.Buys N16.5m health insurance for 1100 people; targets 3300

.Pays N17m for 3300 youths for skills acquisition

.Tackles roads, other projects in the council area

By EDISON Okereke

One of the beauty of democracy is the ability of a good leader to carry out different programmes according to the need assessment of the people to alleviate their sufferings.

For the Executive Chairman of Ehime Mbano Local Government, Hon Chief Uche Nwodu, his first one hundred days in office have afforded him the opportunity to carry out one of his long earnestly cherished desires: the Health Insurance scheme for the people.

That is not all, his administration has struck a bargain with Mbaraozioma College of Technology in the area to impact skills to youths of the LGA.

Grading the roads across the eleven wards of the council was one of his earliest assignments.

Fielding questions on Wednesday from journalists who cornered him in Owerri, the state capital, Chief Nwodu says what he has done is a tip of the iceberg for the people.

“They ain’t seen nothing yet! I’m going to bombard them with development projects,” he boasted.

He said, “Gentlemen of the press, when I was sworn in by His Excellency distinguished Senator Hope Uzodimma, CON, some pressmen gathered around me. I know the first thing they asked me was my blueprint –what I feel I can do for my people? I did tell them that my priority project is health, because I am a home-grown child. I have lived my life, at least, 80% in the village.

“And I know how people suffer, especially the aged. There are some people who cannot afford fifty naira (N50) to buy paracetamol. You see them dying, you see them languishing…!

“So I had that at the back of my mind. And when the opportunity called to serve, I said I’m going to do it. Gentlemen, I want to tell you that within the first one hundred days in office I did it. I was able to insure 1100 in Health Insurance Scheme. It was flagged off by His Excellency who was represented by the honourable commissioner for Health in the state, Dr ……. My target is to insure 3300 people. And the Local Government has paid N16.5m in full to the health insurance agency. So we registered our people. They are now enjoying it free of charge.

“For pregnant women, they will go for free antenatal, when they do, they deliver their babies. And they go home. If it is through CS (Caesarean Section) it is equally done free of charge.

“Children from O – 5 years, are all there. For the aged, they are also captured.

“The most interesting thing about the insurance is that if it is an ailment or illness they cannot handle at the local level the patient is referred out to the Federal Teaching Hospital (FTH) or General Hospital, Owerri or any of the hospitals they use.

In partnership with the Mbamaraozioma College of Technology, Nwodu says his administration has struck a three-month skills acquisition programme with a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), to train 33 youths from each of the eleven electoral wards of the council totalling 363 youths, targeting 1100 in three phases, at N17 million.

The youth will be trained in solar energy installation and maintenance, fashion and designing, weaving, hairdressing, welding; including agriculture as in piggery, fishery, poultry, snailry, and many other trades. When they come out, if there is any other help we can give them to establish, we can do it.”

Chief Nwodu informed that his administration had installed solar lights across the eleven wards, and verynearly completing a six-room additional block in the council headquarters to make room for the Vice Chairman, and others for offices.

On how the people have been responding to the return to the grassroots leadership at the Local Government, the Executive Chairman explained that it was beautiful.

He called all hands to be on deck to move the area forward.