Apartheid Nigeria
By Pius Adesanmi
Copied from this ever-truthful professor!
Crawling gradually back into Nigeriana after a busy week, I hear with
one ear that the mental carburetor of the average career Jonathanian
has been overheating this weekend because of some incident involving
their spiritual leader at OAU. I have to read up on that and return
with my two and a half kobo later. I also hear that Nigeria's former
Foreign Affairs Minister, Gbenga Ashiru, has died in a hospital in
South Africa. I am sorry to hear this news. Whatever you may think of
him and his political choices and affiliations, he was a fine Nigerian
technocrat.
However, I am not sorry to hear that he died in a hospital in South
Africa. We are getting to a point where the only criterion that the
WHO will use in gauging the development of a country's healthcare
sector is the data on members of Nigeria's rulership who go there to
die. Your hospitals will be deemed underdeveloped only if there is no
known record of any member of Nigeria's political elite having ever
come there to die. Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, India,
Thailand, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe,
Scandinavia, parts of Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates are safe. They risk no classification of underdevelopment
because they are choice destinations of transition to the great beyond
by members of Nigeria's ruling elite. If members of Nigeria's
political elite are not coming to die in your hospitals, your citizens
ought to be worried. Something ain't right about your healthcare
system.
The hospitals of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Juba, Damascus, Brazzaville,
Kabul, Islamabad, Kandahar, Gaza, and the West Bank rank poorly on the
development index not because of crisis and conflict in those places
but because there is surprisingly no record yet of a member of
Nigeria's political elite having gone to those places for medical
treatment. I will not hold my breath.
My brain is exhausted from the effort of trying to understand this
phenomenon. I've spent years studying it and finding no answers. For
an elite that is so swift in solving its own problems, why have they
never bothered about this singular problem of healthcare? Why have
they never built a single hospital that can rival any of the major
health centres in the developed world? They could build one in Nigeria
and not have to travel to die in funny places, no? Why won't they do
it? They have solved virtually every other problem they have. They are
the wealthiest minuscule group of politicians and elite on earth. They
are less than a million people and they make billions from oil every
day - price crash or no price crash. Why won't they build a single
hospital that is truly world class in Nigeria?
For their road problems, they have gutted the Nigerian airspace with
private jets and helicopters so they won't have to use those roads.
For electricity they have soundproof Mikano generators to run even Aso
Rock so visitors won't know that there is no light. Armed robbers?
Kidnappers? They hire private security firms - especially Israelis -
to secure themselves and their families. For every problem, they have
found a solution that keeps Nigeria at bay.
Medical infrastructure is the only problem they have refused to solve.
I am starting to believe that their refusal to build a hospital has to
do with the logistical problems of exclusivity. Nigeria is a classist,
horribly apartheid society. There is no greater insult for members of
Nigeria's political elite than to share the same spaces and facilities
with non-members of that class. In a society of water must find its
level, where a Minister could monopolize the only functional elevator
in his Ministry, where there could be separate entrances, etc, for
Ogas in public buildings (a 21st century apartheid actively encouraged
by the followership), the only way you could be in the same space with
these people is if you are there as a driver, a cleaner, a PA - or in
some other servile and inferior capacity.
This explains why they find only solutions that could enhance this
apartheid structure in all spheres of Nigerian life. Bad roads? Buy
private jets and helicopters. That way, you won't even be in the same
space with the people anymore. You fly over them.
Bad hospitals? Build one or two super exclusive hospitals that could
rival the medical centres at Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, etc.
Em... em... wait a minute, we could do that but there is a problem o.
Chief, how are we going to make it exclusive so that only members of
our class could have access? Alhaji, how are we going to ensure that
water finds its level? General, how are we going to maintain the
status quo? In these days of yahoo-yahoo boys, cost may not be an
appropriate marker of class and other boundaries o. Make the cost of
consulting a doctor in such a hospital 10,000 dollars and a
yahoo-yahoo boy could bring it out of the trunk of his car and gain
access. Yet, we are not allowed to state openly that only certain
members of the political and economic rulership - those with pedigree;
old and semi-old money - are allowed. How do we guarantee exclusivity?
How would water find its level if we built a hospital? Medical safaris
abroad remain the only viable option o.
I once wrote a piece about why these people solved the Ebola problem
so quickly. They were quick to recognize the fact that Ebola is no
respecter of class exclusivity. If they had scientific guarantees from
the UN and WHO that Ebola could be restricted to Oshodi, Okokomaiko,
and Nyanya, we'd still be losing Nigerians to that disease as I
write...
