The Kings Are Mad (Part 1)

August 11, 2014August 11, 2014 / Adeola / 1 Comment

Hope is quenched when we die. Maybe tomorrow will be better, Mama Esan thought out loudly pondering what she was going to do next as she stood on her feet. She is awake now. Still a voice echoed in her head: what if it is true that tomorrow never comes. Then she sat down again, and wept.

By Adeola Aderounmu

Adeola Aderounmu

Mama Esan ran out of the house. The rain was heavy. She quickly cleared her stall and salvage the remaining items she could grab. Earlier that day she had hoped that things would get better and that her dreams would come true. The heavy rain destroyed almost everything including her temporary stall, her wares and then some parts of the house itself. The roof is always the first part you can imagine.

Her husband has been jobless for 7 years. The dwindling economic fortunes and the total collapse of infrastructure especially the absence of power supply led many companies to shut done their operations. Some of them declared bankruptcy just as a way of getting out of the unrealistic economic environment. If I want food, it doesn’t mean I have to be able to manufacture a gas cooker or an electric heater, one of the affected CEOs declared, proverbially. Then he went to another land.

All of Mama Esan’s children have been withdrawn from their different schools. No one had expected that the cost of education will be so high. No one thought a time would come when there will be no food on the table. But like a pestilence the day came.

In mama Esan’s existence, hope no longer seems to have a place. For her, only vengeance was sure if she could have one. Mama Esan knew though that her situation was not an isolated one. Many people suffer similar fate as she does. Life no longer presented them with choices. For some people the dictionary can as well be rewritten and the non-applicable words deleted.

There is a man called Chinedu. The first time mama Esan saw her was around 1985. He was just a boy. At that time he enjoyed a lot of facilities. But all of those (fading) facilities and infrastructure soon disappeared completely. The best thing in his life was that he got the education he wanted. This was not possible in every part of the land.

When he left high school in 1990 Chinedu decided to try his hands on business and he started as a learner. He learnt the buying and selling trade and gained his freedom when he became an expert. Then he was able to rent an apartment though he was a bachelor at that time. He had his eyes on the future.

However since 1993 no one knew or understood what went wrong. Perhaps people just denied the knowledge of what went wrong with their lives. Some people said the gods got angrier, and others said their ancestors are now restless. Some people read the new foreign holy books and thought they found new hopes.

If anyone had told Chinedu that he was going to be living from hand to mouth in 2014 he would have sworn to Amadiora, one of the gods he knew before 1985, that that day will never come. He would have called the Alusi, if he knew how, to strike the speaker of the strange words.

Now married with children, Chinedu can no longer afford the cost of running his business. It’s too hard now to tend a family. He is terrified everyday and he had seen some people landed in prisons after attempting to push hard drugs as a way to keep their businesses going. The law is not effective but it always catches up with the people who need protection the most, if they erred. One of his friends died with foam puffing from his mouth. The wraps of cocaine inside of him exploded before he could deliver them.

The power generating plants kept breaking down and the cost of petrol for home and business became unbearable. Chinedu gave up. One day he survived an unexpected explosion. The generator was bad but he didn’t know about it. Now, he’s not sure if he should move back to his village with his family. He can go back to his grandfather’s farmland. He is afraid he may be called a failure. His mind kept roaming, as he ponders on the alternative “businesses” of armed robbery and kidnapping. By resisting the temptations, he thought he had rebuked the devil.

Some people think that the devil exists and that he is male. People think the devil should be blamed for all the negative things in life. When he was a student, Chinedu learnt about the culture and mythology of the people in Ebute Meta. He was held spellbound when he learnt that the devil was not Esu. He knows now that it was the invaders who taught about the devil.

Among all the tribes in the land, the people of Ebute Meta, Amuwo and Araromi have no version of the devil in their existence and traditional institutions. It was also the foreigners who invented the term religion and misapplied it. Ignorance ruined the minds of men and they thought that the white man’s devil is the Esu in Ifa’s mythology. Ifa is not a religion; it is a way of life and the explanation for everything associated with mankind.

It was about time the human race laid the blame for global ruins at own doorsteps. Man is responsible for the evil deeds in the world, not an imaginary demon. Man created religion and a place in his own heart called “devil”. Ifa is not human but it can admittedly be either good or bad depending on the man that applies it. When people find evil in (d)evil, maybe they will be convinced that both terms are the inventions of ordinary mortals.

Many people in Ebute Meta are happy for the knowledge that came their way through basic education. But they are now sad because of their misfortunes. What they have learnt have seen them through many life changing experiences. Their hope is that the prevailing problems they encounter will pass away. But what are they doing about these new problems?

There was a man who left Ebute Meta. He went to a very far place in the land called Abuja. He was in search of fulfilment and his name was Muyiwa. He was killed in a bomb explosion. The bomb was set off by the dissidents in Abuja. No one can see the future unless the gods smile down on them and when risks are not taken sometimes, it’s hard to tell what the outcomes could be. After more than 10 years as a jobless engineer in Ebute Meta, this young man was exterminated. He was just 37, which is 3 years shy of age when they say life begins.

Muyiwa was a brilliant man and he was originally from the village of Eniyansoro. He had been told of a job opportunity in the far place. He thought he’d try out his luck. The debt he owed to get to this place of death will never be paid back. The dissidents from the North have now come to Abuja. People say they are also mad because they do not believe in visions but accepted the foreign teaching that they will be alive as martyrs in an unknown place by killing innocent people in suicide missions.

The king of Abuja is foolish. He believes in the devil so he did nothing about this evil when it showed its ugly head. All his life, all he-the king-wanted is power and he chose to dine with the “devil” because he had a choice. He had learnt from his youth that he could dine with the devil by using a very long spoon.

