ealth care has been laid to rest in Nigeria. The undertaker has been called in and, he, like the proverbial enemy, has done his worst. The undertaker with presidential powers has finished off the work started by Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB) in the 1980s when teaching hospitals were left under funded as the evil genius and his sidekicks preferred the care they receive from German hospitals. It was in the German hospitals that Babangida had treatment for his feet and some other ailments. It was in those same German hospitals with the connections of Julius Berger that every friend, minister, sidekick of Babangida got medical attention.
The trip by top government officials during the free-for-all years of IBB were far more frequent than their trips to evaluate and review what was going on in the teaching hospitals. But now an undertaker is in town and he has done his worst and put health care to rest in Nigeria. His preference is for medical care in Saudi Arabia, way in the desert transformed into greatness by sultans who preferred to use their own oil wealth to develop their own nation and build hospitals for their own people. The sultans did not only build hospitals, they also attracted the very best of medical doctors from the West and also from Nigeria. Some of the best Nigerian doctors are in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations including UAE. Nigerian hospitals now exist in name only, thanks to the policy of overseas presidential treatment and patronage.
Since Umaru Yar'Ardua took over the presidency he has not stepped into any teaching hospital in Nigeria. He has no need for them. He has a direct line to the hospitals in Saudi Arabia and his presidential jet probably has a reserved lot at the airport there. President Yar'Ardua has no business with the hospitals in Nigeria because they have nothing to offer; our hospitals are not good and can do no good or bring any good to anyone who still wishes to live, So why go to a place that has been laid to rest, a place that will definitely contribute to and lead any patient to his/her death. President Yar'Ardua is wise enough to avoid a dead-end. Why go to a hospital where they lack basic diagnostic equipment to even determine what is wrong with you? What wisdom is there in wasting precious time to seek help where none exist; to waste time that is already running out and, time, being of vital importance here, cannot be ignored, which is why it is better to just hop into the presidential jet each time the president needs a dialysis and dash to Saudi Arabia. Remember, great citizens of Nigeria that live has no duplicate, particularly the president's. The state must spare nothing to preserve, protect, enhance, and sustain the life of its president.
President Umaru Yar'Ardua has visited Saudi Arabia for medical treatment more times than he has visited any Nigerian hospitals. He probably has lost count of the times he has been to Saudi Arabia. He may even have lost track of what his visits to Saudi Arabian hospitals have cost the nation. I wonder who picks up the bills each time Yar'Ardua travels to Saudi Arabia for his treatments. From which of the endless votes at Aso Rock is the money taken to pay his Excellency's medical bills? How many Nigerians have been sent back from the Igbobi Orthopaedic to go and get bandage, gloves, needles, injections, drips, etc.? How many Nigerians have died of wrong diagnosis from our hospitals in the two years President Yar'Ardua travelled to Saudi Arabia for his urgently needed treatment? How many Nigerian children have died of treatable and avoidable diseases because simple and cheap tools needed in the hospitals are not available? The survival of every citizen is now in his or her hands. The president has chosen hospitals in Saudi Arabia to be on standby and ready to move him into intensive care anytime he visits. The same president has consigned Nigerians to the mortuary for every sickness that is bigger than headache and fever. No hospital in Nigeria is equipped to handle emergency. The teaching hospitals do not even have trauma care and well equipped emergency units that can help accident victims, fire emergencies, and other disasters that frequently take place in Nigeria. With frequent pipeline fires and buildings under construction collapsing these days, is there any hope that victims will ever survive in Yar'Ardua's Nigeria? I am not so sure if President Yar'Ardua is working out some plans to make sure that every Nigerian in need of urgent medical care is flown to Saudi Arabia as well. I will think that is just the fair thing to do. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has not shown much interest in the plight of Nigerians and the terrible state of our medical institutions. The NMA is aware of the terrible state of our teaching and tertiary health institutions and yet it has not done much to demand upgrades and insist that they be equipped adequately to meet the standard of the hospitals President Umaru Yar'Ardua is used to in Saudi Arabia.
The Ghana-must-go making the rounds in Abuja can be channelled into providing tools and equipment to the teaching hospitals. Has there been any dialysis equipment which was used to treat President Yar'Ardua while on his medical treatment in Saudi that he has procured for any public hospitals in Nigeria? Or did Yar'Ardua consider them too expensive and therefore unwise to spend so much money to buy for our hospitals? I know for a fact that President Yar'Ardua has seen state of the art medical equipment in Saudi Arabia hospitals and some of the best educational equipment at the university he visited in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. I remember the governor of Jeddah told his guests at the opening ceremony of that university that the school has the best equipment available anywhere in the world. Did President Yar'Ardua take notes and make a list of the equipment with plans to buy them for Nigerian universities? If he did not and if he actually has no plans to do so, then he is not fit to lead Nigeria. Yar'Ardua will definitely be a traitor of the Nigerian people and an enemy of our youths and nation if he did not consider the diagnostic equipment and educational tools and materials he saw while in Saudi Arabia good enough for Nigeria and Nigerians.
If Yar'Ardua has no problem realizing his need for good medical treatment and he came to the conclusion that such life-saving medical treatment not available in Nigeria and can only be found overseas and Saudi Arabia, it will be selfish of him to expect Nigerians to stick with a broken and unreliable medical system while he uses their money, the tax payers money and the Niger Delta's oil revenue to get treatment for himself in Saudi Arabia. Yar'Ardua has laid the nation's hospitals to rest for good. With the nation's hospitals laid to rest for good, he has also prepared the people of Nigeria for untimely death. Welcome to the graveyard Yar'Ardua built.
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