PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH DECRY’S ILLEGAL TAKE OVER OF HOSPITAL BY GOVERNOR UMAHI

RELEASE ON PRESBYTERIAN JOINT HOSPITAL (PJH) UBURU, EBONYI STATE
A DISTURBING TAKE-OVER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN JOINT HOSPITAL (PJH), UBURU

1.1.On Friday, the 12th of July, 2019, the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria received a hint that the Ebonyi State Executive Council approved Government takeover of the Presbyterian Joint Hospital, Uburu. Also announced same day on Ebonyi State Broadcast stations, was the award of contracts for the construction of several blocks of buildings for the Ebonyi State Teaching Hospital on a property the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria holds on lease and has developed over 107 years as the Presbyterian Joint Hospital, Uburu.
1.2. The first and only takeover correspondence issued by the Ebonyi State Attorney General on this matter, was delivered to the Church on Friday, 8 May, 2020, dated 24 March, 2020 but delivered forty five (45) days after, by Courier Service.

1.3. DESPERATE FOLLOW-UP MOVES:

On Wednesday, 15 July 2020, another Ebonyi State Executive Council meeting was desperately convened to approve the takeover a second time. Additionally, an Ebonyi State Executive bill for the takeover was to be forwarded to the Ebonyi State House of Assembly the next day for passage. And on the evening of Saturday, 18 July, 2020, an SMS was received reporting as follows:
“The youths of Uburu have invaded the Hospital (PJHU) saying that the Governor sent them, that they have taken over the Hospital. They now conduct search on persons entering or leaving the hospital premises. Maybe they want to start the occupation from the security section.”
1.4. The various takeover announcements or maneuvers did not indicate what the status of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria will be in the new scheme of things at the PJH, Uburu. But in 2019, the Ebonyi State Governor hinted his intention to hand back to the Church Presbyterian College (PRESCO), a Presbyterian Church Secondary School built in 1964 but taken over by Government after the Civil War, which was expanded and served as the Ebonyi State University Medical School.  That verbal promise to the Prelate of the PCN in 2019, upon which the Church relied, was deliberately not affirmed in the takeover bid.
1.5. Constitutional provisions which reserve to government the power of eminent domain, are subject to due process and did not preclude Government from negotiated settlement of acquisitions. These were ignored by the takeover notice.  The Church’s grave concerns arose from the fact that Ebonyi State Government has, in this particular takeover, resorted to blackmail tactics of robbing the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria of a colossal legacy of over 107 years, without the courtesy of a mere acknowledgement. The Ebonyi State Government has been employing unwarranted humiliating, strong arm, intimidation, dictatorial and robbery tactics the Church would neither accept now nor condone in the future.

