Nigeria

The Rule Of Criminals

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

One of the challenges facing Nigeria and Nigerians is how to achieve or establish the rule of law above the rule of criminals in government and everywhere.

The Rule Of Criminals

By Adeola Aderounmu

Which Way Nigeria?

One is saddened that there is no end in sight for Nigerians being ruled partly by politicians who are absolute criminals.

Ordinary Nigerians are facing very hard and extreme economic hardship and they also have to continue to cope with the reality that some of those who they expected to be part of the solution are actually political criminals.

My recent visit to Nigeria left another deep cut in my soul. What l saw is that majority of Nigerians are still suffering!

The kind of suffering in Nigeria exposes majority of the population to conditions that are completely unacceptable for humans. People have no access to basic facility or infrastructure. This information is not news.

However what may be news is that several millions of Nigerians are now in new category called systematic beggars. People are begging for food and money from those that still have a little to live on.

What l saw in Nigeria revealed that majoroity of Nigerians not only lack the basic things of life, they also lack material comfort. Many people are running around on empty stomachs.

In 2012, l defined mass poverty using Nigeria as a case study.  Since then the mass poverty situation in Nigeria has escalated.

Sadness is rampant. Deceit and mutual suspicion are written on everybody’s face. Today, a few people are tasking the government and police on the high rate of crime. The trend will continue because even the police are stopping people randomly on the streets and robbing them of their possessions!

Things are getting worse in Nigeria. The conditions of living are terrible. There is almost no word to describe the standard of living of the ordinary people. Poor is an understatement. What comes after low or poor standard of living? The living situations are extremely sad and disheartening.

At this sad point in Nigeria’s history, the lowest ebb the country has ever reached, one would expect that the government at various levels will show empathy and concern for the plights that have been inflicted on the people through years of misgovernance and negligence.

Alas! The present government is not helping matters in that direction at all.

As Nigerians are allegedly made to bear the grunt and pain of the decline in crude oil prices, the cost of governance itself remains at the same high level.

Governance in Nigeria is established on a twin culture of waste and propaganda.

The level of corruption in the present government easily contradicts the propaganda that Nigerians are paying for the low price of crude oil and the wastage of the Jonathan administration.

Nigeria does not depend on crude oil only by the way.

In any case if Nigerian politicians stop stealing and perhaps even start to drop some body and material weights, perhaps the effects of the drop in crude oil sales that have also also been aggravated by the Niger Delta Avengers would spread evenly among the population, and we can understand the situation together.

But sadly, as a manner of repetition, let me reiterate that the cost of governance in Nigeria remains high and wasteful.

Nigeria is spending a lot of money on arms of government that are invariably useless. The category that has been in the eye of the storm most is the legislative arm.

At the Senate and the House of Representatives, the revelations that have come to front since the emergence of the Buhari-APC mandate are shameful and scandalous.

A government that is fighting corruption mostly in the opponent camps yet housing criminals at its own backyard is a worthless government. That is what the APC government has become.

The scandals that have rocked the Senate where Mr. Saraki heads the other alleged criminals are enough to level it. But it stands as a monument of stinking corruption.

The scandals that have rocked the House of Representatives where Mr. Dogara heads the other alleged criminals are enough to sweep the house into the ocean so that it does not ever evolve again.

It is shocking that Nigerians know that they are partly ruled by criminals and they are suffering and living with the knowledge of the causes of majority of their problems. But they are not doing anything serious about it.

Something has to give in someday as a way of showing these criminals their ways out of governance.

We also actually need someone to remind this government of its virtual fight against corruption whereas the government itself is stinking and rotten, full of criminals in high and low places.

About 30 something years ago, when l was a little boy, l read an article in a newspaper. The title was: Who Is Fooling Who? I don’t remember the author but it mentioned that many things that are true today.

One of the challenges facing Nigeria and Nigerians is how to achieve or establish the rule of law above the rule of criminals in government and everywhere.

The political criminals are on the advantage because despite the fact that their criminalities are known and exposed, they have so far circumvent the law to their advantages. They have remain strong due to the weakness of the people and their passiveness to corruption everywhere.

The difference between common sense and political criminal sense remains crystal clear.

While common sense makes people leave the public scene in shame after a scandal, the political criminal sense makes people fight back using the weaknesses in the law especially in a nonsensical democracy like Nigeria where self preservation is the norm. Civility suffers.

The difference extends to the point  that with political criminal sense, every scandal is tagged as a political witchhunt. The political criminal sense does not deny the existence of a crime or scandal. It just fights against it.

Invariably, the changed promised by the APC has turned to a sham, more so because of the political criminals that persist and control the APC government.

When l’d visited civil service establishments during my one month stay in Nigeria, the situation and conditions of services are even worse. The morale is down, many things are still being done just like before.

The workers still receive bribes, the police are on the roads doing the usual collection and false accusation.  From the political criminals holding sway in Abuja, to the smallest streets in Nigeria, it is business of corruption as usual.

