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Fact-Check 68 — The Medicine of Propaganda
By Prof. MarkAnthony Nze
The Grand Illusion of Healing
In April 2024, Owerri shimmered under studio lights. Cameras rolled, applause swelled, and Governor Hope Uzodinma declared with solemn pride, “We have built fifteen new general hospitals across Imo State.” The declaration landed like gospel in a weary land—promises of health and hope wrapped in the language of renewal.
Billboards followed. State television aired endless montages of gleaming buildings, ribbon-cuttings, and drone shots of painted walls that looked like progress. The images were flawless; the reality, disfigured.
Weeks after the governor’s televised declaration, The Eastern Updates Investigative Team embarked on an extensive statewide verification—visiting each of the fifteen “new hospitals” touted as proof of a medical renaissance. What they uncovered was not a healthcare revolution but a meticulously staged illusion.
In community after community, the pattern repeated itself: old structures re-painted in government colors, abandoned shells hastily swept for inspection, and hollow foundations dressed with banners proclaiming “Commissioned by His Excellency.” In several sites, doors were padlocked, wards stood empty, and brand-new hospital beds still wrapped in cellophane waited for patients who would never come.
The drone shots had promised a landscape transformed by medicine. The ground reality revealed an architecture of deception—cosmetic construction masking administrative rot. What Imo called hospitals were, in truth, film sets for governance, where ribbon-cuttings replaced healing and photo-ops substituted for patients.
The claim of fifteen new hospitals was not an achievement; it was an advertisement—a commercial for credibility in a state running out of truth.
Table 1 — Claimed vs Verified Health Facilities (2021–2024)
(Prepared by Prof. MarkAnthony Nze | The Eastern Updates Investigative Series – Imo State)
| Category | Claimed by Government | Verified as New | Renovated / Rebranded | Incomplete / Non-functional |
| General Hospitals | 15 | 5 | 6 | 4 |
Source: Federal Ministry of Health (2024); BudgIT Foundation (2025); ISPHCDA Audit (2024)
Interpretation: Only five of the fifteen hospitals hailed as “new” met the definition of original construction. Six were recycled facilities refurbished for publicity. Four remained incomplete or uninhabitable.
Blueprints of Deception
At first glance, the façades look convincing—fresh paint, polished tiles, and fluttering flags. But step inside, and the illusion collapses. Ceilings sag under dampness, walls crack from neglect, and electrical cables hang like unanswered questions. Hospital beds remain wrapped in nylon, untouched since delivery day, and laboratories hum with silence. What was designed to symbolize progress instead stands as a mausoleum to pretense—architecture without life, a blueprint drafted for applause rather than for healing.
The Imo State Ministry of Health’s 2025 Performance Report shows that only three of the facilities operate with round-the-clock services, and fewer than half have functional water or electricity. Ngor Okpala General Hospital, the administration’s flagship project, has one nurse per ward and a generator that runs only when diesel is available.
In Ohaji-Egbema, “Imo General Hospital” is a building without staff quarters. Locals call it “the silent ward.” A janitor unlocks it once a week so that grass cutters can clear the compound before dignitary visits.
The World Health Organization’s Subnational Systems Review (2024) found that Imo’s hospital functionality rate stands at 43 percent, the lowest in the South-East.
Read also: Falsehood No. 66 — “Imo’s Boast Of Best Roads In The South-East”
Table 2 — Infrastructure vs Operational Readiness (2024)
| Indicator | Claimed Coverage (%) | Verified Operational (%) | Gap (%) |
| Power Supply | 100 | 44 | 56 |
| Clean Water Access | 100 | 48 | 52 |
| Functional Laboratories | 100 | 42 | 58 |
| Resident Doctors | 80 | 33 | 47 |
| Ambulance Service | 75 | 29 | 46 |
Source: WHO (2024); NPHCDA (2024); Imo Ministry of Health (2025)
Interpretation: Fewer than half of Imo’s so-called “new hospitals” have electricity, water, or resident medical staff. A building is not a hospital until it heals someone.
Budgets That Bled Without Healing
Between 2021 and 2024, Imo budgeted ₦18.4 billion for health infrastructure. Only ₦6.8 billion was released. The Transparency International Fiscal Index (2024) and BudgIT’s 2025 Subnational Audit both show that more money was spent on “publicity and media coverage” than on procurement of medical equipment.
Table 3 — Budgeted vs Released Health Funds (₦ Billion)
| Year | Budgeted | Released | Utilized (%) | Verified Completion (%) |
| 2021 | 4.5 | 1.7 | 37 | 32 |
| 2022 | 4.8 | 1.9 | 39 | 33 |
| 2023 | 5.0 | 1.5 | 30 | 27 |
| 2024 | 4.1 | 1.7 | 41 | 35 |
| Total | 18.4 | 6.8 | 37 Avg. | 31 Avg. |
Interpretation: Less than 40 percent of appropriated funds reached hospitals. In real terms, Imo built not a health system—but a public relations campaign.
