Dr Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor, who is seeking the governorship ticket of the Labour Party for the 2024 election in Edo State, was the Policy Lead for the Obi-Datti Campaign Group of the party for the 2023 election. In this interview, the 46-year-old medical doctor and author gives reasons why she chose the party, what difference she can make if elected governor among other issues:
What informed your choice of Labour Party?
For me, it is the Labour Party because it believes in equity and justice. When you have resources, the favour you can do to human beings is to distribute those resources equitably. There is no need hoarding. These are the things that endeared me to the Labour Party. Even their logo, Papa, Mama, Pikin, is a functional society, and if we want a functional society, it simply means you and I must take our place at the table. If we do not take our places at the table, we cannot shake the table.
Let’s not deceive ourselves, there is no free freedom, there is no stranger or alien that will come and liberate us in Nigeria or liberate Edo State people, we are the ones to do that, that is why I actually went into the Labour Party. I worked and toiled with them behind the scene and now in the forefront. Remember I told you I wrote the policy lead for health in the manifesto.
Some of us worked night and day for a new Nigeria and we will continue as far as the Labour Party lends itself to that initial motto that gave birth to it. Peter Obi is a good man, Peter Obi is one man who represents a motivating factor for any good minded human being and any well-meaning Nigerian.
Do you think the Labour Party has the structure to win the Edo State governorship election?
So far, the Labour Party has proven that it has the people as its structure. However, we have seen a glitch in that. We have seen that it is either the thugs do it, the INEC mars it or the court does the final onslaught. The question is: do we say because the river drowns people, nobody goes into the ship anymore or nobody drinks water? If you look at history and societies that have changed, two things have happened; it’s either bad people decided to do good things or good people recruited bad people and made them decide to do good things. When it’s time to jump the gutter, this woman you see here will jump the gutter. Never judge a book by looking at its cover. As I said before, there is no free food. Even the bad boys have begun to see that it is not worth it. They are the people at the lowest ebb; we should recruit them for good.
You are leaving the private sector and venturing into a volatile area like politics, what is your motivation in wanting to become the governor of Edo State?
My motivation, simply put, started from the day I was born and from the parents who raised me, and it has been fueled as I got more and more exposed. My dad, when I was growing up, from the age of 2, was already reading to me, so I was one of those precociously developed children. I started reading and writing very early, but there was something my father did. My father actually made me know who I am, what I am, why I am that person’s daughter and what that means. So, he made sure that I learnt how to speak the Benin language very well. In our house, growing up, it is either you speak Benin language or you speak Queen’s English. Dad was not allowing us to speak pidgin, we learnt that outside. And then he taught us the history of where we came from. My father’s mother was Oba Ovonramwen’s first grandchild. She was with Oba Ovonramwen in Calabar. For those who are familiar with Edo and Benin City, there is Uyi primary school on Festive Circular named after my grandmother. His father was one of the people who in earlier days migrated with his friend the Oba of Benin at the time he was deposed to Calabar. So, they had a broad view of the different cultures. I think that because of that pedigree, my dad made sure that we understood our roots. He used to say, if you don’t know where you are coming from, you will not know where you are going. He used to tell us that you are born into your family for a reason, into your state for a reason, into your country for a reason, into your race for a reason and not by accident. So, you must find that reason. Growing up, he made sure that he built my self-confidence and self-esteem; they are two different things. Self-confidence is the belief that you can do something while self-esteem is putting yourself out there to do it, and knowing that sticks and stones will not break your back; you don’t care what comes with it. You can see how I have been raised. I was raised to know who I am, where I was coming from. And I have been raised to find a purpose for who I am. That simply means growing up, I started realising that there was no need for me complaining about things, but that I needed to be the solution just because of how I have been raised, just because of whose daughter I am. My mum at the time she married my dad, was about 30 years younger than him, I come from a background of polygamy. I have been grounded in Nigerian culture and I had a very intelligent mother so the balance of these two people made me who I am today, to seek solutions to the problems, and not to give up halfway, and to remember whose daughter I am and keep my good name. So, people have had excellence as a lifestyle; it is a pattern I have lived. Growing up, I wrote every single essay that came my way in Federal Government Girls College Benin City. My teachers loved me; they used to travel around the country with me to receive these prizes. I was 13 when I addressed one of the biggest audiences a child could address.
