Health
Optometrists Board staff call on Tinubu to investigate Registrar/CEO, Dr Obinna Edwin Awiaka.
The staff of the office of the Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians Registration Board of Nigeria, (ODORBN) a Parastatal under the Federal Ministry of health have appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to consider beaming his search light in their office with a view to investigating the leadership style of their Registrar/CEO, Dr Obinna Edwin Awiaka.
The staff complained bitterly that since the assumption in office of the Registrar June 1st, 2023, the once bubbling and lively office has suddenly become a living hell for them.
According to some of the staff who spoke with our correspondent on condition of anonymity for obvious reasons noted that the leadership style of the Registrar/CEO can only be compared to that of IdiAmin of the then Uganda.
They revealed that the first thing Dr Awiaka did immediately he resumed was to totally dismantle the existing organization organogram which was purely set up in line with the civil service rules, thereby deliberately making all the Directors, their deputies and assistants inactive. He was also said to have even gone ahead to abolish the management meeting were robust discussion about the organization were been churned out.
Regrettably, the staff noted that Dr Awiaka had boasted severally that he does not believe in the civil service rules which informed why he has absolute disregard for the structure he met on ground when he came in.
One of the staff said, “You cannot imagine that all the departments are now been headed by junior officers. Currently the ICT department is been headed by a staff with just a school certificate, while the Procurement department is been headed by a procurement assistant, whereas there are qualified officers hitherto handling these offices.
“Because of his alleged high-handedness and his tyrannically style of leadership, he has transfered all the Directors, their deputies and assistants under very flimsy reasons. It’s either you do his bidding or you are out. For example, the Director of Admin has been transfered to National Task Force unit for refusing to sign a document he was not aware of. Also, the head of Procurement was transferred to the national Task Force, procurement unit where he does work that belittle his position. It is even said that the so called National Task Force unit does not even exist in the structure of the Organization, it’s merely a creation of the Registrar and his Aide where their perceived enemies are transfered to. Some of the Directors have been transfered out of the headquarters for no particular reason,”
One other staff accused Dr Awiaka of flooding the organization with so many aides who have virtually taken over the running of the office and have even become larger than life. “The office is littered with his Aides of different kinds. He has Special technical Adviser, Special Adviser, Personal Assistant, Technical Adviser, Special Adviser on Inter Governmental Affairs, and several others. And for you to remain relevant in the office you must have to be in the good books of these aides,” He lamented.
The staff also accused the Registrar of running the organization like his private office as he hardly comes to the office, virtually runing the office from the diaspora, “Dr Awaka hardly comes to the office, he comes maybe once in two weeks. Sometimes we don’t see him for a whole month. We can count how many times we have seen him in the office this year. These Aides help him to run the office.
These staff therefore call on the Nigeria President to come to their aid stressing that if nothing is done, and done very fast, the organization is definitely heading for disaster. The staff revealed that the Registrar has the boldness to do whatever he likes because he has boasted severally that he has the backing of some top officials of the Federal Ministry of health. The main reason the Ministry has not bothered to beam their searchlight on the organization despite the outcry of the staff. “He has always boasted to us that nobody can sack him, that he is in a very good relationship with those in the supervising Ministry” one of the staff stated.
Meanwhile, attempt to hear from the Registrar/CEO for his own side of the story proves abortive as he did not pick the several calls put across to him.
Health
Stakeholders Applaud A360 Impact On Adolescent Health
Stakeholders in Nigeria’s health and development sector say the institutionalisation and scale-up of the Adolescent 360 (A360) Amplify project have greatly improved adolescent sexual and reproductive health outcomes in participating states.
They made this known at a dissemination meeting on the project on Thursday in Abuja.
It was implemented by the Society for Family Health (SFH) and partners, and later adopted into government systems following documented successes.
Launched in 2020, the A360 project was designed to provide adolescent girls with access to sexual and reproductive health information, youth-friendly services and economic empowerment opportunities.
The programme was implemented in Kano, Jigawa, Kaduna and Nasarawa States using a human-centred design approach that engaged governments, communities and young people to improve uptake of family planning and maternal health services.
Dr Aisha Sadiq, Permanent Secretary, Kaduna State Ministry of Health, said institutionalising A360 had delivered measurable improvements in adolescent health indicators and community wellbeing.
She said Kaduna currently provides A360 youth-friendly services in 623 Primary Health Care (PHC) centres.
The Matasan Mata Arewa (MMA) initiative, she added, had reached 75 communities and empowered more than 15,000 girls with entrepreneurship skills and seed capital.
According to her, more than 60,000 girls have accessed contraceptives through the programme, with a reduction in discontinuation rates as more young women sustain use and transition to maternal and child health services.
“These changes have shown a marked reduction in maternal mortality among those communities. It has also reduced negative neonatal outcomes,” she said.
Sadiq recounted an elderly woman’s remarks from a programme community, calling them a strong reflection of the project’s success.
“These girls have spent their whole lives believing they will remain tolerable liabilities to the husbands they marry, but now they are realising the value of becoming appreciated assets,” she quoted.
Sadiq added that Kaduna’s 16 per cent health budget allocation and the integration of A360 activities into the state’s 2025 Annual Operational Plan demonstrated sustained political commitment.
Also speaking, Dr Omokhudu Idogho, Managing Director, SFH, said the four implementing states had successfully embedded A360 approaches into government systems, community structures and routine health practices.
He was represented by Dr Kenechukwu Erichalo, Deputy Managing Director, Project Delivery.
Idogho said the project had reached more than one million adolescent girls with family planning services and engaged over 500,000 others with comprehensive sexuality education messaging.
“We recorded more than 50,000 antenatal care visits, ensuring that girls received skilled care that saved lives, and supported over half a million girls to learn income-generating skills,” he said.
He said A360 pioneered the MMA and Niger Girls models, demonstrating that culturally sensitive, human-centred programmes can succeed even in conservative communities.
“Our most significant achievement is institutionalisation. Today, all 1,750 A360-supported facilities are fully government-led,” he added.
Mrs Roselyn Odeh, A360 Project Lead, said the initiative was developed in response to poor adolescent health indices in the country.
She said the programme ensured respectful, youth-friendly services at PHCs and supported school reintegration and entrepreneurship for girls.
She said the decision to scale the programme in northern states was based on data.
“When you look at maternal mortality among young people, you know the section of the country it is coming from. Data drove our decisions in alignment with government priorities,” she said.
Odeh identified challenges including weak PHC infrastructure, funding gaps, commodity shortages and the need to engage husbands in conservative communities.
“But creatively, we worked with governments to mobilise domestic funding through health revolving funds and the Basic Healthcare Provision Fund,” she said.
Mr Sagir Musa, Commissioner for Youth, Jigawa State, assured of continued commitment from implementing states to sustain and expand the project’s gains.
“This project may be nearing closure, but for us, it has just begun. We have gone beyond its life cycle to embed its approaches in the things we do,” he said.
The dissemination meeting brought together policymakers, community leaders, development partners and beneficiaries to review lessons learned and outline future priorities for scaling adolescent health interventions nationwide.
(NAN)
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