The things that have changed have brought more hardship to our lives. Things just got worse for the ordinary people. For example, under Mr. Fashola, Nigerians pay more money for darkness. There is promise of light and the bills are already higher for the services that have not been provided. What is 419 again?

The people earn less or nothing at all (when salaries are not paid for several month) but they pay more for everything. There are so many scams perpetrated by the Buhari-APC government that should have resulted to outright outrages.

But Nigerians are praying and fasting even on empty stomachs. Thanks to the magicians called men of God. Rather than build factories, more churches and mosques are sprining up everywhere in Nigeria.

Even in government houses where looting and stealing are taking place, there are churches and mosques in the premises. What is the meaning of den of robbers? Who is fooling who? Who prays in these religious houses and who are the political criminals in government?

It’s always a painful experience recounting the problems of Nigeria. Whereas we know that the solutions are easy. If people start to do the right things, just the right things, Nigeria will pick up.

But after decades of misrule and systemic disorientation,majority of the people are used to doing the wrong things. This cruel reality is what led to the emergence and sustenance of wrong doers and criminals in public offices.

So, the rule of criminals is very complicated.

There are other issues with the Buhari-APC mandate. Along with the painful existence of the rule of criminals, Nigerians are more than ever before battling with tribalism. Sadly too, the influence of religion in government has never been this prominent in the history of governance in Nigeria.

Up to the local government level, religious affiliation is a crucial factor in the curriculum vitae of office-seekers in Nigeria. What l saw in Nigeria shocked me!

That long-lasting solution of just doing the right things in public service eludes majority of Nigerians. But it must re-emerge side-by-side a political system or structure that is functional. That ancitipated change in political system has been called several names, from regional government to regional autonomy and even true fiscal federalism.

At this moment, at the end of august 2016, Nigeria is not working and the rule of criminals dominate the rule of law.

Nigeria needs a genuine political change.

Reference: Mass Poverty In Nigeria (2012) By Adeola Aderounmu.

https://aderinola.wordpress.com/2012/01/19/mass-poverty-in-nigeria-2012

 

aderounmu@gmail.com

 

 

There Are No Drivers In Lagos

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

…..one of the vehicles that was supposed to be behind my car did the diagonal turning and collided with an oncoming lorry. There was another accident- two commercial buses collided with each other and an okada passenger flew between the 2 vehicles just before they collided. This is Lagos..!

There Are No Drivers In Lagos

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By Adeola Aderounmu

On my recent trip to Nigeria, l could almost not believe what l saw on Lagos roads. I knew that driving in Lagos had always been a hassle and that some people have ignorantly or maybe stupidly concluded many years ago that if you can drive in Lagos, then you can drive anywhere in the world. That notion is not only misleading; it is also very dangerous.

If driving in Lagos on the other hand means that you can drive anywhere in Nigeria, then l can generalize that there are no drivers in Nigeria. I took time to observe driving in my area and on major roads in Lagos. Not one person driving on Lagos roads that l saw passed the simple driving tests that l conducted.

One of the most amazing, yet disturbing discoveries l made was this: not one driver in Lagos knew how to turn left at a junction. In normal driving, on a two-way road, you drive to the end of the road whilst keeping to your lane, then you make a curve (like going around the last quarter of a circle or ring) to turn left. I did not see one driver in Lagos do this turn correctly.

To make left turns, all the drivers in Lagos made diagonals. They don’t even make it from their half of the road. Long before the actual turning point, as they approach the junction, Lagos drivers make long diagonals that put them head to head with the oncoming vehicles.

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The first time l observed this anomaly, l actually thought it was just a silly driver who was impatient.

Later l found out that everybody drives that way. Commercial vehicle drivers and private car drivers, drove the same way. This is the standard for driving in Lagos.

One day, l had a passenger at the back seat in my car. He said he thought l was driving straight-on after he saw that l actually turned left at a junction. He was not used to drivers using the full length of the road to the turning point before making the turn. He said l would get tired of my sane driving, but l never did because l wasn’t trained to drive like an insane person.

Every time l am making my normal left turn, there are other vehicles, between 1 to 3 that make the turn before me while l am at my normal driving. They think they are good drivers or that they are smarter in getting ahead.

In this essay, l cannot include the menace of the motor-cycles as commercial transportation means in Lagos. Let us save the discussion about that pestilence that is unleashed on Lagos for another time.

As a result of foolishness, recklessness and not-knowing-how to drive of almost all Lagos drivers, I was a witness to at least 3 accidents whilst l drove in Lagos.

Another day whilst l was doing my normal omoluabi junction-turning, one of the vehicles that was supposed to be behind my car did the diagonal turning and collided with an oncoming lorry. How many accidents on Lagos road are due to wrong driving?

This dangerous diagonal turning was one of the most obvious indicators of wrong driving by Lagos drivers that l observed and it remains a major cause of head-to-head collision/accidents at road junctions.

