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OPINION: Nigerians and their leaders locked-down together in a Healthcare System they neglected

Pascal Oparada

The phrase, ‘we die here’ has become all the more true as Nigerians and their leaders, for the first time, are facing the same dire situation amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

All of a sudden, there is nowhere to run to for our leaders as they are forced to use the healthcare facilities they neglected over the years. What a world.

Three state governors and Chief of Staff to the president have announced that they are COVID-19 positive. That is the irony that has come to define the outbreak of Coronavirus in Nigeria.

Nigerian elites are forced to use the healthcare system they neglected amid strict restrictions on international travel.

Government officials are now faced with an unusual reality: receiving medical care in Nigeria. It’s a departure from a long-running trend which sees Nigeria’s history replete with instances of high-level government officials shunning local hospitals and seeking treatment abroad.

In 2015, following a car crash, former Akwa Ibom State governor, Godswill Akpabio sought treatment in a London hospital, four months after commissioning an Ultra modern hospital worth N30 billion ($76 million) in Uyo, the state capital.

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In 2017, President Muhammadu Buhari spent 154 days in a London hospital treating an undisclosed ailment despite billions of naira budgeted for the Aso Rock clinic.

In the 2016 budget, N3.87 billion was allocated to the clinic, a budget that made it get N787 million more in capital allocation than all the other 16 teaching hospitals in the country. But there is nothing to show for it.

Today, Kyari is running from pillar to post to get good medical attention in a country that the government he has been the de-facto second-in-command in the last five years refused to build the health infrastructure.

Aisha, and indeed many of Nigeria’s hoi-polloi, must be having a good laugh at the insanity of our leaders if only this was not so tragic.

Nigeria’s First Lady lamented the poor state of the clinic in a public outburst.

“Before I commence my speech,” the First Lady said, “I will like to be realistic and say a few words concerning healthcare and the health delivery system in Nigeria. The Nigeria health sector is in a very, very, very poor, sorry state to say the least.

“Few weeks ago, I was sick … they advised me to take the first flight out to London but 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 called Aso Clinic to find out if the x-ray machine was working. They said it was not working. They did not know that I was 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 … I am sure Dr. Munir will not like me saying this but I have to say it.”

Late Nigerian president , Umar Musa Yar’Adua died in a Saudi Arabia hospital. The chickens have come home to roost.

Abba Kyari is reportedly in Lagos seeking medicare over Coronavirus. Lagos, the only Nigerian state with passable good health facilities, has become the new London, Germany and France, where our leaders run to at the slightest health challenge.

READ ALSO: https://www.thexpressng.com/2020/04/02/covid-19-germany-donates-e5-5m-to-nigeria/

“We’re in this together” has suddenly become their new mantra as they are trapped in the country they have treated its citizens and facilities with disdain.

Maybe, without the option of travelling abroad this time, affected Nigerian government officials will reckon more closely with an underfunded and under-equipped healthcare system that regular Nigerians have become all too familiar with.

Despite annual budgets running into hundreds of millions of dollars for public health, stories of oxygen shortages in public hospitals and surgeries being conducted without electricity remain commonplace in Nigeria.

Similarly, strike actions by public healthcare workers protesting low and unpaid salaries by the government are a frequent occurrence.

As it turns out, even without the option of travelling abroad, some officials do not appear willing to entrust their health to government-owned hospitals while expecting millions of Nigerians to do so; rather than submit to one of the government’s isolation and care centers for coronavirus, Abba Kyari, Buhari’s powerful chief of staff, has already made personal arrangements for his treatment.

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