By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Muhammadu Buhari is embarrassed by the sight of Nigerian doctors queuing up for interviews in Abuja for jobs in Saudi Arabia, and so, by fiat, ordered the Department of State Services to disperse them on Thursday.
However, Buhari has not solved the problems listed by doctors, and given his famous record of incompetence, callousness, bullying, and law-breaking, he cannot (and will not) solve the problems – which include a lack of medical facilities and low pay.
He himself knows about these problems in health care delivery.
But rather than fix them as he promised during his campaign in 2015, he travels abroad for medical treatment, at huge cost to the treasury. He does not even feel shame for failing to deliver on his promise. Nor does he bother to explain why.
SERAP vs Buhari for squandering public funds
Last week, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) urged Buhari to redirect the N4.87 voted to spy on social media activities, phone calls, and text messages of citizens to pay the salaries of striking doctors.
The activist group also wants the sleuth money used to improve the benefits of resident doctors as well as health care facilities for poor Nigerians who rely on those facilities and have no means for medical tourism abroad, like Buhari.
According to logging by Premium Times, since Buhari assumed office on May 29, 2015, he has spent 200 days in the United Kingdom for medical treatment in seven trips, the last of which he returned from on August 13.
His ailment has never been made public, even though his treatment has chalked up millions of pounds sterling – counting in his official entourage, family members, presidential jet maintenance and fuel cost, hotel bills – footed by tax payers.
He promised on the campaign trail in 2015 to upgrade medical facilities in Nigeria and end foreign medical tourism of government officials, including himself. But he fails to deliver on the promise and characteristically refuses to give account.
“We also urge you to send to the National Assembly [NASS] a fresh supplementary appropriation bill, which reflects the redirected budget, for its approval,” SERAP said in an open letter to Buhari, reported by Vanguard.
Buhari refuses to probe missing N106b, takes loans to enslave Nigerians
This week, SERAP filed a lawsuit against Buhari for failing to probe N106 billion officially declared missing from 149 ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
Part of the grouse in the suit filed at the Federal High Court in Abuja is that Buhari failed to prosecute those responsible for the fraud and recover the missing public funds to reduce the pressure of borrowing more money.
The suit is sequel to confirmation by the Office of the federal Auditor General in its 2018 annual audited report that N105,662,350,077.46 of public funds are missing, misappropriated or unaccounted for across 149 MDAs, per Premium Times.
SERAP is seeking “an order of mandamus to direct and compel President Buhari to promptly investigate the alleged missing N106bn of public funds, ensure prosecution of anyone suspected to be responsible, and the full recovery of any missing public money.
“Recovering the alleged missing public funds would reduce the pressure on the Federal Government to borrow more money to fund the budget, enable the authorities to meet the country’s constitutional and international obligations, and reduce the growing level of public debts.”
Doctors heading out in huge numbers
Some of the doctors looking overseas are jobless in Nigeria and some employed are poorly remunerated.
According to TheCable, a Nigerian doctor gets N5,000 as monthly hazard allowance while Senators get 248 times higher (N1.24 million) to buy newspapers monthly.
Some doctors, who did not want their names in print, told The PUNCH that this is not the first time Meeds Consultancy would recruit doctors for Saudi Arabia.
“This is not the first time they are organising such recruitment. This was also done in 2018. They held one in Lagos and another in Abuja,” one recalled.
The first round of interviews this year had been conducted on Tuesday and The PUNCH reported that medical consultants in their hundreds participated.
Those who passed the interview will join in the diaspora 4,528 medical doctors trained in Nigeria who have moved to the United Kingdom in six years, from 2015 to July 2021.
On Thursday, other doctors were dispersed at Sheraton Hotels, Abuja where they were taking part in the interview being conducted by Meeds Consultancy on behalf of the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health.
The PUNCH reports that DSS operatives stormed the hotel in the morning and dispersed doctors and journalists who gathered at the venue.
Marcus Fatunde, a journalist with the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR), was arrested and later released.
“When I came here, we saw the DSS operatives dispersing the people that came for the interview and before we knew it, everywhere had been scattered.
“A journalist with the ICIR, Marcus Fatunde, was also arrested, but he has been released,” an eye witness told The PUNCH.
A doctor, who did not want his name in print said: “Some of us, who came here today, came because we don’t even have jobs and we don’t want to do the wrong things.
“Two categories of people were here today: the jobless ones and the ones who are poorly remunerated.
“We didn’t commit any crime; we just wanted a better system. So, why is the government trying to frustrate us?
Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) Vice President, Adejo Arome, told The PUNCH that the organisers of the interview confirmed to him that the exercise had been suspended.
His words: “Well, some people got to the venue today (Thursday) and when they didn’t meet anyone, they called me and I confirmed from the recruiters and some other doctors that the recruitment has been suspended.
“The recruitment on Tuesday garnered coverage, because of the media publicity. It was everywhere that doctors were going to Saudi Arabia.
“The recruiters had to suspend it because the federal government said it felt embarrassed by the news.
“It is a big shame. The government has no right to infringe on the right of the citizens to choose to go to another country. If the system is not working, let them go to another country.”
