The snail’s pace of Lagos emergency response – and more, in today’s news roundup with Cheta Nwanze

by Cheta Nwanze

nigeria

Apparently, the ambulances of Lagos are not on call 24 hours, and when they are available, they tend to show up to work at world record time, if you are a snail that is…

On January 14, Femi Ibirogba buried Enoch, his five year-old son, at his residence in Ikorodu. The tearful father attributed his son’s death to the shoddy emergency response.

“I had to prevail on nurses and the doctor on call to come and check on him regularly. At a time, the breathing of my child grew worse,” Mr. Ibirogba said. “When I asked a nurse to notify the doctor, the doctor said he was busy but he came later. They did not treat him as if it was an emergency case at all.”

Apparently, the ambulances of Lagos are not on call 24 hours, and when they are available, they tend to show up to work at world record time, if you are a snail that is…

Bits and bobs

Yesterday two men died. While a lot of attention was focused on one, arguably the man who had more significance to all Nigerians was Pa Ben Odiase. Somewhere in this country, the song he composed in 1978 has been sung. May both men rest in peace.

The anti-gay law (which I have a problem with for the records) has yet to be signed into law, and already we are having trials. A group of gays in Anambra (of all places!) are having none of that.

The FG may scrap 220 agencies in line with the Steve Oronsaye recommendations if this report is to be believed. I’ll believe it when it happens.

In Ogun, the brother of MKO, Mudashiru Abiola will forgive and forget if the government settles debt owed the late politician.

Right of Reply

Emezie Ejido wrote,

Cheta, you are great. But let me ask you; isn’t IBB “malevolent”? What did the two you mentioned did that IBB didn’t do, even double? Oooh, I forgot, this is Nigeria where like our laws, journalists are weak on the strong and strong on the weak until the strong dies. Cheta, I tell you, if Abacha were alive, his name will not be here.

Chxta responds,

You had me reaching for a dictionary with this. According to the purveyors of the English language at Merriam-Webster, malevolent has two meanings; 1 – having, showing, or arising from intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatred; 2 – productive of harm or evil.

IBB and his regime falls squarely into definition number two. As for one, it is arguable that the IBB regime as a matter of course, sought to “make people happy” by corrupting them. So no, I disagree that IBB necessarily bore people ill-will. You see, unlike Abacha, IBB suffered from an intense need to be liked, which explains a lot of his actions, and ommissions. I strongly recommend you buy and read Max Siollun’s excellent book Soldiers of Fortune when it goes on sale.

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.

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