Monday
November 30, 2009 |
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Last week, Attorney General Michael
Aondoakaa went out of his way to establish his closeness to Aso Rock
resident, Umaru Yar’Adua. With Nigeria gripped by widespread rumors of
Mr. Yar’Adua’s death in a hospital in Saudi Arabia, Aondoakaa set out to
squelch the whispered falsehood. In a statement, he told Nigerian, in
effect, to relax. In Nigerianese, the statement was akin to declaring,
“Nothing spoil!”
Aondoakaa wanted Nigerians and – why not – the world as well to know
that he’d been on the phone to Yar’Adua, and Umaru was, as one newspaper
reported, “hale and hearty.” Well, good for Mr. Yar’Adua, but how about
millions of Nigerians who can’t afford to fly abroad for the succor of
Saudi or German doctors?
A day after Aondoakaa’s upbeat, “nothing spoil” report, Yar’Adua’s
personal physician finally owned up, in a statement released by Segun
Adeniyi, that the former Katsina governor has been diagnosed with “acute
pericarditis,” described as an inflammation of the covering of the
heart.
Nigerian clerics, Christian and Moslem alike, weighed in with prayers
for Mr. Yar’Adua’s quick and complete recovery. Moved, no doubt, by
Christian and Islamic sense of charity, these ecclesiastical authorities
urged adherents of their religions to storm heaven with petitions for
Yar’Adua’s physical mending.
I’m not one to argue against praying for any ailing person. In fact, I
wish Mr. Yar’Adua nothing less than vibrant, exuberant health. Even so,
each time I made to pray for the man, I stumbled. A voice within me kept
protesting, “How about the millions of sick Nigerians dying silently,
slowly, in excruciating pain in Nigerian hospitals laid waste by the
avarice, greed, idiocy of so-called Nigerian leaders?” Since assuming –
I’d say usurping – the Nigerian presidency in 2007, has Mr. Yar’Adua
taken any significant step to improve the quality of health care in the
country.
My answer was there – it was easy – No! There’s no question that many
Moslems and Christians heeded their leaders’ entreaties to storm God
with petitions for Mr. Yar’Adua’s well being. I hope the Aso Rock
resident recovers well enough to answer a simple question: What have you
ever done to give ailing Nigerians a praying chance at revamped health?
Mr. Yar’Adua was enthroned on Nigerians on May 29, 2007 – thanks to a
combination of Olusegun Obasanjo’s colossal malice, Maurice Iwu’s
shameless mischief, and (later) the Supreme Court’s tragic misjudgment.
Since his investiture in office, Yar’Adua has made several trips abroad
– specifically to Germany and Saudi Arabia – on account of his sickness.
These frequent medical trips have proved costly for Nigerians. Nigeria
is in woeful shape, and demands a full-time, energetic and visionary
leader to devote himself to the generation and execution of sound
policies to rescue the country. Yet, Yar’Adua has been far from focused
on Nigeria and its myriad crises. Quite simply, the hardest thing the
man does in a typical day, it seems, is to nurse himself to sleep.
In a moment of comical diversion during his “run” for the presidency,
Yar’Adua had challenged those doubting his superb physical conditioning
to step into an arena and face him in several rounds of squash. That sad
attempt at swagger has since earned a spot as one of the theatrical
interludes in Obasanjo’s “do-and-die” campaign against a people who had
the effrontery to deny him an unconstitutional third term in office.
Since his investiture in office in May 2007, Yar’Adua has cut the image
less of a swashbuckling squash player than of a man who, on many a day,
would be incapable of sitting up to watch one round of squash.
Rumors have swirled in Nigeria that Yar’Adua has cancelled numerous
state functions because he was in no shape to sit through them, or to
stand up for a few minutes to make a speech. Nigerians wasted billions
of naira on an election to choose a leader, and ended up with a man that
must rank as one of the costliest liabilities in the history of
leadership. Again, Nigerians must be in no hurry to forget that Yar’Adua
is a product of vengeance. Even so, Yar’Adua deserves scolding – he’s
grown up, after all – for consenting to be a pawn in Obasanjo’s diseased
game of vindictiveness. Yar’Adua knew full well that he was a feeble
man, that his body could not withstand the sheer physical tax of being a
president. For his own sake, for the sake of his family, and in the
interest of the Nigerian collectivity, he should have had the courage to
tell Obasanjo: “Sorry, but I can’t serve as the instrument with which
you whip Nigerians.”
Aondoakaa wants to toast what he alleges to be Yar’Adua’s strong health.
It’s fine if Saudi doctors nurse Yar’Adua to health, or even a semblance
of it. The trouble is that, in a perverse way, Yar’Adua’s health care
translates a health scare for most Nigerians. Let me explain.
The record is that Yar’Adua has been seriously sick for a long time,
even spanning the eight years he operated as Katsina governor. Yet, the
man didn’t see fit to build and equip one hospital in his state that
would cater to other residents facing similar health issues. He was
apparently like most Nigerian “leaders,” content to take care of himself
– by flying abroad for treatment. It never occurs to these so-called
leaders to use their offices to improve the quality of health care in
Nigeria and for Nigerians.
Last week, a young man contacted me from Lagos to report his shock at
the dismal state of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital. “The place
is not even fit for pigs to be treated there,” the man said, pleading
that I write about the issue.
LUTH is no isolated case. Nigerian hospitals, almost without exception,
are a ghastly sight. In the 1970s, Nigeria boasted a number of teaching
hospitals that were well equipped and run by some of the best doctors in
the world. Today, those teaching hospitals have come to abject ruin, the
result of neglect by the country’s cast of misbegotten “leaders.”
Nigerians ought to awaken to the scandal, and resist the rule of men and
women who wreck the nation’s health sector and then run abroad for
medical care. Has Yar’Adua ever paused to ask himself whether Saudi
Arabia has more doctors than Nigeria? Has it ever occurred to him that
Saudi monarchs do not fly to Nigeria when they urgently desire a
doctor’s attention? Why then does he – do other “prominent” Nigerians –
have a habit of rushing off to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany or elsewhere
to worry their doctors? Don’t Nigeria’s rulers realize that a good
health care system does not emerge by accident? Instead, that such a
system is the product of vision, planning, and seriousness of purpose on
the part of genuine political leaders in partnership with medical
professionals. What is Yar’Adua’s record, even, in paying doctors or
equipping existing federal hospitals? Is that record not – bluntly put –
wretched?
That’s the kind of conversation Nigerians ought to be having. Those who
wish to pray for Yar’Adua’s restoration to health should, by all means,
do so. Here’s my own prayer: That Yar’Adua’s luck in Saudi hospitals
should not continue to spell misfortune for millions of Nigerians.
On his return to Abuja, Yar’Adua should (as a priority) outline what he
intends to do to lift the quality of Nigerian hospitals to Saudi levels.
If he can’t come up with a plan, then Nigerians ought to insist that he
should head for a Nigerian hospital when next he needs to see a doctor.
That way, he would gain first-hand experience of the grim reality at
Nigerian hospitals – and a deserved taste of the desperate fate facing
most Nigerians who suffer from common and severe ailments.
Leaders who can’t, or won’t, solve problems for other citizens should
have no right to run off to better-run countries when their health is
ravaged.