Going back to your question, people, who have lived their lives making sure that getting results is their day-to-day priority, do not start a project and leave it halfway. We carefully have been brought up and I didn’t know this at all, I knew it when my father passed on. When my father passed on, I was in 200-Level, going to 300-Level in Medical School and we suffered. I started following my mother to Oba Market in Benin, when I got to that Oba Market, no toilet, our fathers and mothers wanted to wee, no toilet, Osolo Market is the same, New Benin Market is the same. Which market in Nigeria has toilets? Don’t we think that that is a basic need of human beings? Don’t we think we need to add value to human lives? As a student that time, I was not empowered to fix the problem I was seeing, and people would come, “Oh Mama Osaro died yesterday, Papa Osaretin died the day before yesterday, because of blood pressure, because of diabetes, I was watching all those things growing up. I thought I was suffering, but no! God was refining and repositioning me with the recipes that my father had put in me to ensure that I know how to add value to human lives, and it is that preparedness you can see now meeting opportunity.
As I grew older, I discovered that I had to have a policy-driving platform to enact policies that will be able to enhance human lives on a large scale. I can sit in a hospital and say next patient, next patient, but does that change the lives of human beings on a large scale? Does that change the lives of Edo State people, an average of five million people? Will that change the fact that we don’t have policies that will make malaria treatment free for the Under-5? Will that change the fact that we don’t have a place where men can go and check their blood pressure for free? Is that going to change the fact that we don’t have jobs? So, to do all of these I quickly realized that I needed a policy platform, and that is why I am running for the governorship of Edo State, because Edo State will become, not just the heartbeat of Nigeria, by the time my team and I finish, it would be like a city upon the hill, and I consider myself light-bearer.
There is no going back, there is no stopping halfway, because we discover that we have been behind the scenes for a long time and people get there and they don’t do what they said they would do. So, let’s take our place at the table ourselves.
How are you going to sail through the challenges that women in Nigeria politics face?
Your question is one of the things that we ask: what are your challenges? It is the first thing that looks large, but let’s not forget that for every challenge, there is an opportunity. Sometimes, we read the tide a bit differently as well. Yes, there is the 35 per cent affirmation from the SDG, the Sustainable Development Goals, and overtime, women participation in politics has been very low, worldwide, moreso in Nigeria and Edo State. It is a problem, however, let’s step back in history. In this same Edo State, you have Aneke from Edo North, the mother of the first Ikelebe who went to war with the Igala people. You have Owan who River Owan is named after. I am saying that in the history of Edo State there have been great women who actually had written their names not just on the sands of history but in the hearts of men and women. How did they do it? They didn’t do it alone, they must have done it with progressive minded men at the time and those kinds of men and other women still exist. Again, what we first need to ask ourselves is how many women are actually at the political table? They are very few. And why are they few? Because of the obstacles of finance, secondly if you are at the table, they say “Oh she must be a wayward woman; maybe she doesn’t have a husband or she is sleeping around”. Our socio-cultural fabric is now interwoven in such a way that without doing it we are actually disenfranchising our women, but our history shows otherwise. We should look to whom we have always been, and we should see how women have always come to the rescue in very dire times, and we should also understand that Edo State is unique.
The location of Edo State in Nigeria is unique. It is in the South-South, but it is bounded by Anambra, Kogi, Ondo and Delta states as such people traverse the state wherever they are going; people also settle within the state, so you have a mini Nigeria in Edo State, and Edo State already had that template of a strong minded people. That means the people in the state are very open-minded. They are not the usual sheep-shepherd kind of people. The people in Edo State are able to weigh their options and make their decisions. Edo State, unsurprisingly, was the first state in Nigeria to have its first elected female senator. I have traced our history, our location, our demography and it’s going to play out. We are going to have the first elected female governor in Nigeria from Edo State.
What can you do to address illegal migration in Edo State and how do you hope to overcome your closest rivals?
