Tunde Odesola

Returning home from work on a humid evening in 2016, I asked my children their thoughts about visiting America. They took their gaze away from the TV, searched my eyes for seriousness, smiled doubtfully and returned their gaze to the TV, exhibiting an air of ‘we have outgrown your pranks, this old man’. America ko, Africa ni.

“OK, guys,” I said deadpan, “We’re going to the US Embassy next week.” That should break the ice, so I thought, as I watched their faces light up suddenly, all speaking about the same time.

A voice said, “Let’s go there, Baba T!” Another, whose legs couldn’t reach the pedals of a car, said, “I’ll drive all of you to Lagos.” Yet another said, “I will issue all of you visas, you don’t need to go to the embassy.” Laughter. Voices. “You all don’t need visas to America when I’ll fly the plane,” a voice said. They all laughed at their father.

How many children does this man have, you must be wondering. Don’t wander too far; destined is the head that picks the choicest meat from the pot – orí la fí ń mú eran lawo. Shoot your shot at the orange tree – none, one, two or more oranges may drop. I shot my shot and more than one orange dropped into my arms. I’m not an eku eda, the proliferating house rat. My wife and I wanted two, God multiplied the two. Anyway, I admit children are gifts from God, lest any man should boast about his testosterone.

So, to Lagos we went from Osogbo, spending the night at grandpa’s house in Lagos and heading to the embassy a day after. I needn’t apply for a visa because I had one and had just returned from the US the year before. It was my Gang I needed visas for.

We went through security protocols at the embassy and in less than five minutes we were out of the embassy with visas in the kitty.

Weeks later, I booked tickets for my Gang and I but I didn’t inform them until a couple of days before departure. I always enjoy surprises and suspense.

On the way to the airport, my children were still suspicious of me, thinking the ‘US trip’ was one of my jokes. They were probably looking for me to burst out laughing, saying, “America ko, Africa ni, let’s return home, jare! I was only kidding you guys.”

They struggled to bottle their excitement when we headed towards the plane, pinching themselves to wake up from the dream. They burst into stifled joy when the plane taxied off the tarmac, airborne. They locked hands, whispered silently among themselves as excited children do, and prayed not to be woken from dreamland. It was their first time on a plane.

We landed in America to the cold embrace of winter. Way into our vacation, my younger brother, Niyi, and a family friend, Benjamin Orusara and his wife, Sola, advised me to leave the kids behind to continue their schooling in the US. “Leave them? How? How much is school fees here,” I asked. “It’s free and compulsory for elementary, middle and high schools,” they told me. They added that it’s a jailable offence for parents or guardians not to send their children or wards to school in America. It was easy to reach a decision because their mother was already holidaying in the US, ahead of our visit.

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So, I requested their report cards to be sent to me from Nigeria. Report cards sent, we all headed to the registration centre. This was before the commencement of the academic year. The only questions the registration officials asked were their names, ages and addresses, nothing more. The officials knew they were new to the country but it didn’t matter. Education was all that mattered.

The registration officials were surprised to see the quantity and quality of subjects my children had done in Nigeria, hinting that the subjects were high for their ages. They said I could move them up to their next classes to match up with their level of knowledge but I said they should continue in the classes fit for their ages.

First day in school, my Gang returned home with personalised laptops with their names ingrained on them along with books and other learning materials. You surely can’t get that in any public back home in Nigeria. They also brought home chargers for their laptops and syllabi. If your parents can’t afford stationeries, you don’t have to worry, there are papers, erasers, calculators, pencils, pens, markers, crayons, photocopiers and printers, textbooks, highlighters, lab coats, goggles etc in class for students to use.

In middle school, Nigeria’s equivalent of primary school, pupils in the school club called Green Power built a race car which they used in competing in a car race involving other primary schools. It’s not a pangolo or cardboard car. It’s a real car with big tyres and engines akin to Formula One cars. One of my Gang members was a member of the club and I witnessed one such competition as a parent. The Green Power club is also available in High School, where they build more sophisticated cars and gadgets.

The middle school also owns an 18-wheeler trailer used by its music band to convey musical equipment to music shows and competitions. Imagine!

On a calm weekend in 2019, my Gang told me to take them out to a skating park called Insanity. It wasn’t their first time at the park, more so, they had been skating way back in Osogbo. So, I felt no worries about taking them to the park. But going by the name of the park, I should have known better. A terrible fall and everything went insane.

Blood splattered everywhere on the rink, the mouth was badly impacted, and teeth were missing. It was unsightly. I gathered my boy in my arms, took him to the bathroom, and washed him up, but the blood didn’t stop. My Gang was in disarray.

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But Prof, as his nickname goes, showed uncommon courage and stoicism. He didn’t cry, he was calm and coherent, holding rolls and rolls of paper towels to his bleeding mouth.

I should’ve called 911 and accident and emergency rescue officials, firefighters and the police would have flooded the premises in less than five minutes.

At that time, I didn’t know there was a Fire Service Department directly opposite the skating park which was beside the county’s police station. I was a confused J-J-C. When my wife saw the injury, she went berserk.

I called my church shepherd, Pastor Peter Oyediran, a registered nurse. He told me to bring Prof to the city hospital. Like a deer escaping from the ambush of lions, I throttled down to the hospital, mindful that I stood being pulled over and fined for speeding. May God bless Pastor Oyediran, who despite just getting off work when I called him, still came to the hospital with us.

The city hospital, which is equivalent to Nigeria’s General Hospital, was like a skyscraper made of green glass and gold. As we stepped feet on the premises, courteous and well-dressed medical officials took over. They put Prof on a stretcher and wheeled him away after getting his name, age and my phone number.