There was another accident due mainly to bad driving that was so serious that two commercial buses collided with each other on 23 Road in Festac Town. It was like a movie when an okada passenger flew between the two vehicles before they collided and he somersaulted on the road. The motor cycle and the okada-driver slided long the road like the movie was not about to finish yet.

In fact, the other useless and reckless driving of Lagos drivers are too numerous to elaborate here. But generally, it is a crazy situation on Lagos roads with human and vehicular traffic forming a permanent compound mess.

More of my observations below.

Lagos drivers do not know how to drive on lanes (but they can claim that most roads are not marked with lines and they’ll be right at that). Still, what happens to straight line driving? What l saw was that most of the drivers in Lagos do not even know about driving on a lane.

Once the roads are not marked, they are driving from right to left to center, just anyhow they like. They fill available space on the road and collide too easily with one another.

Lagos drivers do not keep the distance. There should be at least 5 meters between 2 cars on the road. For some vehicles, the distance behind them should be 10 meters if they have risk of rolling backwards or if they vehicles used for deliveries, having haulage facility/equipment trailing behind them.

In one accident, I saw an okada driver fastened to the back of a jeep and he could not detangle his motor cycle. It was so confusing; l did not even understand it even as we drove past the conjoined vehicles.

Lagos drivers do not use or respect the indicator light that shows when you when you change lanes or make a turn. 99.9 % of Lagos drivers do not look out for indicator lights. When you indicate a turn with your light and hoping that someone is using their brain on Lagos road, you have just made yourself a target for an accident and probably an untimely death.

Rather than using your signs, you and your passengers have to bring your heads out of the car and try to have contacts with the reckless drivers on the road and beg them to let you change your lane or to turn right or left.

In general driving on Lagos road is still very much an insane experience. It may not be the biggest problem in Nigeria but it is surely a significant part of public health question and analyses. It is either the people bring madness to the roads or the roads make people mad. Whichever way you view it, it is bad and sad.

On Lagos roads, there are no rooms for respect and courtesy. Everybody looks angry! People are not driving or behaving normally behind the wheels. Everybody is in a hurry and everybody believes that they should not give room to another driver. It’s as if everybody is chasing the same thing or the same thing is chasing everybody.

In all these negative brouhahas, one begins to wonder about the roles of the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC. This agency must be really rotten and inefficient. They are not working. How can they explain the acquisition of drivers’ licenses by all the bad drivers in Lagos? Have all these crazy drivers passed through any driving school? Have they been tested theoretically and practically?

In Lagos the dangers and evil on the road are so numerous that coming back home to your house in the evening is considered an everyday miracle.

So what are the ways out of this hydra-headed problem that has grown so big that it is now the norm to be drive anyhow-you-like in Lagos. Where do we start from in this country where everything has fallen apart and into pieces?

One can also question the roles of the bribe-loving police force in all these extreme dramas, thrillers and horrors on Lagos/ Nigerian roads. They are constant on the roads, pointing their guns at ordinary citizens as if there is a war in Lagos. But their primary concern is their filthy pockets.

The police, the FRSC, the people and even the state government  and its other transport agencies are all contributing their own quotas to the madness and complexity on Lagos roads. Everybody is claiming right, everybody is neglecting their duties and obligations and everybody is doing the wrong thing.

When Nigerians return home from Europe and America with their drivers’ licenses that were earned like war trophies, they are insulted and humiliated to the extent that the authorities make many of them to acquire the Nigerian license that are obtainable without undergoing driving tests.

In their ignorance, the men of the FRSC and the police turn down hard-earned foreign driver’s license. I heard they don’t even recognize international driver’s license. Really? Of course, they will accept the bribe that follows the argument on this.

During my stay in Lagos, l spent a substantial time shouting at some motorists and educating them on a few things that l saw them do wrong. Yes, l did that sometimes when l was behind the wheels and sometimes when l took my usual long walks along the streets.

Constantly proving that l was right, l just refuse to leave my lane for the stupid oncoming okada motor-cyclists and other drivers who really do not have any business on the road. I was hardly in a hurry, so that turned out well.

The first lesson in a driving school says: plan for your journey. That particular lesson will cure about 50% of the insanity on Lagos road. Where are people rushing to? They will overtake you with the narrowest of margin beside you or in front of you! What are they chasing?

There are rush hours and heavy traffic in major cities across the world. But the cars keep rolling. In Nigeria, the traffic stands still not only because of bad roads, but also because of bad driving and total absence of knowledge about safe driving.

So if the people plan their journeys, if drunkards are removed from the roads, and if the roads become motorable say 100 years from now because Nigerian roads are still among the most dangerous road in the world today, maybe more than 90% all the accidents on Nigerian roads will become preventable. Lofty goal l guess.

The traditional custodian of Lagos and the governor of Lagos, where do you go from here? Lagos drivers don’t know how to drive. They just move the vehicles. They need help and deliverance. You need help too because right under your watch, Lagos has fallen apart.