The push and pull factors for illegal migration and trafficking must be understood for us to say that we want to curb the menace. The push factors are the poor economic situation; the hunger in the land, the no employment for those that have left schools, and the general disenchantment with the state of things, not just in Edo State, but in Nigeria. Other push factors are migration along old colonial lines. Migration push factors can also include what value the society places on monetary and material things. These days, if you go to church and you donate N10 million, everybody will start hailing you, they don’t ask, even if you are 19, where you got that money from. All of these are push factors, and of course the state of insecurity is also a push factor. People have been pushed along all of these lines, and then we found out that in the early 80s, mid 80s the problem was very bad and it is still ongoing.
The pull factors are that people who have gone abroad come and portray the picture as if they are picking dollars, pounds Euros along the streets of all these countries, and we don’t have proper mentoring to counter that. Proper mentoring in the sense that we don’t have those figures who have been successful actually coming to say you must understand the meaning of delayed gratification to counter what these other people are saying. Those are some of the pull factors. And of course the need for cheap labour in these countries, whether you like it or not, these western countries need cheap labour so they are exploiting either legally or illegally; they are exploiting all of us and they have been known routes to all of these. If we understand these push and pull factors, then solving it is simple. First of all, we need to create an environment that employs a lot of our youths. I have been with the Loretta Healthcare Initiative and I told you we have gone round the three senatorial districts in Edo State giving free healthcare to everybody, going into the hinterlands out there. You have the elderly population, then you have the grandchildren, the middle population are either in the cities or they have gone abroad. How do you keep them there, because you now have only the vulnerable groups? First of all, basic and technical education is one way to start solving these problems.
Technical education is going to improve our production line and then we are going to think out of the box, how do we produce job opportunities for these people? First of all you must have hub models, hub models where, as a government I could actually get land, create a space, build offices; offices not for white collar jobs but for artisans, for instance. That takes off the burden of having to start up and pay for a business site; their startup cost will reduce, and then I tell them, you don’t have to pay taxes for the first one year or two years depending on what kind of business they are in. I have grossly reduced their startup and more people will now go into business. Also, when you look at the age group that will determine that, myself and my group were discussing and we said, who is a youth, some countries will say from the ages of 12 to 25, but we said in Edo State let’s take 15 to 45 because of how our own state is. So we can say that we now have different interest rates for loans and break these groups down. The most vulnerable from 15 to 30, why don’t we reduce interest rates on their loans and also for women and other vulnerable groups? And for those that have gone, we need to attract them back; brain regain or reversal of illegal migration. And we need to also explore the Diaspora power of Edo State, Edo State has one of the most vibrant Diaspora in Nigeria. Does Western Union sponsor any other festival, but they sponsor the Igue Festival? It means that the money that we remit actually has our own bank as a state, and if you are from Edo State origin and you are using this bank, we are going to give you a discount, but you are going to pay some commission and it will come to the state. There is no use bringing people back without empowering them and reintegrating them back into the society, and the plan is to move from consumption to production. We have to also look into agriculture. Why have we not considered artificial irrigation in Esan Central? Do you know that some of the best minds in the UK, creating roads and doing the waterways is of Esan extraction? And the day I sat down with him to discuss the problem in Esan land and how it can be fixed, it was like an eye opener. How we can trap even run-ups, whenever rain falls, all the erosion, trap it and recycle it and use it, and how we can harness water from nearby rivers like the ways pipelines are laid for oil. What stops us from laying pipes from our rivers into the communities? Nothing stops us, it’s just the will. Our people like Yahoo jobs online, but do you know there are legit jobs that you can do online and earn in foreign currency? We need to actually make them realize that, but overall we need to have mentors, proper mentors that people should look up to, that would tell them the truth. We also intend to have boot camps every weekend, boot camps with people who have excelled in their own industries and we get youths, bring them in to come and spend time with these people.
Are you saying that your government is not one of those that would be running to Abuja every month for funds?
Why will I be running to Abuja for funds? Internally generated revenue, IGR, in Edo State, the last time I checked, I think it is about twenty something billion naira. We intend to raise that and generate more revenue for Edo State.
How do you intend to beat other aspirants in the Labour Party and become the flag bearer before you talk about the main contest?
