The voice of unborn Nigerian child

“When a child has no hope, a nation has no future.” – Zell Miller
“We owe it to our children to give them a dignified and hopeful future.” – George Napolitano
“Children are one third of our population and all of our future.” – Author Unknown

As we celebrate our 60th Independence Day Anniversary I would like you to read my story and be inspired to build a great society for me and my fellow newbies.

This is my story.

I am an Unborn Nigerian child. And inside my mother’s womb I reside. I am really wondering how my life outside will be. I am excited and cannot wait to see how Nigeria will be. It is also quite comfortable in here because I don’t have a care. My Mom provides my needs in here. And it is a pretty cool atmosphere in here where I dwell.

For now, that is the way things work. Nonetheless I am doing my homework to see whether it’s worth the stress to be born in a nation that’s in so much distress I’m carefully listening in to conversations. I am listening with a whole lot of great expectations. I am still hoping and praying that things will change for good for me and my contemporaries in their mothers’ wombs. I am anticipating that leaving the womb will be a great exchange for us new babies to be. My time in the womb is almost up. It has been nine months spent lockup in my mother’s womb. Mom’s contractions are giving me the heads up and now it’s time for my push to be set up. I hear the moans and groans of my mother. She seems to be in so much pain. I sense the anxiety and panic of my father. He’s scared stiff and is drenched in cold sweat because I am going to be his first child. Nonetheless they both hurriedly get set and head for the hospital.

My parents take the ride with me pushing inside. However, on their way to the hospital a man waves them down with a pistol in his hand. My parents stop at the checkpoint and there is a policeman ready to exploit them. ‘Wetin you carry, anything for the boys’ he asks, making so much noise while wildly waving his gun around.

Father is trying to explain the situation, that they are in a hurry to get to the hospital. But it is all in vain, the policeman is too drunk and running amok. Father is exercising a lot of constrain answering many ridiculous questions from this birdbrain. They get into an argument, which is rather unfortunate. Before anybody could say Jack Robinson the policeman whose name is Johnson starts shooting randomly. Then, finally, he shoots my Dad point blank. My Mom is slumping in her car seat and blanking out. She is in terrible shock. The policeman had just shot her husband, her bedrock. My parents are both rushed to the hospital and both are bleeding way more than a trickle. They are taken straight to the theatre. In the midst of all the theatre, I am left pretty spent. The doctors can see I am in great distress and they know it has to be addressed sooner than later. I need to be taken out quickly. And the doctors know it will be quite tricky.

The surgery is progressing but Mother’s blood loss is in excess. Then NEPA strikes! There is a power outage. And this is causing a serious outrage by the medical personnel. It’s crazy. The generator is refusing to start, but thank God the doctors take heart and they are using a rechargeable lamp to get me out of the womb, which is already too cramped, for me. The surgery is taking a number of hours. And it is a gloomy state of affairs. I am now out of Mother’s womb but death is looming heavily over my Mom and I. Mother is still losing so much blood. I am getting so many spankings on my ‘bumbum’ and my tears are still refusing to come like a flood. Air is meant to be our lifeblood to life. Unfortunately, for me right now, air and I are having a deadly fight. The doctor and medical personnel are doing all they can to revive the two of us. Fortunately, my tears and cry come pouring out unexpectedly. But unfortunately, Mother is now just another number in the statistics of the high maternal mortality experienced in the country.

Sadly, the moment my mother took her last breath was the moment I took my first breath.

I was born at 12 midnight of October 1, 2020. Will my first day on earth in Nigeria be the beginning of Nigeria’s last days as a country or the beginning of a new dawn? What does my future hold? What does my future look like? Will decadence continue to eat at the fabric of our country? I managed to escape infant mortality’s death stranglehold, but how many babies will be as fortunate as me? Will you allow this to be the continuation of a living nightmare for us all? Or will you help create a nation that is full of goodness for me and every citizen born into this country? As we celebrate 60 years of independence, remember this can be the beginning of the end or the end with a new beginning. Which will it be?