Many of the previous Kings of Abuja are known to have suddenly perished. Some people say the gods must be crazy in this land because they first make the kings deaf and then they destroyed them. But the gods are not crazy. They are probably amused.

Even so because the various kings in the different parts of the land are hypocrites who pretend about the new religions while possessing deep seated intuitions about the gods and they always thought that sacrifices are better than obedience. So they-the kings-make many ceremonies and they give away many unsuspecting fools as living sacrifices. The biggest human sacrifices have always been in Abuja and towards the North of the land.

Money and gold can make people to stop thinking, so they don’t see the evil that other men have planted in their ways. Another selected delegate to the king’s ceremony died 2 days ago and still people want to blame the devil. If the king can kill one of his brothers, who can be free from his thirst for power?

When people are hungry, they also sometimes unknowingly sell their souls. They have no food because many of them left for the cities. They thought they will get rich in the cities. Now with fewer jobs, many of them have no money as well. So the people also said that money is the root of all their problems. How can the people know that the devil is not a demon and that he does not exist? Men clothe their hearts as devils and propagate evil despite the knowledge of the truth with which they were born.

Mama Esan thought about the religiosity of all the kings that she knew: in Ebute Meta, in Abuja and even in the North. Then she wondered who God is and his relationship to Olodumare. This was the first time in her life that she gained awareness of her own thinking about religion. The present king of Abuja took religion to an absurd horizon. No king before him adopted religion as widely and open as he does today. Yet, it is now that the greatest devastations beseech the land. Mama Esan became really confused.

She was not finished with her thoughts. She knows a lot about many of the books her children read when they returned from school. The stories are mostly sad stories. In history, in geography and even in science books, she listened when her children study about many diseases and how some of them are incurable. She’ll be sad if there are no ways for the children to return to school. We are in a hopeless situation, she said to herself. Then she thought that she had a voice in her head “We become religious because we are afraid of death. Yet we die and become dust”.

She woke up drowned in her sweat. She thought about Muyiwa. Ebute Meta is not a big place. Bad news travel fast. She knew about the travails of Muyiwa and many young people in Ebute Meta. She remembered the day Muyiwa and his friends came to her and ask for some items on credit. She overheard him when he told his friends about a foreign film called Fried Green Tomatoes that he had seen and that his favourite line in the movie set in the 1920s was: no one would leave this earth alive.

One day, in order to start a discussion, mama Esan asked her neighbour: what is the meaning of premonition? One of her children had said that he thought Muyiwa had a premonition he was going to die in a far (foreign) place and that was why he talked about the foreign drama and death.

All that is foreign cannot be evil. The power of discernment is one of the greatest gifts the gods left to the people when they departed from Araromi. Muyiwa was philosophical while his travails lasted. He spoke of the several millions like him and wondered from where their hope cometh. He died along with several other innocent people. His hope never materialised and his body parts were shattered. Life can be cruel even to the kind. The evil in the hearts of men and kings does not discern because they think it is the devil’s work.

With all sorts of religions, vices and crimes are committed in the land. The taste of foreign religions left the people in this land in the rhythm of the shadows of mental slavery. It became more devastating because somehow they were not able to differentiate between rites and faith.

This king of Abuja became a master in the philosophy of modern religion. The dissidents from the North have their own ideas about it. The people are suffering and there is confusion everywhere.

From everything the people hear and see they also fail to realise that their freedom and way back to prosperity will lie in their power to discern. They must know the truth so that they can be free. Else there is a risk they will become slaves to anything that they do not understand.

Muyiwa was one of those who believed that life started and will end on earth. He had a premonition but he didn’t know it. He was a kind fellow and he lived in peace with everybody though his heart was always troubled in his private moments.

Then she sat down again, and wept.

(Watch out for part 2)

aderounmu@gmail.com

How Much Money Does A Man Need?

August 9, 2014August 9, 2014 / Adeola / 1 Comment

By Adeola Aderounmu

In 1996 before the end of my service year I met an elderly man in a village near Moniya, on the outskirts of Ibadan. I think the village is called Idi Ose or something like that. Some of my colleagues at that time had been going to that village before I arrived in Oyo State for my service year.

The village provided solitude, a sort of respite from the stress of the work we do as Nigerians at IITA. I think my colleagues really wanted to have a place where they can have peace from work and sip original palm wine or just relax in the shade when they have long breaks or at the close of work before heading home. There is always peace when you are close to nature.

The elderly man, a very good reason to follow on the short trips to the other side of the road, was a very good listener and he chose his words with wisdom when he spoke. On one particular day he revealed his vexations, his bitterness about the criminals and greedy people called politicians who loot or steal from the treasuries across Nigeria. His greatest disappointment was that the crazy politicians do not need so much money for a single, short life time. For most of us we will not live up to 36 500 days!

He must be in his 70’s then and he told us that he had counted the probable days left of his life. He made an example and said if he had just N1m, that it would be more than enough for him to live a good life for the rest of his days. So, he questioned the excessive looting by Nigerian politicians and public office holders. He could neither comprehend, nor understand the rational behind looting of several billions of naira or dollars by individuals.

It was from this elderly man that I first heard that having cars do not depict prosperity. It’s hard to admit such a line of reasoning in Nigeria and I understood it more in Europe where people leave their cars at home and enjoy bicycle rides to work and parks.

How much money does a man need actually?

The answers cannot be that easy and the question cannot be treated in isolation. It can also not be generalised.

