18 — Vanguard, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2012 A MAJOR attempt to draw attention to the increasing cases of kidney failure in Nigeria five years ago, failed. Dr. Augustine Ohwovoriole, President, Diabetic Association of Nigeria had in the light of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua’s hospitalisation in Germany said there was projected annual growth rate of six to eight per cent in renal failure. Then, Dr. Ohwovoriole had observed: “The exponential growth and expansion of chronic renal failure in patients calls for more renal services, nephrologists and sophisticated dialysis machines and medicaments.” Nigerians who are shocked about recent statistics that at least 32 million Nigerians had chronic renal illnesses, have not followed the trend. Dr. Chinwuba Ijeoma, President of the National Association of Nephrology, said more than 20 per cent of Nigerians have kidney problems, which is over 32 million for a population of 160 million. The number is high, but official indifference continues. The attitude of government to the sick can be judged by the quality and inadequacy of health infrastructure in the
BY ADEWALE KUPOLUYI
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HE man later got fuel and poured it in their mouth and lit it, burning one student! The man was stopped with the arrival of the police so he couldn’t burn the rest; they were later taken to the mortuary where the families of the deceased came to claim the corpses …” The sixth account claimed that the boys were killed by one man: “While looking at the pictures, I noticed one particular man holding an insanely big stick over a boy’s head that was already weak, bloody and pleading for his life. I saw the man in another picture putting a tyre across another boy’s neck”, the source said. The seventh angle alluded that the existing frosty relationship between students of the university and members of the community, as being responsible for the attacks. As the permutations continue to trail the gruesome murder, the salient and pertinent question to ask is; Why this wicked calamity and jungle justice? It could be useful to give an insight into the private lives of the slain students. According to the Nigerian Tribune, two of the four undergraduates were event organisers and were very popular within the campus. Two of the boys, Ugonna, aka Tipsy and Lloyd aka Big L, were described as C M Y K
Nigerians’ 32m failing kidneys country. A crisis — not the ritual doctors’ strike — is brewing in the health services sector with the neglect of challenges like renal failure. Renal failure ranks high among killer illnesses in Nigeria, but unlike malaria and HIV/AIDS, it is ignored. Cost of treating the ailment is high. The required personnel and facilities to cater for patients are highly inadequate. Nigeria has only 75 neurologists and about 50 functional dialysis centres. Poor earnings and a chaotic medical system deny Nigerians access to these dialysis centres, which are mainly in the urban centres, far from the patients, especially from the rural areas. Nigerians with the resources seek medical
relief abroad, a practice that our leaders have etched into some of their benefits for being in power. For our leaders, local medical facilities are used as photo opportunities. They remain in their power state because they are never built to treat the high and mighty. Until Nigerian leaders can be treated in our local hospitals, the country’s health services, like education, would be run under an apartheid system that provides the best for the leaders — always at our expense — while whatever happens to the people does not matter. Without any resources to combat a problem that is clearly beyond them, they resort to cheap but untested methods of treatment that leaves them half-dead. Renal failure has been attributed to drug abuse, fake drugs, which again point at poor drugs and health management services. Any government that thinks that its people are important would tackle their health needs, instead of reserving overseas medical services for itself and its cronies, an attitude that sentences Nigerians to poor medical services.
OPINION We must find killers of the UNIPORT four (2) promising musicians who recently recorded a song entitled, ‘Ain’t no love in the heart of the city’. The song is said to be circulating widely over the social media since their deaths. They were tagged as ‘stars in the making’. Ugonna was said to have lived a cozy and comfortable life. Photographs that emerged after his death showed that he lived a life of affluence as some pictures even suggested that he was widely travelled as one of such was reportedly taken in London. Anne, Takena (Tamunokena) Elkanah’s sister, who was said to have witnessed the gruesome murder of her brother, claimed that a police van was seen at a distance while the mob snuffed life out of the boys while pleading for the release of her brother on the grounds that he was innocent. However, Mr. Toku Mike, Lloyd’s father, a broadcaster with the Radio Rivers, denied the insinuations that his son was a robber, saying his son was a decent young man, as he called on the police to investigate the killings and bring the perpetrators to book. As the tension rose, the management of the university ordered the immediate closure of the university indefinitely, to forestall the breakdown of law and order as students went on the rampage to protest the murder by youths in Omuokiri-Aluu community and set ablaze, no fewer than 12 houses in the
community. Attempts by the Vice-Chancellor to plead with the students culminated into the hurling sachet water at him. The fall-out of the crisis is the eventual disruption in the academic calendar of the university, especially, if the forced closure is prolonged more than necessary. The casualty has also increased with the death of the mother of one of the murdered student, Ugonna Kelechi Obuzor, who died from the shock of the gruesome killing of her only son, Ugonna.
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rom the various accounts of who could have been involved in the brutal elimination of these young people, it is certain that the whole scenario is deeper, complex and requires a thorough investigation. The likelihood of a conspiracy in the murder cannot be ruled out. The alarming rate of criminality and extrajudicial killings in the nation is assuming a frightening dimension. Just on October 2, no fewer than 40 students were gruesomely killed by gunmen when they invaded their off-campus hostel of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi with a hit list that was deployed in the systematic termination of the lives of innocent Nigerians. Up till now, perpetrators of these heinous
acts have really not been apprehended and brought to book. Rather, the law enforcement agents keep informing the populace that they are still investigation. It is the same old story, over and over. On the nation’s perilous situation, the Senate President, David Mark has expressed his support for the creation of state police in the face of what he described as the “perceived failure of the Police to stem insecurity in the country”. This is worth trying. This amounts to sending the wrong signals. What this posturing means is that anybody can commit a crime without been apprehended to pay for his/her atrocities. I was greatly disturbed when I learnt that those in the Aluu mob were watching the barbarism and even took video images in excitement! To say the least, this shameful killing is nothing but an expression of an angry nation that was becoming disconnected from humanity, as a result of accumulated years of frustration, disappointment and loss of ethos. This should not be allowed to happen again.
Concluded
*Mr. Kupoluyi, wrote from Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, Ogun State.