Mr President, I address the state of the health sector in our national production. Two related incidents helped to foreground the health question. They gave the subject a somewhat renewed currency. One is the passing of former president Muhammadu Buhari, whose mortal passage occurred in London on July 13, when we were celebrating the 91st birthday of Professor Wole Soyinka, one of the few Nigerians who make the country look big for something.  The second is my visit to Badagry for a medical report. A reflection on the two incidents provoked this thought process in me, which I am attempting to pass on here, hoping it might draw your attention.

In the early days of Buhari’s presidency, he was ill-disposed and had to travel incessantly to London for medication. In one of the instances, he could barely speak audibly and told a bewildered Nigerian public he had not been so ill in his life. Elsewhere, where retrospection works, the president would ensure a first-class health sector that truly works and can cater to both the rich and the poor in the country.

There was perhaps, with hindsight, a budget for a first-rate medical facility in the Presidential Villa that met the intricacies of the president’s health status. I think about N100 billion earmarked for it. Like many Nigerian stories, it was a tragedy. Today, there is nothing to show for it. Mr President, I do not know if you met the relics of a medical outfit over which about N100 billion was appropriated. Perhaps a ‘no’ answer to this query could explain your famed trips to France for sundry reasons, including looking after your health.

Health certainly matters, and that of the president of a sovereign nation matters most. For a president to go abroad for treatment when an alternative solution is possible is to ridicule the country and expose himself/herself to the machinations of the deep state. Mr President, history beckons that you reverse this trend.

Last Friday, July 9, I visited Badagry General Hospital to conduct some tests as part of a medical report that I requested. Although there was a measure of order, the hospital was an empty shell; a sizeable number of the medical doctors working in the place had gone abroad for the legendary Eldorado of other climes where their services are required and given better working conditions, including remunerations.

The waiting lounge for consultation with the doctors was simply overcrowded, and chairs were placed in the open air to accommodate those who could not be accommodated. For this reason, patients will have to wait for nearly four hours to see the doctor for an examination.  While I waited to be attended to, a certain social health worker stood up to address the patients waiting to see the doctor, whose patience was wearing thin. She explains that the absence of medical doctors is responsible for their long waiting hours to be attended to by the infinitesimal number on call.

The Nigerian story: they have all gone to other climes that value their services. It is so sad for a country with over-pampered elected public officials who earn more than professors and health workers. Re-routing such wastage to our medical doctors, professors, and those in research and development ought to be more productive than lame duck politicians in the National Assembly feeding fat on the scarce national resources.

The logical question is: what is the government doing to address the situation? It was being speculated not too long ago, that Lagos state government, at least in respect of Lagos, was seized of the idea of creating a medical university to fill the huge vacuum left behind by the exiting medical doctors. Not a bad idea. But the question remains, that is, if the condition of service remains stagnant, we will lose again those trained to poaching by external employers who desperately need them to booster their health services.

On January 1, 1984 when Brigadier Sani Abacha announced the coup that truncated the Second Republic, the state of the health sector was among the catalogue of woes that bedeviled the country and its immiserised population. In the words of the coup announcer, “Health services are in shambles as our hospitals are reduced to mere consulting clinics without drugs, water and equipment”. The ratio of patients to doctor is appallingly disproportionate that they can barely cope with the surge of patients.

Mr President, isn’t it a national shame that 42 years after the coup d’état that terminated the Second Republic, the state has been unable to revamp the health sector? Today, there are no doctors to even consult; they have all left a country badly managed by those entrusted with the ‘general will’ a la Jean Jacques Rousseau. It is time to genuinely revamp our health sector to truly serve the well-being of our people, curb medical tourism and offer the best available expertise to save lives.

Professor Akhaine is with the Department of Political Science, Lagos State University.

Beginning today, as demonstrated above, the thrust of each article in this series will be headlined along with the column title.