Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, in the 2023 general election, Mr. Peter Obi has charged President Bola Tinubu to prioritise Primary Health delivery services in the country.
Obi gave the advice in an interview with newsmen at the College of Nursing Sciences, St. Charles Borromeo Specialist Hospital, Onitsha, Anambra State on Thursday.
The advisory followed the donation of N10million to the management of the College, supporting the upgrading of facilities in the institution.
The former presidential candidate emphasised that it is only through improving the critical sectors of the country such as health, education, and pulling people out of poverty, that a new Nigeria could be achieved.
The former Anambra State governor further urged the president to ban payment of medical bills from the Federal Government’s treasury to offset the overseas treatment of any public office holder.
Obi commended the management of the institution over the growth of the College he recalled performing its foundation laying ceremony in 2012 as Anambra State governor.
He described the nursing profession as very critical in health services while noting that “nurses are the closest medical personnel to any patient in the hospital because after the doctors’ diagnosis and make prescriptions, nurses are the ones who stay to administer the treatments”.
He stated that the donation was his 2023 annual support to the college which he could not present during the period due to the presidential campaigns.
The LP’s former candidate explained that his continued support since leaving office as Governor was tied to his belief that one should not only support growth of critical sectors of the nation when they are on the saddle, but should see such gestures as a way of paying back to the society they had been blessed with by the grace of God.
In his response, the Archbishop of Onitsha Ecclesiastical Province, His Grace, Most Rev. Valerian Okeke thanked Obi for the gesture and commended him for his consistency in his cruade for a New Nigeria.
President of the College’s Students Union Government, Miss Onyinye Amalu described Obi as a great source of inspiration to the youth for sound moral behaviour, patriotism and resilience and commended him for supporting the college.
