Amaechi Rescues Abandoned Boy With N4m Tasks NUJ On Quacks

The Rivers State Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Amaechi, yesterday came to the aid of Master Taiwo Amina, when he presented a cheque of N4million to the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) for his treatment in India.

Master Taiwo Amina was brought four years ago to the Special Care Baby Unit of the hospital for not being able to pass faeces, but was later abandoned by his parents.

Rt Hon Chibuike Amaechi was however informed of the boy’s ordeal during a Wazobia/Cool FM interview programme where he promised to assist in the treatment of the boy.

Presenting the cheque on behalf of the Government of Rivers State  to the UPTH management in her office, the Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs Ibim Semenitari said that the gesture represents a fraction of the humanitarian services which the governor has been doing across the state.

Mrs Semenitari also said that Master Amina’s case further lends credence to the move by the state government to build a specialist hospital in the state.

She said that the Karibi Whyte Specialists Hospital would be completed before the end of the present administration  as it would act as a centre of excellence and tourism in the country.

The commissioner who regretted that companies in the Niger Delta had abandoned their responsibilities of assisting institutions such as the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) to go into medical research, also said that, it  behoves the press to hold these companies accountable for this act.

Mrs Semenitari also commended the management of Wazobia/Cool FM for keeping to the tenets of social responsibility which she described as usual among broadcast media organisations in the state and also the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital for saving the life of the four years old boy.

Speaking, the representative of the management of UPTH, Dr Christie Mato who is also the chairman of the Medical Advisory Council thanked the state governor for the gesture and the management of Wazobia/Cool FM for ensuring that the public was aware of the issue.

Meanwhile, the state Governor, Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi, has tasked the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) on the need to sanitise the journalism profession by ridding it of quacks.

Governor Amaechi gave the charge when the National Executive Council (NEC) and National Working Committee of the NUJ paid him a courtesy visit in Government House, Port Harcourt.

Governor Amaechi averred that the exercise had become necessary considering the sensitive role journalists play in informing and educating the society but regretted that over the years, the profession had been inundated with quacks.

The Rivers State Chief Executive, who decried the sudden decline in standards and ethics of the profession, further urged the NUJ national council to push for a law through the National Assembly which when enacted would help standardize journalism practice.

Speaking earlier, President of the NUJ, Malam Mohammed Garba informed the governor that the body was in Port Harcourt for its NEC meeting.

He said the forum would afford the union an opportunity to address professional and national issues and tinker on how well to inject efficiency into the profession.

Malam Garba, who also lauded Governor Amaechi for emerging the Chairman of Governors’ Forum commended him for the new life he had injected into the state media organization and appointing one of its members as a commissioner in the state.