Of the Public Space, Cancer-related Deaths and Nigeria's Public Health Policy

By

Ademowo Adeyemi Johnson

yemijohnson@gmail.com

 

 

A discerning and critical mind ought to be disturbed by the manner our public space is often privatized and held to ransom, sometime for weeks, by, in some cases tautologously annoying, political issues relegating other vital happenings that are also germane to national growth and development to the background. This ought to be an unwelcome situation in a sane society because all issues ought to enjoy appreciable space in the public gallery. A very recent example of this madness was Ettegate, our 2007 Dance of Shame award-winning drama series. The scandal dominated the public space so much that newspapers headlines became an easily predictable ritual. Not even the Golden Eaglet victory, mind-boggling bank robberies, pathetic but avoidable road accidents and the death of the world-cup winning coach, Mr. Adeyemi Tella MON, could take the 'shine' off the monumental pathetic ode to public decency. Do not get me wrong. I am not saying it is wrong for particular matter to generate a hot debate, far from it. My position is that the ethics of the public space ought to be respected when reporting such issues: a thorough dissection of the matter in such a way that it will rub off positively on what is happening in other areas of our national life is what I crave for.

 

The ethics of public space in the words of eminent scholar, a professor of anthropology, Prof. Olatunde Lawuyi, should allow for a temporal, situational association, a free speech and a freedom of movement that make possible the gathering together of a varied congregation of people and ideas which is nevertheless united in moral support for an identity or cause. In the case of the national public space, the cause we all ought to promote is national development, which has unity, peace and progress as its constituents. Unfortunately, this has not been so. Certain personalities and cyclic issues often monopolize the public space too much without allowing for a productive veneration nay cross-fertilization that would use the current issue as a template to address other issues, which are vital to our growth and development as a nation.

 

In the case of the example of the monopoly I gave earlier, the era of Ettegate,  the privatization of the public space thwarted the attempt by Rev. Fr. Anselm Adodo of the Pax Herbal Clinic to introduce a very vital information that could generate discourse that would promote public health development into our polity. The piece which appeared in one of the national dailies was intended to alert the health policy formulators, and indeed every Nigerian on the rising incidences of cancer. Hear him: "…in terms of cancer, we are worried about the rise. If we have forty patients in a day, twenty will be cancer-related problems".

 

Ordinarily, such health-related revelation as this ought not to be allowed to thin out of the public space, without generating very productive discourse on it, in a sane system. In fact, if news and analyzed issues relating to the death of the award-winning Coach, (a Blackman that is very tactful and knows his onions in the round leather game compared with the white fumbler now handling the 'superless' Eagles), Mr Yemi Tella, was accorded its rightful place in the public space, the public would have linked the two events, Amselm revelation and the cause of Tella's death, together.

 

Need I remind anyone that Coach Tella died after a protracted battle with cancer? So, if, according to Amselm, 20 of 40 patients diagnosed in a clinic daily is suffering from cancer-related problems, and Beko Ransome Kuti, Tyna Onwudiwe (African Oyinbo), Tella and many non-public Nigerians have died of cancer-related complications, what further issues ought to dominate a well-ordered public space? Of course, it ought to be how the populace will be educated on the menace of the disease.

 

Cancer, which occurs when a cell grows independently out of the body's control, is one of the leading cause of death in the world, accounting for 12 per cent of death. It is second only to cardiovascular disease as the cause of mortality in the developed world. It is also in the top-five in most developing countries. In Nigeria, for example, cancer according to the WHO's World Health Report is the third cause of death and accounts for 9.5 per cent of all deaths. This outlined fact, however, is not the problem. The major problem is that the public knowledge of the disease is very poor. Researches conducted to find out the level of knowledge of the disease among youths and middle age women at different times by scholars such as O.G. Akinola, Moronkola O.A. and S.A. Famuyiwa between 1999 and 2004 show that public knowledge of the disease is very low, most especially among the women who are the most hit. It therefore seems that our public health policy is myopic as not to prioritize rightly.

 

Cancer is on the rampage in Nigeria. This is no news to few personnel within the health sector for the WHO's fact quoted earlier is taken from the 1997 report. Ten years on, we are still where we are in Nigeria: we still operate a malfunctioned public health policy which has failed to assess rightly so as to meet the health  needs of the populations rather than individuals. The public ought to know the meaning, types, the epidemiology state, the etiological factors associated with cancer as well as the preventive behaviour against cancer diseases. Of course, the few non-governmental organizations working in this funds starved, compared to well-funded HIV/AIDS outreaches, ought to be appreciated but more personnel and activities are needed to educate the public on the menace of the disease. 

 

But first, we need to sanitize our public space so as to enable public beneficial and equal co-existence of issues that would enable thorough analysis of such vital issues as this. Politics, we know, is the bedrock of developmental activities, but we must be very careful so as not to allow its public space privatization rob us of happenstances in other facet of development most especially public health-related issues. Therefore, I will like to appeal to all to help educate the public on the menace of cancer disease. We are two decades behind most countries but surely, we could work wonder with the ample time we have.

 

Yemi Ademowo Johnson, socio-political philosopher, bioethicist, is of the Applied Anthropology Programme, University of Ibadan, Ibadan

© 2008