By Oguwike Nwachuku
“Before I commence my speech I will like to be realistic and say a few words concerning health in Nigeria and health delivery system in Nigeria.
“The Nigeria health sector is in very, very, very poor state, sorry to say the least. I am happy the CMD of Aso Clinic is here.
“Munir I’m happy you are here. As you are all aware, for the last six months, Nigeria wasn’t stable because of my husband’s ill health. We thank God he has fully recovered now.
“If somebody like Mr. President can spend several months outside Nigeria, then you wonder what will happen to a common man on the street in Nigeria.
“Few weeks ago I was sick as well, they advised me to take the first flight out to London, I refused to go. I said I must be treated in Nigeria because there is a budget for an assigned clinic to take care of us.
“If the budget is N100 million, we need to know how the budget is spent. Along the line I insisted they call Aso Clinic to find out if the X-tray machine is working, they said it is not working. They didn’t know I am the one that was supposed to be in that hospital at that very time.
“I had to go to a hospital that was established by foreigners in and out 100 per cent. What does that mean?
“So, I think it is high time for us to do the right thing. If something like this can happen to me no need for me to ask the governors wives what is happening in their states. This is Abuja and this is the highest seat of government, and this is presidential villa. One of the speakers has already said we have very good policies in Nigeria, in fact we have the best policies in Africa. Yes of course we have but the implementation has been the problem.
“So we need to change our mind set and do the right thing. I’m sure Dr. Munir will not like me saying this but I have to say it out. As the Chief Medical Director, there are a lot of constructions going on in this hospital but there is no single syringe there what does that mean? Who will use the building? We have to be good in reasoning. You are building new building and there is no equipment, no consumables in the hospital and the construction is still going on.”
The above excerpt was how the wife of President Muhammadu Buhari, Aisha expressed her frustration over the state of facilities in our health sector in general and by extension, the rot at the elite Aso Rock Clinic which, ordinarily is supposed to be one of the best-run hospitals in the country.
Aisha was speaking at the opening of a two-day stakeholders meeting on Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn Child, Adolescent Health and Nutrition held at the Banquet Hall of the Presidential Villa on Monday, October 9.
Before I continue with my intervention on this very important and germane issue raised by the wife of the president, let me say that gradually we will come to terms with what constitutes good leadership in our clime, including our collective resolve to speak out regardless of the prize we will pay.
Same Monday, October 9 after our management meeting yours sincerely and my colleagues, including Ikechukwu Amaechi, spent substantial time debating the frustration that comes with living and surviving in Nigeria today.
Ikechukwu and I have always differed on issues bothering on leadership and followership in Nigeria, particularly when it comes to ought to be blamed more for our woes.
In our debate after the meeting, we were in agreement that the more we lament the frustration that comes with poor leadership and followership, and attendant decay in the commonest of infrastructure at our disposal in the country, the more the anomalies fester.
Suffice it to say that despite the complaints, what those in position of authority have mastered is simply the art of ignoring everyone, that is, we the complainants.
We have shouted to the roof tops that nothing seems to be working. We have bemoaned that poverty and hardship have reached alarming stage. We have agonized unending that more Nigerians lose their jobs today than we have ever known going by businesses that shut down daily, thereby making unemployment level currently put at more than 25 per cent to continue to point alarmingly upward.
Yet, what we get from our so-called leaders is the coldest of treatment, which is conspiracy of silence from those elected and appointed to deal with our problems.
If you want a guide, for instance, on the state of our road infrastructure nationwide, just tune to Channels Television news and you will be served horrible sites of what our roads look like.
From the federally owned roads to the state owned roads and even the ones under the toothless and comatose local government areas, the story is similar.
Ours has become a society where it appears there is conscious efforts by the leadership to distribute poverty to the led, while the followers mumu-ishly tolerate the hardship thrust on them and believe what their faith tells them that “it is well.”
Unfortunately, there are those who have argued that President Muhammadu Buhari’s regime is solely to blame for all the problems we have today and so should be seen to be dealing with them.
Yes, it is logical to reason that because Buhari is the man in the saddle today he should deal with the myriad problems bedeviling us, but anyone who tries to argue in that direction must have done so out of sheer mischievous or voyage to willfully deceive himself and others.
Personally, I do not believe the deluge infrastructural deficit starring us in the face in different parts of the country started with the coming of Buhari.
Over the years, we have been victims of collective rape by our leaders across party and ethnic divide. Our society has tolerated leaders who are desirous of living in a world different from the world those they are to lead are living in.
Our leaders may differ politically but they agree always when it comes to carving a class for themselves against the followers.
They are greedy, corrupt, deceitful, hypocritical and so hateful of the people they are expected to lead going by their actions.
From those leading in the public sector to the ones in the private sector, the churches, mosques, markets, town unions, schools, and what have you, the narrative about the existing leadership is distasteful and exposes men and women whose moral disposition oozes a sort of rot that calls to question their penchant for huge religiosity and spirituality.
We have elected presidents and governors in Nigeria who have elevated deceit to another form of worship. Such presidents and governors work in concert with equally elected lawmakers and appointive ministers and commissioners who help to legitimize all the odds in governance and its process that are anti-people.
