USAfrica: Alamieyeseigha’s death reflects ill-equipped shacks designated as hospitals.

Alamieyeseigha’s death reflects ill-equipped shacks designated as hospitals.  

By Elsie-Bernadette Onubogu, an International Consultant, former Senior Policy Adviser with the United Nations and contributing editor of USAfricaonline.com

Special to USAfricaonline.com,  and USAfrica multimedia networks, Houston. Follow USAfrica at Facebook.com/USAfricaChido , Facebook.com/USAfrica247 and Twitter.com/Chido247

With the ‘fury of a hurricane’, death came knocking the man Bayelsans called the ‘Governor General’ – DSP Alamieyeseigha.  He was the Governor from 1999 to 2005.

Whether you choose to love or hate him, one thing cannot be denied.  The wind of DSP’s death, perhaps quickened due to the non-availability of efficient, high quality and functioning hospital in Nigeria, presents a ‘future’ that must not be ignored especially by those who hobnobbed with him in the past.  

Without falling into the trap of ethnic prejudice, which seems to becloud others’ sense of reasoning at times like this, I would like to note.   Contrary to speculations and emotive outbursts, neither oil wealth, gold, poverty, lack of funds to medevac DSP to India’s functioning hospital as alleged by some, nor the spurious alleged witch-hunt by APC could have saved the man.  

What could have possibly prolonged his life or saved him, was, better medical care and a healthier life style.  Destiny has a rude way of dishing blows beyond belief.   

It is therefore within this dispensation that this writer emphatically postulates, that, DSP Alamieyeseigha’s death is NOT an APC or PDP problem.  Rather, it is a NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT that has plagued Nigeria with every poor person who died for lack of high quality, efficient, functioning and affordable medical care.  

It exposes the wind, the fury of a hurricane, which has decimated majority of poor people in Nigeria.  

Therefore, I have come to say, goodbye DSP Alamieyeseigha. I did not know Alamieyeseigha personally.  But to borrow from the lyrics of Sir Elton John’s song: “it seems to me he lived his life like a candle in the wind.  Never knowing who to cling to, when the rain set in”.  Adieu, DSP.  May your soul and the souls of the faithful departed, rest in God’s peace.  Amen.

For those wishing to immortalize him, let his death spur you to action for affordable, high quality and efficient medical care for all Nigerians.  Life is transient and like the wind, it blows when its least expected.  

And for death, as the Igbos (Eastern Nigeria) know too well, it does not discriminate.  Hence, the names,   ‘Onwuamaegbu’ & ‘Onwuamaenyi’  {‘Death does not discriminate, Death has no friends}.

Goodbyes in death provide us the contemplative platform to ruminate over this evanescent life, which is best encapsulated in the anonymous poem ‘Life is a Struggle’, written during the French revolution.  

“From the cradle to the grave, life is a struggle.  Life is full of crosses and temptations!

You come into it without your consent. And you go out of it against your wish”.

Therein lie the beginning of life and the inevitability of the end – death!

In the scheme of things, DSP’s death reaffirms the NATIONAL EMBARRASMENT that in 2015, fifty-five (55) years after independence, those affluent enough fly abroad for medical treatment, while the majority poor are left to die in ill-equipped, non-functioning shacks designated hospitals.  

Barely two weeks ago, while reminiscing over this beautiful poem, a friend and I pondered over the usefulness and inevitability of social media as a means to track my college teacher who exposed me to the piece.   I held the view that social media while useful in certain situations, was not inevitable.  Death, is, the only unquestionable inevitability.  

Beyond inevitability, death is a leveler of sorts, a common denominator, which does not discriminate, neither is it a respecter of persons.  

The death of DSP Alamieyeseigha (seen from varying lens – untimely, should not have happened, could have been avoided, etc.), was inevitable, simply because he was destined to die at this time.  

As mentioned earlier, neither wealth, gold, oil, poverty, lack of funds to fly him out to India’s functioning hospital as alleged by some, nor the spurious alleged witch-hunt by APC could have saved the man.  What could have possibly saved the man, was, better medical care and a healthier life style.

In any event, aficionados who wish to bask in speculation, finger pointing, and the dangerous path of calumny, consider the following summation from a friend.  

“All of this (accusation) would have been unnecessary had Nigerian hospitals been adequately equipped, efficient and functioning well”.  

How many Nigerians have sought medical attention abroad? Unfortunately, in the majority stand public officials, who, have been in a position to change the narrative, including medical doctors amongst them.  

These include, former President Yaradua, former Governors, Chimaroke Nnamani, Chime, Godswill Akpabio, Liyel Imoke, and Maryam Babangida, to mention a few.  

