Yobe state government has converted the 3-star hotel along Potiskum road to hostel for medical students of the proposed state teaching hospital.
The State Governor, Alh. (Dr) Ibrahim Gaidam disclosed this yesterday while on inspection of the edifice which is annex to the 200-bed capacity ultra modern hospital.
He said the decision was born out of bitter experiences in the past where government hotels were mismanaged in the hands of civil servants.
He stated that if completed and handed over to the hotels management, it would end up in limbo due to negligence.
He emphasized that the state government has expended huge sums of money on the structural adjustments in the building hence the need to ensure value for money spent for the benefit of the common man.
“We will not hand over this hotel to the state hotel management board. This is because we had some bitter experiences on handling of hotels by government workers. Look at the state hotels; they have not been generating a single kobo because when the insurgency started in Yobe State, the military personnel occupied almost all the rooms in the hotel. We have spent huge sums of money here which are all public funds and at the end of the day if we hand it over to civil servants to manage, it will end up in limbo,” the governor said.
He pointed out that converting the hotel to medical students’ hostel would facilitate government effort towards meeting the accreditation need of establishing a teaching hospital in the state.
“Actually we need something like this for the students of the medical college when it comes to stand… including the doctors and medical staff who will be there. And would be part of the criteria for its accreditation,” the governor stated.
He has therefore directed for the merging of the fencing of the 3-star hotel with that of the ultra modern hospital under construction assuring that if need arises, government would construct addition buildings by the premises.
