Olaniyonu’s second chance

Although it is full of episodes that could be extracted for a blockbuster inthe make-believe industry, Olaniyonu’s “second chance” is not a movie. It does not belong to any other fictional genres either. Notwithstanding thatone can point to certain similarities in the lyrics of Second Chance, a song by Shinedown, it is not a song, except one turns it into one.

It is a real-life story of “one-chance” incidents experienced and told by Yusuf Olaniyonu. Wikipedia describes him as “a journalist”, lawyer and public administrator, who (served) as the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the (13th) President of the Nigeria Senate, Bukola Saraki.” Eventhough he had worked in public offices for well over 10 years, it was at Thisday, where he rose to the position of Editor, that his name earned a limelight identity.

First published and posted online on July 30, in Premium Times, it wastitled “At 58, God has given me a second chance”. To the best of my knowledge, it is Olaniyonu’s most read stories. Except the deliberate omission of the names of physicians and medical facilities that put his lifeon “one-chance”, it is a story that could fetch a journalist anywhere multiple awards from many corners of the world.

Olaniyonu has no intention of winning award with the story or drawing attention to himself. After all, he has been known enough. The piece, which actually appeared on opinion pages, is a personal viewpoint of the writer.

Olaniyonu stated the essence of the article thus: “I have written this piece to celebrate the fact that I am alive, despite my ordeal in the past five months. But I have also written it to share my experience of the Nigerian medical system. Even before I travelled to Egypt, I realized that so much is wrong with our medical system, for which I nearly paid with my life. But my experience in Egyptian hospitals and Egyptian doctors made me realise this even more.”

What Olaniyonu had realised for a long time, even before his personal experience, was the “one-chance” treatment he went through in the handsof Nigerian medical doctors and hospitals. One-Chance, in Nigerian parlance, is extremely risky situation that one has no escape route. The etymology of the phrase is traced to conspiracy gang in Lagos, mostly in commercial motor vehicles, where innocent persons are entrapped into.

Olaniyonu’s one-chance cannot be said to have been conspiratorial, letalone criminal. It was a systemic failure, common in almost all sectors of private and public life in Nigeria. He went for elective surgery and not emergency, implying that it was not a condition that threatened to send Olaniyonu to grave in the afternoon of his life. It was one that could be scheduled in advance date but which the subject of this piece chose to have at the time he did so as to get rid of certain symptoms indicating malfunctioning in his body system.

For a man who walked into his vehicle and drove himself to hospital to become incapacitated to a point of not being able to use his hands on the commonest action of his body, let alone walking unaided after being attended to by doctors, the cliché “from fry pan to fire” does not need to come into narration before people understand how Olaniyonu’s situation was made worse by medical professionals and facilities he submitted his life for improvement.

Such ordeal is everyday experience in Nigeria and so many people in the country have been victims of the worsening system of things. So many of them had no chance, like Olaniyonu to give personal accounts. A number of those who have survived after being put at the brink of death are also so underprivileged to make their ordeal known to the rest of the world. The story of how Olaniyonu returns to life after being made to crawl on the threshold of death is heard by millions of people across the globe because he has privileges in many fronts.

Olaniyonu’s “second chance” report recounted with painstaking details and simple dictions of Chinua Achebe and chronicled with journalism canons of accuracy, fairness, truthfulness and decency is a story from a journalist who returned from the world of the dead situated within the world of the living. In both dismal and delighted areas, many deductions abound in the story.

Firstly, an ideal spousal relationship goes beyond the beauty or handsome look of the face and socio-economic worth of concerned partners. Mutual love is the ultimate. The love and know-how exhibited by Olaniyonu’s wife in managing the desperate situation contributed beautifully in returning the handsome communication strategist to life. The family bond that is on the decline in Africa today owing to frenzy quest to catch up with globalization was quite handy for Olaniyonu. The undertaking of responsibilities in beats by his children for the survival of their father speaks volume that all have not been lost in Africa’s rich culture. In fact, one of his son, who is pursuing a job career abroad had to temporarily relocate and arrange his work schedules to accommodate caring for his hospitalised father in Egypt.

At personal level, irrespective of faith affiliations, political persuasions and tribes of origin, many Nigerians are still good at being their brother’skeepers. Nduka Obaigbena and Bukola Saraki, among others madeworldwide demonstration that employer-employee relationship transcends paying for, and rendering, services to each other. It includes providing the
needed needs when a subordinate is in need and vice versa.

It was a glaring testimony that Olaniyonu’s wishes for Nigeria when he turned 50 had manifested in his own life when it mattered so much. His birthday wishes then, in a piece entitled “My Baale Idi Araba story were: May God bless our country and return her to that era when kindness reigned among the citizenry and when we all live like a large community peopled by good neighbours.”

It must be acknowledged that Africa’s extended family and communal life have filled in so many gaps of our institutional dysfunctionalities. Also, forits millennial record of saving lives of people who were about to be killed intheir native lands, Egypt deserves some forms of universal recognition.

Think of Biblical Joseph, the ancient Israelites, Jesus Christ “of Nazareth”,and now Nigeria’s Olaniyonu, among countless others.Olaniyonu’s Abrahamic faith in the Almighty God is a bold statement that worshipping the Almighty God and deriving blessings therefrom may have less to do with the type of religious scripture one is using but more to dowith sincere adherence and commitment to the infinite power and love of the Supreme Creator.

Unfortunately, most times slurs have been creeping into the soundness in the factors enumerated above. While medical professionals of Nigerian nationality are considered excellent and exemplary in the overseas, their colleagues in Nigeria appear to be non-recommendable. What Olaniyonu went through presents clues of hell-on-earth that many, especially the downtrodden and underprivileged, go through on daily basis in Nigeria without alarm being raised.

From what he stated of himself, one can also see mystery in life. Upon being careful of what he eats and uses his body to do, Olaniyonu was still struck down by an ailment that tended to put his life on terminal lane. The same way it remains mysterious that Gani Fawehinmi, who abhorred smoking and alcohol drinking, died of cancer assumed to be the portion of those who do what he faithfully avoided. While we should not dumb scientific knowledge, it should also be accepted that so many things are yet unrevealed to humans: a concern for increased pursuit for knowledge!

Borrowing from the lyrics of Second Chance, a song by the American singer,Olaniyonu’s next chance has created yet another “wide” opening for Nigerian authorities to rise up to challenges in the health sector. The differences between what is medically obtained in Nigeria and elsewhere can only be traced to factors embedded in Nigeria.

Everyday occurrences are symptomatic enough that Nigeria’s medical system is in a very critical condition, requiring emergency attention of holistic surgery and recalibration in impeccable facility manned by credible top-notch leaders in rich possession of credibility of character and competence.
• Ekanem, a journalist, sent this piece from Lagos through
[email protected].