The amount of money a man needs today will depend greatly on the country that he lives in. Even within a single country the amount will also vary locally or regionally.

But what a non-greedy “universal” man needs can be used a yardstick, sort of standard.

At every point in time, a man needs access to shelter. He needs food, water and above all a good state of health to enjoy the previously stated necessities of life.

But how does one define a universal man? Is he/she single, married or divorce? Does he or she have children? What kind of roles does the society play in the care of the underprivileged, the unemployed, the old, the ill and other categories of the people who one can classify as either dependents or weak?

In what ways can one connect the universal man to the others in the same society? This question is very relevant for countries like Nigeria because of the overwhelming abnormalities that obtain in how the society runs. It’s a totally dysfunctional society where bad politics and stupid policies have ruined the essential foundations of family, society and country.

A universal man who has come of age wants to have a job or do something in order to earn a dignified living or existence. At every point in time, he can live in one house or in an apartment. At every point in time, he can drive one car or ride a bicycle. He can only sleep on a bed. These things and all the other things that a man desires can be naturally influenced by taste and normal affluence.

However those who loot Nigeria’s treasuries do not understand that happiness comes from the perfect integration of work and play. They do not comprehend that happiness is also based on sound health, contentment with family, mutual coexistence with other people and peace with nature and environment.

[Abdulsalami, Shonekan, Babangida, Obasanjo, Jonathan, Gowon, Shagari and Buhari. Under these men, their executive councils, their ministers, several state governors and other accomplices that sometimes include their wives, Nigeria has lost over 600 billion dollars. They should be made accountable. Nigeria needs to make examples of the rule of law for real, and the “heads” are usually where to start so that other parts can straighten out. Never is it too late!]

Greed is the creator of insatiateness. When people working in public positions, Nigerian politicians in this case, start to think that they can build a perfect life based on the amount of money they steal or accumulate, then there is a tendency to open up a bogus life instead, that which is based on falsehood, criminalities and perpetual illusions that money is the sole basis of happiness or solution to life’s puzzle.

This is where Nigerian politicians are today. They found an evil haven in the nature of the crazy politics and ways of life that emerged in post-independence Nigeria. They created a buffer called the immunity clause that allows them to live as criminals in government and eventually they remain free criminals shielded from prosecution even after days of political plundering.

They found morally bad refuge in the useless law system that they helped to manipulate and rendered ineffective. Nigerian politicians who are well known criminals have rarely ended up in jails. Nigerians as a people are totally disorganised and weakened by ethnicity and religiosity amongst other factors that promote mental slavery. They back their own “local political criminals” or they simply adopt the “siddon look” approach. What a tragic sequence!

Does a man need up to 12 billion dollars in his life time? Why would a man steal so much money under the pretence of political service? Such crimes are previously thoughts to be reserved for the social misfits, career smugglers and armed bandits until it became the official pastime of public office holders in Nigeria.

Treasury Looters

What kind of satisfaction comes from buying properties that belong to the government and the people under the pretence of governance? Why do Nigerian politicians engage in looting competitions to acquire massive wealth that they cannot exhaust if they were to live their lives 100 times over?

Are these acquisitions growing signs of undetected mental ailments among Nigerian politicians? How much money does a man need? Leo Tolstoy made us understand how much land a man need. It’s just 6 feet.

The minimum federal wage in Nigeria is N18 000 per month. This poverty wage is so low and shameful it can only buy 3 standard meals at an average modern eatery in Nigeria. How does a man who earn N18 000 per month survives from one month to the next? Understanding this type of a question can help us arrive at what an average man needs to survive in Nigeria. It will illuminate the things Nigerians do in order to survive.

It will also in no small extent expand the scope of the mental ailments of the Nigerian politicians who earn more than any other group of politicians globally but still needing to steal or loot so much. Nigerian politicians will rub shoulders with the most corrupt categories of people in the world.

How much money does a man need? Is family a reason to become a thief in politics? How did Nigerians end up employing or selecting criminals as politicians all round and then end up doing nothing to rectify the anomaly?

When a man starts his own family, how much money does he need? How does he plan his household so that his usual income can cater for the need of his wife and children? What are the modern roles of women in Nigerian homes so that a family is able to maintain an economic stability that will keep them away from crime or criminal tendencies? I know that women are breadwinners in many homes anyway.

Irrespective of the amount of money that a man needs as an individual or as a breadwinner, the amount of money that Nigerian politicians earn and then loot will not be justifiable. It has been crime against humanity all the way.

Nigeria is paying her legislators the highest salaries in the world. Yet they receive unlimited bonuses, have access to contracts, and enjoy lazy times at the sittings.

Treasury Looters

In general Nigerian politicians earn a lot and steal a lot. A whooping 600 billion dollars may have been stolen from the Nigerian treasury in the past 50 years. About 200 billion dollars of these wasted monies have allegedly disappeared since the return of civilian rule in 1999.

What these looted or wasted monies could have translated into is immeasurable. But with simple logic, it is easy to assume that Nigeria is supposed to be the best country to live on earth. I mean who throws away 600 billion dollars? It’s insane!

The consequences include but are not limited to making Nigeria probably the most corrupt country in the world, one of the worst places to live on planet earth and a place where life expectancy is declining fast.

Nigerian politicians and former military dictators should be made to undergo extensive psychological evaluations so Nigerians can know what is going on in their heads. Answers may be needed for the sake of posterity. Nigeria may take the help of renowned anthropologists to do extensive studies on the mindsets of her politicians.

