Peju Ugboma’s death: Agbakoba retracts claim against Premier Hospital

Olisa Agbakoba, the senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN), has retracted his claim against Premier Hospital in connection to the investigation on the death of Peju Ugboma, the late Lagos chef.

Ugboma, aged 41, died on April 23 after undergoing surgery at the hospital located in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Her family had alleged that she died due to the negligence of health officials at the hospital, where she had undergone surgery for fibroid but later suffered internal bleeding.

After an investigation, the Medical and Dental Practitioners Council of Nigeria (MDPCN) had established a case of “misconduct” against three doctors among 15 medical practitioners who were accused.

The indicted medical practitioners were expected to appear before a disciplinary tribunal for further questioning.

In a social media post, Agbakoba, who is a lead counsel to the Ugboma family, had wrongly claimed the case of misconduct was against Premier Hospital.

But in a statement retracting his publication, the human rights activist apologised for what he described as an “incorrect” claim.

“We received a letter from Banwo & Ighodalo, solicitors to Premier Specialists’ Medical Centre (Premier Hospital) concerning two publications we made in our social media platforms,” the activist wrote.

“OAL agrees with Banwo & Ighodalo that the statement in our first publication is incorrect.

“We noticed the error and immediately took the publication down from our social media platform. We hereby retract and apologize for the said publication. The second publication was actually a correction of the first.

“We however apologize for the reference to Premier Hospital in the said second publication, given that the investigating panel only found a prima facie case of misconduct in professional respect against three doctors.”

Earlier, Premier Hospital had clarified that it wasn’t under investigation by MDPCN.