Metaphors of A Sick Nation

President Buhari has become the best advertisement for the ills of the nation’s health sector, writes Emmanuel Ojeifo

It is a sad commentary that the National Hospital Abuja, a visionary project executed during the military regime of General Sani Abacha less than 20 years ago, which would have served as a national monument of excellence in medical healthcare, has been run down due to government neglect and inept leadership

At a time when millions of Nigerians are anxious – for good or for ill – about the state of health of our president, it is fitting to talk about the state of our nation’s healthcare institutions. Right now, President Muhammadu Buhari seems to be the most remarkable metaphor of the sickness of our nation, and why the national sickness has defied both the rational remedies of prescribed medication and the expertise of certified physicians. In the last 18 years since our return to democratic self-governance, Nigeria has succeeded in producing two sick presidents, whose physical condition of health reflects the frailty of our nation, but which has also taken its toll on the collective wellbeing of our people.

In 2007, President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua demonstrated a sincere resolve to tackle the problems of Nigeria, but a pact with destiny did not permit him to fulfil his mandate. Although he acknowledged that the election that brought him to power was marred by massive irregularities, he had hardly set in motion a series of electoral reforms when he fell to the ravages of cancer in May 2010. In his moments of ill health, we saw how the dark side of human nature tried to take advantage of the greater good of the nation. Olusegun Adeniyi’s book, Power, Politics and Death (2011) is both a chilling and thrilling testament to how a handful of power-hungry politicians around the corridors of power – the president’s men – attempted to hold the nation to ransom.

We hope and pray that 2017 will not turn out to be a replay of that sad episode of our national history. I wish President Buhari well. I pray that he returns home in good health, with the readiness to rededicate himself to the urgent task of nation building. But I also hope he has had the opportunity to do serious soul-searching on the travails of our nation under his leadership. If there is one thing his moment of sickness has revealed, it is simply that his government has lost both popularity and goodwill across a vast cross-section of the Nigerian populace. I am not sure if he will ever be able to reclaim both. I know that Nigerians are an infinitely patient group of people. Their elastic capacity to bear with almost anyhow is both startling and legendary. But a time comes when their resilience reaches a point of no return. We hope that the state of affairs does not degenerate to that point.

Right now, with social disruptions, restiveness and public protests brewing all over the place, on account of the acute hardship in the land, President Buhari and his men should undertake a major examination of conscience on the raison d’etre of their government. All is not well with Nigeria under Buhari, and he knows it. Under Buhari, life has become so cheap in Nigeria. On a daily basis the orgies of bloodshed in the heart of our nation is making us lose our sensitivity. When a government cannot secure the lives and property of its citizens, one then wonders what it exists to do. And this is a signpost of the lethargic attitude that pervades all aspects of Buhari’s government. The self-styled leadership attitude of Buhari has mortgaged, and continues to mortgage, the lives and future of millions of Nigeria.

After nearly two years on the saddle, it is both lame and defeatist to put the blame for the mess we have found ourselves on his predecessor administration. President Buhari must now accept both personal and collective responsibility for his inability to lift our nation from the abyss of morass and desolation. He must now ask himself why he became president. A president who has spent the best part of his vacations since 2015 on seeking medical attention in European hospitals should ask himself whether this attitude is the best aptitude for good leadership.

After 56 years of independence, Nigeria has no single worldclass hospital. For more than two decades, Nigerian leaders have made choice hospitals in Europe their healthcare destination, despite all the promises of tackling the decay in our nation’s public health sector. It is a sad commentary that the National Hospital Abuja, a visionary project executed during the military regime of General Sani Abacha less than 20 years ago, which would have served as a national monument of excellence in medical healthcare, has been run down due to government neglect and inept leadership. Even in worse conditions of disrepair are our nation’s teaching hospitals and federal medical centres. These institutions were established to provide sound education, practical training and public service in different aspects of modern medicine to medical students and the general public. But sadly today they are bogged down by technological backwardness, infrastructural decay and institutional disaffection, making them centres of rot and death.

The State House Medical Centre was established at public expense to provide medical services to the President, Vice President and their families, aides, staff of the State House and other entitled public servants. Yet these categories of public officeholders rather prefer to undertake medical tourism to overseas hospitals with Nigerian taxpayer’s money, thereby making nonsense of the huge budgetary allocation for the maintenance and upgrading of the facilities at the State House Clinic. When during his election campaign President Buhari promised to end medical tourism, which has robbed our nation of progressive development in the health sector, many Nigerians thought he was serious. Today, this same president has become the best advertisement for all that is wrong with our nation’s health sector.

I wish Mr Lai Mohammed and his co-travellers on the value reorientation train, launched amidst widespread intellectual copyright controversy, in September 2016 will kindly remind the president, just in case he has forgotten, that “Change begins with me!” With all the rich human and natural resources that God has endowed our nation, there is absolutely no reason why we should be where we are today with regard to public healthcare.