At the peak of the first wave of the global COVID-19 pandemic, about 49 unpatriotic Nigerian doctors attempted to relocate to the United Kingdom where even doctors were dying from the new disease.
Ordinarily, they should have been court-marshaled and their licenses withdrawn for attempting to place themselves in a vantage position to treat future presidents. Government moved in at the airport and quickly blocked them on the excuse they had not shown sufficient evidence they had contracts in the UK. Good move!
Some wailers were yelling that Buhari seeking medical attention in London was de-marketing his regime’s appalling records on health care and the ingenuity of Nigerian doctors practising under stress using crude instruments and unsafe environments. However, Nigerian doctors are hot cake abroad. One Dr. Olutoye opened a pregnant woman, performed a procedure and reinserted her to complete gestation. Months later the baby was safely delivered. The feat was novel except that the story does not add up, the man in question answers a Nigerian name, but carries an American passport.
On the other hand, hailers try to convince us that President Buhari’s love of UK doctors is a true test of loyalty to doctors he has retained even in the years he was convincing Andrews not to check out. In Nigeria, smartness is doing the opposite of what you say or accomplishing nothing of your promise.
Femi Adesina recently announced the downgrading of the State House Clinic to a mere ‘medical center’. That facility was built to exclusively cater for the medical interests of Nigerian ruiners/rulers. If Buhari wouldn’t treat an earache there, nobody should blame Bola Tinubu for finding a London doctor of his own. If you ask Buhari, he’ll tell you it is because he can afford it. Nigerian leaders are entitled to free medical trips abroad. While there, their successors and protégés go on pilgrimage to see them – at public expense.
A special unit is being built in Aso Rock to cater for the next president. If you ask any government contractor, capital projects bring in better rewards than fixing existing ones.
Apparently, Buhari could not convince doctors still left here to stay here as miracle workers although a few have dropped the scalpel for miracle work.
It was shameful weeks ago, to see many doctors and consultants take advantage of the president’s hospitalisation abroad to shut down the hospitals existing in name only. Uncertain if Chris Ngige would live true to his threat to sack striking doctors, they dusted their certificates and lined up at a recruitment centre hoping to be offered jobs in Saudi Arabia. Ngige trained as a doctor, but found politics more rewarding than treating unwashed patients.
By seeking jobs in Saudi, these doctors ignored the advice of Isaac Adewole, (a returnee Saudi doctor) and former health minister who believed Nigeria was producing more doctors than it was producing tailors and farmers. He advised them to embrace the two professions and proudly modeled a suit fashioned by a retrained Nigerian doctor. After all, the scalpel is as close a relative of the scissors as a tape is to the stethoscope – they both hang on the neck!
Saudi Arabia flows with petrodollars but it is a hellhole for migrants. It has appalling human rights records that should mean not threaten anyone acclimatised to the sheer terror of being a Nigerian.
Saudi Arabia’s racism is often as grossly underreported as Nigerian nepotism and cronyism. Once these doctors land in Riyadh, their passports would be snatched from them and held in surety in case any of them dreams of returning home or elsewhere. This happens to Nigerian critics who cross paths with their government. The doctors are segregated from traditional Saudi society and made to follow a work roster that does not respect the right to be tired or sick. This also happens in Nigeria to enemies of the state.
The Nigerian state teaches its citizens in hardiness. The regime in power today is very humane. Reneging on past agreements, it has withdrawn the meagre salary of striking doctors, exposed them to being dehumanised. Some have been kidnapped or killed, others have been rendered homeless, their hungry children expelled from schools for non-payment of fees. Nigerians have lost confidence in the capacity of these doctors and have switched loyalty to prophets, mediums, herbalists, diviners and quacks to meet their health needs.
Faced with these options, these Andrewing doctors know one thing – if they behave themselves and work hard in Saudi Arabia, social redemption awaits them on their return. In the case that they die there, a better life awaits those they left behind.
Their predecessors have returned with the petrodollars from Riyadh to build private hospitals treating those that have no access to London clinics. Some have become landlords, dreams they’ll never have had if they remained here. When it comes to making a living or dying trying, every man has got a right to an option.
Faced with a burgeoning population, the Nigerian state happily endorses anything that culls its numbers. Lives are daily wasted by insurgents, herdsmen lay siege on craters of neglect on our roads, kidnappers snatch children from parents and principals, ritualists and organ harvesters waste lives while baby factories cater for the need of the infertile. Almajirai grow up to become a menace to society and recruits for insurgents.
Today’s Andrews have chosen the slavery of Saudia to the shameful hell of living in Nigeria. Only time would test their choice. When people are boxed-in between the devil and the deep blue sea –options are truly limited.
Love to Zambia
A new broom is sweeping through Zambia. Weeks back, Hakainde Hichilema, a businessman, veteran opposition leader and sixth-time presidential candidate finally made it to State House. Like Nigerians six years ago, Zambians believe that Hichilema has the magic wand. They are luckier than us. Within days of getting into office, President Hichilema sacked and replaced the army and police chief warning them to respect the human rights of all Zambians. He appointed a minister in charge of finance who is bound to have headaches dealing with the country’s huge debt profile.
Hichilema felt the impact of corruption but he underestimated the depth. Now he is dealing with ghost workers inflating the official payroll of the Zambian public service. Cunning former regime officials wrote post-and backdated cheques to suction what is left in the till.
Youth unemployment is almost at 23 per cent. Hichilema has announced free elementary and secondary education without a hint about how it would be funded.
To creditors, some of whom have a knack for bringing down any progressive African leader, Hichilema is promising no easy route for sham loans. Zambians are pumped, but so were Nigerians in 2015. Let’s wish that for African redemption, their hopes are not dashed.
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