Non-Governmental Organisation, Cross River Network For Justice And Good Governance, CRNFJAGG, and some stakeholders have kicked against ethnic cleansing and alleged moves to prosecute former Chief Medical Director of University Teaching Hospital, UCTH, Prof Thomas Agan NegroidHaven has garnered.
The stakeholders under the aegis of Concerned Staff of University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, CSOUCTH, said there are lots of things to be done in the teaching hospital, that to engage in infighting at the period we should rather be building bridges.
In a joint statements made available to newsmen in Calabar yesterday, the groups wondered why some top management should be so desperate as to sponsor petitions to EFCC against Prof Thomas Agan, the immediate past Chief Medical Director of the hospital.
In the statement signed by the Coordinators and Secretaries of Cross River Network For Justice And Good Governance and Concerned Staff of University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Messers Edem Edet and Bassey Bassey Ibor as well as Agbor John Agbor and Nathaniel Odey respectively, they alleged that there are discreet moves to retrench some staff said to have been recruited during the administration of Thomas Agan.
The statement reads in part: “We have observed with dismay the discreet moves to retrench some members of junior staff said to have been employed by immediate past CMD, Prof Agan, on the pretext that they were not qualified to have been employed in the first place. We also have it on good authourity that those mostly affected are form the central and northern senatorial districts of the state said to have been loyal to Agan.
“These moves, if true, would create disharmony and disaffection among the various communities within the hospital and further aggravate ethnic tension that is already high in the hospital community. Besides, there are lots of works including restoring public confidence and repositioning the hospital to offer first class services to members of the public, which the new Chief Medical Director, Prof Ikpeme Ikpeme, was appointed to do.
“On the planned moves to prosecute Agan, we equally call for caution, knowing full well that one contractor, Bassey Edim, has already petitioned Agan to EFCC, alleging over-invoicing and demanding for gratifications by the former management. Sources within the hospital have told us that the petition is said to be sponsored by some powerful forces within and outside the hospital who wants to get back at the former CMD for daring to stand in their way to install the new helmsman.”
Continuing, the groups warned of dire consequences of trying to use the services of EFCC to rope in some people in the guise of sanitizing the wrongs of the hospital and added that “the battle over who becomes the CMD have come and gone as such the new helmsman should not allow busy bodies distract him at this nick of time.”
According to them, it is high time the new management healed the wounds and allowed peace to reign by ensuring that petition writers and agent provocateurs are tamed and positive thinking would become the order of the day.
Checks at the hospital revealed that the following the petition by one Bassey Edim to EFCC alleging financial impropriety, the new management of the hospital led by the new Chief Medical Director, Prof Ikpeme Ikpeme, and the former CMD, Prof Agan, were all invited for interrogation by the anti-graft agency at the Uyo Zonal Office.
