President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has directed the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Mohammad Pate, to immediately put necessary machinery in place for the takeoff of the Federal University of Technology Teaching Hospital, Akure.
In line with Tinubu’s order, Prof. Pate dispatched a team to Ondo State to ascertain what structures were on ground so that the new teaching hospital could be included in the 2025 budget
Director of Hospital Services, Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Jimoh Olawole Salaudeen, who led the Presidential team to Akure, the Ondo State capital, inspected the permanent site where the hospital would be located as well as the temporary site in the Ondo State University of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital in Akure.
Timeline
– The people of Akure had for several years agitated for a teaching hospital.
-President Goodluck Jonathan approved a take off grant of about N5billion out of which about N2.1billion was released to FUTA in late 2014.
– The change of government in 2015 frustrated the success recorded and the money returned to the federal treasury under President Buhari.
– Akure speaking communities had to resort to self-help while the use of the old Akure Specialist Hospital was denied the Akures by the state government.
– In 2024, Governor Aiyedatiwa approved the use of the old facility now renamed Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital for the take off of the Akure Federal Teaching Hospital.
– In November 2024, President Tinubu ordered that the Federal Ministry of Health fully onboard the FUTA Teaching Hospital and that the teaching hospital must take off immediately thus ending years of uncertainty.
Those in the know said President Tinubu was angry that the Ondo State capital was left out of years of tertiary healthcare interventions and that it was totally unacceptable to him that a serious medical emergency in Akure would have to be taken to either Owo, Ondo town or Ile-Ife despite Akure being the state capital with a daily transit population of over 2 million people.
Kudos to elders like the late Engr. James Olusoga, Pa. Reuben Fasoranti, Pa. Olumuyiwa Ogunleye and several others.
The late Brig. General Jones Arogbofa will not be forgotten.