The Hospitals Without Patients
Numbers alone do not lie. The National Bureau of Statistics (2024) found that outpatient visits in Imo’s public hospitals dropped from 2.3 million in 2021 to 1.9 million in 2024—a 17 percent decline. Meanwhile, maternal mortality remained among the highest in the region at 561 deaths per 100,000 births.
At Aboh Mbaise, a nurse told Punch Newspapers (2025): “They brought cameras and ribbon for commissioning, but no doctors came after they left.”
At Ideato, patients wait under trees for mobile clinics that arrive once a week. These are not hospitals—they are photo sets with wards attached.
Table 4 — Health Outcomes vs Political Claims (2021–2024)
| Indicator | 2021 | 2024 | Change (%) | National Benchmark |
| Maternal Mortality (per 100k) | 582 | 561 | -3.6 | 450 |
| Outpatient Visits (millions) | 2.3 | 1.9 | -17 | — |
| Skilled Birth Attendance (%) | 62 | 64 | +2 | 71 |
| Bed Occupancy (%) | 55 | 47 | -8 | 68 |
Source: NBS (2024); WHO (2024); AfDB (2024)
Interpretation: The metrics show decline, not progress. When hospitals multiply but health outcomes worsen, something more malignant than mismanagement is at play—it is deceit by design.
Curtains Over Decay
Governance in Imo has become a choreography of optics rather than outcomes. Each ribbon-cutting is timed not for service, but for spectacle—designed to precede election milestones rather than deliver enduring change. Budgets rise, cameras flash, and freshly painted signboards proclaim renewal, yet the underlying systems remain broken. It is government as performance: glossy ceremonies masking hollow infrastructure. Roads, hospitals, and projects are staged for applause, not for posterity—symbols of progress that collapse the moment the lights go off.
The BudgIT Foundation (2025) calls it “performance without production.” In Imo, governance has become choreography—each ribbon-cutting carefully timed to precede an election milestone.
The Nigeria Governors’ Forum (2024) ranked Imo’s healthcare infrastructure index at 44/100, trailing Ebonyi (65) and Anambra (72). Yet, state media continues to broadcast animations of “smart hospitals,” many of which do not exist outside PowerPoint slides.
Healthcare has been reimagined as political theatre—where progress is performed, not achieved. The audience applauds, but the patient dies behind the curtain.
The Human Cost of Pretense
Beyond numbers and rhetoric lie human lives. In Ohaji-Egbema, a mother lost her newborn after being referred from one “new hospital” to another—none with an incubator. In Obowo, the maternity ward remains locked for lack of personnel.
These tragedies are not isolated; they are systemic. They are what happens when propaganda replaces policy, and construction contracts substitute for compassion.
Verdict — The Cure That Never Arrived
Governor Hope Uzodinma’s claim of building fifteen new general hospitals in two years disintegrates under the weight of hard evidence. Out of the fifteen, only five exist in any tangible form—and even those stand as symbols of incompletion, crippled by poor equipment, absent staff, and dead power lines. The remaining “hospitals” are empty shells—projects born for the lens, not for the patient.
This is not just an economic failure; it is an ethical collapse. To lie about healthcare is to gamble with human life. It is to turn pain into propaganda and sickness into spectacle. In Imo, ribbon cuttings have replaced reform, and hospitals have become set pieces in the governor’s performance of progress.
The tragedy is that the people still believe, because belief is all they can afford. But no government can heal by deceit. A structure without care is not a hospital—it is a monument to cynicism.
Until Imo chooses truth over theater and service over showmanship, its citizens will continue to die surrounded by walls that were built to impress, not to save. The governor’s fifteen hospitals will be remembered for what they are—promises built in concrete, but empty of compassion.
Professor MarkAnthony Ujunwa Nze is an internationally acclaimed investigative journalist, public intellectual, and global governance analyst whose work shapes contemporary thinking at the intersection of health and social care management, media, law, and policy. Renowned for his incisive commentary and structural insight, he brings rigorous scholarship to questions of justice, power, and institutional integrity.
Based in New York, he serves as a full tenured professor and Academic Director at the New York Center for Advanced Research (NYCAR), where he leads high-impact research in governance innovation, strategic leadership, and geopolitical risk. He also oversees NYCAR’s free Health & Social Care professional certification programs, accessible worldwide at:
👉 https://www.newyorkresearch.org/professional-certification/
Professor Nze remains a defining voice in advancing ethical leadership and democratic accountability across global systems.
Bibliographies
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Imo State Government. (2024, March 5). Press Release: Governor Hope Uzodinma Flags Off Completion of 15 New General Hospitals. Owerri: Ministry of Information and Strategy.
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Premium Times Nigeria. (2025, March 10). Fact Check: Imo’s ‘15 New Hospitals’ Claim Fails Physical Verification. Retrieved from https://www.premiumtimesng.com
Punch Newspapers. (2025, March 12). Inside Imo’s ‘New Hospitals’—Many Still Locked and Unequipped. Retrieved from https://punchng.com
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