Nigeria’s President and Commander-in-Chief, Muhammadu Buhari, was in London for medical check-up and treatment. Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu is also in London for medical reasons. We learnt from reports that Asiwaju Tinubu went through knee surgery in a London hospital. May God, the owner of good health grant them perfect health! President Muhammadu Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu are members of the APC, the party in government. APC in their quest to dislodge the PDP from power promised Nigerians CHANGE from the old ways we were seeing in government circles. It is then quite disappointing and sad that these two heavy weights of the ruling party are presently in London for medical tours because our hospitals in Nigeria lack the right facilities to manage their health conditions. Currently, in Nigeria, the resident doctors are on nationwide strike to press for payment of their salaries and entitlements owed them for months stretching to years but, none of the ministers and senior government officials or NASS members are owed salaries or allowances.
It is very unfortunate to read from reports that Nigeria’s medical doctors are paid N5,000 monthly as hazard allowance when members of the NASS, perhaps the ministers and senior government officials go home monthly with a million plus as hazard allowance. It is more painful that a civil rights activist is the Minister of State in the Labour Ministry yet, some of these absurdities have not been looked into. Nigeria is indeed a joke and will never work unless there is justice and fairness in the way and manner the government operates. The Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is standing on its head. There is criminality in the management of our affairs, the reason there is backwardness and stagnancy in development. The leadership in Nigeria are deliberately planting poverty, illiteracy, underdevelopment, sickness and disease all over the federation and amongst its citizens. Rather than the leaders of Nigeria work for the benefit of all they concentrate more in personal acquisition of power and wealth.
Since 1960, when we gained self-rule, one wonders why government after government, whether it was military or civil have not significantly moved Nigeria beyond rhetorics. While other countries with same political history as Nigeria are achieving greatness, Nigeria is busy sliding backwards due to the quality of bad leadership we have had over the years. Health is wealth, it is usually said, hence other developed world are building giant strides to support and promote healthy condition for their citizens. In Nigeria, the hospitals owned and managed by government are mere consulting centres that host deaths of citizens daily. This is why our political leaders and the wealthy few jet out of the country for medical attention whenever they are down. The hospitals in Nigeria are without medical facilities to aid the doctors and other health officials in working. A good example is the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, LUTH at Idi-Araba, Lagos. This hospital is now a shadow of itself, once a vibrant general hospital that took care of the rich and poor with all kind of ailments. A hospital that treated a serving minister of health then, Olikoye Ransome-Kuti and a football star who played for Nigeria, Etim Esin, after he was shot by robbers few days to a major international match. Today as I write, not sure the present minister of health or an emergency such as that of Etim Esin can be handled in and by any of the general hospitals in Nigeria because of the poor state of health in our country.
There is virtually no general hospital in Nigeria that can boast of international standard as a result of failure of leadership to work for the interest of all. The government at the centre have practically failed in providing facilities for the health officials to work with thereby killing the health sector. For the President of the number one black country in the world and his party’s national leader who was a state governor for eight years to have traveled to London for medical treatment at the same time is clearly a mark of failure in government. How on earth can they explain their performance in government in the last six years when a major sector such as health is moribund?
Nigerian leaders must realize that development is not any rocket science. Development is thriving in other places because their leaders have chosen to look inwards, to be patriotic, discipline, transparent and corrupt free to build a better society for their people. It is a big mockery for a serving president of a country such as Nigeria to be jumping out to another country for simple medical check-ups. Six years is more than enough to fix the national hospital for any sincere and hard-working government. Six years is good enough to get about three teaching hospitals in the country working optimally to save huge sums expended on medical tourism every year. Nigerian leaders cannot continue this waste and expect to be seen as achieving milestones.
*** Article by Uzodinma Nwaogbe.