I love this question that you just asked, but in my opinion, I don’t see them as competitors, I see them as motivators. That is my point of view, other people can disagree. Experience is actually a good currency, I have always worked and lived in a male dominated world. My basic specialty of surgeon is male dominated where there is a huge hierarchy. It is also like a police force. I have been used to working in that kind of environment. And someone running for 20 years and still running tells us something. Doesn’t it? I will leave that in your minds for you to answer. The other part is some other persons, men or women who come in and they think that splashing money all over the place is the solution, also begs for questions to be answered, because true leadership is service to the people. Let’s be honest, behind the sanctuary of our closed doors we know that whatever you spent pre on an elective position is directly proportional, more or less, to what you are going to embezzle when you get into office. I am not going to get into a contest of spending, I am coming to serve the Edo State people and Nigeria by extension, and I absolutely have no doubt that they can discern those who truly have the heart of service. Those who up until now could have shared the money, and you could be thinking, “Oh she has a lot of money and she is sharing to individuals”, but rather I have gone into the community and the grassroots and distributed equitably what I have. The cost of funding free glasses for Edo State indigenes, the cost of buying the test kits for glucose, for malaria, the cost of getting hypertensive medication, the cost of getting all these free medications that Edo State people have been enjoying from Loretta Healthcare Initiative, do we know what it is? But you see, the way the mind works, because it has not been shared to one leader or the other, they may not know that money has gone down in a good way for Edo State people. We will not hesitate at anything at all in continuing in this partway for the Edo State people. I have implicit confidence in them that they know those who place much value in their lives.
As far as governance is concerned in Nigeria today, it requires some of the Diasporan people to come and invest at home, and in the course of your speaking, you mentioned being in National Health Insurance Scheme, when you become governor of Edo State, what will you borrow from NHIS to improve healthcare system in Edo State?
I will delve into healthcare. Before I delve into healthcare, I will make it clear that we are ready for all sectors; Team Loretta is ready for all sectors, and we are looking at what I call The-Pacts. T there stands for Technology, H is for Health, E is for Education, P is for Production and Infrastructure, A is for Agriculture, E is for Commerce and Job Creation, T is Tourism and the Diaspora, and S is for Security, which is going to be married to your healthcare questions. And in all these pacts, we are going to ensure that the vulnerable population; all the youths, the children, the elderly, the differently abled; I don’t want to call them the disabled. That they revolve in these areas in all of these sectors.
Now, narrowing it down to healthcare, the budget for the NHS is about 5 million pounds in hard currency. What is the budget for healthcare in African countries, in Nigeria and in the subnational governments? There is what is called the Abuja Declaration Act, where all the African countries came to Abuja, and they said they need to devote 15 percent of our budgetary allocation to healthcare. Apart from South Africa, which is trying to meet up with that now, based on the sustainable development goals, no other country is doing it. Nigeria has abysmally about six per cent or even less, and Edo State has even less.
So the startup point is to ensure that healthcare is in the front-burner and that we devote a significant part of our budgetary allocation to healthcare. That is where we will start from and then we look at basic healthcare infrastructure. There is no use having a big structure, when you have not fixed the bottom of the pyramid. We are going to focus on primary healthcare in Edo State, basic healthcare infrastructure. Healthcare is a complex system that has different sectors fitting into it.
You know some people when they talk about healthcare, they just think of doctors and nurses, no! It is a system where you take care of the primary healthcare, which is the base of the pyramid. And the base of the pyramid is the biggest and widest part of the pyramid. As you move up, you then have secondary healthcare, which is like your central hospital, your federal medical centres. Then you go up, there is tertiary healthcare, which is your teaching hospital, then you have quaternary care, that is, the fourth level of care. It is the tip of the pyramid, which is like your super-specialized care like the orthopedic hospitals, national cancer centres. That is how healthcare works.
Why is it graded that way? For us in Edo State, a Loretta-led administration is going to ensure that apart from the budgetary allocation, we need to ensure that the local government is working, because this is how we are going to get the population, the average five million population of Edo State. We will engage in primary healthcare, basic healthcare, and education provision level. Health and education are two sides of the same coin, so you often find out that when I am talking about healthcare, I am also talking about education; you can’t separate them. We are going to improve prevention, we are going to improve the management of simple diseases and we are going to do this via the healthcare centres.