 

aderounmu@gmail.com

 

all images taken by Adeola Aderounmu

My Random Reflections @ 44

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

The most amazing thing for me is the story of our present day heroes-the people who keep Nigeria running. These heroes are owners of surviving small and big businesses that run on generators and power plants for 24 hours a day.

My Random Reflections @ 44

 

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In 2009 l started this series called My Random Reflections. The first edition was My Random Reflections @ 37. How time flies!

For me, writing about Nigeria on my birthday has become a tradition.

This particular edition is remarkable in a number of ways. This is the first time l am writing one from homeland-Nigeria.

In an attempt to put up this edition, l’ll try to give a summary of some of the things that continue to be a source of heartache for me with respect to Nigeria.

Having spent a few days in Nigeria, l could write more than 1000 pages on what l have experienced so far. Majority of what l have seen and experienced are negative things.

In this year-2016, hopelessness pervades the country.

I am the man who cries when he writes about Nigeria. My heart bleeds. This was not the dream for Nigeria. Madness has overtaken this land.

There are uncountable issues to be addressed in Nigeria. I don’t even know where to start from. No one does. The level of destruction and general decadence is out of this world.

Things have finally fallen apart. Sadly, majority of the people don’t get it. No, they don’t understand the meaning of life.

If you are looking for the definition of selfishness, don’t look at the dictionary. Just take a trip around your neighbourhood. The selfishness of men and women have turned them to haters of fellow humans.

The government of Nigeria continues to fail the people, hence majority of Nigerians have been battered beyond repair.

Seriously, I don’t even know how to proceed with this essay. Nigeria is the dark country both figuratively and in reality. I have seen many long, dark nights and many boring afternoons of no electricity. It is almost totally absent so much that Mr. Fashola is now called the Minister for darkness.

I take long walks and l drive about town, what l see is [almost everybody doing the wrong thing] just to fulfil their own personal ambitions or missions for the day.

Nigeria is in a total mess.

I have thought about writing an open letter to President Buhari.

One of my suggestions to him would be that he needs to take a road tour of Nigeria and find out how the people are living and how they are suffering from day to day.  I will implore him to travel by land and water for once. He should fashy the plane for this fact-finding mission.

When l finally write the letter, l intend to point out the failure of the APC-Buhari mandate so far. A friend of mine got upset last weekend because he read somewhere that the APC still blames the PDP for the problems in Nigeria as if Nigerian politicians are different from one another.

Together my friend and l agreed that things didn’t have to get worse before they get better. The APC-Buhari mandate does not know what Nigerians are going through. If they know, how can they be so pretentious and callous?

The APC is just like the PDP (birds of the same feather) and together they have ruined the country and failed the people. The APC-Buhari mandate was not ready for its own change agenda. Under the APC-Buhari mandate thing fell apart very quickly and they are still falling like a pack of cards.

The verdict have been given on the APC-Buhari mandate: majority of Nigerians regretted their votes. This does not mean that they preferred the PDP-Jonathan government. They are just confused and confounded.

The people have concluded that Nigerian politicians are criminals who go to Abuja and other government offices across the country to steal and loot. It is this criminality that pervades the society. That’s one of the reasons why everybody looks at the other person with suspicious eyes and inqusitive minds.

Away from their pastors and imams the people you find in churches and mosques praying are the same people raining curses on the APC government. They have tagged this regime and they have pinned it down as the worst regime ever in terms of human suffering and the collapse of the economy.

Even my suggestion that the pdp-years would be the worst years of the Nigerian life has been dwarfed by the one year of APC-Buhari regime.

It’s getting worse with each passing day.

It does not matter what any APC-asslickers think or suggest. Everybody has reached their own walls and the chickens are eating one another’s intestines.

That is the people’s verdict-that this regime is the worst ever in Nigeria’s history in terms of human suffering and government insensitivity.

This is the verdict l’ve heard everyday on the streets of Lagos in the last 2½ weeks.

This is the verdict of the market men and women.

This is the verdict of the ones who have been thrown out of jobs and the ones who have never been gainfully employed.

This is the verdict of the men and women who run their businesses running on generators and plants round the clock.

This is the verdict of the old people who sit in front of their flats/homes everyday just steering at the sky hopelessly. Many old people in Nigeria are tired and without pension and care. They live like beggars.

Majority were not even civil serrvants. They did small businesses and they are now old and hopeless.

Some are not even very old. They are just jobless and hopeless. I see them and l cry. Nigeria is hell for them.

Even many young jobless people live like beggars too. They do unnecessary things and provide useless services and then beg for money. Someone can even remove a stone in your way and systematically ask you for money for lunch.

If your car breaks down on the road, some people will approach you for ”owo taku”-money that your car has broken down. These are some examples of the sad state of Nigeria.

In the anticipated letter to the presidency, l would point out to future governments in Nigeria that they need to set out at dawn and that they must make hay whilst the sun shines.

