Professor Ememabasi Bassey, Chief Medical Director of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, has shed light on a dramatic incident at the facility earlier this week. On Tuesday, operatives from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) reportedly stormed the hospital and arrested a professor of cardiothoracic surgery, Eyo Ekpe, along with four other staff members—without presenting a warrant or notifying hospital management in advance.
Professor Bassey also disclosed that the medical report which the EFCC came to verify was allegedly fraudulent. He suggested that there may have been collusion between insiders at the hospital and external parties in producing the report.
He disclosed that some persons within the facility may have collaborated with outsiders to produce it.
He said the hospital, which serves millions of citizens across the state, could not afford to remain shut.
“This is a situation that serves as a place of mass resort for millions of citizens of this state. On a daily basis, we would see anything between 600 to 800 patients. We have a bed capacity of almost 600. And right now, due to unforeseen circumstances, we are now in a shutdown. I pray that this situation can be resolved as soon as possible,” he said.
Bassey spoke on Wednesday at a press conference in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, where he gave a detailed account of events that led to a violent confrontation between EFCC operatives and hospital staff.
The confrontation has since forced a shutdown of the facility and triggered an indefinite strike by medical doctors.
“One of the things we need to get to the bottom of is, the lawyer for this person has to, please, the police and EFCC, your job is not over. You need to ask that lawyer how he or she laid his hands on a fake medical report. That means that it is possible there may be actors within this hospital in concert. Because everywhere you have bad eggs,” he said.
He said the hospital’s letterhead had been widely reproduced outside the institution and that the one used in the suspect’s report was an outdated version.
“UUTH letterhead, it is present in every plaza. If you go to every plaza, you will see. There is no letterhead you will not see. We have seen lots of fake medical reports purportedly issued from the hospital, which we have always said are not true. And even that letterhead used is an old letterhead, which means that it did not come from any official quarters of this hospital,” he said.
Despite his allegations, Bassey was careful not to implicate the EFCC as an institution, saying he would not allow one incident to discredit an agency doing important national work.
“I will not sit down here in good faith to run down the EFCC. EFCC is doing a good job in this country. Without EFCC, I would say that many of you would not even want to put your money in the bank. You would want to hide it in your suitcases.
“So because of a single incident, please let us refrain from rubbishing the very noble institution of government that is doing a good job. Rather, we can condemn the activities of a few operatives who have led to this unfortunate situation,” he said.
He said the hospital had an established pattern of cooperating with security agencies and that in the two weeks preceding the incident, more than 20 staff had honoured police invitations over a separate matter, with the hospital providing a lawyer to accompany each of them.
“We have a very fantastic relationship with the Nigerian police. Management can tell you that I am always calling the Commissioner of Police. Even in meetings, I will call him and he always responds. In the last two weeks, more than 20 of my staff have honoured police invitations over an issue. Police wrote and we released them. We sent our lawyer to follow. It was mandatory for you to go. That is the way we operate here,” he said.
On the hospital’s handling of the EFCC’s request, Bassey denied receiving an earlier letter the agency claimed was sent on March 11, 2026, saying only one letter, dated April 20, ever reached his office, and that he personally treated it the same day it arrived.
“I stand here boldly to say that we only received one letter dated 21st of April. The letter dated 11th of March, we never received it. They may have written, but it may have been, you may all recall, there was an industrial action and all kinds of things. So that letter never, ever arrived,” he said.
He said the authentication process passed through several officers and was further delayed by weekends, a public holiday on May 1 and the authorised travel Professor Eyo Ekpe, who is also the Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Commitee of the institution.
Ekpe had gone to conduct national postgraduate medical examinations. Bassey said the folder was only retrieved from the records unit on April 30 but could not be processed immediately.
“The folder had been retrieved and sent to his office. Unfortunately, Friday was a public holiday. Second was Saturday. Third, it was Sunday. Professor Ekpe had taken permission officially to be away from the hospital to take part in the national postgraduate medical exams of Nigeria,” he said.
Bassey said Ekpe returned on Monday, May 11, and that same evening produced a draft authentication report indicating the medical document was not genuine, the very report he showed EFCC operatives when they arrived at his office the following day.
On the conduct of the operatives, Bassey alleged they went directly to Ekpe’s office without notifying management, identifying themselves to other staff or presenting an arrest warrant.
He also challenged the logic of targeting Ekpe rather than himself as the chief executive, arguing that if anyone was to be held accountable for a delay in authentication, it should be him.
“To the best of my knowledge, before you arrest somebody, there should be a warrant. And it is not even him. It is me — the CEO — who should be picked up for non-compliance. Not an individual who was just carrying out an assignment,” he said.
