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Staying And Leaving: Trouble!

By Kole Omotoso
26 July 2015   |   4:56 am
The first departures were of the professionals, in particular the medical doctors. They could not fulfil their professional duties given the lawlessness in the state.

Nigeria“ALMOST all of them had achieved more in Europe and The United States of America than they would have achieved in Africa, because the opportunities to take initiatives, to display their skills, their energy, in short to confirm their personality, were greater abroad than they were here.”

The first departures were of the professionals, in particular the medical doctors. They could not fulfil their professional duties given the lawlessness in the state. It was impossible to order and get delivered mere oxygen and patients died for the absence of the most common material. Everywhere lawlessness reigned and there was nobody to rein in the situation. Doctor friend, his wife and three children of school going age left to Canada, never to come back to Nigeria.

The fate of the medical profession should have knocked some sense into the political leaders of the country. Merchants of death imported fake and expired drugs into the country.

They are still importing fake and expired drugs into Nigeria. And in spite of NAFDAC or even because of NAFDAC, such money making rackets continue.

There was an arrangement between these criminals and NAFDAC. They would import ten containers of fake and expired drugs, NAFDAC would seize one container and there would be a lot of noise in the media. Success at control and destruction of the importation of fake and expired drugs and so on and so forth. Many doctors and nurses went to Saudi Arabia to give service and earn legitimate money and get the satisfaction of professional achievement.

The medical condition of electricity supply became epileptic and finally the supply of electricity died. With it came the massive importation of generators. Generators big and small, generators loud and quiet, just generators. Gba ran mi deleru! A one-night stand with generators became a marriage of convenience with generators and diesel and noise and pollution. With the departure of doctors, of nurses, of administrators and especially the departure of genuine medicines and equipments and the departure of electricity and water, Hospitals also left the buildings designated as places of health safety.

The departure of hospitals from our buildings should have told us that it was time law and order were restored in this country. But no. The political leaders could fly to London, to Paris, to New York to be mal-treated and even more recently to South Africa and India. Some of the stories from India are simply disheartening.

Others followed their friends, family, schoolmates out of the country. Little noticed are the departures of females bent on selling themselves overseas. Human trafficking was carried out by criminal elements and they need to be made to feel the effect of the law. But what happens when these young girls trafficked themselves! One night on a train journey from Rome to Turin, I encountered over five hundred Nigerian girls on the train making the journey to Turin where there was going to be a big sports happening over the weekend. Now, the young and the weak without any skills other than that they are better off out of Africa – skill or no skill. They don’t even bother any more with passports and visas and they are prepared to walk to their destination in Europe.

But many Nigerians, especially qualified ones also stayed behind. Was it patriotism that made them stay behind? My country good or bad/As I would to mum and dad! Or was it Wole Soyinka’s I love my country I no go lie/Na Inside am I go live and die. Or was it as one doctor who stayed stunned me one early morning.

He stayed because Nigeria gba mi laye, Nigeria allows me space to do what I like. Within the lawlessness of the country he could construct something worthwhile for himself and his family. In no time at all, there was some misplaced pride in living in substandard Nigeria, accepting substandard goods and services and even taking pride in such goods and services.

Not obeying planning permissions becomes a matter of pride. The lack of shared public treatment of liquid waste is accepted as some uniquely Nigerian thing with soak away and bore holes neighbouring each other. Street floodings seemed to be attributable to the current downpour instead of long terms of unchannelled excess liquid waste wanting, waiting to burst into our streets.

Lawlessness remains the bane of Nigeria. There is no law and order. To say this in a country where the legal profession is the most developed profession in the history of professions in the country is to cry from the heart that we need help desperately. The legal profession is perhaps the richest profession in the country but did it make its money at the expense of law and order?

As those who went away return to find that not much has changed, that in fact things have gotten worse, those who stayed wonder what they expected. Lawlessness continues and so no change can come if there are no law and order.

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