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Exploits Of Maduabuchi Gabriel In The Abia Rebirth Campaign
– By Ojiaku Kalu
The problem with most developing countries is absolute expectation of their citizens on their governments for every of their needs – with no contributions from the people themselves. But if the office of the citizen must be accorded its respect, the holders of that office must also contribute to developments in their societies.
While politics provides the impetus for revolutionary welfare to the masses – as manifests in infrastructural developments, it is also self-evident that private individuals outside politics have their own roles in this sense and are now engendering developments in their immediate as well as native environments with deep-pocket budgets. Like the oak tree, these persons with spirit of humanity, are sprouting as a community and providing succor to their kith and kin who daily endure perennial neglect by the political class. This is what is referred to as alternate governance in political economy.
Such individuals bestride [especially] their native geographies with strength of character to champion developments for the common good in tangible and intangible senses. However, regardless of their burning desires to improve the living conditions of their fellows, the degree of their successes is usually hinged on the policies of the political class in their given environments. After all, political power in most parts, controls economic power. To this end, if the first is either withheld or misapplied, the later stagnates. Here, Abia State and its chronic underdevelopment is a classical study.
Created on August 27 1991 by the Ibrahim Babangida military administration, Abia State as a subnational, has been bedeviled with shameful infrastructural deficit – a factor that had perennially dismissed it in public reckoning as a mere statistics among the 36 federating units of Nigeria.
What’s more, Umuahia, the capital city of the state, is easily valued as a glorified village given its evident poor vista – in look and feel. This long running bemoan by residents and visitors alike is further fuelled by the disconnect between its adopted slogan of ‘God’s Own State’ and its border states of Ebonyi, Akwa Ibom, Rivers et cetera that have since overtaken Abia by hundreds of miles in the race to modern development. This is even more regrettable given that the state is an oil-bearing territory and earns humongous monthly allocation from Abuja; which should have catapulted it to an all-inclusive el dorado. Alas, while its past managers squandered its wealth, the state laid in waste!
The Abia Town
Not a few analysts believe that the descent of Abia State into developmental ignominy had been the making of its successive administrations – especially since the post military era beginning in 1999. Since then, each successive team like a cabal in quest of perpetuity, continuously rig itself into power – against the will of the electorate. Once inaugurated, every administration shuts out every voice of reason and intended investor from the territory. Therefore, as every goodwill exited from Abia State, it speedily descended into infrastructural shame and wreaked of emotional frustration for its residents.
Amid the foregoing and in spite of it, Abians [within and without] never ceased to pray for some political watershed that may truly make their beloved land God’s Own State! And that prayer would eventually come to fruition on the 18th of March 2023 when by a stroke of divinity, the cloak of political banditry was yanked off the state by way of a change of guard – after the breathtaking drama that attended the ultimate announcement by INEC. As the entire old order was swept away, the people finally got a leader in Dr. Alex Otti – in place of long running rulers.
Upon his inauguration on the 29th of May 2023, Governor Alex Chioma Otti, OFR did roll his sleeves in fight to recover the long lost fortunes of the state and has been rallying same to turn its length and breadth into a construction site toward finally aligning it with modern civilization. Every recent visitor to the state would attest to this.
A part of the effort at recouping frittered goodwill for the state was witnessed on Wednesday, January 4, 2024 when Otti hosted in his office a group of Nigerian diaspora nurses resident across the continent of North America. The visiting nurses under the auspices of the National Association of Nigerian Nurses in North America [NANNNA] were in Umuahia as the Abia State delegates for the NANNNA’s medical mission in Nigeria for the year 2024.
Among the visiting diaspora nurses was Dr. Prince Madubuchi Gabriel – MBA, MHA, BSN, RN, PHD, whose professional expertise and exploits in the field of nursing science and allied health services have been praised by the government of the United States; with several awards and recognitions from several states and bodies following – especially from Pennsylvania, his state of residence.
On receiving the visiting team, Governor Otti singled out Maduabuchi Gabriel, an illustrious son of Abia and native of Umuokwenuta, Okpuala-Isingwu community of Umuahia North Local Government Area, for special commendation. According to him, the aspiration of every community is to have strong sons and daughters who on their own merit would raise their heads at the world stage, and in doing so, represent it in any matter of concern. Such strong individuals as personified in Maduabuchi Gabriel are celebrated without let.
Gov. Otti
He therefore called on all enterprising Abians to emulate Dr. Prince Maduabuchi Gabriel and his colleagues in NANNNA who for several years running have taken it upon themselves to maintain their respective states and communities on the map of contemporary sustainability – through their annual medical missions. As development experts can tell, the greatest of all social amenities is healthcare – because a healthy person can aspire to any attainment in life.
‘‘This is even more commendable in that such selfless actions of theirs have over the years been without recourse to successive administrations in this state; and are completely devoid of cost to our people, the end beneficiaries.’’ He said.
Besides his active involvement in the medical missions of NANNNA, the Governor said he is particularly elated at Dr. Gabriel’s zeal in spearheading the now viral campaign for the rebirth of Abia – with his selfless alternate governance at the grassroots, as evident in his empowerment of youths with requisite economic skills as well as ensuring that the needy and the elderly in his community and its environs are catered for in every sense – under his Hopee Foundation International.
‘‘It is quite true that a government‘s prime responsibility is to cater for its people; but no government, in reality, can do everything for the people – which is why as a government we need the active participation of well-meaning citizens like Dr. Maduabuchi Gabriel to bridge the gaps.’’ The Governor added.
