Medical doctors and health workers at the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital (UUTH) have announced an indefinite strike after a controversial raid by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Tuesday.
According to reports, EFCC operatives arrived at the hospital in the afternoon with the intention of arresting a staff member. The attempt reportedly met with resistance from other hospital staff, escalating tensions within the facility.
Eyewitnesses said the operatives called for reinforcement, after which additional personnel arrived and allegedly fired shots into the air to disperse staff members who had gathered to resist the arrest.
The sources further said the EFCC operatives eventually whisked away the deputy chairman of the Medical Advisory Committee, Prof. Effiong Ekpe, and three other staff members of the hospital.
They also alleged that the incident left several people injured, while phones were broken as some staff attempted to record the scene.
Following the incident, the Chairman of the Nigerian Medical Association in Akwa Ibom State, Dr Aniekan Peters, reportedly directed doctors across the state to shut down services immediately, while leaders of the Joint Health Sector Unions also announced a total hospital shutdown in protest.
Confirming the incident, the public relations officer of the Nigerian Medical Association, Dr Gabriel Eyo, described the EFCC’s action as an onslaught on the hospital and its workers.
Eyo said it was wrong for a professor of cardiothoracic surgery and the only one in the state to be treated in such a manner, adding that the strike was declared to protest what the association described as injustice.
“In the early hours of this morning, masked men wearing EFCC jackets stormed into the hospital premises, walked into the Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Committee’s (CMAC) office, Prof. Effiong Ekpe, and they beat him to a pulp.
“They dragged him like a common criminal. When members of staff, students and other health workers walked into the hospital tried to resist them, and they shot sporadically into the air at the hospital premises and dispersed the crowd with tear gas.