I intend to share the message of Mrs. Obi my secondary school teacher with President Buhari and the rest of the Nigerian population including the opposition-the PDP-that what is worth doing at all is what doing well. Mrs. Obi would be happy if l add her favourite line: nearly does not catch a bird!  We just have to get it right to make it work.

In addition to the letter to the presidency, l also intend to write a letter to the governor of Lagos state, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode. In fact, l intend to write a series of letter to this number one man of Lagos. I hope he’s warming up for them.

I understand from some quarters that the regime of Mr. Ambode has embarked on some road construction and repair. I saw some myself.  I don’t praise public servants. Becoming the governor was never an obligation. It will forever be a choice.

Still, there are many, many bad roads in Lagos state. Ha ba! You have to raise your car to the first floor before you can drive on Lagos roads that are full of ”wells”. The use of the phrase ”pot-holes” is an understatement. For me, l don’t want to live in a state where there is a single bad road. I want all the roads to be like paradise road. By applying sense and responsibility, we can do it.

Rather than put pressure on the state and local government on the need to provide good roads everywhere, almost all the citizens of Lagos have bought Jeeps or in the process of buying one. This is one of the remarkable but terrible characteristics of Nigerians-they don’t seek to address a problem, they beat about the bush.

If everybody in Nigeria buys a jeep, whose responsibility is it then to point out the failure of the government in providing good roads? Naija sha!

In my attempt to call the government to order, l will not leave the local government chairman of my community out of the picture. He or she is the nearest person on whose shoulders the burden of governance rest.

In that letter or essay which will be coming in a matter of weeks, l am going to inform the present sole administrator and the future local government chairman of my estate about the problems that l see in Festac Town and l will give suggestions for the solutions.

We cannot go on like this. Again, it appears that we all sleep and face the same direction. The society is full of many mad situations.

I will not be sparing the governor of Ogun state as my country home lies in his domain. In fact from what l heard about the Lusada road connecting Winners Chapel, l have very strong words for him as soon as l set to work on all my complains.

I wished l have all the time in the world in Nigeria. I want to start talking to the people again. I have done that in the past before l left Nigeria.

I have thought about blowing my whistle again just like old time when l led the young people in my community on many missions just to keep the sanity of our community. Now hell is on the loose.

I have thought of writing an open letter to the Nigerian Police because l am so scared of the guns pointing at me everyday on the roads. Why are the police pointing their guns at every motorist? What is going one? Are we at war?

I have thought of writing an open letter to the Federal Road Safety Commission to complain about the absence of a single sane driver on Lagos roads. Everybody is mad they tell me! I see it too. Nigerians don’t know how to drive, and l mean it. They just move the cars like crazy people.

It is so bad l have not seen a single Lagos driver who knows how to turn left at the end of the road. Rather then turn, Nigerian drivers make sharp manouver. There is an unwritten agreement that everybody on the road must be agressive and drive like someone who is crazy. How can we stop the madness?

I have thought about writing and talking to every single Nigerian alive about their civil responsibilities, about the meaning of life and how to pursue happiness.

I have thought about writing a letter to the Ministry of Transport on the need to withdraw all the Okada drivers in my community and march them onward to their villages to different farm settlements where their children can be educated and they as adults can be gainfully employed and productive.

People need to be reintegrated into normal existence as soon as possible. Things are getting out of hand and getting worse by the day.

The government is failing. The people are failing. I have never seen anything like this anywhere else.

In Nigeria, since my return, l have done a lot of things to fulfil my roles and obligations within my immediate family.

I have lost family members who are close to me including my mother.

In this country, we have all gotten our shares of the Nigerian tragic existence. What a sad story we all share.

I have been on live program on Channels TV. On Rubbin’ Mind, l made a case for the Niger Deltans. If we make their home paradise on earth, no one will be mending or avenging any mess. It’s as simple as that.

I have done a newspaper interview and l spoke about the need to re-introduce reading into the school time-table for children. I also made an argument for the maintenance and bulding of libraries across Nigeria to ensure that the reading culture is kept. Reading from books will remain the best way to extract knowledge and inspiration.

If l’m opportuned, l could do one more TV interview/discussion on my new book, the Madrilenian. It was launched in Stockholm on June 18 and will be launched and released in Nigeria on July 16.

Oh, l almost forgot, l have spent substantial part of my return to Nigeria visiting my father. He is an old pal, a jolly good fellow at that.

I have spent quality time with my friends and acquaintainces. I have mingled with mechanics, vulcanizers, petrol station attendants, civil servants, traders, journalists, young and old people. I have walked the streets, walked into peoples’ homes unannounced and even chatted with strangers.

I have done my best and l keep my head high.

I know we can turn this country around. If we start from adopting a system of government that works (regional government for example), we will be able to re-educate our people in the different parts using our local culture and heritage as the re-starting blocks.

We can tap people’s energies, knowledge and creativity to put Nigeria back on the path of progress. We can bring back our people in foreign countries through reverse brain-drain.