They put him on a bed in an examination room fitted with the best gadgets known to medicine. One by one, they explained to me that they were going to run a comprehensive check to see if there was any damage to his eyes, ears, brain, nose, skull etc before zeroing down on the primary place of trauma, the mouth. They said damage to any organ in the skull might need to be treated first.

I breathe the breath which dying Nollywood actors on sickbeds breathe to signify the end of life – uhnnnnnn, thinking if I was sold, the money I would fetch wouldn’t be enough to offset the hospital bills.

Doctors, nurses and various medical officials were smiling at me as they explained in detail each procedure they were doing. Before carrying out any procedure, they explained to Prof, too and got his consent just as they got mine. I was smiling the kind of smile kidnap victims smile when kidnappers cracked a joke.

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As treatment was ongoing, two medical officials came to me and gave me a form to fill out. The form was a feedback mechanism designed to know what the patient or patient’s parent feels about the quality of medicare provided by the hospital.

Investigations completed, Prof was given the all-clear, leaving us with the teeth and mouth – which were treated. The hospital then referred us to a children’s dental hospital.

Before leaving the county hospital after more than two hours, I lumbered to the reception to collect the medical bill which I expected to send me into bankruptcy and slavery. The receptionist flashed me a smile and asked Prof how he was doing. I wrinkled my face in a smile, thinking ‘iku de!’. She said, “You can go.” I asked, “Go where?” thinking payment was done at another department. “You can go home, it’s free.”

I turned to Prof, “Let’s go, boy.” Alas, I found my voice. We made our way to the parking lot, with me praying for the receptionist not to call us back, saying, ‘I’m sorry, it’s a case of mistaken identity. You guys need to pay.’

We went back home and I fell on my face, thanking God. Prof later got treatment from the periodontist, who referred us to a private endodontist, whom we also visited for treatment. His teeth are now properly healed.

A few days ago, a former Editor of ThisDay newspaper and former Ogun State Commissioner for Information, Alhaji Yusuph Olaniyonu, wrote an article titled, “At 58, God has given me a second chance,” in which he narrated how an elective surgery in a government hospital nearly sent him to an early grave.

Olaniyonu wrote, “It all started on 19 February (2024) when I drove myself into a government hospital in Abuja for an elective surgery. The surgery itself was meant to last for a few minutes and I should return home not later than two days thereafter. That was what I was told. But that was not what happened.

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“Since that fateful Monday morning, I have gone into and out of the surgical theatre nine times for six major operations and three minor procedures. I have spent six days in the Intensive Care Unit, surviving on oxygen and relieving myself through catheters. I have become totally dependent on others for the performance of even such personal functions as cleaning myself. I have lost 20 kilogrammes in five months and was reduced to a mere sack of bones. I have lost the use of my limbs and, like a toddler, I had to learn to walk again. I have spent millions of naira and thousands of dollars of my own and other people’s money. I have travelled hundreds of kilometres to find help. I have reached the very bottom of despair itself, and I had made plans for my own burial. But somehow, I am still alive.”

Like countless Nigerians who have been sent to untimely deaths, Olaniyonu was almost killed by a consultant urologist who misdiagnosed and mistreated a disease as common as a non-malignant prostate. Only heavens know what Mr Consultant would be teaching medical students and how many patients he had maimed and killed.

It was to Egypt Olaniyonu ran, where friendly and dedicated medical staff retied the thread of his life which hung in the balance, contrary to the unfriendly and shoddy treatment he received back home after paying exorbitant fees. Nigeria would have lost Olaniyonu, one of the nation’s finest journalists, to professional sloppiness, and nothing would have happened.

There is too much blood on the hands of the country’s medical professionals and it’s high time cases of negligence were brought to book.

Alhaji Olaniyonu, this case should not be papered over, please. The consultant urologist must be brought to book. If you, as a journalist and lawyer, do not ensure justice, who else would? Is it the uncountable okada riders and poor accident victims that would?

Alhaji, just imagine yourself in a bamboo casket, wrapped in white cloth, tied up, and lowered into a grave. From the grave, look at your beautiful wife, Odunayo, and your sons, Oladapo, Oladipo and Oladepo, all wearing black, and doing dust-to-dust. Is that how all your earthly ‘là á là, kò ó kò, jà án jà án’ would’ve come to an end through the shoddiness of one consultant?

I agree that humans came from God and unto Him we shall return – inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji’un – but the Quranic injunction does not say anyone should be sent to an early grave by sloppiness.

I brought out the educational and medical architectures available to a fresh immigrant family like mine in the US to show that our beloved country, Nigeria, is nowhere on the map of countries where leadership works democracy to provide abundant life for the good of the majority.

There’s nothing that fuels the ongoing national protest against bad governance than the glaring fact that a majority of the Nigerian populace has been reduced to slaves and scavengers in a country, whose resources have perpetually been cornered by subsequent leaderships that are richer than the Nigerian state.

I think the ongoing protest against hunger should continue because the Bola Tinubu administration understands the badness and goodness of protest. Tinubu himself led many protests against bad governance in the past. He knows protest is a landmine that could lead to anywhere and anything.

Nigerians don’t expect Tinubu to turn Nigeria into the US or Egypt but he should please leave it the way General Muhammadu Buhari left it in the throes of death, Nigeria should not die in Tinubu’s hands, please.

Asiwaju, you claim to be the builder of modern Lagos, have the building materials you used in building Lagos finished ni?

Please, do something, omo Olodo Ide, Nigeria is collapsing.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

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