…Says he sailed in ocean of ministry for 15 years

From Petrus Obi, Enugu

For Paul Achiebo, a mentally challenged man in his 60s, the coming of Dr. Fintan Ekochin to the Enugu State Ministry of Health as commissioner may have ended his 15 years of uninterrupted sojourn and “sailing on the ocean” of the ministry.

Achiebo, a well known face in the vicinity of the Ministry of Health complex has not had any challenge in the last one and half decades he had constructed a shanty abode that defaced and defied the sanitary ambiance of the ministry’s environment.

The mentally challenged man who claimed to hail from Anambra State would quickly introduce himself as PAC leader, claiming to have been appointed way back in the days by former President Olusegun Obasanjo.

“I am the owner of the compound. I am the landlord, but they don’t pay,” he told this reporter.

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The new commissioner who did not fancy the sanitary situation of the ministry pronto ordered a four-day internal clean up exercise during which he came face to face with Achiebo.

A visibly disappointed commissioner expressed worry that the whole ministry building was tied down by old NITEL wires that have been used for telecommunication which are no longer functional.

“Any office you enter is full of wires dangling everywhere from these old telephone lines, nobody has cared to remove them. So, this is just a summary of what we saw and what we are trying to tackle.

“We are going to have a grand clean up again where everybody, including myself, will go round to do a final clean up. So, we expect our second week in office to be working from a clean office, let it start to look like a Ministry of Health.

“The main building from my inspection has six toilets and they were under lock and key. The story is that there is no water. So, in our inspection we identified that the water closets are intact, but there is no water. There are tanks, which were built with galvanized steel sheet, probably in late 70s, they have rusted all over so they can’t even hold a cup of water. The pumping system to the overhead was manually done, we have dismantled the rusted tanks and got rid of them. So, we intend to buy rubber tanks.

“We have motorcycles that have rusted; that were used probably for immunization in 1985. We have broken desks, lockers and chairs, which have been eaten by termites and for unclear reasons nobody has removed them,” the commissioner lamented.