I’m serious to repeat that this is very important and necessary because Nigerian politicians are definitely not normal people. Their abnormalities are promoted by the absence of functional legal systems that ought to put away political criminals in prisons. It is also promoted by the absence of virtues that define sane societies for example Nigerians do not question the sources of wealth, they simply worship it. In the presence of money, majority of Nigerians simply lose their moral consciousness.

What is a politician or a group of politicians doing with stolen or missing 20 billion dollars or 12 billion dollars or even 1 billion dollars? Why would someone loot 300 million pounds in Nigeria and stash away in a foreign bank? Is the money his father’s savings or his family earnings? These types of politicians ought to have been rounded up and bundled behind bars.

It’s amazing how Nigerians have been enveloped by both the Stockholm and the Nigerian syndromes. These untoward attributes make up (the) almost irreversible tragedies that plague Nigeria as it is today.

How much money does a man need for a life span that is less than 100 years (36 500 days)? I don’t think these retards count their life span in days just to see how short life is!

All the atrocities committed by civilian rulers/looters and military gangsters have already taken their tolls and it is getting worse. Life expectancy in Nigeria is moving below the 40 year mark. Unpublished data in the hands of a medical doctor friend and classmate of mine puts life expectancy in Nigeria between 37-39 years old.

How long are Nigerians going to look on or away before they realise that their future had been stolen and that recovery lies entirely in their hands. The system of government is rubbish. We are just reading about a probable scenario where Goodluck Jonathan may have kept several millions of naira in Aso rock. Is Aso rock a bank or bureau de change? This type of trend is common in Nigeria but it is totally abnormal and crazy.

In every part of Nigeria, people need to organize sensible resistance and find ways to end the reign of the bad rulers and corrupt politicians. The people need to regain their consciousness and take back their regions in (to) normalcy. It’s going to be a very long walk to freedom.

It is known that all days can be for the thief. But no matter how long it takes one day must definitely be for the owner. With the nonsense immunity clause in Nigeria that protect criminals in government and the invalid status of the rule of law that fails to catch up with them, one day it will be time for the people to round up all the corrupt politicians and military dictators and tell them that enough is enough!

That’s part of the hope and probably one of the ways forward as well.

#prosecuteallpoliticallootersnow

#bringbacknigeriasmoney

#bringbackregionalgovernmentthatworksbeforethecoups

aderounmu@gmail.com

Ebola, May Your Days Be Short (A Facebook Note)

August 7, 2014 / Adeola / Leave a comment

Adeola Aderounmu

Which Way Nigeria?

I can’t believe I am writing about Ebola. I tried hard to skip it. I couldn’t sleep last night,so you can understand why.

Maybe one day people will put their heads together in that part of Africa-The Sub-Saharan and put an end to mental slavery.

Maybe this is the time to call Nigerian medical researchers together from all over the world. Sadly I was one of them until 2004 when I walked away (don’t worry why I did what I did, life has since moved on).

Sincerely my views are wide and vast. That’s why the article is going ahead; but I don’tknow if I’ll publish. I’ll make the call and probably suspend my story about The Mad Kings.

It doesn’t matter now if Ebola was modified or invented as a biological weapon or not.

What has happened is that the list of Nigerian national emergencies just got longer. Don’t miss the point though that Malaria the number one killer in sub-Saharan African will terminate several lives especially children under 5 years of age before you finish reading these few lines.

Drug discoveryresearch is one of the most challenging worldwide; it could take half or even more than half of a scientist life if he/she does not derail and if the funding is flowing.

Many people are worried that there is no medicine for Ebola in Nigeria for example. They are not even asking, where is the malaria vaccine?

Ask yourself: Who wants to stay on a drug discovery research for 20 years or more with limited or no funding when an ordinary local government councillor can amass a wealth of 10 billion naira in one political season? Where is the inspiration going to come from?

I am even suggesting that the road to the malaria vaccine may be lying on the shelf somewhere at Idiaraba. l hope someone goes looking soon.

I am on the 4th page of my article (Ebola, May Your Days Be Short). You can guess how many questions and issues I have raised as a medical parasitologist / assistant lecturer at LUTH even before 2002. Don’t worry about how my position was terminated at Idiaraba as I struggled to put things together here in Sweden. Worry about your loved ones, and see what you can do to fight for your own freedom in down town Bongo.

Ebola, may your days be short because Nigerians have real issues to deal with. Issues that will shape the rest of their lives.

(copied from my facebook note)

http://www.facebook.com/adeola

Let’s Go And Die, Abroad!

August 3, 2014August 3, 2014 / Adeola / 1 Comment

By Adeola Aderounmu

Riliwan Lukman, Umaru Dikko, Abdulkareen Adisa and Odumegwu Ojukwu

Nigeria in many ways continues to tag herself to the world as a sort of #jungle, #uncivilised, and a massively #underdeveloped geographical region. The shame of Nigeria escalates daily and the legions of Nigerian politicians finishing their journeys on earth in foreign hospitals remain embarrassing.

Under colonisation (which Nigerians love to bash), and shortly after independence, Nigeria had some of the best public facilities in the world. The economy was good, there was dignity in labour and merit was the main reason for getting public positions.

Institutions like the Nigerian Airways were top rated and efficient. Nigeria also had world class medical facilities evenly spread in the Western, Eastern and Northern regions of the country.

However, in the 70s, after enduring some of the most senseless coups ever and a civil war, Nigeria’s fall from glory to grass was ensured. The fall remains unabated even to this day. Many of the invigorations today with respect to public utilities and service delivery in some states in Nigeria are rather too cosmetic. They are classical fire brigade approaches.