2. THE PRESBYTERIAN JOINT HOSPITAL, UBURU
2.1. It should be instructive to know that way back in 1912, when there was virtually no government in the land, the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM), the progenitor of the Presbyterian Church Nigeria (PCN) of today, was led by godly concerns to acquire land from two families (not Uburu Community) on which it established the Presbyterian Joint Hospital and Colony at Uburu for the purpose of extending healthcare facilities to the people of the area. It all started in 1912 when the young Dr. John W. Hitchcock, a member of the touring Presbyterian Missionary team, started by dispensing medical aid, unsolicited to indigenes of Uburu on arrival and never looked back until his death on 15th January, 1920. Popularly known as Dr. Hitchcock of Uburu, this Presbyterian Missionary died at the age of 37 while striving to keep others alive and safe from the 1919 influenza pandemic and was carried by men of Uburu to Calabar where he was buried near Mary Slessor. The Hospital institution, not only opened up Uburu Communities to the world, but also, provided education, healthcare and employment opportunities for an inestimable number of indigenes and inhabitants of Ebonyi State and Nigeria. It helped save lives by the grace of God and the fortitude of the Church in her activities in Uburu. It is on record and incontrovertible that it was the Presbyterian Church that put Uburu on the World map as far back as 1913.
2.2. The lease from the said families is still extant and agreed ground rents have been regularly paid up to date.
3. REASONS ADDUCED FOR THE TAKEOVER AND THE CHURCH’S RESPONSE
3.1. The Attorney General’s takeover letter alluded to submissions from Uburu Traditional Rulers the Church was not privy to and raised sundry issues, such as:
i) allegations of PCN’s lack of connection to the Church of Scotland Mission (CSM);
ii) misconceptions that Uburu Community leased the lands to CSM not PCN and that the community is unwilling to renew the lease they consider expired since 2017;
iii) that the new Managers have failed Uburu people; and
v) allegations of misapplication by the PJHU Administration of Government grants to build PCN Hope Waddell University at Ohafia and the General Assemby Office at Aba.
THE CHURCH’S RESPONSE:
3.2. The Church has since 5 June, 2020 responded to the Attorney General’s letter, refuting all the fallacious allegations on which the takeover was based and giving one month’s notice of the Church’s intention to sue for her rights under the Constitution, if Ebonyi State Government would not accept a negotiated settlement. Forty-five (45) days after release of the Church’s response, the EBONYI State Attorney General has refused to respond to the Church’s letter. The Church of Scotland Mission (CSM), the progenitor of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria (PCN), endowed the PCN, among others, with two well established hospitals including the famous PJHU, a legacy of 107 years. Successive Governments from the Eastern Nigeria through Anambra, Imo, Abia up to Ebonyi State Governments were aware of the connection and have 60 years of documentary dealings with the Hospital through the PCN. The Uburu Community is not the Church’s landlord and our leases are still extant not expired in 2017, as alleged.
3.3. Of a truth, it has always been both tortuous and expensive to run and sustain hospitals in environments where most patients, for good reasons, expect services to be free and the matching benevolence is scarce. The PJHU, even in her hay days of the 20th century, had her share of temporary shut-downs due to one lack or the other. It would therefore be most uncharitable for anyone to vilify the Church for that and/or create a baseless dichotomy of “indigenous and original managers”.  Ezeogo Eld. Akanu Ibiam was one of the “indigenous managers” and his emergence did not stop the Presbyterian Church from attracting and sustaining foreign medical teams. Again, the departure of the team from Netherlands did not foreclose the inherent capacity of the Presbyterian Church to use her goodwill and linkages to attract such teams now or in the future. In fact there are foreign Presbyterian medical teams from various parts of the world willing and ready, but it takes more planning time and resources to execute and sustain such extended missions.
3.4. Allegations of corruption and embezzlement of grants-in-aid to the Hospital were stirred up against the Hospital Management and the Church from 2010 when the Reform movement arose over a Church leadership crisis. The Church was mischievously accused of making a compulsory deduction of 30% from grants and using funds from grants to build a University at Ohafia and for renovation of General Assembly Offices of the Church in Aba. One of the petitions prayed the Governor to suspend the grant to PJH, Uburu. Investigations of the Church in 2011 and Audits by the Ebonyi State Government into the Hospital Administration’s management of past Ebonyi State Government grants, especially between 2008 and 2014 revealed no prove of embezzlement or corruption. Between the time of the investigations in 2011 and the suspension of grants in 2012,  only  two tranches of grants  were received by the hospital and both came with specific directives from the then Ebonyi State Honorable Commissioner for Health (an indigene of Uburu) as to what the money should be used for. The Hospital, on the receipt of each tranche, complied with the Government directives and the Ebony State Government Auditors also verified the use prior to qualifying the hospital for the next tranche of the grant.
3.5. The then Deputy Governor (also an indigene of Uburu and the current Governor of Ebonyi State), sent a team of Auditors to the PJHU office to verify the accounts on all Ebonyi State Government grants as at that time, and there was no evidence obtained to prove a transfer of funds to the Church from the hospital under whatever guise. The church also sent a competent investigative committee early in 2011 to investigate the issues raised in a petition by the local Community, alleging mismanagement of grants by the Hospital Management. The committee, at the end of their investigation, found nothing against the Management of the hospital and the Church. However, they made some recommendations on improvement of the hospital/community relations which apparently gave rise to the petitions.
