Rep. Betty Apiafa is a ranking member of the House of Representatives, representing Abua-Odua/Ahoada East federal constituency. She is Chairman, House Committee on Health Institutions.
In this interview, she speaks on the efforts by her committee to resolve the problem of incessant strike actions by doctors and other challenges in the polity. Apiafi before she got into the House of Representatives was a banker and retired as Deputy General Manager, All States Trust bank in 2005.

By Jimitota Onoyume

WHAT is your committee  doing to ensure our hospitals are in a good state?

The issue of regulating development in the hospital is another major task. We see that almost every teaching hospital want to have all the specialist areas, but we are saying no, you can twin with other hospitals. If you have cardiologists here, you can twin with the other hospital in other areas. What you see in the hospitals is that they want to build centres for everything. You walk into a typical Nigerian Teaching Hospital it is choked with small buildings all the place, cancer centre, this and that centres. So the major buildings are not maintained. So we say twin with other hospitals. We don’t want to decide which hospital should twin with which.

We see those in the ruling class still embarking on medical tourism abroad. Is there hope for the health sector?

There is hope in the health sector despite the challenges. Though there have been some leakages in the hospitals, we are blocking them. One way to achieve this is computerizing the system. We want to see a situation where the hospitals would stop running to the federal government all the time for funds.

What is your word to Rivers Youths on insecurity?

House of Representatives

Like you know after the crisis in the region, I mean the resource control stuff, you found guns in too many hands. Some of these guns have not been moped up. There should have been a lot of ammunition mop up. There is a slogan “Silencing the Guns 2020 “ that we are all working towards at the international level. We need to stop the source of the fire arms. The amnesty program of the federal government did not completely mop up the arms in the region.

This is why the governor of Rivers State, Chief Nyesom Wike in his wisdom granted a second amnesty. You saw some weapons that were surrendered by the boys in the amnesty by the governor. I think this should continue. Our governor, Wike has done a fantastic job. In my local government, Abua-Odua local government area,    we have had peace now for the first time for a whole year. People go about their business in my local government now.

At a time you were linked with sponsoring cult crisis in your local government?

I can never be connected with such crisis. How come there is peace in my local government now? This should tell you that I don’t have any link with cultists. If you support any group, there can never be peace because the others will fight back. But now you see there is peace.

How were you able to achieve this peace?

It was a collective effort. No individual can pursue peace alone in the local government. It is collective. My governor, Wike too has been very active in achieving peace in the area. We had stakeholders’ meeting in the local government area.    There was connivance with security agencies in the past to promote crisis in the area, but all these are over. I am a very religious person. We had a Thanksgiving, a  vigil in the local government. You won’t believe after the power vigil the devil struck, boys carried out an attack in the area, but today there is peace. Economic life has returned. People do funerals, marriages unhindered now. The governor’s amnesty program is very successful in my local government area.

Lawmakers have been bashed over constituency projects. Why?

At the federal level, our constituency projects were done through the MDGs office. If you look at my stewardship I believe so much in education. I built libraries, health centres,      electrified 21 communities, did street lights. Water projects, motorized bole holes, solar powered boreholes, roads, etc. I have also invested in Ogbonno to see that we grow it in our communities. Ogbonno has commercial value in the market. I came up with this new specie of Ogbonno that can grow faster.

Do you support the call for restructuring?

In Nigeria, All Progressives Congress, APC, should realize they are the party in power. The country has not settled since they came to power. Today they are fighting the National Assembly; today Ministers are making inciting statements. You can’t  fight with the judiciary, legislators all the time. You saw the way Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, ran government calmly and positively. Now you have a situation where a party with majority in the National Assembly is always at daggers drawn.

Nigeria, as it is today, is a country where you don’t respect minority rights, and this is critical. I come from a minority; I don’t regret it. But one does not feel right that minorities are treated this way. Look at the last elections; I was intimidated. The kind of intimidation we suffered in that election was unprecedented. They took my driver to intimidate me. I had to run on the motor bike on that re-run Election Day. They collected my car, and it was after the election they released it with an apology.