President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday commended the Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, for sacrificing his personal comfort to provide essential services for the citizens of the state.
Buhari spoke during the inauguration of the new Central Hospital in Benin, the state capital. It was part of the activities lined up for his two-day visit to the state.
Buhari said, “I am very impressed with this work (hospital). I respect his (Oshiomhole) sacrifice of his personal comfort; instead of building a government house, he decided to build this hospital. I think it takes courage to do what he did.
“I thank the governor for making his presence in Edo State go into history.”
Oshiomhole had earlier said the hospital was a demonstration of his belief that public health care facilities should not be inferior to the ones run by private owners.
“Edo State, being part of the old Mid-West Region, has, perhaps, one of the oldest government houses that were built during the colonial time. The question was whether to build what others might refer to as an ultra-modern government house for the comfort of the governor and government officials or to use the resources to build a public hospital that our people will be proud of.
“It was fair to me that the comfort and the well-being of the governor were important; but more important is the primary purpose of government, which is the comfort and the well-being of the people.
“I, therefore, decided that we would rather continue to dwell in the old colonial government office and use our resources to build a completely new hospital.”
Earlier, the Commissioner for Health, Dr. Aihanuwa Eregie, said the hospital was originally built in 1902 and had grown from 10 hospital beds to 480, with 11 medical sections.
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