Is Nigeria As A Country Sick?

By

Wale Akin

luga9mm@yahoo.com

My deepest condolence mixed with sympathy to the departed souls and gross empathy for the families left behind for how would they bear these irreparable looses? May God in his infinite mercies give us all the strength needed at this crucial hour of our national lives.

I am personally not too well disposed to the ways and manners both the Federal and state governments handled the recent Bellview airline crash, the inability of our so called government to gain a due sense of the situation not to talk about mounting a speedy emergency response is highly pitiful and the word stinks will be an understatement. It took a whole 24 hours to actually locate a crashed airplane that has been missing from the radar immediately it took off from Lagos, now the annoying aspect of this sad story is the simple fact that local villagers spotted the crash site and to add insults unto the already aggravated injuries, there were conflicting reports about 50 survivors thereby raising our hopes only to be dashed later when it became real that one could have survived such plunge.

I washed the gory site on CNN here in the UK and was so shocked to see loads of on-lookers who also doubled as sympathizers walking and rummaging right at the site of the crash, now my question is thus, was that site cordoned off at all in order to not tamper with evidences that would necessary be of paramount importance to aid investigation? I was also disturbed that Bellview airlines, the owners of the ill-fated airplane could not quickly ascertain and give concrete reports to panicky relatives who thronged their office only for the spokesperson who sat down as if nothing happened said to my utter disbelief that they don’t have any information yet as to what really happened, what a statement! The manifest was not released until Sunday night, well over 24 hours after the crash; do we even have any sense of mutual belonging in that geographical crap called Nigeria?

I need to add at this juncture the gross incompetence of FAAN, this parastatal has long been an accident itself and totally in and out coma ever since its existence, the degree of disorganization and absolute lawlessness we have witnessed in time past calls for serious concerns and is reflective of the rot that has become of Nigerian airports management, a microcosm of the federal government. I have been opportuned to see managers sleep on duty at the Murtala Mohammed Int’l Airport, I have seen non-functional telephones, I have been on several occasions double booked on a single seat on local and Int’l flights and had to fight it out with the innocent passengers, I have on two occasions traveled to Abuja and Maiduguri with names like Mr. Chigozie Nnamdi and Mr. Joshua Efue not for anything but the fact that the officials of the airlines (name withheld) actually sold the tickets to fictitious names only to re-sell it to real and desperate travelers who wants to meet up with appointments, I had on both occasion called my relatives on phone to intimate them of these gross misconducts should in case we crash!!!

We still have a very long way to go, rapid responses to emergencies in Nigeria is still very slow and why should reporters have access to personal effects of the crashed victims? The roads leading to Lisa, the village of the crash is not motorable at all, another ill of the government, I read that it took the intervention of SHELL/NNPC joint partnership to get to the site with their privately owned Helicopters, I also read that various fire engines were grounded in muddy waters several kilometers to the site and local villagers had to come to the site well before emergency operatives got there and synonymous with Nigerians non-pitiance attitudes, they would all have made away with costly personal effects of the victims, Trust Nigerians to have a field day scavenging like Vultures on dead bodies, May God forgive us all. I read on-line yesterday that a cheque belonging to the Deeper Life Bible Church, a Christian organization in Nigeria was found at the crash scene, why allow such information to be published? Daar Communications, owners of AIT and Ray powers were temporary banned by the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation for showing unedited versions of the crash thereby injuring the psyche of sensitive viewers, don’t we have any sense of positive direction in that country again?

Late Mrs. Stella Obasanjo’s death came as a rude shock but lets not becloud our sense of reasoning by not telling it as it should be, in as much as its a national loss, must the wife of the president of a country be seeking medical attention out her country of residence? Her death is a national eye-opener to the rot that has come to stay on our national heath care system; her death will forever be a stinging factor and a recurring decimal to the malaise that has spread its dragnet all over the country. Every political office holders does a medical check up outside Nigeria and leave the rest of us to the ill-equipped teaching hospitals with no qualified doctors on site, they leave us to local herbs that has replaced real medicine and as long as this continue, the various comatose morgues across the country will continue to be filled.

Recall that Late Adisa was also airlifted to Luton here in the UK when he was involved in a very fatal road accident, when are we going to learn? It’s a monumental shame that the sitting president’s wife of Nigeria died outside the country as a result of the rot on the health care system of our beloved country. I wouldn’t say because Olusegun Obasanjo has failed us being the president, then we all shouldn’t commiserate with him on the death of his beloved wife, my prayers goes to him now with all sympathy and say that God will grant him the fortitude to bear the loss.

Now this is a golden question to Olusegun Obasanjo, HOW MUCH WOULD IT COST THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT TO BRING ALL THE TEACHING HOSPITALS TO NATIONAL STANDARDS?

Wale Akin lives in Kent, UK and a founding member of a group called MEN NOW!