Dr. Auwal Jibril: The Exit of a Silent Achiever
Earlier on Monday, Dr. Auwalu Saminu Jibrin was on his way coming back from Kano involved in a ghastly motor accident that consumed his life and that of his first daughter. While still devastated by the news of his demise, my mind went back to some of his numerous achievements while he was in the corridor of power at the Federal Medical Centre Azare as Head of Department, Deputy Head of Clinical Services, Head of Clinical Services and as Acting MD of the Hospital.
In 2013, the Management of the Hospital secured the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) intervention grant and sought proposals from various departments on how to utilize the funds.
The astute Dr. Jibril, then as Head of Ophthalmology Department , proposed the idea of erecting a world-class eye complex with full compliments of Theater Suite, Clinics, Offices, Laboratories, Optical Lab, Seminar room, etc, to cater for the teaming population of Northeast region which has no befitting eye hospital. Impressed with the idea, he was tasked to develop the blueprint, including details of the equipment needed.
To cut the story short, FMC Azare has the best eye complex in the country, equipped with state of the art facilities, providing quality eye care services to the people of Bauchi state and its environs.
Let me take you back a little bit, the contractor who handled the project did fantastic job in terms of building and other fittings, but failed to provide the ophthalmic equipments specified in the contract agreement.
The fearless Dr Jibril took the matter up and fought the man until he agreed to provide over 100m worth of Opthalmic equipment. Today, Drs. from Kano, Bauchi,Yobe, Jigawa refer patients for OCT, fundal photo or CVF to FMC Azare. Had he compromised, these people would have suffered more.
Building structure is one thing while providing the manpower to man the facility is another.
As Deputy Head of Clinical and subsequently as Head of Clinical Services, Dr Jibril reached out to ophthalmologists from neighboring institutions and national eye center for technical support while training their own manpower. He used his good interpersonal and leadership skills to attract best brains to the center. Today they have dedicated ocuplastic, glaucoma and comprehensive opthalmology units.
Before 2021, there was no center in the whole Northeast that runs postgraduate residency training in ophthalmology. The Drs. interested in the field have to go to Kano, Jos, Kaduna or anywhere outside Northeast to have their training.
Dr. Jibril as Head of Clinical Services and with the support of the management, spearheaded the coming of west African college of surgeons for resource inspection and accreditation exercise. Courtesy of him, FMC Azare became the first center to commence residency training in Northwest with six resident doctors.
His last post before his demise was that of Acting Medical Director of the Hospital.
During the short time he acted as MD, he further equipped the hospital and bought ultramodern laser machine, operating microscope and many more other equipments for the eye centre and other departments. He Invited National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria for accreditation of the ophthalmology department who are to come in two weeks time.
Dr Jibrin was a leader, a mentor and an administrator per excellence. His death has certainly created vacuum that would be difficult to fill. His legacy would certainly live after him. We pray that Almighty Allah forgive his shortcomings and grant him jannatul firdausi.
Allah gafarta masa da rahma
Abdullahi Sadiq
