By Abu Onyiani
I write this with sadness in my heart.
Someone I know, my nuclear family is friends with hers, died yesterday at the premature age of 33. If you have ever visited me and I bought food, there is a 95% chance that the food came from her. I only patronize other vendors on the rare occasions from Monday to Sunday she didn’t sell. Those occasions were rarer than Buhari’s live interviews as President.
Two days ago, I was running errands for an uncle who lives in another state when I stopped briefly to play a game of Tennis with younger boys about two streets away from mine. Not that I could play, but I like to think I am a man of the people, and I never fail to actively participate -even if briefly- in public activities. I was in the middle of the game when I saw her and yelled “Ekobete” which is a slang in Benin City, sometimes used derogatorily to regard pot bellied people.
She burst out laughing. She was holding a large polythene bag on one hand, and opened the other palm and said “Shege Banza”. I merely laughed and told her that as she was going to give birth to a son, I wanted to trouble her as much as possible before the son grows up and become a cultist who may then trouble and hurt me.
Again, she laughed and said I am the cultist. I laughed and asked her if she could call me a cultist in presense of my mum. She stopped walking and asked me to go and call my mum for her. We all laughed again.
Hours later when I saw her elder sister who had briefly taken over her spot as the chef when she got to the third trimester, I threatened to demolish their kitchen and replace them with the wife of a member of my cult group because her services were erratic. She came twice or thrice weekly. She almost choked on the corn she was eating as she laughed.
So imagine my shock to learn that she died while giving birth. At that moment, I had something really important on my plate, a deadline for an essay I promised to finish weeks ago, but the client had been gracious enough to accommodate my laxity propelled extensions. I finished it an hour later, and went to her partner’s place where a fairly large crowd had gathered.
I asked no questions, and couldn’t even bring myself to say sorry to the man, it was my loss too, so I thought. It was much later that I got the full details from my brother and someone else who had gone to her mother’s house.
Turns out this lady had her first two children via Caesarean Section, but suddenly decided to deliver like Hebrew women after being motivated by her Church. Worse, she refused to go to a hospital even though she and her partner were financially stable. She went to a local midwife who made a iving from helping pregnant women deliver their babies.
Her fare which is considerably cheaper, attracts a large number of people who are either financially handicapped, or are still subscribed to atavistic beliefs that only a normal delivery was acceptable to a real woman. Many lower class people patronize her.
A UNICEF study in 2022 suggests that there are 575 deaths per 100,000 deliveries in Nigeria, this is probably the highest rate in the world in my estimation, as 70% of all delivery deaths occurs in Sub-Sahara Africa. The major causes of this is poverty, malnutrition, diseases and how hard it actually is to get qualitative healthcare in Nigeria.
Our Doctors and Nurses are capable when not deliberately lackadaisical because of a lack of accountability and punishment, but on some occasions like this, you cannot help but wonder why a person would risk their lives when they can afford a good facility for delivery.
A friend of mine in my university days had a bad charging brick. He attempted to bypass it and his panel blew. He spent 22,000 naira to fix it, before he bought another brick for 500 naira, only. People have also tried to cut corners by using unsafe hot plates to cook, driving in vehicles that are showing clear signs of damage. People will look at you like an Albino if you use your seat belt in some places in Nigeria, and it is common to see people defecating in unhygienic places that will cost them a lot when they become infected.
I am flabbergasted that Nigerians will ignore professional advice from Lawyers, Doctors, Accountants in favour of spiritual advice because well, this world is spiritual.
While Nigerians can be lambasted for displaying and applying crude outmoded beliefs in their daily lives, the government authority and designated ministries and parastatals must take a fair share of the blame, which is the Lion’s share.
For example, how can a serious government allow unqualified barely literate people own, operate and manage delivery homes, especially in major cities where there are a few medical facilities, however dilapidated and rotten they may have become? Why is it easy for anyone to set up shop and offer services that are capable of making and marring?
Why is it easy for dolts and dangerous scammers to tell their victims not to seek medical care because there is a special magic that protects them from death? Will this end soon?
Nowadays, real Hebrew women would not hesitate to undergo a Caesarean section, Nigerian women are still going to church screaming their hearts out about how they will deliver like Hebrew women.
Honestly, it beggars belief.
Leave a Reply