Group condemns attack on Orthopedic Hospital CMD

Lucky Obukohwo, Edo.

A pro-democracy group, Edo Mahia Khin, has tackled the Benin Solidarity Movement (BSM) for alleging that the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of Orthopedic Hospital, Benin, Philip Ugbodaga has outsmarted a Benin man to emerge the hospital’s CMD.

This is contained in a press release by it’s president, Osadolor Imadiyi and its Secretary, Peter Edigin and made available to newsmen in Benin, said, its attention had been drawn to an inciting and divisive press statement, credited to one Curtis Eghosa Ugbo and one Ms. Esohe Adun, who claimed to be President and Acting Secretary General of the Benin Solidarity Movement (BSM), respectively.

The group, while reacting to
a press statement titled, “Clem Agba using Phillip Ugbodaga (Edo North) to fight the Benins (Edo South), said the two authors fabricated barefaced lies in order to attract to themselves, undue public attention and for pecuniary gains.

It added that the statement is capable of causing bad blood, and setting the Edo sub-tribes and the people against themselves.

The group maintained that Ugbo and Adun, through the statement that was used in some media, chided Prince Clem Agba, the immediate past Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, as having displaced a Benin person to replace Dr. Phillip Ugbodaga, who they said was least qualified as a Chief Medical Director, than the said Benin person, for the National Orthopedic Hospital, located in the state.

Edo Mahia Khin pointed out that the statement further insinuated that the hospital was established by the immediate past Minister of Health, “Dr. Osagie Ehanire and their Benin brother and House of Representatives member in Ovia Federal Constituency – Hon. Dennis Idahosa”, through a sponsored bill.

The statement stressed that even though Curtis Ugbo and Ms. Adun are not medical doctors and top civil servants, they claimed to have known more than the federal government of President Bola Tinubu, who in its wisdom and procedure, recently confirmed Dr. Ugbodaga for the position, after studying the same appointment earlier made by President Buhari.

“Curtis Ugbo and his Benin Solidarity Movement (BSM) cannot afford to follow the perilous pathway and show others the bad example. And their negative actions earn the Benins a bad name”, Edo Mahia Khin said .

The statement reiterated that it uses the opportunity to call on all Edo people not tow the pathway of Ugbo and others, but to do the needful to love all Edo people and eschew the things that will divide them.

It said Curtis Eghosa Ugbo and Ms. Esohe Adun cannot be more Benin or more Edo than all of them.