THE DEATH OF ABUBAKAR AUDU
The nation was jolted November 22, 2015 with the death of former two-time governor of Kogi State and the All Progressives Congress candidate for the 2015 gubernatorial election, Prince Abubakar Audu. In a string of coincidence, that day marked the 52nd anniversary of the death of the charismatic former United States President, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. The only difference between the two deaths was that one was violent and the other was by natural causes.
Three possible reasons were adduced for his death which was rather untimely as he was on the verge of becoming a three-time governor of the confluence state, a feat only achieved by Senator Bukar Abba Ibrahim of Yobe State.
The first reason was that he was a victim of food poisoning as he was said to have vomited blood before dying. The second was that he was hypertensive and vomited blood before he went to cast his vote in his hometown of Ogbonicha with the doctors having to give him a blood transfusion for energy for the arduous trip. He returned home and started vomiting blood all over again.
The third was that his health had been failing for quite some time and may have died from complications from some serious medical condition which was not disclosed. His death was not sudden as he had been ill for quite some time.
Chinua Achebe in his treatise, “The Problem with Nigeria” put the failure of the Nigerian state squarely on leadership. He was meant to have been rushed to Abuja and then flown abroad for proper medical treatment before the inevitability of death played a fast one on him. Why can’t our leaders or rulers invest massively in our healthcare system? If Kogi State had a good healthcare system, there won’t have been any need to first take him to Abuja and then use that as a transit route to fly him abroad. Why wouldn’t death come when so much man hours had been wasted? What goes around seems to be coming around for our parasitic political class who had been irresponsible with our enormous human and financial resources. Nemesis seems to be on the prowl. It has now become the norm for our rulers to meet their maker abroad. Billions of dollars are being transferred to the West and even India in form of health tourism because we have failed to get our act together in the healthcare sector. It is a monumental shame that thousands of our doctors are servicing Western and Asian hospitals while ours have been left to deteriorate into something worse than mere consulting clinics, apologies to the late General Sani Abacha. Former Bayelsa State Governor, Diepreye Alameiyeseigha also died in similar circumstances when there was no functional clinic in his hometown of Amassoma. By the time he got to Port Harcourt, he had given up the ghost. There is no consideration for the hapless common man who can’t afford the medical bills of the West or even India. The largely inept National Health Insurance Scheme does not even cover the treatment of the cancer ailment which has been ravaging Nigerians in recent times. The irony is that it is the looted funds that are being used by the inhumane political elite to fund their medical expenses abroad.
Some of late Audu’s critics opined that at 68 and having being in Lord Lugard House twice, he had no business contesting again for the coveted office. I see nothing wrong in his taking a shot at the highly exalted office. It was his constitutional right to do so and age is not a barrier to seeking to lead the people. Tony Ademiluyi, Lagos