History is not on the side of Nigeria (Africa) when it comes to declaration of health condition of an individual or of a country.  The remanence of the inherent backwardness of Africa which was inflicted on a princely people by the colonialists still manages to rear its ugly head every now and then.  We observe this in the way Nigerians deal with their health, with each other, organize their industries, politics, establish relationship, and trust.

Recently, President Yar ‘Adua broke the taboo of not talking about a man’s health condition by declaring in front of the whole world that he has kidney problem.  All right thinking Nigerian should applaud the president for this courageous act.  By breaking this taboo, I believe the president did a great service to Nigeria and to Africa.

In the past, it was considered unconscionable to ask or discuss other people’s health in Nigeria unlike in the United States of America and other developed nations where health records are for the public to view especially when such person is a public servant whose salary is paid by tax payers.  For instance, in cases where marriage is involved, the partners depended on family sketchy oral history and pepper soup joint gossip to know the health of partners instead of depending on formal health history and, these days, on DNA.  In previous life, women hid their pregnancies as if they were suffering from incurable decease.  This shortsightedness approach to health issues paralyzed the Nigerian healthcare and political systems.  Now that the President has come out clean with his health condition and stated that he is suffering from Kidney problem, Nigeria must build on this revelation by improving health care, build world class hospitals not in Germany but in Nigeria.

Like our personal health, Nigeria’s political health is not good and the leaders must also confess this to the nation so that we can begin the rebuilding process.  Any viable business and political operatives know that they have to use performance measurement to improve efficiency and effectiveness, to enhance the quality of products and services, and to show accountability, why not in politics.  Incredibly, public and private health organizations use performance measurement to link resources with outcomes, health risks, and various service and protection mechanisms. Their goal: To improve both human and political health of a nation such as Nigeria.  It is the focus of any nation to show how states can develop performance measures based on healthy People objectives.

Sometimes, one wonders if Nigerian leaders are actually in a good health because some of the decisions they make on behalf of the helpless citizens replicate people with psychotic tendencies.  Maybe instead of first probing corrupt leaders and their sycophants, we need to send them to Aro mental hospital.  Once these leaders are found sane, we can let the rule of law take its course.  Personal and political health situations of Nigerians are now clear and present danger to the very existence of our nation.  By checking the status of most of these leaders we can find and determine, once and for all, that the state of the nation is not sound and, as such, we must make sure that we cure the spiritual, physical and the political health of Nigeria.  It is taking us more than 47 years to get to this necessary self-assessing stage.

These days, God is performing cleansing of the world because truth, we are told, shall set us free.  How can one justify why Scott McClellan, President Bush’s press secretary revealing the inner most working and convolutions of Bush’s reasons that lead to Iraq war?  Afterall, Mr. McClellan was the mega-phone of the administration.  Why did he not speak out before now?  Why did he allow many lives to be lost before speaking out?   I guess one can say that even if he had spoken then, he could have either be eliminated or at best, none of the neo-cons would have listened.

Thousand of miles away from the shores of the United States of America, Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu I, was having a bed side conversion.  He finally came out to tell the whole world how OBJ was forced on Nigerians by few directionless, Jeep-collecting traditional Rulers.  Oba of Lagos described OBJ as a selfish unforgiving man who will do anything to get what he wants.  This is not news to any observing Nigerian.  What Oba of Lagos did was to offer confirmation to Chief Obasanjo’s 3^rd term Agenda critics that OBJ promised to give back the Presidency which he does not own back to the North even if the last Northerner standing was an idiot savant.  The likes of OBJ remain clear and present danger to the Nigeria state.  Such people are always willing able and ready with the help of sycophants to sell Nigeria out and to impose pseudo democracy which they can manipulate on Nigeria.  It is time for patriotic Nigerians to tell these types of leaders to get off the stage and go to hell with the money they stole from “our” treasury.  These types of leaders are mindless, if not, why will a man like OBJ copy IBB by building mansion on top of a hill?  I guess this is copy–cat mentality common in Nigeria.  The biblical quote, “what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul,” is applicable to today’s leaders?

Like Scott McClellan, Oba Rilwan Akiolu I did a thorough expose on the rational behind OBJ’s second coming and the strategy to become a life president of Nigeria.  OBJ did not become life president because God is still on the throne.  We are told that no matter how fast lies travel, truth will always catch up.  So, to those who were defending OBJ that he was not interested in 3^rd term and Nigerians were just imagining it, but here we go – Oba of Lagos is saying, shame on them.

So, now, how can President Musa Yar ‘Adua and Nigeria get their health back?  One way for the President to achieve good health is to make sure that he improves the overall health of Nigerians by challenging able Nigerian physicians to come back home to establish reasonable fee for service hospitals.  If the hospitals are credible, Nigerians will be ready to pay for good health service.   By this gesture from the Nigerian healthcare professionals, Nigerians must learn to be responsible and not to take the hospitals as charitable organization and rely on begging.  Mr. President should realize that it is not how long one lives that matter but the legacy one leaves behind.

Nigerians must demand good roads.  They must demand to know the homes, and the business addresses of those that are given road contracts to execute.  It is time for Nigerians to complain in a timely manner when the projects are not executed and demand the road project be executed or money be returned, then and only then can accidents be reduced to reasonable limit.  Additionally, Nigeria must establish credible hospitals in each state, and make energy stabilization an integral part the nation’s industrial strategy.  This administration must ask those greedy unpatriotic Nigerians that sold all the gas and took Nigeria into the Dark Age to return the money they fraudulently received from the sale of our common parastatals.

Nigeria’s political health must be redeemed from the synchronized do-or-die savagery of the last election.  The likes of OBJ must never be allowed to rule Nigeria ever again.  We need a new type of politics; politics that breeds compassion, that has strategies for creating jobs and reduce armed robbery resulting from joblessness, and politics that is capable of advocating on behalf of the poor and the disenfranchised.

For Nigeria, the way she can gain her health groove back is to make sure that credible Nigerians who are willing to sacrifice all for the smooth running of the nation are co-opted to serve.  The era of greed must be over otherwise, the next 47 years will be déjà vu all over again.  It is our collective believe that Nigerians are too smart not to wake up from their slumbers and correct the inconsistencies in the nations polity.  If the directionless, Jeep-collecting traditional Rulers and the low self-esteemed leaders are not stop dead in their tracks, then, someone, the youth, just anyone should tell them to go where the sun never shines and move the nation forward.

May Allah grant Mr. President improved health, wisdom that is beyond all understanding and give Nigeria needed reprieve from politics of greedy and of 419 – amen.  Only healthy citizens can partake in healthy politics.

Robot  # 1 | 31.05.2008 20:29

History is not on the side of Nigeria (Africa) when it comes to declaration of health condition ...Read the full article.