Oh, what greatness we can achieve with sincerity, patriotism and honesty!

 

aderounmu@gmail.com

The Boy With The Golden Ears

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

When l arrived at the hospital, l met the nurses and did the necessary registration for the day. Then l waited. I waited, and waited and waited. When l got unsettled by the unusual long wait, I asked the nurses when it would be my turn to be attended to.

The Boy With The Golden Ears

By Adeola Aderounmu

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Adeola Aderounmu

In 1986 as a 14-year-old boy, I took the bus and went to the General Hospital in Lagos for an ear operation. It was supposed to be the end to a series of visits and appointments at the hospital. When l was born, my ears were not ready. The defects were so obvious that my ear tunnels were usually loaded with yellowish fluids.

My childhood memories would be totally incomplete without the agonies of my mother who sat and watched my infant head decorated with 2 defective ears.

I remember my childhood, during the primary school days. I was always loaded with cotton wools at home and sometimes l took them to school. Soon l learnt how to wrap cotton wool around a broom stick and stuck them into my ears right and left.

On so many occasions we ran out of cotton wools. What did l do? I turned to the cover of my BIC pen. The lid became my best companion for several years. If l didn’t have anything on me, l had the lid of a blue, black or red BIC pen.

I stuck the object into my ears and excavated tons of fluids from them. When l found cotton buds later in life, l used them. They were valuable, like gold.

When l look back now, l am so grateful to my mother for all the efforts she put into cleaning my ears. I can remember she warned me against the sharp objects. Sometimes she just looked at me with pity because in my case, it was similar to living with someone with an addiction.

I mean with my ear problem, when the urge to put in something into my ears surfaced, there was nothing in the whole world you could do to stop me from inserting any available object into it.

I am also grateful that l wasn’t classified as a handicap because Nigeria could have destroyed me totally in that sense. I was lucky not to be categorized as someone who needed special education because of my hearing difficulties.

Prior to that day-the day of the operation, l’ve learnt to wake up at 5 a.m. in the morning, joined the bus and made the journey from our home in Festac Town to the General Hospital situated at Ikeja. We, that is my mother and l usually get off the molue buses at the PWD bus-stop and then trek beside the bridge all the way to the hospital.

It was an inconvenient journey. It was not totally safe because it was always still quiet with few people on the way by the time we walked beside the bridge towards the hospital. My estimation puts the journey at about a 40 km stretch, maybe 50. It could take an hour and a half with at least 2 or 3 bus connections.

On the day of the operation, my mother let me made the journey by myself. She would come after me later on. I don’t remember the sequence that led to the decision but if you are a mother of 6 children, you soon learn to make them independent at the appropriate age.

I would imagine now that l had won my independence by the time the doctors decided that l would be operated to correct my ears.

When l arrived at the hospital, l met the nurses and did the necessary registration for the day. Then l waited. I waited, and waited and waited. When l got unsettled by the unusual long wait, I asked the nurses when it would be my turn to be attended to.

The response l got was a shock, one that l will never forget.

This is the hospital l have visited several times with my mother. I had become a regular customer. In fact, one day l got a tiny piece of fish bone stuck to my throat whilst eating some delicious meal. I could not sleep that night and my mother had to take me to the ENT.

I knew the Ear, Nose and Throat department at the General Hospital in Ikeja like l knew the palm of my hand.

When they told me that they couldn’t find my file and the documentation that stated that l would be operated on that fateful day, l thought it was a “simple” mistake of misplacement. I thought they would find it and my ears would be operated.

When my mother arrived she was very upset. She gave me a correctional slap to express her anger. I cannot remember any other day before and after this fateful day that my mother had slapped me. She never did.

As a child l was very confused.

The nurses could not find my files. Who should have been slapped?

Now when l think back about the entire scenario, l can guess a few reasons why my files were missing.

One, the nurses were probably in shock that a boy showed up for his own surgery. Where was my mother who could pay the tips so my file does not go missing on this important day?

Two, from another perspective, were they expecting that my family would have made advance contact and advance payment prior to the day of the operation? How well did my parents realize that such opportunities must be “assured” by keeping a tab on the nurses and doctors to avoid disappointments?

Why did my file go missing on the day of the operation?

Three, did the doctors chicken out because they were incapable of carrying out the operation? The last statement is quite unlikely because my memories portray an array of competent, professional doctors with tools and instruments checking my eardrums, ear infections and throat as an out-patient.

Still, why didn’t the doctors remember my appointment? An operation should not be something that one should just forget like that? Why didn’t the doctors come to the waiting-room to look for me? Did the nurses tell them that l was no show?

What actually went wrong? My mother slapped me because she found me sitting calm and collected despite the scenario of likely missing my one-in-a-life time opportunity of correcting my defective ears. She probably knew at once that the chance will never come up again.

Many things must have gone through her mind when she arrived to hear the latest bad news about my ears. They easiest avenue to let go of her frustration was the slap l got. She probably thought l just got there and sat down without making any effort?