They do not follow the trend of continuity, gradual development or advancement as expected in a normal society. By the standards of the 60s Nigeria is supposed to be one of the best places to live in the world today. But on the contrary, she is ranked among some of the worst places on earth mostly along side war torn countries and countries devastated by terrorism and total absence of governance.

The fact that the infrastructure fell flat in the first place revealed the absence of maintenance culture and a lack of leadership. Nigerians have had largely very bad rulers at all levels of governance.

The abolition of federalism, the glorification of corruption, impunity, extreme greed, loss of patriotism, the elevation of tribalism and the promotion of nepotism played very significant roles in destroying the values, cultures and sense of belonging in Nigeria. The foolishness of Nigeria’s greedy politicians and their military counterparts under different dispensations and the unneeded resiliency trait in Nigerians have totally destroyed the essence of life and the value of it. All these anomalies combined and eroded completely the spirits of nationalism and patriotism.

When people or family members of the people who have contributed to the dilemma of Nigerians die, they are praised and eulogised by fellow criminals in government. The rest of the people are cautious or terrified to speak the truth even of the dead. Death is the inevitable end of all living things and speaking the truth or reality of the lives of the people who are dead does not amount to speaking “evil about the dead”.

The politicians who chose to die abroad are desperate to hold on to lives. Staying alive is a normal attribute for biological creatures. The tendency is to survive and procreate. This is why suicide is regarded as an outcome of mental ailment but this essay is not about the psychology or sociology of death, so I’ll move on.

My point is not to recount all the looters of Nigeria who have died abroad. But Riliwanu Lukman is the latest of the Nigerian politicians who went abroad to die. He was the Nigerian Federal Minister of Petroleum Resources and the Secretary General of OPEC for many years. In all of those years it probably did not occur to him to persuade or collaborate with the Federal Ministry of Health in Nigeria to build a world class hospital from a very small percentage of the huge revenue the Petroleum Ministry was swimming in.

Mrs. Jonathan, Mrs Jonathan is an out-patient at a German hospital where she has been operated and regularly checked.This is bad rulership at its peak. Where should ordinary Nigerians go when they are sick or need medical attention?

He did not bring up or follow up on any public argument on the need to improve the health services that could benefit all Nigerians. Someone can argue that it was not his job to do that. Would that be because he was too busy or because he had a choice of living and dying abroad? Would that not amount to selfishness? Did he not think of doing a check up or visiting the doctors here in Nigeria when he is on duty as a member of the executive all of those years?

Umaru Yar Adua, Late Umaru Yar’Adua was governor was 8 years before he ruled Nigeria for a short period. He did not build any specialist hospital in his state and he did not start a public debate on the matter even at Aso Rock. He was flown to several countries and finally returned to Nigeria

Umaru Dikko, another very corrupt man who was alleged to have looted over 300 million pounds when the Naira was still hefty ended it in London recently. The monies that disappeared under Mr. Shagari alone added to this 300 million pounds would build the best hospitals in the world in all the states of the federation in the 1980s when Umaru Dikko and the rest of the criminals in NPN were stealing and waiting for Nigerians to eat from the dustbin to flag-off or signify that they were hungry.

Dora Akunyuli died in India, also recently. She was treated in Nigeria, USA and finally rested in India. It will be difficult to absolve any living or dead Nigerian politician in the complacency that rigmarole daily under their noses.

The packaging and off-loading of Musa Yar’ Adua to Nigeria from German to take his last breathe was an adequate trigger that should have sparked off a public debate about the state of health provision to all categories of Nigeria. No one in Yar Adua’s cabinet started any debate. No one was wise enough to raise the red flag on functional public health care delivery system for Nigerian politicians and all categories of Nigerians in Nigeria.

One would hope that before the end of 2014 that the present administration will purge the shame and build world class hospitals that have the same facilities and professionalism like the ones they run to in Germany, Saudi Arabia, India, USA and London in Abuja and several states in Nigeria. The administration of Jonathan should look beyond the facilities at Aso Rock specialist hospital: not by flying Mrs. Jonathan to Germany for abdominal discomforts.

The National Assembly can probably write their names in gold despite all the monies they have stolen under the rulership of David Mark. They don’t have to think of buying the tallest building in Nigeria like their junior ex-colleague and crook Dimeji Bankole. They should not toe the line of pension scammers like Akpabio and Tinubu.

They can suggest “a law” or pass a healthy bill that the various state governments in Nigeria should work together with the Federal Ministry of Health to copy, construct and equip at least one hospital in their states like the one that Mrs. Jonathan was visiting for treatment and operations.

Babangida, Bad Rulership: Ibrahim Babangida did not build modern or world class hospitals in Nigeria despite ruling Nigeria for many years. His wife was flown abroad for treatment. Even Babangida himself treated a toe injury in France. Where did all the oil revenues go? What did he do with all the missing oil funds?

They can even suggest the type of hospitals that Yar’ Adua visited in Saudia Arabia or Germany before he ended it in Abuja. Nigeria does not have to borrow the money needed; the criminal politicians only have to stop stealing or looting. Then Mrs Jonathan can fly to Bayelsa State for her next appointment. She can even choose River State in time of peace.

It is sad that even former first lady Maryam Babangida finished her race in the USA. After all Ibrahim Babangida stole so much that he is reported to be richer than many small countries in Africa. The 12 billion dollars stolen from the oil money will be indelible. Why was it impossible to pump the stolen or hidden funds into provision of first class medical facilities across Nigeria? Babangida was not even ashamed of treating an ordinary toe injury in France. As a boy of 14, I was ready to have my ear operated at General Hospital, Ikeja in 1986 until my file got missing!