Copied from this ever-truthful professor!
Crawling gradually back into Nigeriana after a busy week, I hear with
one ear that the mental carburetor of the average career Jonathanian
has been overheating this weekend because of some incident involving
their spiritual leader at OAU. I have to read up on that and return
with my two and a half kobo later. I also hear that Nigeria's former
Foreign Affairs Minister, Gbenga Ashiru, has died in a hospital in
South Africa. I am sorry to hear this news. Whatever you may think of
him and his political choices and affiliations, he was a fine Nigerian
technocrat.
However, I am not sorry to hear that he died in a hospital in South
Africa. We are getting to a point where the only criterion that the
WHO will use in gauging the development of a country's healthcare
sector is the data on members of Nigeria's rulership who go there to
die. Your hospitals will be deemed underdeveloped only if there is no
known record of any member of Nigeria's political elite having ever
come there to die. Ghana, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, India,
Thailand, the USA, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe,
Scandinavia, parts of Eastern Europe, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates are safe. They risk no classification of underdevelopment
because they are choice destinations of transition to the great beyond
by members of Nigeria's ruling elite. If members of Nigeria's
political elite are not coming to die in your hospitals, your citizens
ought to be worried. Something ain't right about your healthcare
system.
The hospitals of Mogadishu, Baghdad, Juba, Damascus, Brazzaville,
Kabul, Islamabad, Kandahar, Gaza, and the West Bank rank poorly on the
development index not because of crisis and conflict in those places
but because there is surprisingly no record yet of a member of
Nigeria's political elite having gone to those places for medical
treatment. I will not hold my breath.
My brain is exhausted from the effort of trying to understand this
phenomenon. I've spent years studying it and finding no answers. For
an elite that is so swift in solving its own problems, why have they
never bothered about this singular problem of healthcare? Why have
they never built a single hospital that can rival any of the major
health centres in the developed world? They could build one in Nigeria
and not have to travel to die in funny places, no? Why won't they do
it? They have solved virtually every other problem they have. They are
the wealthiest minuscule group of politicians and elite on earth. They
are less than a million people and they make billions from oil every
day - price crash or no price crash. Why won't they build a single
hospital that is truly world class in Nigeria?
For their road problems, they have gutted the Nigerian airspace with
private jets and helicopters so they won't have to use those roads.
For electricity they have soundproof Mikano generators to run even Aso
Rock so visitors won't know that there is no light. Armed robbers?
Kidnappers? They hire private security firms - especially Israelis -
to secure themselves and their families. For every problem, they have
found a solution that keeps Nigeria at bay.
Medical infrastructure is the only problem they have refused to solve.
I am starting to believe that their refusal to build a hospital has to
do with the logistical problems of exclusivity. Nigeria is a classist,
horribly apartheid society. There is no greater insult for members of
Nigeria's political elite than to share the same spaces and facilities
with non-members of that class. In a society of water must find its
level, where a Minister could monopolize the only functional elevator
in his Ministry, where there could be separate entrances, etc, for
Ogas in public buildings (a 21st century apartheid actively encouraged
by the followership), the only way you could be in the same space with
these people is if you are there as a driver, a cleaner, a PA - or in
some other servile and inferior capacity.
This explains why they find only solutions that could enhance this
apartheid structure in all spheres of Nigerian life. Bad roads? Buy
private jets and helicopters. That way, you won't even be in the same
space with the people anymore. You fly over them.
Bad hospitals? Build one or two super exclusive hospitals that could
rival the medical centres at Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, etc.
Em... em... wait a minute, we could do that but there is a problem o.
Chief, how are we going to make it exclusive so that only members of
our class could have access? Alhaji, how are we going to ensure that
water finds its level? General, how are we going to maintain the
status quo? In these days of yahoo-yahoo boys, cost may not be an
appropriate marker of class and other boundaries o. Make the cost of
consulting a doctor in such a hospital 10,000 dollars and a
yahoo-yahoo boy could bring it out of the trunk of his car and gain
access. Yet, we are not allowed to state openly that only certain
members of the political and economic rulership - those with pedigree;
old and semi-old money - are allowed. How do we guarantee exclusivity?
How would water find its level if we built a hospital? Medical safaris
abroad remain the only viable option o.
I once wrote a piece about why these people solved the Ebola problem
so quickly. They were quick to recognize the fact that Ebola is no
respecter of class exclusivity. If they had scientific guarantees from
the UN and WHO that Ebola could be restricted to Oshodi, Okokomaiko,
and Nyanya, we'd still be losing Nigerians to that disease as I
write...
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