Kunle Adelabu
Following a motion moved by the Chairman, House Committee on Defense and the representative of the Ikorodu Federal Constituency, Rep. Babajimi Adegoke Benson, concerning the abandoned Federal Medical Centre, Igbogbo (FMC), the House of Representatives has directed the National Primary Health Care Development Agency to include the funding for the completion of the project in the 2022 budget estimate.
The House also urged its Committee on Appropriation to make fund available for the medical centre completion and, also, mandated the House Committee on Legislative Compliance to ensure the resolution of the House is put to action.
THE IMPACT had written several stories on the abandoned FMC, calling on the attentions of elected representatives at the Federal, State and local government levels to the project.
We have also engaged Rep. Benson and other stakeholders on many occasions on the need to ensure that the facility is completed for the use of the community.
Rep. Benson had, on Wednesday, October 5, 2021, moved a motion on the floor of the House, titled, ‘Urgent Need To Complete the Abandoned National Primary Health Centre In Igbogbo, Ikorodu Federal Constituency’.
He noted that as part of efforts to improve on health service delivery to the people of Ikorodu Federal Constituency in Lagos State, a Federal Medical Centre was budgeted to be established in Iyewa Road, Igbogbo in 2006 and the ground breaking ceremony also took place same year.
The lawmaker expressed his worry that almost 15 years after, the FMC constructed has been abandoned and the uncompleted facility is becoming dilapidated.
“ I am aware that the groundbreaking for the NPHC, Igbogbo, took place in 2006 during the administration of President Olusegun Obasanjo but was abandoned after it attained about 75 per cent completion”, Rep. Benson said on the floor of the House.
“Worried that for about thirteen years, the construction of the National Primary Health Centre in Igbogbo has been abandoned and there seems to be no effort to complete it.
“Further worried that the uncompleted building is now getting dilapidated without serving its purpose and the drugs supplied ahead of the completion of the NPHC have now expired without been judiciously dispensed to residents.
“Concerned that if the Federal Government do not take urgent steps to complete the National Primary Health Centre and put it to use, all the previous allocations and Human Resources deployed to the facility would have come to nought”, he said.
It would be recalled that as part of his efforts to improve health care facilities in his constituency, the two –term lawmaker had facilitated two Primary Health Centres in Ibeshe, Igbogbo/Bayeku LCDA and Agbele/Grammar School in Ikorodu Local Government in the last one year.