We have healthcare centres in Nigeria right now and Edo State, which a recent research in 2022 shows that they are only 20 per cent functional. It simply tells you that I don’t need to start building new structures, but I need to improve the functionalities of the existing ones, because 20 per cent is abysmal. So, we need to renovate all those healthcare centres, and it will be best done when the local governments are functional. And we put the basic things that are required; power, water and then also educate the people. Increase their awareness to use the healthcare centre. There is no need to improve the healthcare centre when people don’t use it.
We make the people own their projects. You must domesticate your interventions; you must go in through the community entry points. We will go to the community heads, to the local government areas, employ local labour, install solar energy and renovate these structures and put them in use.
Edo Central, for example, lacks water, we are going to address that. Once they are functional, because the community was involved in it, the people are going to use it. Basic medications have to be there. We will teach the people who are there on how to refer. This brings us to the next thing I am going to do, which is human capacity for health. Doctors are ‘japaing,’ midwives are ‘japaing,’ nurses are ‘japaing’; I mean they are leaving the country. How do we make sure that in Edo State these people stay back?
The World Health Organization, WHO, says that the ratio of doctors to patients is 1-600, but we don’t have that in Nigeria right now. We then need to think out of the box. This is where I was saying that you can’t import any system and impose it, you must domesticate it. We need to think about something called task shifting and task sharing. In our communities in Edo State right now, we have community extension health workers, we have traditional birth attendants, so we need to empower these people to do what is called training the trainers. We need to train them in their own localities; improve their water, improve the light, improve all these things there and then they can remain in those localities.
When you train a traditional birth attendant, for instance, they would not know when to refer a patient out, and you must have institutions that are going to standardize these people and regulate them. It is very important. So that means you don’t need doctors per say. You can have one doctor and have all these other people working, and then you can now fund only that one doctor, because you have now thought out of the box.
You then also need to look at other things that will facilitate the healthcare system. Signing a memorandum of understanding, we need to explore things like the civic corporate responsibilities of companies, banks. What stops us from asking each bank in Edo State to each adopt a healthcare centre? Nothing stops us and this is in our plans. I don’t want to give out everything at present levels. But you can see we have carefully thought about these things.
If you look at the figure, it is very saddening; about 150 women die daily in the course of their reproductive duties in Nigeria, Edo State is not exempt. And our men, they are moving around, we know that the African population is prone to prostate cancer. What awareness are we doing? We must think out of the box. We have faith-based centres; mosques and churches, and we know that Edo State people and by extension Nigerians are very religious. Why don’t we utilize them? If as a church you can prove to me and my government and my team that every month you do at least two awareness talks in your church, then we as government will find what we can do for you to help your church as well. In America, they say, adopt a highway. Why can we not adopt a healthcare centre? Basic healthcare is important, basic education is also very important to us and this is one of the things we will talk about.
My name is Dr. Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor, interestingly, people have said there is something unique about this name. It is true, it is the only type of itself on the planet; I don’t think any two people have that name. Loretta is my first name, Oduware is my middle name, that is, from Benin extraction, Ogboro is my father’s name, and Okor is my husband’s name. So, it has this unique entity, Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor.
My background is Medicine and I was born some 46 years ago in Benin City in Edo State, Nigeria. My mum used to jokingly say I was born in the civil service section of Central Hospital in Benin. I went to Wee Wisdom Nursery School. I actually remember the nursery school I attended, and some of my nursery school mates. That is amazing, but I just have that kind of memory, and from Wee Wisdom Nursery School, I did sometime in Brother Pius Primary School, and from Brother Pius Primary School, I did the other part of my school in Lydia Primary School, and from Lydia Primary School, I went to Federal Government Girls College in Benin City on a national merit list.
Federal Government Girls College is one of the unity schools in Nigeria. and I think that was one of the best things that happened to me in my life at that time, because I got to grow up at that age with Nigerians from different parts of the country, and I grew up a detribalized Nigerian, because of this unity school. I always give kudos to whoever it was who first thought of the idea of unity school in Nigeria. pro unitate is a great thing. From Federal Government Girls College, I just crossed over the back gate into the University of Benin where I studied Medicine.
So, my undergraduate programme was in College of Medicine, University of Benin, and UNIBEN did not only give me a medical degree, UNIBEN also gave me a husband. My husband went to the University of Benin Medical School and he was one step ahead of me then. I graduated from UNIBEN and I did my one year house job at UBTH, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, and then I served my country. I did my NYSC in Benin City at that time; Women Health and Action Research Centre and Federal Government Girls College, because I just had a baby, so I was exempted from going very far.
