A group called the Coalition of Professionals and Indigenes of Ekiti State and Concerned Staffs of the Federal Ministry of Health, has sent an Save-Our-Soul letter to President Muhammadu Buhari on behalf of a former medical director of Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti, Dr. Lawrence Majekodunmi Ayodele, who it alleged is being victimized “for being an apostle of change in his institution”.
According to a statement signed by the secretary of the coalition, Comrade Isiaka Raji, the group had watched with keen interest the events that had been taking place in Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti since inception and, therefore, is making its submission in view of alleged injustice and maltreatment melted to Dr. Lawrence Majekodunmi Ayodele, the 52-year old former administrator who hails from Ise-Ekiti, Ekiti State.
The group claimed in its statement that “ for twenty months, Dr. Majekodunmi who was the Chief Medical Director of the hospital between June 2012 and May 2016, had been facing was ill-treatment in his bid to make his fatherland better from the Hon. Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Folorunso Adewole and Governor Ayodele Fayose, his adviser”.
Below is the group’s statement in full;
“Firstly, all thanks to Mr. President and the Federal Republic of Nigeria for appointing Dr. L.M. Ayodele as the medical director of Federal Medical Centre, Ido-Ekiti in September, 2012 after serving as acting medical director of the same institution between June and August 2012. To the glory of God, at the end of four years, the young man did not disappoint Mr. President and the nation at large going by the way he transformed the hospital to an enviable state in areas of status, service deliveries, training and infrastructural development. Within two years of his appointment as medical director, he transformed the institution to a Federal Teaching Hospital, the first of its kind in our dear country.
Prior to his appointment as the medical director, Dr. Ayodele had served as the head of clinical services (2010-2012) and founder/head of psychiatry department of the same hospital (2004-2010). Though, the hospital had no mental health facility prior to his appointment as a consultant psychiatrist, he started one following his appointment into the hospital in April 2004. The establishment of mental health department brought a new dawn to the hospital. In less than 5 years of starting the department, it became the best in the areas of clinical services, service delivery to patients, manpower development and research. The department was therefore, the first to secure full accreditation from both the National and West African Postgraduate Medical Colleges, for postgraduate training of doctors (Resident Training) in the entire Ekiti and Ondo States. Consequently, the department produced the first set of indigenous consultants (specialists) in the hospital.
Following his appointment as the medical director of Federal Medical Centre, Ido-Ekiti in the year 2012, Ayodele’s vision and mission centered on bringing positive change to the hospital in the areas of staff’s attitude to work, discipline, transparency and accountability, service delivery, training and research, infrastructural development and restoration of peace between the hospital and the host community. With God on his side, all of the aforementioned were evidently achieved within three years in spite of incessant strikes and distractions by the different groups of health workers union.
Even though, the aforementioned reforms gladdened the heart of many well-meaning staff of the hospital, some of those who were beneficiaries from the old order exhibited some measure of resistance to the reforms and vowed to frustrate Dr. Ayodele’s management. Some even threatened that they would kick him out through petitions within six months. However, Dr. Ayodele didn’t allow that to distract him from forging ahead in the building of the hospital. He remained focus in spite of spurious fictitious petitions, blackmail, false accusations and claims being made to various governmental agencies.
Together, the leadership of Federal Ministry of Health and the national leadership of the senior staff association were able to manage the pockets of service disruption often precipitated by some union executives between 2012 and 2015.However, with the coming on board of Professor Isaac Adewole as the Honorable Minister of Health; the labour unions in the hospital became unmanageable. As soon as the Hon. Minister came on board he was adequately briefed about the incessant unwarranted disruption of clinical activities by some groups of staff of the Ido-Ekiti hospital. Every effort made by some principal officers in the Federal Ministry of Health to institute a disciplinary action on the erring staffs was frustrated by the Honorable Minister, Prof. Isaac Folorunso Adewole.The President-General and Secretary-General of the National body of SSAUTHRIAI visited Prof. Adewole in his office and shared with him the true story of Ido-Ekiti hospital since the hospital was established. They enumerated the achievements of Dr. Lawrence Majekodunmi Ayodele within the short time he was appointed and made it clear to him that his 4-year achievements had surpassed the 8-year achievements of his predecessor, with evidences. They dissociated the national body of SSAUTHRIAI from the disruptive activities of the union boys in the hospital. In spite of their efforts, the Hon. Minister of Health, Prof Adewole rebuffed them with their advice. They concluded that the Hon. Minister had an ominous agenda.
