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| Frontage of the hospital’s premises, with the vehicle from the Presidency. Photo by The ICIR |
Marcus Fatunmole
A PRIVATE hospital run by a man, Jongsu Kim, who claims to be Chinese but is a North Korean, has been operating illegally in the heart of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, for four years, The ICIR exclusively reports.
The hospital enjoys patronage from highly placed individuals, particularly public officials, including those who work in the presidency. Daily, officials in SUVs bearing FGN plate numbers and armed policemen drive in and out of the hospital premises.
A former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Michael Aondoakaa, is one of the leading figures said to be seeking medical care at the facility.
In addition to Aondoakaa, at least four lawyers who are Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) receive treatment at the hospital.
The ICIR’s checks showed that at least three other expatriates whose nationalities could not be verified because they refused to speak also work and live at the facility.
Kim, a doctor, leads the team. He also lives at the hospital. Clients pay for services the facility renders into Kim’s personal account rather than the hospital’s.
The hospital does not have a signboard. It did not have a bank account when the larger part of this investigation was carried out between June and October 2022 and does not pay tax to the government as required by law.
For instance, the hospital does not pay the “Pay As You Earn” (PAYE) tax to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Internal Revenue Service (IRS), even though it has Tax Identification Number 20913237. PAYE is the tax companies deduct from their employees’ salaries and remit to the government.
The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) said the Federal Government exempts hospitals and schools from taxes, but they must provide a report of their annual returns. The FIRS in Abuja said only the hospital could provide evidence of submission of the annual return report.
Asked how the hospital got its TIN, the FIRS said companies get TIN from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) during registration.
The Private Health Establishments Registration and Monitoring Committee (PHERMC), a department in charge of private hospital registration and monitoring in the nation’s capital, confirmed to The ICIR that Lilu Hospital never applied for registration in city and runs illegally.
The hospital is also not in the Nigeria Health Facility Registry, where data on all health facilities in the country are domiciled.
Another observation by The ICIR is that only Kim comes out of the hospital in the daytime; his colleagues are usually indoors.
Kim drives an SUV with a diplomatic number plate, a privilege the Nigerian government accords only diplomats.
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| Kim’s SUV carrying the diplomatic number plate |
While Kim claims he is Chinese, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) told The ICIR that the number plate on his vehicle belongs to the North Korean Embassy.
The Chinese Embassy does not know Kim and his hospital. Two spokespersons at the embassy, Huang Shuming and another who identified himself as Zhang, told The ICIR reporter they did not know Kim and his hospital.
They also said the number plate on his SUV did not belong to their embassy.
The North Korean Embassy refused to speak about the issue when contacted by The ICIR.
The reporter was at the North Korean Embassy in Abuja and met with one of the country’s nationals who put a call across to her superior.
The man, Kim, gave the reporter his phone number to send his request through Whatsapp.
Kim has since not responded to the request. He did not also respond to text messages or pick up several calls the reporter made.
Encounter with Lilu Specialist Hospital
The ICIR noticed the hospital’s operations in early 2022, especially the calibre of vehicles and personalities that patronised it and commissioned a reporter to look into what was happening at the facility.
After making some findings from the authorities about the hospital, the reporter visited the facility as a patient and ran some checks.
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| The reporter’s registration card at the hospital |
Kim, who led his team to run the check, gave the reporter a bill of N160,000 and asked him to start treatment immediately. This is apart from the N5,000 the hospital charged the reporter for the check he ran.
The reporter paid the test bill into Kim’s account with the name Jongsu Kim. Kim said the reporter’s bill was the smallest among the scores of patients he had managed.
To prove his magnanimity, he brought out a pile of invoices and scanned through dozens of them when the reporter complained the bill was much. He counted from N160,000 to over N400,000 for each person he had treated. There were scores of invoices on his table.
Inside the illegal hospital
The three-bedroom apartment, located on the ground floor of a three-storey building, serves as a consulting ward for patients and a residence for the medical team.
The hospital has modern medical equipment that runs checks on its clients within minutes. Kim and his team make their clients lay on one of the hospital’s beds, where they apply the equipment.
Results of the checks, detailing the body’s condition, are printed from a printer in the consulting room. The cost of treatment is given only after the test is concluded. Clients pay for tests immediately after they collect their results. But they can choose to return to pay and receive the treatment later. Payment is made before treatment begins.
Entrances to the hospital rooms and other spaces on the floor are demarcated with blue curtains.
Anyone coming to the facility must remove his/her shoes and wear any of several pairs of slippers kept at the entrance after opening the main door.
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| Pairs of slippers at the entrance of the Lilu Specialist Hospital, Abuja. Photo credit: The ICIR |
Lilu specialist hospital offers trado-medicine and therapeutic care. It does not use or prescribe orthodox medicines, Kim told the reporter.