What is wrong with the mentalities of Nigerian rulers? The type of selfishness that makes men not to think of health issues and the transiency of life in Nigeria is unbelievable. They probably think they won’t die and therefore looted monies that could last them a 100 times of their expected life time or more. Is it a crime if their children and unborn generations have to work to earn their own livelihoods?

Let me be the first person to burst their bubbles if they haven’t seen or heard about it in the movies: nobody is going to leave this world alive and nobody is going to take anything beyond this life after transition to glory or disgrace. So what is the essence of the senseless looting and selfish accumulation of unnecessary commonwealth?

One of the tropical gangsters of the Nigerian military who did not understand this logic was Abdulkareem Adisa. He took his exit in London in 2005. He was a former governor, and then a Minister of Transport. Nigeria has paraded different shades of transport ministers and she still has some of the worst roads in the world. These roads are still claiming lives, an average of 400 per day some 7 years ago. Adisa’s transition went from a road accident in Nigeria to lying lifeless in London.

There are too many sad, embarrassing stories of prominent Nigerians dropping dead in foreign hospitals. How do Nigeria wants to appear in the foreign media? Civilised? That is a long thing. A people whose rulers die abroad will be easily classify as uncivilised and barbaric actually.

Chief Odimegwu Ojukwu kicked the dust in London in 2011. As a former war lord and later a presidential candidate, I missed his campaigns and debates. I don’t know what his manifestos said about health for all. Stella Obasanjo ended it in Spain in 2005 due mainly to the negligence of the doctor after going under the knife for liposuction.

Nigerian doctors are among the best in the world. The government of Nigeria should try to retain them at home or bring them from overseas so they can be useful for simple liposuction procedures. Even Olusegun Obasanjo did not build any world class hospital in memory of the sad and embarrassing tragedy that struck him and the country.

Nigerian doctors are superb when the conditions are right. They need the hospitals where they can work and they need the technology, equipment and enabling environment to practise. I can’t forget that operations are sometimes done in LUTH using candle light! Nigeria is so warm yet no sensible Minister of Power had adopted the solar panel as an alternative clean source of Nigeria. Nigeria does not need any partnership with USA or China. Sunlight is free! Where is the intelligence of the black race taking Nigeria as a study case? Even cold countries are trapping solar power during the short summer season.

I cannot over emphasise the pain of writing these few lines, this essay. They are neither new nor news. It is just too sad that it is going to happen again. One politician who could have started a public campaign of building the best hospitals across all the state of the federation in Nigeria is soon going to fly to London to die!

Obasanjo, Former dictator and ruler Mr. Obasanjo did not start a public debate on health care provision for Nigerians. The death of his wife did not even provide the trigger

Even some of Nigeria’s wealthiest people are usually “rushed” abroad for treatments. Some like Dantata did not make it back from Germany. Arisekola did not make it back from London. There are also no records to show that these wealthy people championed or advocated the establishment of public health delivery of international standard for the masses. The exit of these people is therefore not a loss to Nigeria contrary to some nonsense and propaganda of praising the dead. Everybody dies in the end, poor or rich.

Germany and London are sometimes far places to look at. Is anyone counting how many delegates to the Jonathan stage-managed conference that have died during the proceedings? Someone even said they have been brought to Abuja for rituals! It is a sad commentary on the state of health in Nigeria.

It has been more than 50 years since Nigeria got her independence. Then she became more dependent. What will be the cost of building some of the best hospitals in the world across Nigeria? For a group of politicians who love money and are not ready to die because they foolishly don’t understand that life is transient, what would it cost them to organise as they always do on matters on corruption?

For as long as the laws in Nigeria let them enjoy their lives as criminal politicians, they need to organise in another way just to ensure that they build the best hospitals in different states in Nigeria where they can always go to prolong their last days, for death is inevitable. There is no escape route or country for anyone!

In how many ways do writers, critics and public commentators have to put these postulations forward before they understand? Money does not buy eternal life! It is stupidity, if not madness to steal all the monies in the Nigerian treasuries and hide them away abroad, only to go abroad to die in a probably government-funded hospital.

I remember my cousin pointing his finger, showing me the London hospital where Atiku Abubakar went to threat ordinary fracture in 2007. Are we sure Nigerian politicians don’t fly abroad to get pills against headaches? Have they imagined what ordinary Nigerians go through everyday?

Do they know how Nigerians take care of their own sick family members? If they go abroad for treatment of headaches, dislocations and stomach problems, where should Nigerians with kidney and heart problems go to? Have they thought about this seriously? How many of our brethren are we going to contribute to their bank accounts so that can be flown abroad?

Nigerian politicians and their families need to get that fact about life in their heads. All of us cannot have sympathy for the dead, not especially those who looted the Nigerian treasury and diminished the meaning of our lives. They stole our future, our dreams.

Many Nigerians have also lost their parents, family members, friends and neighbours due to preventable illnesses and sometimes callously resulting from the incessant strike actions of medical personnel. The last dilemma is that anyone can be bombed away at any time in the absence of security for the masses.

More than 90 million Nigerians are living in penury, uncertain of the next meal. What should they do about their health conditions when those whom they entrusted public services into their hands are looting the treasuries and flying abroad for treatment, sometimes to die?

In the end the statement that a people get the rulers they deserved always come as a relevant conclusion. How Nigerians allowed the selfish rulers (both military and civilian) to destroy the foundations of the country is unimaginable. Almost all areas of public systems are in shambles. Name it, education, health, housing, security….

