FMC Owo: Hope Fulfilled Or Hope Betrayed?

By Bolanle BOLAWOLE
[email protected] 0705 263 1058

(Published in the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune edition of Sunday, 17 May, 2026 edition).

It still looks like yesterday when, in 1971, the outgoing military governor of the then Western State, Brigadier Robert Adeyinka Adebayo, performed the foundation laying ceremony of the Owo General Hospital which, today, has grown into what is now known and called the Federal Medical Centre, Owo. Adebayo, who ruled over the Western state between August 1966 and April 1971, had been deployed to another duty post and was on a “farewell tour” of the state. With farewell also came “parting gifts” everywhere Adebayo went. His farewell gift to Owo was the General Hospital, located across the road and directly opposite my alma mater, Owo High School, Owo.

When I was researching this piece, I asked Google questions. Google’s response was that “According to the available search results, Gen. Adeyinka Adebayo did not lay the foundation stone of the General Hospital, Owo during his tenure (1966 – 1971).” Google is wrong! Adebayo indeed laid the foundation stone of the General Hospital, Owo on his way out of office in April 1971. I was in Form 2 at Owo High School when the epochal event took place. All the students lined up from morning till late in the afternoon waiting for Adebayo’s arrival. He came very late because he was visiting many other locations bidding them farewell and handing them their own Greek gift!

Oba Adekola Ogunoye II, the Olowo of Owo (installed on 6 February, 1968), was there life and direct to receive the outgoing governor. After a laconic welcome by the Olowo, Kabiyesi’s official welcome address on the occasion was delivered by the Asolo of Owo. Yes, Adebayo did no more than laying the foundation stone, and it stands to reason that nothing significant was done by his immediate successors (Brigadier Christopher Oluwole Rotimi: April 1971 – July 1975; Akintunde Aduwo, 30 July, 1975 – 30 August, 1975; and Brigadier David Jemibewon, August 1975 – March 1976). Till I passed out of Owo High School in June 1974, the large expanse of land donated to the General Hospital remained a forest. St. Louis Hospital, located in the Oke-ogun area of the town (or Fada, as it was more famously called by the locals), was the only notable hospital in the town.

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When my school principal (and founder) of Owo High School, Chief Michael Adekunle Ajasin, was elected the civilian governor of the old Ondo state in 1979, the expectation was that he would make the Owo General Hospital his administration’s priority, being the political leader of the town. Some said his principled stand of not according preferential treatment even to his hometown did not let him. Others said he bided his time to first secure a second term of office, which he did after a bloody challenge from his erstwhile deputy, Chief Akin Omoboriowo, but the military coup of December 1983 ensured that his second term was short-lived.

Ondo state was created out of the then Western state on 3 February, 1976. Appointed by the then “reluctant!” military Head of State, Gen. Olusegun Obasanjo (after the assassination of Gen. Murtala Muhammed on 13 February, 1976), Group Captain Ita David Ikpeme was the state’s first military governor (March 1976 – July 1978). The other governors after him were: Brigadier Sunday Tuoyo (24 July, 1978 – 1 October, 1979); civilian Gov. Michael Adekunle Ajasin (1 October, 1979 – 31 December, 1983); Commodore Bamidele Otiko (2 January, 1984 – 2 September, 1985); Navy Captain Mike Okhai Akhigbe (2 September, 1985 – 26 August, 1986); Col. Ekundayo Opaleye (26 August, 1986 – 17 December, 1987); Commodore Olabode George aka “Lagos Boy” (17 December 1987 – 3 September, 1990); and Navy Captain Sunday Abiodun Olukoya (3 September, 1990 – 3 January, 1992).

Here, again, Google and Wikipedia committed an error as both of them listed Brigadier-General Raji Alagbe Rasaki aka “Who build this gada?” as a former governor of Ondo state; he was not. Rasaki was former Governor of Ogun and Lagos states in that order.

The military government’s unending return-to-civil-rule rigmarole gave birth to civilian Gov. Bamidele Olumilua (3 January, 1992 – 17 November, 1993) before the military again unleashed another torrent of military rulers on Ondo state, beginning with Col. Mike Torrey (9 December 1993 – September 1994); Col. Ahmed Usman (September 1994 – 22 August, 1996); Navy Captain Anthony Onyearugbulem (the unruly military governor who dared to assault ex-governor and NADECO leader, Chief Ajasin, right in his bedroom; 22 August, 1996 – 7 August, 1998); and, finally, Col. Moses Fasanya (7 August, 1998 – 29 May, 1999).

Witness the short span enjoyed by virtually all the military governors! Some were in office for a mere number of days! How can any meaningful development be achieved under such rapid turn-over of leadership? Since the return to democracy in 1999 in what is now known as the Fourth Republic, some stability has returned to the state’s leadership structure. Chief Adebayo Adefarati (29 May, 1999 – 29 May, 2003; 4 years); Olusegun Agagu (29 May, 2003 – 23 February, 2009; 5 years+); Olusegun Mimiko (24 February, 2009 – 24 February, 2017; 8 years); Rotimi Akeredolu, 24 February, 2017 – 27 December, 2023, 6 years +); and the incumbent, Lucky Aiyedatiwa (27 December, 2023 till date).

