The Senate, on Thursday called on the State House officials to put the State House clinic in order and equip it to ensure that President Muhammadu Buhari and top government officials would have no need to travel abroad for medical treatment.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Federal Character and Inter-governmental Affairs, Sen. Danjuma La’ah, made the call when the State House Permanent Secretary, Tijani Umar, appeared before the panel to defend his 2021 budget estimates.
The State House official had presented a budget of N19.7 billion for 2021, out of which N1.3 billion was proposed for the State House Clinic.
Senator La’ah said the committee would approve the budget for the State House Clinic but insisted that the President and other top officials of his government should no longer be flown abroad for medical treatment.
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We must ensure our hospitals are fully equipped to a world-class standard.
“So that no matter the issue of an emergency our hospitals should be endowed with that capacity to attend to them before flying out if the need arises,” he said.
I want this thing done and the credit goes to the entire members of the committee.
“We want to leave a legacy that the clinic we requested is built in the State House within the shortest time frame. That is our primary concern and we must do it at all costs,” he said.
President Buhari’s first term in office was punctuated by medical trips to the United Kingdom.
Between 2017 and 2018, he travelled abroad at least thrice for medical reasons. One of the trips lasted for over 100 days.
