When Governor Mohammad Badaru flagged off the project for the construction of the 250-bed Hadejia Specialist Hospital at an elaborate ceremony on December 27, 2017, he gleefully announced that it would be completed in 18 months.
“This hospital will be built in 18 months and will be commissioned in 2019,” the governor said at the ceremony. But it is over four years since and the specialist hospital remains under construction.
The project was initially awarded to Philko Construction Company at N1.5 billion but the cost was later reviewed to N1.8 billion, according to the Director General of the state’s Due Process and Project Monitoring Bureau, Ado Husseini.
Background
The hospital was designed to replace the decrepit Hadejia hospital, built in 1962 by the administration of the late Premier of the defunct Northern Region, Ahmadu Bello, as the major health service centre in the emirate.
Hadejia Emirate in the North East Senatorial District of Jigawa consists of eight local government areas. These are Hadejia, Mallammadori, Kaugama, Auyo, Kafin-Hausa, Kirikassamma, Birnawa and Guri.
At the 2017 flag off ceremony, Mr Badaru said: “The project is the first of its kind in the state. People from the neighbouring states of Yobe and Bauchi, and Niger Republic will benefit from the hospital when completed due to its proximity.”
“A project of this kind has been agitated for for more than three decades,” the emir said as he thanked the governor for helping the residents of the emirate realise their dream of access to quality health care services.
Hospital project ‘abandoned’
PREMIUM TIMES recently inspected the hospital project and found that it is still dragging despite the governor’s pledge to commission it in 2019