By Awhawha Awhawha
Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, on Wednesday, received an Award of Excellence from the United Nations Children Educational Fund (UNICEF) in acknowledgement of the state’s prompt response to its counterpart funding obligations in the health sector.
Governor Diri was also presented the Miss Nigeria Football Award by organisers of the Nigeria Soccer Ambasdador Awards during the 168th State Executive Council meeting in Government House, Yenagoa.
The Commissioner for Health, Prof. Seiyefa Brisibe, who presented the UNICEF award to the governor, said it was based on his administration’s commitment to healthcare delivery.
Prof. Brisibe explained that in 2022, the state had a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UNICEF and Global Alliance for Vaccine Initiative (GAVI), which sought to improve service delivery at the primary health centres.
The agreement was also to enhance immunisation coverage, acceptance of primary healthcare services in the rural communities, bridge the human resources gap for health at the primary care level as well as strengthen the logistics and movement of medical supplies.
The Health Commissioner said: “Your Excellency provided support and met the state government’s obligation by promptly providing counterpart funding. It is for this exceptional leadership, commitment and collaboration that UNICEF presented this award to you.
“The MOU has yielded clear deliverables at its closeout in April this year. These include the engagement of 1000 staff for primary healthcare, upgrade of over 30 health facilities at primary level from tier 1 to tier 2, a reduction to zero cases from 62,000 to 27,000, the supply of ambulances and several health commodities at the primary healthcare level.”
Presenting the second award, the Commissioner for Sports, Hon. Daniel Igali, who represented the governor at the ceremony in Abuja, commended Senator Diri for his administration’s dedication to sports development.
Igali stated that the award was as a result of the outstanding performance of Bayelsa Queens in the Nigeria Women Professional League (NWPL).
He said: “A few weeks ago, organisers of the Nigeria Soccer Ambassador Award found you worthy to be honoured with the Miss Nigeria Football Award.
“This was based on the strength that our state football club, Bayelsa Queens, under your leadership, is the only team in the last four years that has emerged Nigeria Women Professional League champions twice.”
Responding, Senator Diri applauded both commissioners for implementing his Prosperity Administration’s policies and promoting the image of Bayelsa in a positive light.
“You are my foot soldiers and the vision has been implemented so well. That is why we keep having one award after the other.
“We will continue to invest in very critical areas of human capacity building, particularly in our youths via sports development, and also in the health of our people. There is no investment that is too much in these areas and several others.
“These awards attract positive image to our state. Bayelsans are hardworking people.
“Our government will continue to solicit the support of our people so that Bayelsa can be a better place by the time we leave office. Let us create a state that can be competitive with any other in the comity of states. Let us build a state we can be proud to hand over to our children, one that would be peaceful at all times so that others would travel here for tourism and eke out a living. That is the kind of state we are building and we must continue to be patriotic about our state.”