It was just after the publication that I came across a statement by Katsina State Governor, Dr Dikko Umar Radda, who said that his state had gone very far in terms of health delivery and that, bar Yobe State, it is the best in Nigeria.
Browsing: Hassan Gimba
We went to the waiting area of the hospital and waited to be called in to see her. She soon returned, holding a cup of her drink. She asked me certain questions and, after taking my vitals, sent me to go for a Spirometry Flow-Volume Test, known as Lung Function Test (LFT).
I did some tests in some private laboratories, and the results were normal. Then I went to NISA Hospital in Abuja where I was looked after by a pulmonologist, Dr James Agada. It is not a run-of-the-mill hospital and not cheap, moreover, I paid for VIP treatment. Yet, my case kept deteriorating till I became almost an invalid.
he chickens, the saying goes, always come home to roost. But some people would prefer to be Shakespearean by quoting the insightful words uttered by Marc Antony in William Shakespeare’s play, Julius Caesar, “the evil that men do lives after them while the good is oft interred with their bones.”
“Another reason I always look at some Nigerians from the south and north who shout ‘let Nigeria be divided:’ “Do they know what they are saying? Do they think that is feasible anymore? Would it be beneficial to all concerned? We will look at this next.”
With a root in palliatus, a Latin word, palliative is anything meant to palliate, i.e., relieve, decrease, ease, assuage, soothe, help, etc., a situation. That situation could be a disease, dispute, deprivation or anything that discomfits. While hospitals palliate diseases by administering medicinal palliatives, in our case, the word has taken a political meaning. Politicians now dole out whatever they feel the people want as a palliative, in most cases against poverty.
Government, and here I mean the federal and state governments, must always be truthful and fair to the citizens. They must also make their agencies work. The government must let government function. In almost all cases, it is the government that makes government fail because the actors do everything from a prism of personal gain. Nothing about service anymore. Then there is the Nigerian syndrome of “Do you know who I am?” Gathering clouds.
When you critically look at Nigeria, or the North, and its situation, what is happening is not excusable. Take instances where warehouses or trailer loads of food were attacked and stripped of everything: Is it hunger where you see a purportedly hungry man hurrying away with two or three bags of rice on his shoulders and returning for more? Or able-bodied youths, both male and female, fighting their way through the madness to grab as much of the loot as they can, taking them somewhere for safekeeping and returning for more?
These days, the words dominating the air are “hunger” and “protest”. And that, we are told, is because of two others – “dollar” and “salary”. Unfortunately, those capitalising on the latter two words to push for the first two words hardly mention the words “production” and “security” which are fuelled by justice and fairness. And there can be no justice without the rule of law.
Adamu Maina Waziri is one politician most people misunderstand. He is one man who does not suffer fools and, unlike the typical politician, he shoots from the hip, the reason some saw him as “crude”. His word is his bond; and if you asked him for a favour that he can grant, he would tell you, and if he promised, he would deliver. But if he wouldn’t, he would not bat an eyelid in telling you no.