Those were really pleasurable and joyous days, because I was very enthused giving back to the community where I grew up in. After that I went to England for a Masters in Public Health Research at the University of Edinburgh following which I then started what is equivalent to a residency programme, or you call it specialty training in the UK, in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Along the way, I got a second masters degree in Clinical Education. Today, I work as simulation expert and clinical trainer and I am also a consultant in NHS, and apart from the clinical surgical role, I am an obstetrics and gynecologist, I have worked in management roles where you have to obviously manage human resources and finance, worked in governance role and also administration at all levels. Currently, because I understand that learning is life-long, the day one stops learning, is the day one dies, so I am currently doing a PhD in Law and Criminology, and I am doing that with special interest in Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery. Coming from Edo State where we have this burden of illegal migration, trafficking and contemporary slavery, I chose that part, because I am somebody who wants to find solution, and being primarily a researcher, I was determined to actually research this subject-matter and find solution for our people in Edo State and by extension Nigeria and Africa as a whole to stem the tide of illegal migration.
In a nutshell, this is a kind of career progression, but along the way, one thing I want to make apparent is the fact that I have done a lot of things. I am an author; I have books on Amazon, books on print. I wrote the book, My Father’s Daughter, which actually looked at how I grew up and the unique opportunities and privileges I had having a father like mine. He prepared me for life in general and I know how much I have been prepared for even the role I am going for now, which is governor of Edo State and I will come to that in a moment.
Apart from being an author, I have been an electronic e-motivational space blogger since 2014-2016. There is Loretta Review Space where we dish out inspirational articles and show people the iceberg nature of success. Because people don’t see how many times successful people did not succeed, all they see is the tip of the iceberg and they just think that is how it happened. That space is where you go and see different people we have interviewed over the years, telling other people the recipe for success in different areas. And we worked with someone who graduated and didn’t have a job and currently fries akara for breakfast on a big scale in Abuja.
I am somebody that has been in the community as well giving back, so I am in a number of organizations; from Edo State Women Organization to Organization Against the Export of Women. I have always worked in the community with my people. I became a global goodwill ambassador in 2016 till date and I am a United Nations Eminent Ambassador as well.
Myself and my husband, actually co-started a charity in Edo State, but to take care of the whole south-south, Ashanti-Graham Health Foundation was founded in 2010 and that was set up to promote 21st century healthcare in our country and to celebrate excellence. People excel and others say how much they have. A good name has now been put in a box and matters no more. So, we decided on our own to catalyze excellence. We don’t expect to be the last bus stop, but we expect to be a catalyst, we expect other people to join us.
So, you find that the first operating microscope that the University of Benin ever had was donated by myself and my husband. And we have over the years, since 2011-2012 donated a brand new laptop and cash prize in pounds to the best graduating student in surgery. I made the last donation in September at the University of Benin, and we do this at the swearing in every year. This is to actually make people promote excellence.
I want to use this opportunity to say a big thank you to those who have collaborated with us and those who have even come in with brand new laptop prizes for the best lecturer and mentor in the University of Benin, Surgical Department. These are all verifiable facts and we have been consistent. As fallout of this, we have Ashanti-Graham Medicators as well where we run training for soft-skills and hard-skills for healthcare providers and we have the Loretta Healthcare Initiative. The Loretta Healthcare Initiative has gone round all three senatorial districts in Edo State and we have seen over 10,000 persons and still counting. And we do this for free.
We do blood checks for hypertension, diabetes, blood sugar and we do free consultations. We do eye checks, and all the medications are free. I want to also thank the volunteers, because before this started, we thought about how we can sustain it. So we have domesticated volunteers from the communities we go with and they help us to bring healthcare to the grassroot.
Unashamedly, I will state here that healthcare is very much in front of my radar and that is because an unhealthy population cannot be a productive population. Let’s not deceive ourselves, when you are moving from consumption to production, you must first have a healthy population to achieve that. And healthcare, if you want to make it standard, is never free. There is no free healthcare, someone must be picking the bills and as someone who studied healthcare systems, I can tell you of some of the best healthcare systems in the world. From Sweden, Canada, the NHS in UK, Capitalists and Insurance System in the US, juxtapose it with what we are doing in Nigeria, but I am not saying we must import any model and swallow it hook, line and sinker. We have to domesticate our own healthcare.
