1995 was the first year that I travelled ‘abroad’. It was a trip to Paris, for my one-year internship at the Journalists in Europe programme. Apart from riding a Mercedes Benz taxi from the airport to Rue du Louvre, there was nothing remarkable about the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. France was older than Nigeria in aviation (or so I thought). I changed my mind when research showed that the first aircraft landed in Kano on 1st November 1925. The Roissy airport in Paris was opened in 1974 (we are 49 years older in airport experience than the French!).
By my second day in Paris, I started cursing (yes, I do curse too) Nigerian leaders. I do remember the opulence of military leadership in Nigeria prior to 1995. Most of the officers and men who ran Nigeria were trained in elite military and civilian schools abroad — Sandhurst, Oxford, Columbia, Howard/Havard, etc.
My first ride on the Paris Metro awed me (you know I am a village boy). Metro Premier Ligne (Line 1) in Paris was built in 1900, 77 years before Nigeria’s ruin-ers thought about hosting FESTAC — the Second Festival of Black Arts and Culture — in Nigeria. You may have heard of FESTAC town in its glory and its shame!
I began asking myself how our leaders could collide with all these beautiful things and still have the audacity to cancel the Lagos Metroline, not extend the rail lines beyond where the Brutish left it and have destroyed everything that the wicked Oyinbo people left when they were forced out by the so-called nationalists? I still wonder!
So my dear friend Naseer M. Bello had to ‘tackle’ me on Gimba Kakanda’s wall berating Nigeria for killing Danladi Ndayebo and later Mohammed Isa. I get tackled a lot because people think that I am happy to flaunt the fact that I live in Canada. The truth is, I finished my programme in Paris and left a day later. I loved Nigeria as much then as I still do today. After Paris, the Americans gave me a scholarship to look at their Print Journalism, before the British awarded me a scholarship for a Master’s degree. After each programme, I was always happy to return home.
As a black man lucky to be born in Africa, you are never at home anywhere else except home — in Africa. Our generous hosts abroad know this about us, they always remind us why they need to put their all in their nations because they have no other one. While many of them are descendants of criminals who had to leave England on point of death, many migrants from Africa have unconscious divided loyalty. They will always return to Motherland.
Back to the demise of our two friends (the latest in the number of road casualties), I had cause to tell people that while I am NOT a doctor, I have noticed a few things. In ‘civilized’ climes, the ambulance is the King of the Road. It is the only vehicle that is authorised to run other road users off the road. Blocking an ambulance is a criminal offence. In Canada, I have never heard a siren wail for Justin Trudeau! It would never howl for Doug Ford, the governor (Premier of Ontario or any other for that matter).
What is established by first responders (and the closest I get to medicine is my first aid certificate) is to know that when there is an accident, the first few moments are the most crucial. Without a first aid certificate or licence to practice medicine or allied trades, you touch an accident victim at your own risk. If something happens to them, they can sue your sorry arse. Nurses and paramedics know how to handle accident victims.
Danladi died probably because there are no ambulances to help him. If he was a Canadian visitor or resident, there would have been an air evacuation (Ontario hospitals have helipads — Muhammadu Buhari’s compound has one). Our fine gentleman would have probably been induced into coma while tests are carried out to check his complete health status. We would probably still have him around today.
Malam Isa survived the accident. He called for help and got his best friends scrambling to help him. He was Facebooking even after they got him to a hospital which showed that he probably had physical wounds but was mentally conscious. What we did not know was whether he had internal injury. Days later, we have learnt that Isa has logged out of our universe.
The death of these two hit us in the northern hemisphere because they were some of our brightest. But they are not the only ones consumed by our lethargy and the failure of successive regimes to put in place anything that should help them and help us. Buhari is in London — checking up! The price of his check-up in a day is enough to help a Rapid Response Centre operate for a week — and I kid you not.
So, no sir, Malam Naseer M. Bello! I swear I am not dishing Motherland. I am pained to see the casualty figures that Nigeria misses in a day, a week, a month and I know we are people of faith who usually derogatorily make our god an ogre. But no sir, Allah or God does not give and take. He gave enough to Nigeria to sustain life to its fullest. It is NOT divine privilege to die needlessly when we have the human capacity and the knowledge to keep people alive.
I have promised not to stop whining about these issues because I KNOW that we are more than what our leaders make of us. We need to stay WOKE to a system that dehumanises us, one that takes people before their time and forbids us from mourning them.
It has been painful writing this and its not for any other reason than that it won’t be long before I write another or before someone writes about me. In the weeks to come, I will share a few medical emergencies that I and family members have gone through. We must hold Nigeria accountable for what it foists on us.
Shalom/Salaam/Eokun
N.B.
I have had people who are ‘born-to-rule’ tell me that they (like me) went abroad and schooled there but that they see nothing worth emulating there. If you don’t like the isms and schisms that the West propagates, do you also hate regular power supply, relative security, drinkable pipe-borne water, safety of lives and property? I often wonder. While there is NO perfect society, we have taken the cell phone, subscribed to social media but some of our people keep telling us to shut up because we live ‘in the abroad’. If we all keep quiet, I bet you guys won’t survive. Please oblige us the right to wail. I wail for my two lost friends, but I wail for family members I left behind, I wail for me!
Asaju is a reputable journalist, public relations practitioner, columnist, and more. He describes himself as a “heckler of bad governance”
