The African Democratic Congress, ADC, presidential running mate, Rotimi Amaechi, has disclosed how he paid pregnant women N10,000 each for attending antenatal care while he was governor of Rivers State.
Amaechi disclosed that the money was part of efforts to
boost the health of pregnant women because Rivers State was rated second on the
maternal-child mortality index while he was governor.
Amaechi became the governor of Rivers State on October 26,
2007, and stayed in office until May 29, 2015.
He served for two terms after a Supreme Court ruling brought
him to office.
Reflecting on his time as governor, Amaechi harped on the
importance of women’s health, stressing that he built hospitals and employed
doctors in villages across the state.
Speaking at the ‘Her Health, Her Power Conference Africa
2026’, in Abuja on Tuesday, Amaechi said, “On the issue of health, you
certainly cannot make the female look healthier and stronger if the economy is
bad.
“In a global economy like that of Nigeria, 40 percent of
women are farmers, so we need to do more as politicians to see that women live
healthier.
“No matter how much grammar we speak in our different states
as governors, we need to do more for our women and another thing we need to do
is to make sure that they get educated, they make better leaders when they are
educated.
“If you follow what happened in Rivers State when I was a
governor, we were rated second on the maternal-child mortality index and to
cure that we had to establish health centres in every village.
“Each village has a medical center, we employed two doctors
and nurses while we paid N10,000 per woman that went for anti-natal, so our
health centres were full every Friday because they were sure of going home with
N10,000.
“They are not coming there for their health but for the
money and that N10,000 is economy. It’s key that we can’t separate the health
of women from economic growth.”
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