3.6. Notwithstanding this arrangement, every response in 2012 of the hospital to government invitation to Abakaliki to receive grant, failed to produce result. The Officers of the hospital there upon, visited the then Commissioner for Health (an indigene of Uburu) who on each occasion informed them that the Deputy Governor (an indigene of Uburu and the current Governor of Ebonyi State), had suspended grant to PJHU and therefore advised that they should visit the Deputy Governor to understand why he decided to suspend the PJHU grant.
3.7. The PJHU officers had several meetings with the Deputy Governor(an indigene of Uburu and the current Governor of Ebonyi State), in which he reiterated his belief that the Church embezzled grants, using them to build a University in Ohafia and to renovate her offices in Aba, even when the audit report did not make such findings. By 2012, the suspended PJHU grants accumulated to about N50 million, and the Deputy Governor (an indigene of Uburu and the current Governor of Ebonyi State), agreed to release the amount on the following conditions:-
• That a committee be formed that will implement the disbursement of the grant.
• That a fresh bank account be opened for the grant.
• That he, the Deputy Governor (an indigene of Uburu and the current Governor of Ebonyi State), will perform the oversight function.
Additionally, he constituted a government committee to implement his directives as follows:
i). The Local Govt. Chairman (Indigene of Uburu).
ii). Medical Director PJH.
iii). The Chairman Board of Governors PJH.(Indigene of Uburu).
iv). The Commissioner for Health (Indigene of Uburu).
v). The Hospital Accountant (indigene of Uburu).
The above committee reported to the Deputy Governor (an indigene of Uburu and the current Governor of Ebonyi State), who verified and approved the proposals of the committee before funds were disbursed. The Hospital did not also have access to the bank account.
It is therefore unimaginable how, with all these controls put in place by the Deputy Governor (himself an indigene of Uburu and the current Governor of Ebonyi State), with his choice of an implementation Committee, the allegations of abuse of grants-in-aid can be sustained against the Hospital Management or the Church. Insistence on that position can only be for purposes of a blackmail, to give the Church a bad name in order to hang it.
3.8. We recall the selfless efforts of Church and State heroes, like Dr Hitchcock who earnestly served and died at Uburu at an early age of 37 years, the late Ezeogo Akanu Ibiam, a former Governor of Eastern Nigeria, who, upon return from Scotland with medical qualifications of repute, turned down high financially paying jobs in other locations of the country, to offer visionary and missionary services in this same hospital for better healthcare of the people of the area. They attracted foreign medical technical teams to serve in the area. Today, they are dead, but remain living national and international legends of our race. Those were days of little beginnings that no one should forget; and should we forget, posterity will not forgive us.
4. APPROACHES FOR A PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT REBUFFED:
4.1. When the Federal Government in 1991 took over the Abakaliki General Hospital and converted it to a Federal Medical Centre (FMC), there was an agreement between the Federal Government and Enugu State Government. When in 2011 the Ebonyi State Government ceded her University Teaching Hospital to the Federal Government to arrive at the present FETHA, an agreement preceded the takeover. And now that Ebonyi State is taking over the Presbyterian Hospital at Uburu, the Presbyterian Church expects that an agreement should precede that takeover, as a matter of due process.
4.2. When in May 2018, the Governor approved an appointment to receive the Prelate, he was abroad in Scotland and Canada on appointment with partners. Upon his return, several appointments arranged for Tuesday 16/7/2019 and Tuesday 6/8/2019 were rebuffed and the Church leadership humiliated. Three other channels of Mediation approached to seek a negotiated settlement of the issue have yielded no positive outcomes from the Government.
5. CONCLUSION
In summary, The Presbyterian Church of Nigeria position remains:
5.1. that Ebonyi State Government attempt at taking over Presbyterian Joint Hospital, Uburu is unwarranted blackmail and strong arm tactics aimed at giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it. The Community’s letter had never before now been copied or referred to the Church to explain her case.
5.2. The Church also asserts that the UMUOBULA and AMATA Families in Uburu, not Uburu Community, leased the parcels of land to the Church and that the lease term is still extant. The Church has been paying land rents to her known landlords of UMUOBULA and AMATA Families up to date.
5.3. The Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, has no plan to stop Government’s best intentions for the people; but would insist on understanding and being clear and certain about where the Church fits into all that Ebonyi State Government plans for the Presbyterian Joint Hospital, Uburu, having come a long way together.
5.4. The Church is also aware that Government’s power of eminent domain confers a power to take land it requires for public purposes; but that power is made constitutionally subject to procedures which guarantee the rights, privileges and entitlements of occupiers and holders.  That now that Government is aware that the Hospital is a property of the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria, the Government should act in line with constitutional provisions to ensure that persons entitled to occupation of the property are given their legal entitlements;
5.5. That though we are aware of our constitutional rights as a Church on this issue, the long-standing good relationship between the Presbyterian Church of Nigeria and Ebonyi State Government, compel the Church to implore Ebonyi State Government to create a conducive platform for amicable resolution of the issues involved.
Thank you.
RELEASED BY THE DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS
THE PRESBYTERUAN CHURCH OF NIGERIA
WITH THE AUTHORITY OF THE PCN BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Signed,

Rt. Rev. Nnoke Ibe, Ph.D.
Head, Department of Information and Public Affairs.