I have worked with successive governments in Edo State and at national levels. It may interest you to know that I am the policy lead for the Obi-Datti Campaign Group of the Labour Party for the just-concluded 2023 election and still ongoing. That means, I led the healthcare policy team that wrote the healthcare part of the manifesto. I have always worked and worked in the background giving back to our people across the world.
In the diaspora, I have never one day not represented Nigeria or Edo State from where I come, and what gives me the most joy in all these is the fact that I am a very happily married wife and a loving mother of two children. My husband has to be one of the rarest breeds you can find in men. He is a man who is very supportive, a man who has no confidence issues, and a man who is on top of his field. One of the best neurosurgeons Nigeria has, trained in the United Kingdom, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. That in a nutshell is part of the things I have been doing.
And interestingly, from nursery school throughout, I have always had leadership positions, from class monitor, class rep, head girl in Federal Government Girls College Benin, vice president in the University of Benin Medical Students Association. It’s a lifestyle for me and today I am not surprised that we are where we are.
My name is Dr. Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor, interestingly, people have said there is something unique about this name. It is true, it is the only type of itself on the planet; I don’t think any two people have that name. Loretta is my first name, Oduware is my middle name, that is, from Benin extraction, Ogboro is my father’s name, and Okor is my husband’s name. So, it has this unique entity, Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor.
My background is Medicine and I was born some 46 years ago in Benin City in Edo State, Nigeria. My mum used to jokingly say I was born in the civil service section of Central Hospital in Benin. I went to Wee Wisdom Nursery School. I actually remember the nursery school I attended, and some of my nursery school mates. That is amazing, but I just have that kind of memory, and from Wee Wisdom Nursery School, I did sometime in Brother Pius Primary School, and from Brother Pius Primary School, I did the other part of my school in Lydia Primary School, and from Lydia Primary School, I went to Federal Government Girls College in Benin City on a national merit list.
Federal Government Girls College is one of the unity schools in Nigeria. and I think that was one of the best things that happened to me in my life at that time, because I got to grow up at that age with Nigerians from different parts of the country, and I grew up a detribalized Nigerian, because of this unity school. I always give kudos to whoever it was who first thought of the idea of unity school in Nigeria. pro unitate is a great thing. From Federal Government Girls College, I just crossed over the back gate into the University of Benin where I studied Medicine.
So, my undergraduate programme was in College of Medicine, University of Benin, and UNIBEN did not only give me a medical degree, UNIBEN also gave me a husband. My husband went to the University of Benin Medical School and he was one step ahead of me then. I graduated from UNIBEN and I did my one year house job at UBTH, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, and then I served my country. I did my NYSC in Benin City at that time; Women Health and Action Research Centre and Federal Government Girls College, because I just had a baby, so I was exempted from going very far.
Those were really pleasurable and joyous days, because I was very enthused giving back to the community where I grew up in. After that I went to England for a Masters in Public Health Research at the University of Edinburgh following which I then started what is equivalent to a residency programme, or you call it specialty training in the UK, in Obstetrics and Gynecology. Along the way, I got a second masters degree in Clinical Education. Today, I work as simulation expert and clinical trainer and I am also a consultant in NHS, and apart from the clinical surgical role, I am an obstetrics and gynecologist, I have worked in management roles where you have to obviously manage human resources and finance, worked in governance role and also administration at all levels. Currently, because I understand that learning is life-long, the day one stops learning, is the day one dies, so I am currently doing a PhD in Law and Criminology, and I am doing that with special interest in Trafficking and Contemporary Slavery. Coming from Edo State where we have this burden of illegal migration, trafficking and contemporary slavery, I chose that part, because I am somebody who wants to find solution, and being primarily a researcher, I was determined to actually research this subject-matter and find solution for our people in Edo State and by extension Nigeria and Africa as a whole to stem the tide of illegal migration.