Goodluck Jonathan, Mr. Jonathan is the current ruler of Nigeria and time will tell if his wife will be able to attend a national or state hospital before the end of his reign already plagued by the worst cases of insecurity since the end of the civil war. What would it take to ensure that Nigerian politicians are treated in Nigeria?What is the hope of the common people who cannot travel abroad to treat major ailments?. Mr. Jonathan must start the debate and make plans to save Nigerians. Nigerians must be treatable in Nigeria irrespective of their place in the society

My knowledge of Western Nigerian, the memories of my primary school days, my experiences of how public services work around the world continue to assure me that unless the system of government in Nigeria is reverted back to the functional regional system which was punctuated in the 1960s, Nigeria may be going no where.

Regionalism is not the magic dose. Nigeria under the present situation has no magic dose any longer. The destructions are deep and hard to heal. The institutions (and I continue to emphasise that) must work again. The people must become patriotic and there must be dignity in labour and rewards for merit and real excellencies, not ceremonial and idiotic excellencies that pervades the landscape today.

Nigerian politics is rugged, violent, abnormal and dominated by rogues and thugs. Sadly too, it is too cheap when the politicians are neither prosecutable, nor punishable. If this nonsense continues (as in not removing the useless immunity clause), and the highly corrupt, extremely inefficient unitary system of government which is critically disconnected from reality and is in discordant tune with the populace persist, then the people have to stand up one day and take their own destinies in their hands. No guts, no glory!

aderounmu@gmail.com

Postcards From Legoland, Denmark

July 25, 2014August 26, 2015 / Adeola / Leave a comment

LEGOLAND, Denmark

By Adeola Aderounmu

Happiness is one of the most important things in life.

When I set out on this holiday trip with my family, I knew my next article would be written in Denmark and I would like to find some inspirations, taking the time off my holiday mood and punching my keyboards. I write from Lanladia-Legoland.

Lanladia is a small settlement in Billund which is about 265 km from Copenhagen. We took a long road trip all the way from Stockholm. That was the plan.

Before we left Sweden we made quite a number of stops on our way. We spent the first night at a small town called Vetlanda in Småland, in the heart of Sweden. Actually we visited a friend of my wife and her family and spent the night at their country home. It’s situated on a farm area. The children had fun with the kittens and the cows on the farm.

Vetlnda Farm House

We also saw a friend of mine Olutayo Adegoke before we arrived at the farm house. It was an impromptu stopover but he was glad to take a short break from his work as we had lunch in a park near his office just outside Nörrköping. It was almost incredible when Tayo told me he would be travelling to Nigeria that night. What a stop we made!

Adeola Aderounmu and Tayo Adegoke

The next day our first stop was Avesta, also a small town in the South of Sweden. There lives Kelechi Udeh, a youg man I knew from Festac Town. We had lunch again in the open and near a car park at the center of the small town. We mingled with Kelechi for about 45 minutes and off we drove. He told me he is very happy to be settled in Avesta and I was marvelled how a Festac Town found happiness in a small town. Variety will remain the spice of life. It will always be in order to bloom where one has been planted.

With Kelechi Udeh in Avesta

We reached Malmö in the early evening. Tolu Taylor agreed to host us for dinner. We were not going to say no. Tolu, a big brother, was my senior at Festac Grammar School. Adeolu Sunmola who was my junior and my student at the same school joined us. Onyebuchi Echigeme completed the mini reuniuon of the Festac Boys in Malmö when he later joined us for dinner at Tolu’s house. Indeed, Festac Town and the people from Festac are always close to my heart.

With Tolu Taylor and Adeola Sunmola in Malmö City

With Tolu Taylor and Adeolu Sunmola in Malmö City

We spent the night in Malmö and drove off to Denmark the next morning. We left home in Sweden on Tuesday morning and arrived Legoland in Denmark on Thursday shortly after lunch. We have driven close to 1000 km without encountering a single pot hole. I called European (E) roads paradise roads.

with Onyebuchi Echigeme

When this essay goes to publication we will probably be on a homeward journey. If our plans work fine, we will make surprise stops at Gothenburg and Örebro to vist more of my friends and incredibly it’s all about the Festac Town connections. They were built connections built from 1977 to 2002. They will last for life. In Copenhagen, we will be lucky if Mary Owolabi is home when we make our journey out of Denmark. She spoke of other plans, but we’ll see what happens.

The children are having a blast. I read one day ago that Denmark is now the home of the happiest people on earth. It’s a good thing to be here when it happened. LEGOs are made or born in Denmark and it is a good experience for the children to see where some of their toys come from and how they come to life in Billund, Denmark. They are old enough never to forget the experience. The adventures have been awesome.

What will be hard for them to know is my heart felt wish or desire for the country where I was born. Unfortunately our experiences together in Nigeria in 2010 were mostly unpleasant. We spent 2½ hours at MMIA before our luggage were complete in our care, ran on generators for 2 weeks, nearly suffocated in heavy and static traffic, had limitations to where we could go and things we could do. The best thing about Nigeria was the warmth of our families and friends.

I have read the news, followed my twitter stream and stayed in touch with global events. I have read so many conspiracy theories on the Malaysia Airline plane that crashed in Ukraine. There are always more sad news than good news or maybe the good things are not always newsworthy. I am mostly worried about the things that are going on in Nigeria, a paradise lost.

Yea, Malala came to town. She was in Abuja to press for the release of the Chibok girls. Then the “bringbackourgirls” campaign group entered a one chance roforofo fight with the corrupt Nigerian presidency. Mr. Jonathan was at the fore front of a “fight” for once in a lazy presidential life time. I learnt he was bitter when he was refused the chance of meeting the Chibok parents.

