Members of the House of Representatives Committee on Healthcare Services have praised Abia State Governor, Alex Otti, for what they described as far-reaching reforms and measurable progress in healthcare delivery across the state.
The commendation came on Tuesday when the committee, led by its chairman, Dr Amos Magaji, paid a working visit to the governor at his office in Umuahia as part of its oversight duties.
Magaji said the visit was primarily to assess the implementation of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund (BHCPF) in Abia, noting that the committee had toured more than 30 states nationwide to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme.
“We are here because of the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund. We have gone round many states to ensure that the fund is actually working,” he said.
“There was a strong push for the fund to be increased from one per cent to two per cent of the Consolidated Revenue Fund, and we felt it was important to first ascertain how well it is being utilised.”
According to him, the committee’s observations in Abia went beyond the health sector, touching on broader governance and infrastructure issues that support healthcare outcomes.
“What we have seen here is commendable, not just in healthcare, but also in other sectors that strengthen the health system,” Magaji said, singling out the Geometric Power project in Aba as a development with the potential to transform Abia, and Nigeria, into an industrial hub.
He said Governor Otti had altered the narrative of the state, pointing to improvements in healthcare, sanitation, road infrastructure and power supply.
“Since our arrival, it has been one success story after another. The state is remarkably clean. For many years, Abia was labelled one of the dirtiest states in the country,” he noted.
Drawing a biblical analogy, Magaji said the scale of transformation surpassed expectations.
“The Queen of Sheba heard about the wisdom of King Solomon and came to see for herself. She said what she saw was far greater than what she heard. That is exactly our experience here,” he said.
Describing Abia as one of Nigeria’s emerging success stories, the lawmaker also cited projects such as Project Ekwueme as worthy of commendation.
While expressing concern over Nigeria’s high maternal mortality rate — estimated at over 1,000 deaths per 100,000 births — Magaji applauded the Abia government for prioritising maternal and child healthcare, noting that the state had recorded a significant reduction in maternal deaths over the past decade.
“The revitalisation of maternal healthcare centres, the strengthening of specialist hospitals, including the facility in Umuahia, and the recent accreditation of the Abia State University Teaching Hospital are achievements to be proud of,” he said.
He further commended the state for increasing budgetary allocation to health, in line with the 2001 Abuja Declaration which recommends that at least 15 per cent of annual budgets be devoted to the sector.
In his response, Governor Otti said healthcare remained a critical social infrastructure that must be addressed with urgency and sustained commitment.
“Healthcare, from our perspective, is social infrastructure, just like roads,” he said.
“I want a situation where anyone who walks into a primary healthcare centre has a 100 per cent chance of survival. Until we achieve that, we will not relent.”
The governor stressed that beyond infrastructure, manpower remained a major challenge.
“It is one thing to build modern hospitals and another thing to get the right professionals to run them. Some of the primary healthcare centres we have completed cannot yet be fully functional because of manpower gaps,” he explained.
Otti said his administration’s decision to allocate no less than 15 per cent of the state budget to health was informed by the Abuja Declaration, which many Nigerians, he noted, were unaware of.
“I do not see healthcare financing as an investment. I prefer to call it healthcare expenditure, because once you talk about investment, the next thing is returns,” he said.
He disclosed that the state had recently attracted medical professionals from the diaspora.
“In our last recruitment exercise, doctors returned from the United States, South Africa and other countries. We even have a neurosurgeon who joined us from New York,” Otti revealed.
According to him, creating a conducive environment was key to attracting and retaining skilled professionals.
“People want to live where basic amenities work, where they are safe, and where their families can thrive,” he said.
Earlier, the chairman of the Abia State House Committee on Health, Emeka Obioma, and the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Enoch Ogbonnaya Uche, while introducing the visiting lawmakers, outlined achievements recorded under the Otti administration and thanked the governor for prioritising healthcare delivery in the state.