The ongoing coronavirus pandemic
(COVID-19), which has compelled people to stay within their localities,
illuminates the genius of the ageless adage: charity begins at home. It has
exposed the malignant ignorance within Nigerian leaders who prefer foreign medical
treatment while neglecting the amenities at home. The COVID-19 has profoundly
exposed the nature and scope of the Nigerian healthcare crisis. Yet, every
cloud has a silver lining!
The recent coronavirus controversy in
Enugu is a perplexing preface. A 70-year old woman was suspected to be carrying
the virus. But there is no laboratory capable of administering the COVID-19
test in the entire Eastern Region. Thus, it took several days before the test
result could arrive from faraway Irrua in Edo State. Though the result returned
negative, the woman had already died while isolated in squalor at a grungy
ESUT Teaching Hospital complex. The irony is that this incident took place in
Enugu—of all places, the Igbo flagship metropolis that has no excuse to lag in
development, having served as the capital of Eastern Region, capital of Biafra,
capital of East Central State, capital of the old Anambra State; and currently
the capital of Enugu State. This predicament only goes to ridicule the faculty
of the globally renowned Igbo intelligentsia that parades Enugu as its sanctum.
The most mind-boggling yet is the
situation in Northern Nigeria. Though the North is the perennial epicentre of
the national healthcare crisis, it never dawned on the politicians to establish
standard hospitals and laboratories for testing a disease like Coronavirus in the entire
region, besides an outfit at the nation’s capital, Abuja. To test for the
virus, those in Sokoto will have to travel over 650 km while those in Maiduguri
must commit 845 kilometres before reaching Abuja. One can only wonder the
wisdom of the Northern leaders, widely celebrated for strategic vision in
gaining power, but who continually fail to maximize such power towards the
common good of their people.
In a 2015 essay, “Every Nigerian Blood is
on the Line”, I drew attention to the ignorance of Nigerian leaders, who tend
to forget that good leadership is vitally important to both the led and the
leader. I enumerated the embarrassing cases of highly placed politicians from
the immediate past administration who lost their close relatives because they
failed to provide good amenities in the local communities, such as President
Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience Jonathan, Namadi Sambo, David Mark, and Ike
Ekweremadu, among others.
Also remember the strong man of Ibadan
politics, Lamidi Adedibu, who died on his way to procure travelling documents
towards a foreign medical trip. Equally relative is the case of Emeka Odumegwu
Ojukwu and Alex Ekwueme. These two prominent men suffered stroke in the same
Enugu at different times but had to allow a few weeks to stabilize before
embarking on foreign treatment. Before they could reach their British
destinations, their situations worsened. Neither Ojukwu nor Ekwueme made it
back home alive. Needless to mention sitting Head of State Sani Abacha and
President Umar Yar’Adua, who died at the Aso Villa, under questionable health
conditions.
The crisis conundrum is that the
current leaders still did not seem to get it. Nigeria’s top officeholders,
including President Buhari, embraced foreign medical treatment as second
nature. But that was then—definitively then!
The point, if it is not already
apparent is that coronavirus has emerged as a quintessential equalizer.
It has provoked a national consciousness and common sense, by consequence. The
pandemic has made it imperative that people, both rich and poor, must seek
prevention or treatment in their immediate environment. The elites maybe
accorded the usual preferential treatment, quite alright, but any attempt to
ignore the masses, as in the past, is a poisoned chalice.
The foregoing thesis becomes more
compelling, when considered that the threat of the COVID-19 in Nigeria is real.
Though there are only 44 confirmed cases as at the time of this essay, the low
number simply signifies lack of adequate testing centres. A forewarning is that
out of those 44 cases, 35 were in the Western Region, being the cluster where 4
out of the 5 testing laboratories in the country are located. It is also not a
coincidence that both the East and the Far-North are yet to record any case.
Their common denominator is plainly the absence of testing centres in those
zones. Moreover, testing for the COVID-19, for now, remains an elitist agenda.
But the truth remains that every Nigerian life is on the line.
A dream cure, therefore, is a
revolutionary approach that can sufficiently address the Nigerian short and
long-term healthcare needs. Besides any mitigation measures or cure for the
COVID-19, Nigeria must, without any delay, equip and modernize eight existing
university teaching hospitals to international standards. While six of
such hospitals should be spread in the six political zones, the remaining two
would be allocated to Abuja and Lagos. This revolutionary plan is well studied,
and the goal is twofold: First, it will significantly improve the national
healthcare delivery for the ordinary Nigerian people. Second, it will be able
to treat the Nigerian leaders and stem the shameless pattern of medical tourism
in foreign lands.
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