BY BLESSING YAKUBU

THE failure of our rulers cannot be measured only  by the visible decay of infrastructure and the dwindling quality of our lives but also by the way they prefer to die.  While ordinary citizens live their miserable lives which literarily expire unsung in the country, our leaders, or rather, rulers on whose shoulders rest the responsibility of taking us beyond the 47 years pegged as our life span live theirs in foreign lands and/or die there. Yet, they daily savour the splendour and all that the high public offices they occupied or occupy but fail to provide the rest of us facilities in the quality measure they enjoy them in the foreign lands they govern us from.

Nothing frustrates Nigerians more than the present trend in the health sector where Indian, British, German and American hospitals have all their available bed spaces taken up by Nigerians who seek medical attention for all kinds of ailments ranging from orthopaedic to cancer cases. It has become fashionable to hear wealthy Nigerians, especially those who should fix our health care delivery system, say they travelled abroad for medical check-up or that they had their medical cases treated in India or London. When our Presidents, our governors or their amiable, and not so amiable spouses, or ‘fortunate’ children fall sick with the flu, the nearest medical facility is the one in London or Germany. It is we, the people, who are sentenced to attend the panadol-dispensing clinics they call teaching or specialist hospitals here in our country.

In our culture, the dead is treated with so much respect that we are told that it is more dignifying to die and be buried at home than to do so in a foreign land. Now, it appears fashionable to travel in the luxury of a business-class for medical treatment abroad and be brought back here for burial in the baggage compartment of an airliner. What a shame.

Dying far away from home like they do is an indictment on the poor, unfeeling, insensitive and profligate governance which our rulers have provided and continually provide us ordinary citizens. If our general, specialist or teaching hospitals were functional, our rulers would not need to travel to foreign lands for answers to their medical problems. And it is ironic that it is those who should make our hospitals work to serve our needs who actually lead the way to foreign hospitals. It is even more ironic that many of the medical consultants and other health care providers they rush to patronize abroad are actually Nigerians driven away from home by lack of basic equipment and conducive working environment at home.

The recent death of Admiral Mike Okhai Akhigbe, former Chief of General Staff/Military Vice President in far away New York, United States of America, of throat cancer is the latest in the long list of our leaders past and present who have died far away from home from ailments which could have been diagnosed and treated here in Nigeria had they provided qualitative health care delivery system while they served. The list includes late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua who spent more than three months in 2010 in a Saudi hospital for a yet-to-be-disclosed ailment. Discerning Nigerians know he was brought home dead. The late Deputy Governor of Ekiti State Mrs. Funmilayo Olayinka succumbed to cancer far away from home on April 6, last year, ex-Biafran leader, Odimegwu Ojukwu, Ikemba Nnewi, died far away from home in London where he was flown to by the Anambra State government headed by Governor Peter Obi. Former Ondo Governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu and late Professor Omo Omoruyi both died of cancer in October last year very far from home.

Even our First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan confirmed she ‘died’ many times last year in a German hospital where she had gone for medical treatment. Nigerians believe that whatever the ailment that took our ‘’mummy’’ away for three months could have been handled efficiently here if our hospitals were properly and adequately equipped.

You still want to know why our rulers are dying far away from home? The answer is not far-fetched. There are no facilities here for the proper diagnosis and treatment of ‘’the afflictions of the wicked’’, rich and mighty in our country. What they can, and should, provide here is what they seek abroad which eventually takes their lives. Would it not be better to die here like ordinary Nigerians do than to die in a foreign land and be flown back like an ‘unidentified flying object’ in the underbelly of a plane for burial here? When shall we begin to think seriously about a health care delivery system which guarantees all Nigerians adequate, accessible and affordable diagnostic and management facilities such that no one needs to travel abroad for specialised or general medical care? When will our teaching, specialist and general hospitals be transformed from death centres to truly teaching and specialist hospitals good enough to attract the patronage of all of us, including our rulers?

It is, however, heart warming that some effort is being made in Edo State to provide what the governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, describes as a five-star medical facility equipped with state of the art diagnostic and health care management infrastructure, including personnel, with capacity to provide  solutions to complex medical problems like cancer which has become a major killer illness. The Oshiomhole effort which will hopefully come to fruition shortly should be emulated by the federal and other state governments in other to eradicate not only the huge drain on the nation’s resources on hospital bills paid abroad but also stop our leaders from dying far away from home.