It is all About power! Get it?

So we lose our humanity at the expense of grabbing on to power with all desperation available. We will forget the anguish of the families of the slayed school pupils to score cheap political points. The current issues of killings, sacking tainted by missing funds, fuel scarcity and carpet crossing by politicians is really serving to take our eyes off the upcoming elections. Sad tales are easily thrown out of discuss because we hunger for power. Power at all cost means human lives counts for nothing, there is sorrow tears and blood in my land, and we stay aloof as if it does not touch us while we live daily in trepidation. Fear engulfs our hearts, our hearts leap into our mouth we pray daily that our relatives will have no reason to visit parts of my nation, because there is daily shedding of innocent blood for no just cause.

Sad that the desire for power blinded us to the desire to preserve and improve human lives. The drive for more money to feed and live large as made us look at trampling on others as part of normal existence. We gradually loose our humanity, we cannot be caught weeping inconsolable for the death of many innocent lives neither can we return home from international tours at the news of the death of many citizens who cast their votes to see that we are in power. It’s easy to rationalize all sorts of atrocities going on this land because we have not been touched. Throw in religious, political and ethnic issues and watch the people bite and fight each other to a standstill, insults never heard before emanating, long lost abusive words are dug up with parents and grandparents insulted all in a bid to defend a God who needs no defense from mortal human beings that we are and our political benefactors.

It’s not well in my Land the blood of the innocent is crying for justice, weeping that no more lives will be lost wantonly, that the living will not be cut off in their prime like they were.

Can we stop for a second and lay aside our religious, political and ethnic differences, can we realize that the war being fought in the fringes can seep into our backyard while we yet sleep and look on unconcerned. Remember fringes is fringes whether there is a political meaning to it or not, they are human beings that live in those fringes, human beings who have hopes and aspiration who daily strive to make a living hoping tomorrow will be a better day, alas…death comes knocking while we seek for power, power power…gradually it consumes your thinking so much so you do not see anything sacred anymore…every issue is game to score cheap political points. Neither APC nor PDP have shown decorum in their search for power…it’s all about power not we the people of the land it’s about power let’s get it loud and clear! Not serving the nation nor making the nation come out of this quagmire it was pushed into by our leaders with us aiding and abetting them all the way…yes we, you and I! One choice at a time…I just wonder who is more desperate, the incumbent in power or those who seek to oust the incumbent? How much more blood will be shed for no just cause?

@Greatise

7 years and its Time After

...It’s so easy to imagine that life after medical school would be totally different, that continuing to be friends after medical school would not really be necessary. Friendship itself has no survival value, but you’d find out that it’s one of those things that give value to survival. That is when, and here I’m talking about the future, when we can be truly proud of ourselves as a class, as individuals, of a long history of friendship, and look at

ourselves again in fifteen or twenty years time, look at what we’d been able to achieve, and remember that time when… the time when that friendship was born, at that moment when one person said to another, What! You too? I thought I was the only one!”

That time, it would be good to realize, once again, that you are not alone.

Seye Abimbola, Metamorphosis, OAU medical class of 2007 yearbook

Those were his concluding words, words written 7 years ago. I have read this same words over and over again, at various points in  my post graduation days. I realize that we do not need fifteen to twenty years to appreciate the friendships built in the course of our days as medical students, many marriages have been consummated among our classmates, members of our class becoming godparents to children born to our fellow classmates. I have become deeply entrenched in the period of post graduation and seemingly we are all drifting apart, threads holding some of us together, is been strained by distance, family and work, the joys we bask in, and the trying times we fall into at various periods, has made the landscape so variegated for us all. Distance and time, is trying the friendships built, internet and mobile phones, are helping reduce the probability of these friendships from becoming none-existent.

I will remember the time, when we had to leave our friends behind, I will remember the time when those we left behind caught up with us again at the altar, I will remember the time when  we had the opportunity to sit together at the table, laughing together, sending off one of our own informally, filling each other with information we would never have gotten wind off. Patting each other on the back and spurring ourselves up to greater achievements.

We take time out to celebrate each other, to rejoice with each other and mourn with one another. Its is a season that we await, that is yet to come, the season when we shall all gather once again, when the roll call shall be made, aloud, each one answering to our names, with or without partners having little ones bearing our names, when we have made our parents grandparents and our siblings uncles and aunts.

Years keep passing, one day at a time; we hear of each other’s progress which gladdens our heart. Some are totally out of circulation, one person is at least in touch with someone who knows where one person is. The joyful opportunities we have once in a while to see each other, swap stories share a drink and hug and offer each other a bed to lay our tired head once in a while.

Really things have changed, so many things have been rearranged, dreams hopes and aspiration, plans have taken a knock yet we keep going never giving up, goals have been met many yet to be met. None is stagnated we as individuals have come a long way to stand where we stand today, we have stories to tell, times when it became so tough and we asked ourselves if we could still continue, nights we have kept vigil for academics, for family for our children.

Today its 7 years we all parted ways as a class, flung to the farthest part of the earth to take root and flourish. We have sown in tears we shall reap with great joy, our sacrifices for a better tomorrow shall not go unrewarded. The dreams we yet nurture shall bloom and grow and yield fruits in abundance.

I remember specially Bobola one of us who died long before his time. This piece is specifically dedicated to his memory. To you all out there I salute you, male and female alike you guys inspired me in no small measure and still inspire me. I will always be glad I was a once your classmates and I till date cherish those times we may have taken for granted. So to the many more journeys we shall embark upon, to better days ahead, to greater achievements and to good health I say CHEERS!

PRems/@Greatise

CLINIC CONSULTATION

I know life is short, I see it every day the brevity of life, the sadness that follows the departure of a loved one. I hear stories that bring tears to my eyes, my job is one that entails me listening to the most heart stirring stories. The blind ignored by his local government, the retired teacher in his 80’s whose retirement stipends have not been paid for months. The widow and the widower, the orphan left without any hope for tomorrow. I see the young breath their last the rich and poor lay side by side gasping for their last breath, it’s all a mixed feeling.

Bombarded by sad stories sometimes joyful ones daily, makes me ask myself questions. Questions bothering on health care delivery in my country, who is to blame for the rot in the system, the inefficient system in place. The internal wrangling among the healthcare workers as left a lot of patients dead, the strikes, counter-strikes and more strikes which seem to have no end in sight will cripple and worsen the already sorry state of the health care delivery.

The retired teacher who was around during the Biafra war, who saw the Biafra soldier march peacefully through his village somewhere near Agbor and all they did was to wave at them, the soldier who fought in Nigerian army who asked me, “how can I tell the government I killed anyone? I fought against the enemy and if I am lucky enough and I sight the enemy first, the enemy meets his creator and if the enemy sights me…”

The blind orphan who lost the sight during his final year exams, suddenly the hall went dark and that was the beginning of his travail, he lost his parents one after the other, he has fought never to be a beggar, learnt new skills to put food on his table, learnt to live alone acquired new certificates but he still can’t make ends meet.

The family who were all diagnosed HIV positive, how? What happened? The man who lost a limb, the child who lost one eye.

Daily my clinic consultation is a mixed bag of sorts, patients who went to look for solutions to their medical problem but are back since the problem remains. Your hear stories of them being in churches, traditional medical practitioners places, and various other alternative therapies they were introduced to by friends and families, some come back worse others just there…

I am pained because we have forgotten about each other, our government has been irresponsible at best; whatever tier of the government you want to think of (IMHO).  We die one day at a time because we refuse to lend that helping hand while our family and friends are the victim of a disaster than can be abated.