The PHC system in Oyo state is now under palpable tension arising from a combination of allegations against Dr. Muideen Olatunji, who is the Executive Secretary of the State Primary Health Care Board. Before now, the Board headed by the ES, was said to have been involved in some fraudulent transactions regarding the purchase of laptop computers at insanely inflated prices.
However, the current round of tension followed the release of a posting instruction, which purportedly transferred all heads of local government health authorities from their duty stations. Many affected officers who spoke to our reporter on condition of anonymity raised a number of disagreements with the posting. An embittered female officer lamented that the posting has become a threat to her marriage. She said: “I live and work in Ibadan with my children. My husband works in Lagos and comes home twice a month. Now that the ES has thrown me far away from my base, does he want my family to collapse? As a father and husband, does he wish the same for his own family”. The tales of woes and anguish are the same among the generality of female officers who spoke to our correspondent.
They argued that the practice in the civil service is to keep female officers as close to their families as possible.
Furthermore, they alleged the ES of callously using his office to give headship positions to his loyalists and those close to him without any consideration for merit or what the rule says. According to them, many superintendents were posted to different Local Government Health Authorities (LGHAs) to head bonafide officers. Interestingly, these substantive officers are even on higher salary grade levels than the superintendents posted to them wondering where in the civil service is such anomaly ever seen. They vowed to get justice done and called on relevant authorities to save PHC workers from the gross maladministration being inflicted on the system by the Executive Secretary who they claimed has already completed a term of four years stipulated in the law.
A copy of the posting letter sighted by our correspondent showed that a total of 33 affected officers made up of: 13 doctors, 7 community health officers, 2 nursing officers and 11 nursing superintendents, were actually posted to different LGHAs as agency heads. This action was described by them as one in a series of the many terrible, “who-will-ask-me” decisions he has been taking since his assumption of office five years ago.
When asked on the steps taken so far to meet the ES and resolve the issue amicably, they said some emissaries have been sent to him but in his usual arrogant manner, he rebuffed them all claiming that “his hands were tied as the postings were instructions from above”.
They traced his confidence to the strong backing he appears to enjoy in both government and political circles. Speaking further on this, one of the aggrieved workers remarked that the ES is in the habit of boasting openly that he has a certain point man of the governor on his side and that with this man, nothing can happen to him or his seat. It is widely suspected that the same point man was successfully used to stop further investigation into the financial activities of the board by the House of Assembly Committee on Health when it became clear that the outcome would implicate and consume him. Right now, they said the die is cast as they’ve dropped protest letters in relevant ministries and with the Head of Service.
On what the ministry of health can do to douse the rising tension, they ruled out the possibility of any meaningful intervention saying that since the commissioner came on board, the ES has shown her little or no respect. Asked to shed light on this, the visibly angry workers stated that despite the commissioner’s attempt to forge harmony between the board and field officers, the harmful pride of the ES had frustrated all her efforts.
They therefore expressed dismay at the silence of the governor in the face of the serial insults the woman is going through insisting that an insult to the commissioner should be seen as an insult to His Excellency whom the commissioner is representing in the ministry.
The protesting workers, who cut across cadres and geo-political zones in the state, said they would not relent until they end the tyrannical regime of the Executive Secretary.
Expressing great surprise at his continued stay, they disclosed that he was almost booted out of office about two years ago but for some miraculous intervention.
Also in November 2023, during the presentation of year 2024 budgets by MDAs, he was said to have been severely berated by His Excellency for posting poor performance in spite of the huge fund made available to his agency. That he has continued on that seat despite the harsh condemnation by the governor is considered a proof of his strong connection within government circles and the confirmation that he’s truly unshakeable under the current administration regardless of how low his performance may be.
Surprisingly, the aggrieved officers are not only calling for his removal but also demanding the setting up of an investigation panel to probe his tenure in the area of management, funding and operations of the board accusing him of widespread financial atrocities and an unusual thirst to personalize the PHC system and control everything.
As the internal crisis rages, the workers called on the governor to take decisive actions without further delay so as to save his many years of progressive investments in the primary health care system from going down the drain adding that the failure of PHC is more or less the failure of his administration in the entire health sector of the state.