I know there was an allegation of a missing $20 bn from a government that is now trying to borrow $1bn to fight Boko Haram. Who are the clowns in Aso rock? Everyday several billions of dollars are lost to oil theft only in Nigeria. Everyday too, Nigerian politicians loot several billion of dollars in the executive, legislature, state governments and local governments. That’s the way to explain their sudden riches and capabilities to buy up anything including the former tallest building in Lagos/Africa. They can buy customized private jets anytime they want. How much do they earn legitimately?

The government that steals so much money should be ashamed to even ask for the least borrow-able amount from any creditor. The same government is paying huge sums annually to foreign PR firms and lobbyists to help it repair its battered image and to label Nigerians in such ways as to promote the corrupt government. Only dubious creditors will be willingly to lend money to government that is supposed to be richer than it-the creditor. They call it business when they do.

There is no greater PR than eradicating corruption and serving the people rather than selves. The extremely low level of mentalities of the Nigerian politician leaves one in awe and shock. From the view of the rest of the informed world, it is mockery and easily set Nigeria among the countries ruled by nonentities. The classification, “among the most corrupt” is too easy.

There is at present a wave and fear of impeachment going on in Nigeria only in APC controlled states or in states where a governor brought a PDP-stolen mandate to the APC fold. My bigger expectation is for the Nigerian revolution that will totally impeach, sack and sweep altogether what is probably the most corrupt government in the world with headquarters in Aso Rock, Abuja.

Unless such happens, several million Nigerians will never experience the real meaning and essence of life. The witch-hunting and cosmetic approaches of politicians against politicians who are themselves the major problem with Nigeria are not close to the cleansing solution that Nigeria and Nigerians need. The Promised Land is getting farther.

I knew since 2011 that governance is on a long recess in Nigeria. The trend is common and predictable. Once an election period is over and the new captors of Nigeria settle down to amass, steal, loot and drain the treasuries, the struggle that will sustain or produce the next conquerors of Nigeria quickly goes into motion.

In the last three years, such a condemnable trend has produced the largest number of political prostitutes ever in Nigeria’s history. It is part of the reasons the wave of impeachment became the strongest weapon today, for rather than service to the people and fulfilment of electoral promises it was business as usual and psycho-egocentrism peculiar to the Nigerian political class. It is therefore too easy to line up impeachable offences against those on the other side of the power divide.

Nigeria’s politics is driven by insatiable lust for money and the highest bidders always buy the consciences of the ever-hungry looters called politicians (and sadly the populace too). In all, they are all birds of the same feather and 99.9% of them from Aso rock to Badagry and Sambisa local government areas ought to be spending time in jails by now. But we know that the institutions are dead in Nigeria, the worst hit being the powerless police and the strikingly corrupt judiciary.

The in-thing in Nigeria today is rice politics and stomach infrastructure. Nigerians have short memories and those who are old enough have learnt nothing from history. Even as a boy in primary school I was aware of the consequences of the politics of stomach infrastructure championed by one Shehu Shagari in the late 70s slash early 80s. The NPN was a short-sighted political group that distributed rice, clothes and even apartments to members to ensure that they rig and won the elections back in the days. The rest is history.

That history that includes the extensive reign of tyranny and dictators is what Nigerians have not learnt from. That the PDP, APC or any other party can distribute rice directly or through criminal sponsors is an indication that Lagbaja’s theory of 200 million mumus is a fact. I am short of words or expressions. The situation is not normal; Nigerians are caged, mentally and psychologically!

No matter where I go, no matter what I do. I will always argue for and on behalf of more than 90m Nigerians suffering in silence, disconnected totally from governance and having no idea of the meaning of life, how much more the good life in this temporary passage called earth or world.

I will always argue for social justice, the common good, and a clear understanding of the meaning and essence of life which is not far from the principle of live and let live. I know that illiteracy and total ignorance play huge roles in some parts of the country. I know that the North is a catastrophe based on narrations of friends who went up North.

What I saw in rural Oyo State during my service year in 1995/96 broke my heart. I saw very young and immature people having more children than the number of meals they can have daily. Even most of the adults have no clear scope of what types of life they were living. There is a lot of work to be done across the nations within Nigeria eventually. Education is a top priority now and in the future no matter what becomes of Nigeria or the regions enclosed within it.

My hope for Nigeria and the nations within it is that they will rise again and be on the path they were on the eve of October 1st 1960. The hope includes the rise of functional regional institutions that will usher or return good governance politically, economically and socially. Security of life and property through functional regional security is not the least of priority in a terrorist infected geographical space.

Nigerians are broken almost beyond repair and they need more than a miracle. Nothing short of a revolutionary ideology can save the day, nothing! It must be possible to wipe away corruption, nepotism, tribalism, looting and anything at all that stands in the way of the common happiness. There must be a way forward to build trust and comfort.

Happiness is all that matters in life. The excessive wealth piled up by Nigerian politicians is a reflection of their ill mental statuses, insensitivity to the plights of the deprived and an absolute lack of the understanding of the meaning and essence of life.

There must be a way to knock some senses into the politicians and public office holders that in a transient world, the senseless accumulation of wealth through direct stealing or looting is barbaric, meaningless and inconsistent with expectations of public services directed at humanity. If it takes a revolution of ideology or the over anticipated Saharan revolution, so be it. Silence on the part of a people being oppressed and misruled is not golden.

“Postcards from Denmark” is dedicated to:

1. A friend, Gbenga Akinbisehin (1973- July 16 2014). I heard about your death as a checked in at Malmö, you left too soon, too sudden. You’ll be missed.

2. Every non-corrupt Nigerian working genuinely hard everyday and never having the right to holidays. Your freedom will come.

aderounmu@gmail.com