In a nutshell, this is a kind of career progression, but along the way, one thing I want to make apparent is the fact that I have done a lot of things. I am an author; I have books on Amazon, books on print. I wrote the book, My Father’s Daughter, which actually looked at how I grew up and the unique opportunities and privileges I had having a father like mine. He prepared me for life in general and I know how much I have been prepared for even the role I am going for now, which is governor of Edo State and I will come to that in a moment.
Apart from being an author, I have been an electronic e-motivational space blogger since 2014-2016. There is Loretta Review Space where we dish out inspirational articles and show people the iceberg nature of success. Because people don’t see how many times successful people did not succeed, all they see is the tip of the iceberg and they just think that is how it happened. That space is where you go and see different people we have interviewed over the years, telling other people the recipe for success in different areas. And we worked with someone who graduated and didn’t have a job and currently fries akara for breakfast on a big scale in Abuja.
I am somebody that has been in the community as well giving back, so I am in a number of organizations; from Edo State Women Organization to Organization Against the Export of Women. I have always worked in the community with my people. I became a global goodwill ambassador in 2016 till date and I am a United Nations Eminent Ambassador as well.
Myself and my husband, actually co-started a charity in Edo State, but to take care of the whole south-south, Ashanti-Graham Health Foundation was founded in 2010 and that was set up to promote 21st century healthcare in our country and to celebrate excellence. People excel and others say how much they have. A good name has now been put in a box and matters no more. So, we decided on our own to catalyze excellence. We don’t expect to be the last bus stop, but we expect to be a catalyst, we expect other people to join us.
So, you find that the first operating microscope that the University of Benin ever had was donated by myself and my husband. And we have over the years, since 2011-2012 donated a brand new laptop and cash prize in pounds to the best graduating student in surgery. I made the last donation in September at the University of Benin, and we do this at the swearing in every year. This is to actually make people promote excellence.
I want to use this opportunity to say a big thank you to those who have collaborated with us and those who have even come in with brand new laptop prizes for the best lecturer and mentor in the University of Benin, Surgical Department. These are all verifiable facts and we have been consistent. As a fallout of this, we have Ashanti-Graham Medicators as well where we run training for soft-skills and hard-skills for healthcare providers and we have the Loretta Healthcare Initiative. The Loretta Healthcare Initiative has gone round all three senatorial districts in Edo State and we have seen over 10,000 persons and still counting. And we do this for free.
We do blood checks for hypertension, diabetes, blood sugar and we do free consultations. We do eye checks, and all the medications are free. I want to also thank the volunteers, because before this started, we thought about how we can sustain it. So we have domesticated volunteers from the communities we go with and they help us to bring healthcare to the grassroot.
Unashamedly, I will state here that healthcare is very much in front of my radar and that is because an unhealthy population cannot be a productive population. Let’s not deceive ourselves, when you are moving from consumption to production, you must first have a healthy population to achieve that. And healthcare, if you want to make it standard, is never free. There is no free healthcare, someone must be picking the bills and as someone who studied healthcare systems, I can tell you of some of the best healthcare systems in the world. From Sweden, Canada, the NHS in UK, Capitalists and Insurance System in the US, juxtapose it with what we are doing in Nigeria, but I am not saying we must import any model and swallow it hook, line and sinker. We have to domesticate our own healthcare.
I have worked with successive governments in Edo state and at national levels. It may interest you to know that I am the policy lead for the Obi-Datti Campaign Group of the Labour Party for the just-concluded 2023 election and still ongoing. That means, I led the healthcare policy team that wrote the healthcare part of the manifesto. I have always worked and worked in the background giving back to our people across the world.
In the diaspora, I have never one day not represented Nigeria or Edo State from where I come, and what gives me the most joy in all these is the fact that I am a very happily married wife and a loving mother of two children. My husband has to be one of the rarest breeds you can find in men. He is a man who is very supportive, a man who has no confidence issues, and a man who is on top of his field. One of the best neurosurgeons Nigeria has, trained in the United Kingdom, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh. That in a nutshell is part of the things I have been doing.
And interestingly, from nursery school throughout, I have always had leadership positions, from class monitor, class rep, head girl in Federal Government Girls College Benin, vice president in the University of Benin Medical Students Association. It’s a lifestyle for me and today I am not surprised that we are where we are.
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