Governor Umo Eno’s now-famous line, ‘I said build hospital, you start with mortuary’, has entertained social media, inspired parody videos and supplied Nigerians with fresh meme material, but if a hospital can begin anywhere at all, who exactly is steering the project?
Development Diaries reports that in a video that has since gone viral on social media, the Akwa Ibom State governor questioned a contractor over the sequencing of work at a hospital construction site after discovering that construction began with a mortuary, gatehouse and chapel.
The governor’s confusion was genuine and, to many, relatable, but should the state not already know where and how its own hospital project is supposed to begin?
That is an uncomfortable counter-question that citizens, particularly those from Akwa Ibom State, are now entitled to ask politely but firmly.
Hospitals are supposed to be carefully sequenced public investments, where plans, phases, budgets, and priorities are meant to be clear long before concrete meets soil. This is why a contractor scrolling through a phone instead of presenting a clear, approved building plan felt less like comedy and more like a governance warning light.
Yes, it sounds absurd to start with a mortuary, but the deeper issue is about whether public projects are being driven by written plans or by vibes and explanations offered only when leaders show up unexpectedly.
The viral moment should give Akwa Ibom people a rare opportunity to ask serious questions without sounding oppositional, because once governance slips into comedy, accountability has already been invited into the room.
As citizens, let us now reasonably ask whether the hospital has a publicly accessible project plan, what the approved phases are, how much has been allocated to each stage, and who is responsible for monitoring whether construction follows those plans.
And for women in the state, this matters deeply, because hospitals that delay maternity wards, emergency units and primary care facilities put pregnant women and caregivers at risk long before the building is completed.
For girls, especially in rural communities, it raises questions about whether adolescent health services, sexual and reproductive care, and basic outpatient facilities are being prioritised or postponed behind structures they may never need.
For persons living with disabilities, it brings up the issue of whether accessibility features are part of the original design or an afterthought added only after complaints.
The governor has announced laudable steps in the health sector, including new hospitals, primary healthcare centres, salary increases and the recruitment of health workers, but good intentions still require good systems, because a state of emergency in health cannot be managed with improvisation on site visits.
This is why the focus should move quickly from mocking the mortuary to examining the machinery of project implementation itself, including procurement processes, supervision mechanisms and the transparency of public works.
Akwa Ibom residents should demand that the Ministry of Health and the supervising agencies publish the hospital’s full project plan, including timelines, phases and costs, in language ordinary people can understand.
Community leaders, women’s groups, youth organisations and disability advocates should ask how the design reflects real health needs, who will benefit first, and how delays or mis-sequencing will be corrected.
And the state government itself should treat this episode as feedback from the system, because when a hospital starts with confusion, patients eventually pay the price.
In the end, the mortuary joke will fade, as all internet humour does, but the hospital will remain, and the real question is whether it will stand as a symbol of thoughtful planning that saves lives or as another reminder that governance often reacts faster to cameras than to plans.
If citizens use this moment well, Akwa Ibom could gain more than a meme; it could gain a stronger culture of asking how public projects are planned, executed and delivered, long before anyone needs the mortuary.
