Tourism Minister only had malaria, not poisoned, ministry debunks viral report

The Ministry of Tourism has declared as false a report circulating in the media, claiming that the Minister of Tourism, Lola Ade-John, was poisoned and rushed to the hospital.

While reacting to the report, the Assistant Director of Press in the ministry, Emem Mariam Ofiong debunked, the claim that the minister was poisoned, but confirmed that she had malaria, was treated and had been stabilized.

“It is not true that the Minister was poisoned, she only had malaria and had been treated and is now stable”, she explained.

It would be recalled that an online medium, Peoples Gazette, had reported that the Minister of Tourism, Lola Ade-John, was hospitalised in the nation’s capital, Abuja, over alleged poisoning and was undergoing treatment at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Jabi, Abuja.

According to Peoples Gazette, Lola Ade-John was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, shortly after she started manifesting symptoms of her poisoning.

“She has spent four days at the facility as of Friday morning.

“Ade-John, a banker and tech investor, has been on a machine to aid her breathing, adding that the specifics as to what substance she ingested and how could not be immediately ascertained.

“Her worsening situation has further set the family against the government, with the permanent secretary of her ministry said to be in disagreement as to whether she should continue receiving treatment at a public hospital or be moved to a better-equipped private facility downtown.

“The Permanent Pecretary, Ngozi Onwudike, was said to have insisted that the minister should not be transferred because the FMC is a public hospital and its services wouldn’t attract substantial charges to the government, a position her family rebuffed.

“But they remained with her as they could not raise funds to move her to a private hospital, our sources said. A phone number for the permanent secretary did not connect on Friday morning.

“A spokesperson for the FMC did not immediately return a request seeking comments about Ms Ade-John’s condition”, the media house had claimed, quoting family sources familiar with Ade-John’s ordeal.

Ade-John recently assumed office as the first indigenous minister of tourism after the splitting of the defunct ministry of information and Culture by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu into three: Ministry of Information and National Orientation; ministry of Arts, Culture, and Creative Economy and Ministry of Tourism.