The Hon. Minister demonstrated his bias and complicity in the crises that engulfed the hospital evidently through the following:
1. A powerful ministerial team sent from Abuja to Ekiti mandated to carry out on-the-spot assessment of the shenanigan or quagmire in the hospital submitted their report to the Hon. Minister. The team scored Dr. Ayodele very high on his performances in the hospital and called on the Hon. Minister to discipline some groups of staff in the hospital or at least caution them. To their astonishment their report was thrashed by the Hon. Minister. Members of the team started wondering what the Hon. Minister has in common with the hoodlums in the Ido-Ekiti hospital.
2. He blatantly refused to call the boys to order at the very early stage of disruption of clinical activities in the hospital.
3. He shunned calls from notable elders in Ekiti State like Chief (Aare) Afe Babalola (SAN) to intervene in the crises.
4. He eventually listened to and complied with instructions given to him by the enemy of Federal Government, Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State.
5. He was advised by Governor Ayodele Fayose to set up a deceitful kangaroo Panel of Enquiry which he inaugurated in the first week of June and given a week to carry out their assignment.
6. Ridiculously it took six months for the Panel of Enquiry to conclude their assignment with the complaints that fund was not released to the Panel by the Hon. Minister.
7. We will like to mention here that Dr. Ayodele was not indicted in the panel report for any fraudulent act; apart from the fact that he tried to bring positive change to the hospital which was highly resisted by some greedy and corrupt members of staff.
8. The Panel indicted a good number of the labour union members and demanded for their appointment to be terminated or relocated from the hospital.
9. Majorly, the Panel identified the erstwhile Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Olusola Ololade Ojo as the brain behind the incessant crises in the hospital because all the hoodlums are her loyalists that were fraudulently benefitting from the old order.
10. The Panel recommended that Dr. Mrs. O.O. should be invited to the Federal Ministry of Health for interrogation but the Hon. Minister never did. Rather he agreed with Dr. Ojo to return the hospital to the old fraudulent ways by reappointing Dr. Ojo’s son-in-law as the new CMD of the hospital and returning all the looters to their old offices.
11. The Hon. Minister sat on the panel report and disappointingly made Dr. Mrs. O.O. Ojo his best ally made her candidate the new Chief Medical Director against all the advice given to him on Dr. Ayodele, and made all the erring staff major officers of the hospital, thereby returning the hospital to its old days of unimaginable impunities.
Realizing the level of ministerial support they were enjoying, together with the local support they were getting from Governor Ayodele Fayose, the boys took over the hospital and disrupted clinical activities in the hospital at will thereby degrading and destroying all that had been built over 12 years. Of course the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose had earlier instructed all security operatives in the State to leave the boys alone! We have recorded tapes on this directive amongst others.
It is sad to say that up till date, the boys have not received ordinary query from the Federal Ministry of Health in spite of all the reports and recommendations submitted to the office of the Hon. Minister.
Rather sadly, after assuring many highly placed Nigerians that Dr. L.M. Ayodele is the most qualified for the job, and after promising that Dr. Ayodele is going back to his office, Professor Isaac Folorunso Adewole decided to deny Dr. L.M. Ayodele renewal of tenure as the CMD of Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti at the expense of the hoodlums in the hospital by appointing another doctor to the office.
The repeated claim by the Honorable Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Folorunso Adewole, that his decision for denying Dr. Ayodele renewal of his tenure was borne out of his fear that Ayodele might be killed sounded sentimental and unprofessional and underscores the Hon. Minister’s incapability to manage the Federal Institutions he has been mandated to oversee. Thanks to the Minister of State for Health that quelled the crises at Owerri Federal Medical Centre and re-instated the Medical Director. Left for Prof Adewole, the MD of Federal Medical Centre, Owerri, Dr. Angela Uwakwem would never have been re-instated back to her office to complete her tenure.
As it is now, the fate of Dr. Ayodele is on the balance, very much unknown to everyone.
Dr. Lawrence Majekodunmi Ayodele does not have any criminal or fraudulent record against him throughout his period of service as Medical Director and Chief Medical Director.”
