015.
Out of the 51 foreign trips, SaharaReporters in August 2021 reports that President Buhari had taken a total 200 days or about seven months for medical services in the UK since he assumed office.
In his current trip, Buhari who went to the UK for “a summit and scheduled medical follow-up” is expected to be back by next week which makes it over 200 days since 2015 while thousands of medical facilities in Nigeria, including the State House Clinic do not have necessary materials to render appropriate medical services to millions of Nigerians.
Recall that the First Lady, President Buhari’s wife, Aisha and his daughter, Zahra, some years back berated the management of the State House Clinic as they lamented that there was no single paracetamol in the clinic meant to serve Buhari, his family and other Nigerian leaders at the Aso Rock Villa.