Depending on their condition, outpatients may come to the facility for about 30 days or more for their treatment.
North Korean operating my hospital without my knowledge and authorisation – Nigerian
The ICIR began this investigation in mid-2022 but met Bartholomew Chigozie Awugozi, who claimed to be the hospital’s legal owner, on January 19, 2023, for the first time on the telephone. The organisation sought to know if he was aware of activities at the hospital.
He was shocked that the hospital he opened in Port-Harcourt years back had shut down because it wasn’t yielding returns, now runs in Abuja by people he claimed not to know.
Awugozi is based in Awka, Anambra State, where he manages his hotels. He is one of the hospital’s three directors. One of the remaining two directors is his son (Obinna Patrick), and the third is a North Korean by the name Jong Chol Ann.
Awugozi said he registered the hospital at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) with his money. He claimed he engaged a North Korean he identified by first name Sin to set up the facility in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
According to him, Sin, an ophthalmologist, worked with a private eye hospital with many branches in the South-East and Abuja some years back. Sin was also a consultant to the Imo State Government House during the era of former Governor Rochas Okorocha, Awugozi said. The doctor treated Awugozi’s two eyes, and they became friends, leading to the idea of establishing the hospital.
The plan materialised, but Sin did not work at the hospital. He hired his nationals, whom Awugozi claimed could not generate any revenue for him after running the facility for a year in Port Harcourt. He then allegedly closed the hospital.
The ICIR could not establish if Kim who currently runs the facility in Abuja was among the North Koreans who ran it in Port Harcourt.
Awugozi wants the current operators of the Abuja facility arrested. “Please help me get them arrested. I’m not aware that they opened that hospital in my name. Have you investigated the certificate of incorporation?
“We had the arrangement to have a hospital about three or four years ago in Anambra state and have a branch in Rivers state. We opened the Rivers state branch (first), and they were not rendering accounts. We closed the place. They left. They told me they’d gone back to their country.
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| Frontage of the hospital’s premises, with the vehicle from the Presidency. Photo by The ICIR |
“Surprisingly, this call came now, and you’re telling me they are operating with my name in Abuja. I’m not aware of the operations in Abuja.”
He said the hospital could not open a bank account because, as the owner, the operators knew he could authorise that the account be frozen.
“Do they have a signboard there?” he asked. The ICIR reporter responded in the negative. “That will show you that they are fake.
“If they have a signboard, anybody from my community, Lilu, in Ihiala Local Government, will see it and make it public.”
Hospital lawyer faults The ICIR’s investigation
In 2022, The ICIR contacted Kim to respond to some of the findings. He did not understand the questions because he struggles to speak English and communicates more using signs. It is thus a wonder how he communicates with patients enough to enable him to diagnose their ailments because there is no interpreter with him.
Hours later, the hospital’s lawyer, Matthias Adeyemi, arrived and asked the reporter to send the questions to him. The reporter did.
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| Lilu Specialist Hospital’s flier |
Rather than answer the questions, Adeyemi, who said Aondoakaa, the former Attorney General, recommended him to be the hospital’s lawyer, warned that whoever attempted to disrupt the hospital’s services would have the high and mighty in the country to contend with.
The lawyer named three SANs who use the hospital in addition to Aondoakaa.
He confirmed Kim runs the hospital with his bank account.
On October 11, last year, the lawyer requested the reporter meet him in his office in the Asokoro area of the nation’s capital.
The reporter hoped the meeting would enable him to answer the questions he had sent to him. Adeyemi spoke with the reporter for over an hour on why the investigation was unnecessary, adding that the hospital would promptly address issues raised.
He promised to contact Kim to answer the questions. There was no response from him, despite a reminder the reporter sent on October 19.
However, he boasted that nobody could force Kim to talk if he chose not to. He threatened to sue The ICIR and vowed to make the organisation pay heavily if it “fails to get all its facts correct.”
Registration with the MDCN
The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) registers all doctors practising in Nigeria and issues them a practising license valid for a year.
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| Kim hangs the license he got in 2020 on the hospital wall beside the facility’s Certificate of Incorporation from the CAC |
The ICIR’s reporter could not find his practising license for 2021 and 2022 at the hospital.
Practising license for Jongsu Kim from the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria for 2020 was his only licence on the hospital’s wall as of October 2022
The ICIR contacted the MDCN to confirm Kim’s registration status. The council’s Public Relations Officer, Zubaidat Abdusalaam, could not confirm if he obtained a practising license in the past two years.
However, based on the information given to the MDCN by the newspaper, the council officials stormed the hospital on Thursday, October 13.