Available records state that the General Hospital, Owo “was originally built by the Ondo State Government but was taken over by the Federal Government in 1989 and in line with the Federal Government policy establishing a Federal Medical Centre in states without a Federal Teaching Hospital, the hospital was made a Federal Medical Centre with the pioneer Board and Medical Director appointed in June 1993.” Thanks to Prof. Olikoye Ransome-Kuti, the then Minister of Health, who reportedly resisted clandestine pressure to have the FMC Owo located elsewhere! I could not pin-point the exact year the Ondo State Government started building the General Hospital, Owo.

But to what extent has Olikoye’s laudable vision been realised at the FMC Owo? The hospital has hugged the limelight for the wrong reasons for quite some time now. And concerned citizens of Owo have not felt unconcerned about this unsavoury turn of events. Elite groups of Owo concerned professionals home and abroad have now decided to say, “Enough is now enough!” (apologies, Gen. Sani Abacha!). Advocacies and interventions required to salvage the hospital and extricate it from the cesspit into which it has sunk are, therefore, upswing. The recent avoidable death, at the hospital, of a 58-year-old woman, Mrs. Jegede Christianah, from Imoru in the adjourning Ose local government area, due to what family and multiple sources described as official negligence, unprofessional conduct, and general and pervasive decadence has acted to heighten concern about the state of affairs within the hospital.

This tallies with complaints already making the rounds of infrastructural decay, mind-boggling corruption, conflict of interest, stripping of assets, and incidents of ghost workers which sources say have hobbled the hospital. It is no longer possible to close one’s eyes to such damning disclosures from inside and outside sources.

The online publication, Sunshinetruthng.com, which brought Mrs. Jedede Christianah’s case to public attention must be commended for doing so. The media have a duty to beam their searchlight on public institutions, the FMC Owo inclusive, as part of their corporate social responsibility and in the performance of their sacred watchdog obligations.

Section 22 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) specifically mandates the media to hold the government (its agencies, institutions, departments, and parastatals) accountable to the people. To strengthen the media’s hand in this regard, the Nigerian Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), passed by the National Assembly on May 24, 2011, was signed into law on May 28, 2011 by the then President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.

This law established the legal right of not just the media but of every Nigerian citizen to access public records from government agencies as well as private organizations providing public services. FMC Owo falls within this category. The agencies, parastatals and Ministries supervising it at the Federal level also fall within this category. Same with all vested interests associated with the hospital or providing public service within the locality.

We have it on good authority that a new management may soon take over from the present administration whose stewardship, critics say, was a great disservice to the hospital. But the new management must be one that acts like a new broom that will sweep FMC Owo clean. The hospital’s Augean stable must not be left intact, least of all be allowed to fester. It cannot be business as usual.

Sources familiar with the matter have expressed pessimism that anything good can come out of the ongoing recruitment exercise – but I beg to differ! The critics, based on experience, wonder if the current recruitment drive for a new Chief Medical Director will be allowed by vested interests at the local and federal level to yield a competent and honest candidate for the job. They also point at the shenanigans of religious and ethnic bigots; the internal politics of the hospital arrayed against honest and dedicated staff, those who ran the hospital aground running helter-skelter to cover their tracks, and the general malaise of corruption which has not spared the hospital.

What, then, is to be done? I sampled opinions. Someone knowledgeable about the matter said: “Maybe they should try a female CMD for a change. Maybe that will reduce impunity and corruption.” Another volunteered: “Until Owo people begin to see the FMC as their own NNPC and guard it jealously and nurture it, nothing will change for good.”

I suspect he means that the FMC Owo is a very important “Federal presence” that Owo must guard jealously. But the pun on NNPC – even though that might not have been his idea – cannot be lost on a writer like me! Nigerians ran down and ate up the NNPC – is the FMC Owo not going the same route when those whose primary interest ought to be the growth and well-being of the hospital are the same people who connive with predators to run it down and eat it up?

The same way Nigerians today suffer for the destruction of NNPC is also how Owo and the FMC’s catchment area may suffer – in fact, are already suffering – for its alleged cannibalisation and maladministration!

“FMC Owo is not alone in the miasma of corruption and mismanagement that you are talking about”, said an informed source. “From personal experience as an insider, I can tell you that the same situation you are complaining about, perhaps even worse, obtains in similar hospitals everywhere. Corruption is pervasive and until you tackle that, nothing much can be achieved.”

Says the 18th-Century Anglo-Irish writer, Edmund Burke: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing” In other words, apathy enables evil. Keeping quiet and accepting defeat before giving a good cause a push should never be an option. The refrain on the set of a television station where I feature regularly is: “When you see something, say something, and do something!”

I heard some things about the FMC, Owo and, therefore, decided to say something! Reversing the decade-old ugly trends at the hospital may not come easy – but there is no harm in trying. Don’t you think?

* Former editor of PUNCH newspapers, Chairman of its Editorial Board and Deputy Editor-in-chief, BOLAWOLE was also the Managing Director/Editor-in-chief of The Westerner news magazine. He writes the ON THE LORD’S DAY column in the Sunday Tribune and TREASURES column in New Telegraph newspaper on Wednesdays. He is also a public affairs analyst on radio and television.