As has been said earlier, the reason Abia State had been trailing behind its border counterparts of Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, and Rivers in all indices is the apparent yawning gap in physical and service infrastructures – due largely to its inability to attract and hold domestic and foreign direct investments from corporate bodies or deep-pocket individuals who were scared off by insecurity and unfriendly policies of previous administrations.
Before now, most high net worth indigenes of Abia would rather site their businesses outside the state where they were sure of the empathy of governments of the areas – especially on security and taxation, rather than risked such investments in their own native environment where they were unsure of favorable public policies.
Dr. Gabriel
However, Dr. Prince Maduabuchi Gabriel, driven by love for the state and its people, breasted the odds and embarked on some massive social entrepreneurships at the twilight of the immediate past administration by establishing two landmark outfits: a hotel and a hospital, both of which have been rated above 4-star in standard by top estate valuers in the metropolis; and which have in no small measures boosted tourism in the ecosystem – for patients, fun seekers and holiday makers.
According to inside sources, the present authorities of Abia State are particularly enthused at the choice of sites for the two establishments and have applauded their proprietor whom they describe as a development frontiersman – for his farsightedness and capacity to attract the new Government and private developers’ attention to those angles of the city hitherto not thought of, to accelerate developments thereto – thereby expanding the capital city that has for long been limited to a small circumference; despite its vast land mass.
His hotel, PRINCE DAV INTERNATIONAL HOTEL & SUITES [with a gymnasium, salon, minimart, and a night club that runs on Fridays and Sundays – with guaranteed fun and security] is sight to behold. Now about 4 years since its establishment, the hotel is located on Ohia Road, behind the Abia Tower, off the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, Umuahia.
It is for its widely attested coziness, luxury and homeliness that the 37-room hotel was the first choice of guests who had trooped into Umuahia to be part of the maiden Abia Christmas Fiesta 2023. Prince Dav International Hotel & Suites parades the following categories of rooms on its offers: standard, deluxe, executive, VIP, luxury, and presidential; with each coming at a very affordable price – compared to the standard of service.
Asked why the amazingly relative low charges compared to other hotels in its class, the Manager, Mr Emmanuel Ogu, simply smiled with a ‘…high quality does not always mean unaffordable’ answer!
The hotel
His hospital on the hand, is a state-of-the-art polyclinic located at the end of Ubakala Street, behind the popular Isi Gate – one of the axes of the city hitherto adjudged unthinkable for such a next-generation investment, due to its population of low income earners; plus the localization of motor spare-part shops and mechanic garages there.
Upon its inauguration on the 30th of April 2023, the TRUE 1 HEALTH HOSPITAL– a 3-ward 7-bed ultramodern polyclinic has become the one-stop reference center for the health needs of the residents of Umuahia and the environs. What’s more, the proprietor, Dr. Maduabuchi Gabriel, ensures the facility’s pharmacy is constantly stocked with quality medicines shipped from the United States of America and other foreign lands. And despite this, the bills are surprisingly affordable by patients. ‘It is established for the health need of the people and not necessarily for high profitmaking’, he says.
While in Umuahia for an official assignment at the start of the year, this journalist had a chance meet with some doctors and allied health professionals who had called at the hospital for various reasons. Dr. Kama Nwoke, a radiologist with a general hospital in the metropolis, confided that the optics in health care services in Abia State had been raised with the coming of the new hospital – thanks to the visionary acumen of Dr. Maduabuchi Gabriel; because medical practitioners [now] refer their patients to the facility with ease – for services and medicines that cannot easily be accessed elsewhere in the city.
For Gloria Obasi, a retired high-school principal and grandmother who accompanied her daughter to the hospital to see the consultant pediatrician over some illness of their baby boy, ‘‘the coming of TRUE 1 HEALTH SERVICES in the area is an answered prayer as it provides prompt attention to patients, is easily affordable against the current state of the economy, it dispenses quality medicines that are scarce in other hospitals and best of all, it is located right in the neighborhood, in case of an emergency at dead of night’’!
The Abia State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ngozi Okoronkwo, on the sideline of the group’s visit to the Governor, had praised Dr. Maduabuchi Gabriel for deeming it necessary to invest in the state’s health sector to complement government’s effort at solving the myriad of challenges therein. She described the proprietor as a ‘‘nursepreneur’’ for investing in his field of study, and a ‘‘technocrat’’, for striving to enrich the state’s health sector with his wealth of medical expertise.
So could there be a corroboration between the facility’s offer and its name – True 1 HealthServices? Well, the bane of most venture capitalists in Africa is the outright variance between the chattered names of their businesses and their actual services to the publics. But as is crusaded by the business editors of [the] Oxford Advance Learner’s Dictionary, the first rule of business is that the devising of the name of a business should be simple, and reflective of its service to patrons. It is on this note that one finds Maduabuchi Gabriel a tactical businessman whose operandi smacks of creative integrity – given the perfect blend of his hospital’s name and its daily offer to its teeming callers. Indeed, True 1 Health Services is truly an all-in-one health center because in there, a caller accesses a super high-tech x-ray, diagnostic laboratory, a well-stocked pharmacy with sundry quality medicines et cetera. Undoubtedly, one rarely finds such services under one roof – even in so called public hospitals. Name it: pharmacy, hospital, diagnostics, laboratory, home-health agency, family clinic, healthcare training consultancy et cetera; all under that one roof!
The hospital
And on why the roundly adjudged globally-rated services of the health facility is not as expensive as is always the norm in the world of business, the MD, Dr. Jeff Eze-Njoku, said the center’s primary mandate is to save life first – in keeping with the Hippocratic ethics of medical practice, before other considerations.