Efforts by The ICIR to get the operation’s outcome did not yield results. Abdusalaam said she was not informed about the operation. When the reporter probed further, she said it was the organisation’s practice to make such operations secret until its investigations are concluded. Meanwhile, the hospital has continued to provide services after the MDCN’s visit.
Hospital not registered to operate in FCT – PHERMC Registrar
The Private Health Establishments Registration and Monitoring Committee (PHERMC), a department under the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) Health Secretariat, is the agency that registers and monitors private hospitals’ operations in the nation’s capital.
The PHERMC, through its registrar, Ayuba Kazzah, confirmed to our reporter that the hospital never applied for registration and is not registered to operate in the city.
Days after the reporter visited his office to confirm the hospital’s registration status, Kazzah promised to check and get back to the reporter.
“After all due diligent searches, we are unable to identify any evidence of registration with or even application to the FCT PHERMC”, Kazzah replied in a text.
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| Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria storms Lilu Specialist Hospital in Abuja on October 20, 2022 |
He told the reporter during a subsequent visit to his office that every private hospital intending to practice in the FCT must follow registration procedures which he showed the reporter.
The facility must be registered with the CAC and obtain a Certificate of Incorporation of a name that specifies the type of health facility.
It must apply through its letterhead with its Board of Directors’ details and their nationalities at the bottom.
This is followed by an inspection of the proposed location for the hospital by PHERMC and other activities, which include categorisation, type of services, number of specialists, purpose-built structure, displayed signpost, and should not operate where there are offices or in a residential building.
“For a hospital to run with foreigners in Nigeria, the head of the facility must be a Nigerian. An example is Nizamiye Hospital,” Kazzah said.
When hospitals register, they must provide the list of their staff.
According to Kazzah, any hospital that flouts the guidelines will be fined N250,000.
How VIPs bring foreign hospitals to Nigeria to cut costs
A source in the medical community, who pleaded anonymity, said prominent Nigerians and government officials aid foreign doctors coming to Nigeria because they want to cut the cost of travelling abroad for treatment.
The source said no matter what anyone does to stop the operations of hospitals where those sponsored doctors work, the people who bring them into the country would have their way.
Immigration reacts
Head of the Passport Unit at the Nigeria Immigration Service, NIS, Eno Deinde, said before any foreigners could work in Nigeria, the firms employing them must bring the expatriates’ passports to the Immigration Office to obtain ‘Subject to Regularisation’ (STR).
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| One of the Presidency’s vehicles at the Lilu Hospital, Abuja |
“They must not come to the country as visitors but with the STR under the company’s name. The company will bring their passports to immigration for regularisation immediately after they arrive in Nigeria. Immigration must see the company’s quota, which is the number of expatriates coming.
“Quota is what gives the expatriates power to stay in Nigeria. Immigration determines the number of quotas a company gets,” she said.
Deinde explained that it is criminal for any expatriate to work in any organisation in Nigeria, such as the Lilu Hospital, without obtaining the STR.
About the hospital
Lilu Specialist Hospital was registered by the CAC on May 15, 2018, as a private company limited by shares to conduct human health activities. It has the registration number RC 1494942.
It has the following as directors and key management personnel:
Bartholomew Chigozie Awugosi(Director and shareholder)
Obinna Patrick Awugosi (Director, Secretary, and shareholder)
Jong Chol Ann (Director)
Okechukwu Ehogwu (Deponent)
The ICIR reports that the hospital’s registered operating address is 1 Umuenugwu Village in Lilu, Ihiala, Anambra State.
A check by The ICIR at the Umuenugwu community in Lilu, which bears the same name as the hospital, revealed that the hospital did not exist there. Elders of the community said that no specialist hospital ever existed in the locality and that the best health facility there was a primary health centre.
Meanwhile, the hospital’s lawyer confirmed to The ICIR on Saturday January 28, 2022 that “some” of its findings were true.
The ICIR contacted him to react to Awugozi’s claim that he owned the hospital, had run it in Port Harcourt, and was unaware it operated in Abuja.
“For me, there were a lot of developments I came to find out. I did a whole lot of investigations and all of that (after interracting with the reporter in his office). I found some credibility in some of the things you said. I also found some newer information. Honestly, I stand for some justice and some integrity. Whatever he (Awugozi) said, there is some truth in it.”
He also said the police were already involved in the matter (because The ICIR had informed the FCT IRS, PHERMC and the MDCN of the hospital’s operations during its investigation.
When told by the reporter that the hospital was still running despite the police involvement in the case, Adeyemi said, “that is where the real problem is.”
The lawyer also said that Jong Chol Ann, who is one of the hospital’s directors, is no longer in Nigeria.
What remains unclear is under whose authority the hospital’s current manager, Jongsu Kim, who drives around Abuja in a diplomatic SUV, runs the facility.
Credite: ICIR