In place of functional hospitals, improved roads infrastructure, better power (electricity) supply, competitive education system, good drinking water, among others, they prefer to erect monuments that depict nothing.
They budget huge amount of money and pay more attention to roundabouts, bus stops; occasionally buying generating sets to power street lights at night. Rather than fix the problems, they are busy dispensing political patronage that puts the lives of the led on edge.
Are you then surprised that roads which live span is in months are built and commissioned with glee?
When, years back, some opposition politicians derogatorily rebranded the then ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP), People Deceiving People, they were not unmindful of the fact that a day will come when the All Progressive Congress (APC) will pejoratively be tagged Association of Past Criminals.
The lesson for those left with some brain in them to think is that party divide has no place in the deceitful and dastard manner our leaders have treated us.
Those who have had contact with a few pieces on Marxism and Capitalism will undoubtedly deduce that the worst form of capitalism is perhaps practised in our country.
Each day, the gap between the have and have not keeps widening. The poor get poorer while the rich get richer.
And like Carl Marx would say, what is left for the poor in Nigeria or elsewhere, whether Christian poor or Muslim poor, is to clinch unto the hope offered by their religion which Marx terms “opium of the masses.”
And are we then surprised that in Nigeria, 23, 000 Churches (and still counting) are duly registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC)?
That is also the same way Mosques are germinating at different quarters in the country because the hope of the believers lies in the picture of the Mosques for their survival.
It rankles that countries that their citizens profess atheism such as Finland, Switzerland and Denmark are so blessed that their economy is among the world’s best.
Though there are still churches in the afore-mentioned countries: Finland (23 only), Switzerland (30 only) and Denmark (23 alone), it is not the recourse of the citizens’ “useless” religiosity rather than spiritualty, that has propelled development and good living for all and sundry.
Their leaders know how to lead without being deceitful, the way their led are also truthful in the way they follow their leaders.
What a society would want to eat its tomorrow today the way we see it in Nigeria? Here, the electorate collect money upfront from their leaders before casting their ballot and so, lose the right to hold them to account.
In the same vein, the political class that constitutes the leadership takes advantage of the vulnerability of the electorate who have long been impoverished by dangling carrot, knowing full well they will succumb to the destructive power of hunger.
Going by the observation Aisha made openly and even went as far as naming and shaming some key government officials like Chief Medical Director of State House Clinic, Dr. Husain Munir, one can conveniently say that she qualifies to be a leader in our country at this moment in our history when such persons are in short supply.
Before now, past First Ladies, their collaborators in the ruling and opposition political parties who probably saw what Aisha saw and raised the alarm preferred to keep mum in order not to offend anyone due to their collective interest.
And as the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Rivers State, Emma Okah noted during the week, “Madam, I am not a member of your party. PDP is my middle name but I’m a Nigerian and part of Humanity. You have the right mindset about leadership and responsibility. Keep it up. God bless you.”
In voicing her anger, Aisha publicly upbraided Dr. Munir over happenings at Aso Rock Clinic primarily established to take care of the President, Vice President, their families as well as members of Staff of the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
In Aisha’s assessment, what is on the ground at the hospital does not support the huge sum of money government budgets for the facility year in and out.
For instance, in the 2017 appropriation alone, a whooping N3.2 billion was allocated to the Aso Rock Clinic and years before, similar if not more money was budgeted because as the saying goes, “the President is involved.”
Putting a handle to the speech by the wife of the President vis-a-vis the state of infrastructure across the length and breadth of our country which is hugely decadent is not easy.
It exposes the weakness of both the leaders and the led who are competing on who to out-do the other with deceit, hypocrisy, lies, greed, corruption and lot more.
Let Dr. Munir tell Nigerians that the past governments have not been making money available for essential facilities in the Aso Clinic? By the way, who does he report to? Is it possible that the Health Ministers, past and present knew about this and kept quiet? May be.
I think government should go beyond what Aisha revealed and cause an audit to be carried out in all the Federal Government Hospitals, to be followed by looking at the state government hospitals. They will be shocked over what will be unearthed.
The issue is that allocations to the hospitals are shared and that has been going on for years without anyone raising an eyebrow, and today, it has become a cancerous norm.
Have we ever wondered why drugs are never found in government hospitals, even under prescription, but they can be found in the private hospitals probably owned by the same doctors that work in government hospitals?
Is it therefore surprising that travelling abroad for medical treatment has become part of our daily routine as nobody is interested in improving on the facilities in our hospitals locally?
Let our leaders be proud to answer leaders and take responsibility for leadership chores. The same way, let the followers desist from being led by the nose by refusing to tally with the leaders on matters of corruption, illegality, deceit, hypocrisy and criminality.
We need more Aishas both at the central, state and local governments levels. We need people with the courage to say things the way they are without minding what they stand to lose.
In any case, the greatest thing to lose if we fail to lead by example is our society. And that is why we have more or less lost the decency our society needs by collectively working towards ensuring that nothing actually works here.
