By Olu Fasan

THE coronavirus is a non-discriminatory disease. It has hit princes and paupers, presidents and commoners, rich and poor alike. COVID-19 is a great leveller; it doesn’t respect status. Here in Nigeria, four state governors contracted the virus. And President Buhari’s chief of staff, Abba Kyari, has died from it. Sad!

But contracting the coronavirus is not an automatic death sentence. According to the global statistical outfit, Worldometer, as of April 21, there were 2,505,333 cases of COVID-19, and 171,851 deaths. UK scientists put the chances of dying from COVID-19 infection at between 0.5 per cent and one per cent. So, having the virus doesn’t invariably mean dying from it. Abba Kyari’s death was, therefore, not inevitable. In fact, it was – probably – avoidable!

Scientists have enlightened us about COVID-19 mortality. They say older people (usually over 70 years old) and those with serious underlying heart diseases, are more likely to die from an infection. Poor people, especially those living in miserable conditions, are also vulnerable to death from COVID-19. So, in terms of mortality, the coronavirus is not such a great leveller. It kills the old, the sick and the poor more than it does others.

In theory, at nearly 68 and probably with an underlying heart disease, Abba Kyari belonged to the COVID-19 vulnerable group. But he didn’t have to die. This is because there’s another variable in the coronavirus mortality issue: healthcare. People who have access to first-class medical treatment, even with underlying conditions, tend to survive COVID-19 infections more than those without access to such medical attention.

Recently, on April 7, the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, was rushed to the intensive care unit of St. Thomas’ Hospital, London, after his COVID-19 illness deteriorated. When he was discharged from the hospital on April 12, he said: “The National Health Service, NHS, has saved my life – no question”, adding that “things could have gone either way” without the superb medical care from the NHS, which he described as “the best of this country”.

Of course, every country’s health system must be one of its best institutions. After all, health is wealth; indeed, health is everything. But, sadly, in Nigeria, successive governments and ruling elite have criminally neglected the country’s health system. Why? Well, because it was always convenient for them and their families to go abroad for medical treatment. Indeed, medical vacation is a major perk of public office in Nigeria, and Nigeria’s ruling elite are among the world’s most regular medical tourists.

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Then came COVID-19, and with it a day of reckoning! As the pandemic spread worldwide, foreign nations closed their airports to foreigners. Nigeria did the same. Suddenly, the Nigerian elite could not leave the country for medical treatment overseas. For instance, Kyari travelled to Germany on official business on March 7; he returned on March 18 and proved positive for COVID-19 on March 24. But he could not, as he surely would have liked to do, travel to the UK for medical treatment. In an article on April 12, Britain’s Sunday Times said this of Kyari: “When Nigeria’s all-powerful presidential chief of staff tested positive for the coronavirus, a doctor treating him in Lagos had to apply to a private London hospital for a copy of his medical records.” The inference was that, prior to that time, Kyari was not using the Nigerian public or private health system. The paper added: “Abba Kyari and his friend, President Muhammadu Buhari, have always flown abroad for medical attention rather than risk their own chronically underfunded local hospitals.” It’s a damning indictment on Nigeria’s ruling elite.

Earlier this week, somebody wrote a piece – a hagiography, in fact – on Kyari. He said that when Kyari first heard about the outbreak of COVID-19 in China, he posed the following questions: “How many intensive care units do we have to admit acute cases? How many nurses do we have to deploy immediately? How many ventilators do we have and how many should we ideally have?” Reading those questions filled me with indignation at the uppity of Nigeria’s leaders and their utter disrespect for the people of this country.

I mean, this was the man reputed to be the brain behind the Buhari administration’s policies. We are told his passion was infrastructure. But that did not include health infrastructure. The manifesto of the All Progressives Congress, APC, on which Buhari ran for president in 2015 said: “We will increase the quality of all Federal Government-owned hospitals to world-class standard within five years.” Yet, five years in power, Buhari’s right-hand man and chief strategist reportedly asked, in the middle of a global pandemic, how many ICUs, ventilators and nurses Nigeria had. So, what happens to that manifesto promise of “world-class” hospitals “within five years”?

In his first broadcast on the coronavirus outbreak, President Buhari implied that Nigeria could deal with the pandemic if it hit the country hard, saying: “We will do whatever it takes to confront COVID-19”. But all the questions Kyari reportedly posed show that Nigeria can’t cope with a serious outbreak of COVID-19. Indeed, the utter falsity of any claim to the contrary was laid bare when the Federal Ministry of Finance embarrassingly tweeted on April 2, begging the US billionaire Elon Musk for support “with 100 to 500 ventilators to assist with COVID-19 cases rising every day in Nigeria”!

Truth is, Nigeria has one of the world’s worst health services, with 1.95 nurses and doctors per 1000 people, according to the World Health Organisation, and 500 ventilators across the country, according to one study. What’s more, poor investment in health infrastructure has led to medical brain drain. Few would waste their medical career in bog-standard hospitals when they can train, practise and be well-paid in reputable medical institutions abroad.

But here’s the moral of all this. If Nigeria had the “world-class” hospitals that Buhari’s party promised, maybe, just maybe, Abba Kyari would be alive today. May his soul rest in peace!

VANGUARD