What can a 14-year-old do when the old nurses had thrown away or hidden his medical files?

I can’t remember ever getting angry at my mother. She was my god. She was the woman who taught me almost everything-how to read, how to write and then how to cook. My mother taught me humility and perseverance even in the face of difficulties and adversities.

So we went home. There was no operation in 1986. I continue to insert everything into my ears to take out the fluids and to “scratch” my ears when they itched. At some point, l used sticks and brooms to pick out dirt that are fastened to my eardrums.

I thought l had become an expert of my ear. If l was an ear doctor, l would be the best in the world.

I remember one day when I was picking my ear with a broom stick and suddenly somebody ran into me. I bled from my ear and of course that was also another opportunity to insert more things to bring out the blood. My addiction was hopeless.

I have been living in Sweden since 2002. I continued to suffer regular ear infection because of the vulnerability of my eardrums. So one day when l visited the doctor, he recommended an operation. I mean my ears were tested over a period of time and the results l saw were heartbreaking.

I have been straining myself almost all of my life to hear what people say.  The results l saw showed the threshold for normal hearing and my hearing. I have been deaf!

In 2007, 21 years after the nurses at Ikeja General Hospital botched my scheduled operation in Lagos, I finally did my ear operation, in Stockholm. One of my ears was already gone at that time! After the operation it became the better of the two. This means that in the real sense of it, the ear that was better before my operation in 2007 was itself gone! They were just deaf to different degree.

The operation was done at Danderyds hospital in Sweden.

At old age, which is fast approaching, l guess l know what my biggest challenges will be.

I have a bad hip from playing football in my teens and will definitely not be able to walk well. I can use some help. I will also be almost deaf on both ears. I will get some hearing aids but their usefulness for my deafness will be interesting to discover.

I decided to write elaborately on my deafness because it exposes a lot of problems in public health in Nigeria. I don’t know how my case was handled as a toddler. Could l have been operated as a baby and healed for life? That is probable.

But with time, I became aware that despite the availability of good health system in Nigerian up till the 1980s, there were lapses in the system that made it difficult to correct my hearing defect. That part was unfortunate.

An operation was botched. One friend told me my death on the doctor’s table was postponed! But I trusted the health system in Nigeria in 1986, even though the nurses were mischievous.  I blame the botched operation on the nurses. I think they were insincere and that is so sad to remember now.

What is the present state of health care delivery in Nigeria? In one word, disaster!

Nigerian politicians and policy makers must think about the citizens and work hard to ensure that health care delivery system is improved and adapted to the demands of a fully-blown rural and urban populations. The ordinary citizens must be given the benefits of affordable health care system where life is a priority.

As a teenager, I risk my life and travelled the miles. Then l walked the roads to the doctors in Lagos, Nigeria. I am the man with the golden ears.

If any Nigerian politician, including the president, wishes to travel abroad for medical reasons, they should be barred from doing so. In a country of more than 170m people, politicians who cannot deliver should be dismissed. They even deserved my mother’s correctional slaps.

aderounmu@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

The APC-Mandate: One Year Of Extreme Pain

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

What Nigerians have experienced in 2016 alone is by all measure the worst year of the Nigerian life (in a time of “peace”). This unitary system of government is so, so wrong! It is a product of intellectual deficiency that arose from lazy, corrupt and unproductive minds.

The APC-Mandate: One Year Of Extreme Pain

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola_June_2016

Adeola Aderounmu

One year after the official emergence of the APC mandate, the most unexpected scenarios are here. The current situation in Nigeria today was unimaginable 12 months ago when the expectations and stakes were raised through the emergence of the APC mandate.

Everyone including PDP addicts knew that the PDP years were totally messed up. But no one expected that as the clean-up started under the APC-Buhari mandate that the situation will deteriorate to a state that has now (also) made nonsense of the APC campaigns and promises.

Even my invented slogan that the 1999-2015 PDP years were the worst years of the Nigerian life had been beaten flat. What Nigerians have experienced in 2016 alone is by all measure the worst year of the Nigerian life (in a time of peace).

What led to these unexpected new lows of general sufferings is arguable. But the degradation of human life, extremely high cost of living and endless surges of joy-killers like the fuel-related problems are both sad and regrettable.

My opinion is that if there had been adequate proactive-ness, Nigerians would not be suffering more today than they already did under the wasteful 16 years of PDP. The APC-Buhari mandate was ill-equipped for the year that went by.  Therefore the mandate becomes a questionable one, I’m afraid.

My opinion is premised upon the fact that the APC-mandate and the rest of us had a clear understanding of what the challenges ahead were. We knew that Nigeria was in bad shape. Our collective expectation was that things should not get worse because they were already bad.

The APC-mandate failed to curb a bad situation. So it grew worse and it’s still going down the road to perdition in so many uncountable ways.

What enlightened and knowledgeable Nigerians must do now is to see the current situation in Nigeria as an opportunity to access the country right from 1960 to date. Why Nigeria got into the mess it is now is no longer rocket science.