How many times in the last eight years did the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan (Patience Jonathan) fly abroad for medical treatment?  

Isn’t Diezani Allison-Madueke {former Nigeria’s Petroleum Minister} currently in the UK purportedly receiving medical treatment?  Wasn’t that why she never returned after Goodluck Jonathan lost the elections in May?  

What happened to hospitals in Nigeria?

Nigerian hospitals are a NATIONAL EMBARRASSMENT – certainly not fit for politicians, the rich, and those who have looted public funds.  

It does not have to be like this.  Nigeria can change this sordid narrative.  

Gone too soon – they say in the case of Alamieyeseigha!   What about the ordinary Nigerian?

The lives of poor Nigerians dying before now was not sufficient to beget change.  We would gladly accept the change if this death begets it.

May be gone too soon, but like the wind, death, blows when we cannot tell.  Subsequently, as a Benedictine monk once cautioned, ‘one should not be preoccupied with how they begin their day as much as how their day ends’.  

In his ‘Message in a Bottle”, Nicholas Sparks [http://uk.nicholassparks.com/stories/message-in-a-bottle/} presented one of the most beautiful summations, “There are winds of destiny that blow when we least expect them. Sometimes they gust with the fury of a hurricane sometimes they barely fan one’s cheek. But the winds cannot be denied, bringing as they often do a future that is impossible to ignore.”

It does not have to be like this?  Nigeria and Nigerians can change this story.

In the final analysis, let this be a wake-up call to President Muhammad Buhari, State Governors, and, in particular, the Minister and Commissioners for Health  – appointed or yet to be appointed.  

Let them consider as their No. 1 priority, life-saving project, the establishment, and/or refurbishment of functioning, efficient, high quality and affordable medical care for all Nigerians, rich and poor alike.   

This fury of a hurricane, the demise of the Bayelsan Governor General presents a ‘future’ Nigeria can no longer afford to ignore.     
It is time to save Nigerians from the hurricane of poor quality, inefficient, and/or unaffordable medical care.  Nigerians deserve better! 

——————–

@Chido247 

USAfrica:: Buhari’s rejection of Rolls-Royce ride in London, Obasanjo and lessons of history. By Chido Nwangwu.  https://usafricaonline.com/2015/05/24/buharis-rejection-of-rolls-royce-ride-in-london-obasanjo-and-lessons-of-history-by-chido-nwangwu/

Forthcoming 2015 BOOK: In this engaging, uniquely insightful and first PERSON reportage book, MANDELA & ACHEBE: Footprints of Greatness, about two GLOBAL icons and towering PERSONS of African descent whose exemplary lives

 and friendship HOLD lessons for humanity and Africans, USAfrica Founder Chido Nwangwu takes a measure of their works and CONSEQUENCE to write that Mandela and Achebe have left “footprints of greatness.”

He chronicles, movingly, his 1998 reporting from the Robben Island jail room in South Africa where Mandela was held for decades through his 20 years of being CLOSE to Achebe. He moderated the 2012 Achebe Colloquium at Brown UNIVERSITY in Providence, Rhode Island.“I’ll forever remember having walked inside and peeped through that HISTORIC Mandela jail cell (where he was held for most of his 27 years in unjust imprisonment) at the dreaded Robben Island, on March 27, 1998, alongside then Editor-in-chief of TIME magazine and later news chief EXECUTIVE of the CNN, Walter Isaacson (and others) when PRESIDENT BILL Clinton made his first official trip to South Africa and CAME to Robben Island. Come to this island of scourge and you will understand, in part, the simple greatness and towering grace of Nelson Mandela”, notes  Chido Nwangwu, award-winning writer, multimedia 
specialist and founder of USAfricaonline.com, the first African-owned U.S-based newspaper published on the INTERNET, in his first book; he writes movingly from his 1998 reporting from South Africa on Mandela. http://www.mandelaachebechido.com/

  •Dr. Chido Nwangwu, moderator of the Achebe Colloquium (GOVERNANCE, SECURITY, and PEACE in Africa) December 7-8, 2012 at Brown UNIVERSITY in Rhode Island and former ADVISER on Africa business/issues to the Mayor of Houston, is the Founder & Publisher of Houston-based USAfrica multimedia networks since 1992, first African-owned, U.S-based newspaper published on the INTERNET USAfricaonline.com; CLASSmagazine, AchebeBooks.com, the USAfrica-powered e-groups of AfricanChristians, Nigeria360 and the largest pictorial events megasite on the African diaspora www.PhotoWorks.TV . He was recently profiled by the CNN International for his pioneering works on multimedia/news/public policy projects for Africans and Americans.   E-MAIL: Chido247@Gmail.com