There is a growing concern over the health of the Minister of Tourism, Lola Ade-John, who is on admission at a hospital in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.
TCN learnt that the minister, who was appointed by President Bola Tinubu, along 44 others in August, has been hospitalised since Tuesday over what insiders described as acute food poisoning.
It was learnt that Ade-John, 60, was rushed to the Federal Medical Centre, Jabi, moments after she started manifesting worrying symptoms.
An online newspaper (not TCN) had reported that the minister was on a ventilator to aid her breathing and family members were said to be of the opinion that a transfer to a better- equipped private hospital would be preferable, a suggestion that civil servants attached to the minister were allegedly reluctant to consider, given the cost implication.
TCN however learnt from a reliable source in Abuja that the minister, who is a career banker and tech investor, was eventually transferred on Friday afternoon to a private clinic where better diagnosis is expected to be carried out, after friends allegedly raised private funds to move her.
The source claimed that while her initial test showed resistant malaria, there were strong indications of food poisoning and that it was important to determine “whether it was food poisoning or outright poisoning that the honourable minister is down with.”
The growing fear around the minister’s health, it was learnt, had initially pitched her family against civil servants, with the permanent secretary in her ministry allegedly said to be in opposition to the move to transfer her to a private facility.
The permanent secretary, Ngozi Onwudike, was alleged to have said that the minister should continue her treatment at FMC because the facility is a public hospital and that its services wouldn’t attract exhorbitant cost to government.
Ade-John, who is from from Lagos State, assumed the role of minister in August, after Tourism as well as Art, Culture and Creative Economy ministries were carved out of the old Information, Tourism and Culture ministry.
She reportedly relocated from London, which had been her base for several years, to take up the ministerial appointment in August.
However, the Ministry of Tourism has debunked the food poisoning allegation saying that Ms. Ade John had just malaria.
Vanguard reported on Friday evening that the Assistant Director, Press, for Tourism Ministry, Emem Mariam Ofiong, said the minister was treated for malaria and has been stabilised. “She did not have food poisoning,” she was quoted as saying.