Primarily, the country was misruled by almost all the regimes that have held sway at one time or the other after independence in 1960. As if the colonial drainage was not enough albeit side-a-side remarkable infrastructure development, the indigenes of Nigeria chose to simply loot the country to dryness.

As you read, Nigeria is being looted by some elements either directly by their positions in government or indirectly by the failure of the system to curb external appendages of looting.

The crime of looting is so grave that the recovered cash that was revealed recently by the APC government is a tip of the iceberg of what actually disappeared under both the APC- and the PDP-states in the last 17 years.

Politicians on both fronts practically emptied the states treasuries daily. At the parasitic center, the Jonathan-led central PDP government wasted and looted Nigeria’s monies in no manner that were different from his predecessors both civilians and military.

Everything that has a beginning will have an end. When the APC-Buhari mandate is over (because it will be), we will surely be informed of how much went down the drain daily. That, and what went down in the APC terrains whilst PDP held swayed are top secret today. We are looking the other way because the bulk of the latter brought Mr. Buhari to power.

In Nigeria, anybody who is elected or selected as the president can play god. It’s all thanks to the system. But I love the concept of time and truth. They outlive everyone and everything.

Apart from the fact that Nigeria was misruled and looted, there is the other factor of running a political system and constitution constructed by the military juntas.

Some people may still want to argue in favour of unitary government. This is a system that continues to feed the elites, the politicians and their accomplices. On the other hand the system puts hunger, death and sorrows at the doorsteps of the common people.

The strongest argument against unitary government cannot be missed: One man cannot rule Nigeria! The last one year provided the most visible evidence and the end of the first APC-mandate will nail it.

The one man show is not going to lead Nigeria further. He has ministers, yes, but they can’t do anything if that one man does not approve.

There are state governors, yes, but they cannot do anything if their begging plates are not filled by that one man.

This system is so, so wrong! It is a product of intellectual deficiency that arose from lazy, corrupt and unproductive minds.

This system is no longer acceptable and it is very unreasonable. It has not worked and it will not work. Nigerians have a way of hoping in the midst of hopelessness. The results? More than 100 m poor people, a disgraceful world record accumulation of poor people in Africa!

Summarily, the APC-mandate is doing worse than the PDP-mandate because of a system that promotes corruption, looting and incompetency. Again the unitary system of government is ridiculous and devoid of intellectual-problem solving approaches. It is so bad even the current minister of solid mineral resources cannot guarantee wealth production from solid minerals in the next 5 years!!!

For several years now, some people have suggested a change in the system of government but those calls fell on deaf ears. The politicians are not going to willingly change a system that makes them fat and rich.

In recent days some prominent Nigerians including those who have benefited from the fraudulent unitary system of government have joined us in singing: restructure Nigeria!

It took so long for the chorus to emerge and one wonders how long it will be before the actualisation.

The APC-mandate under Mr. Buhari must not act as if it is deaf because the music is too loud: change the system!

Of course we know it will not happen in one night. We know that it is a process. What is important at this stage is to ensure that the process is initiated using the right institutions and appropriate agencies.

There are so many options for Nigeria and they are far more preferable than the agitations in the different regions that have metamorphosed into wars (in form of terrorism in the North, the so-called militancy in the South and the unending secession in the East).

Under the current unitary system, the war/agitation/militancy have no end in sight. Even the re-structuring of Nigeria will not heal all wounds automatically. But restructuring is a necessity to avoid the final collapse of Nigeria in a way that is undesirable.  The road that leads back to regional autonomy will be rough, windy and long. Still, it is the better road if well managed.

Those familiar with medical science know the difference between controlled cell-death and uncontrollable cell-death/destruction. Nigeria and Nigerians need to make the choice whilst common sense can still prevail. When all hell is let loose, there will be no room for common sense and negotiations. Necrosis in any country is not desirable.

It is easy to say that corruption is fighting back in form of NDA-militancy. What was fighting in the name of Boko Haram? What had been agitating in the name of Biafra? We must not forget the words of wisdom. If the wall does not open its mouth, the lizard will not crawl in. These walls have been open for too long and a lot of lizards have crawled in. Now several of those lizards have stomach aches.

The benefits of regional autonomy outweigh those of unitary government. The different regions in Nigeria need to start producing wealth again. Nigeria needs to return to the days when 5-10% of regional wealth is sent to the capital for administrative purposes only. Today money is sent to Abuja for siphoning!

All the parasites and leeches in Abuja under this APC-mandate need to do one of their last jobs which is to initiate the re-negotiation of Nigeria and go back home in peace. A time may come when they will return compulsorily. Since there may not be peace at that time, they need not wait that long.

I stand always with the common Nigerians.

The fight for freedom itself is not a day’s job. It may take a few years, it may several years. But like l wrote in The Kings Are Mad, when the time for freedom comes, there will be no going back.

aderounmu@gmail.com