“At no point did they come to look for the CMD, or look for the CMAC, or look for the Director of Administration. They simply went to his office. Who directed them to his office? I don’t even know,” he said.
He said after Ekpe showed the operatives the draft authentication, they left and returned with armed reinforcements, triggering panic among hospital workers who encountered hooded men they could not identify.
“Even after we had explained to the operative, and even showed him the copy, the next thing the operative did was to go out and bring in hooded armed men to arrest him.
“His staff ran out because they saw hooded men invade the office,” he said.
Bassey said he was already on his way to the hospital when the distress call came in and that he immediately contacted the Commissioner of Police, Baba Azare, who told him the men might not be police officers and pledged to send a team to the scene.
On that advice, he instructed the hospital gates to be secured.
“I asked them and they communicated back. The Commissioner of Police is sending officers. Please secure the gate until the officers arrive. Is that not standard procedure? If I had not done that, then I would have failed. Because they are trying to contain the situation.Assuming these were kidnappers, would they not escape? ” he said.
Azare later confirmed the men were EFCC operatives and advised that the gates be opened, but by then teargas had been deployed and the confrontation had escalated beyond control.
He lamented that the damage had already been done by the time the situation was resolved, with social media amplifying and distorting the incident.
“Unfortunately, in this day of social media, the damage has already been done. They even used AI-generated images. I have seen AI-generated images all over the place and all manner of things. I will not sit down here to put any government agency in a bad light. Obviously, it was the fault of a few operatives who did not do the right thing,” he said.
Bassey said he followed the EFCC vehicles to the agency’s regional office, where senior officers received him courteously, and his detained staff, Ekpe and four others, were subsequently released.
He said some of his staff sustained injuries during the confrontation, with one sustaining a visible head wound.
“A few of my staff, because when you say that you conducted yourself in a manner, I wonder, I saw the pictures. Did he inflict a head injury on himself? No. A few other staff, even though none of them were as bad as him, were also molested and tear-gassed,” he said.
He said by the time he arrived at the hospital, his staff were already being taken away, and he followed the EFCC vehicles immediately.
“When I realized the thing had de-escalated, I was now rushing. I was told that they had arrested Professor Ekpe and about four other staff. As I arrived, they were leaving. They had forced their way through the gate and they were leaving. I followed them. I went to the EFCC office, the regional office. I managed to get in. Even though as usual, some of those low ranks on the gates, you know the way they behave. But I got in,” he said.
He said he offered himself up in place of his detained staff.
“I went to confirm myself for arrest instead of my people. But I was not arrested. I was taken into an office. We had a discussion. And later on, I was taken to the regional director. We had a very fruitful discussion. At the end, we decided that things had gotten a little out of hand. Let us see how we can address the situation. My staff were released and they came back,” he said.
He maintained that the entire crisis was avoidable and that a phone call to his office would have been sufficient.
“All they needed was to send a phone call to me. I didn’t even know that had not been done. I would have asked somebody else to please do that, or I could even have written it myself. So what happened was simply the fact that something that would have been a very basic exercise, because it was crudely done, degenerated into what it is. And now today, hundreds of patients are suffering,” he said.
He questioned whether the enforcement action was proportionate to what was essentially an administrative matter.
“Does the non-authentication on time of a medical report, is that enough basis for anybody to invade the hospital and want to arrest a professor of cardiothoracic surgery? What is the cost of one life? Is it really worth it?” he said.
He noted that similar incidents of armed security personnel entering the hospital without management’s knowledge had occurred at least three or four times in recent memory, including one in which a soldier came to arrest a staff member over a personal domestic dispute, and called for the practice to stop.
“The only place you can compare a hospital to is a place of worship. It is a hallowed ground. It is not a place that you march in at the cost of your respect,” he said.
The EFCC denied invading the hospital, with its Head of Media and Publicity, Dele Oyewale, insisting its operatives were on an official assignment.
The agency had previously said it wrote two letters to the hospital requesting authentication of a medical report linked to a fraud suspect standing trial at the Federal High Court in Uyo over alleged fraud involving several microfinance banks, including the University of Uyo Microfinance Bank, and received no response.
The Medical and Dental Consultants Association of Nigeria and the Association of Resident Doctors, UUTH chapters, condemned the raid in a joint communiqué signed by MDCAN chairman Mfon Inoh, MDCAN secretary Kalu Nnenna, ARD president Ekomobong Udoh and ARD secretary Kenneth Ikott.
They demanded disciplinary action against all operatives involved, medical treatment and compensation for victims, a public apology from the EFCC in two national newspapers and repair of all damaged property. They said the indefinite strike would continue until all conditions were met.
