The following story came out of a piece of information buried in paragraph 12 of a rather convoluted piece about why Obasanjo refused to visit the opposition-run state of Borno.

The government of Borno state has refused to open a new 300-bed general hospital to the public for six months.
The Ali Modu Sherrif led administration said it would not open the new facility in Maiduguri until the president officially opened it himself.
The new Maiduguri General Hospital was finished in July at a cost of over N300 million. It has been equipped and is ready to go, according to the government, but sick people will not be able to use it until the president cuts a tape at the door, the governor has said.
Two other 100 bed hospitals outside Maiduguri may also be kept shut until the president visits, Daily Trust can reveal.
The state government said it was “normal practice” to prevent sick people from using a brand new hospital until it is “commissioned” -officially opened by the president.
The State’s health commissioner, Dr. Asabe Vilita Bashir told Daily Trust in a telephone chat yesterday that the ministry was officially informed of the postponement of the president’s visit only yesterday.
She said the government is yet to decide whether to open the gates of the hospital to the public or again wait for another commissioning date.
She said: “It is normal practice not to open a public building until it has been commissioned. I cannot say what will happen at this stage. We have many options. But it is something that would be decided by the government soon.”
The facility was due for commissioning by the president around the end of July last year, but the postponement of the visit at the time led officials of the health ministry to keep it under lock and key as a new date for the commissioning was decided.
Construction works on the hospital and the supply of equipment were completed in July last year. The presidency and the Borno State government later agreed to arrange Obasanjo’s visit for last Monday, where he would commission the new general hospital and two 100-bed hospitals also built by the Ali Sherrif administration in Askira-Uba and Chibok local government areas of the state, among other projects.
The visit was, however, cancelled again just a day before the presidential plane touched down at the Maiduguri International Airport for as yet undisclosed reasons.
Many residents of the city are unhappy that the state government had not opened the hospital.
Residents say the State Specialist Hospital built in the 1950s is overstretched and its facilities are old and ageing. The newly built general hospital in Maiduguri is meant to decongest it.
Patients also complain of poor sanitary conditions at the State Specialist Hospital, observing that the opening of the new general hospital in Bulunkuttu, Maiduguri will help improve healthcare delivery services, especially in the State capital.
Governor Ali Sherrif himself has said at the start of the building project that the new general hospital is designed to reduce the burden on the Specialist Hospital of having to cater for so many people within and outside Maiduguri.
It is still unclear whether the current postponement of the president’s visit will lead to further delay in opening the new hospital and the others built in Askira-Uba and Chibok.
The postponement of the Obasanjo visit also affected the commissioning of state-of-the-art equipment installed at the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) under the Federal Government-VAMED modernization programme.
However, the president is said to have asked the Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF), Chief Offot Ekaette to commission this project at the UMTH today (Tuesday).

Most people here seem to think this is the president's fault for delaying his visit. One person said: "The governor wouldn't even know what you are going on about."