Naija Health Wahala: Blind Eye, Deaf Ear, By Prince Charles Dickson Ph.D.

It sounds like a joke, but e no be joke o! Imagine this kind of problem landing on your head. They say a crippled man, whose legs don’t work, went and kissed a blind man’s wife. And a deaf man who can’t hear saw it all. Now, tell me, how will the deaf man tell the blind man what happened? You see it? Nigeria’s issues are sometimes like this joke, full of problems that confuse people.

You’d wonder if you’re watching a movie when you hear that at the University College Hospital (UCH) Ibadan, one of the biggest hospitals in Nigeria, they’ve been without electricity for over 100 days! A hundred days! Not a hundred minutes, but a full three months plus a little extra. Imagine a hospital, a place supposed to bring life, struggling even to get basic electricity. News reports say patients and their families are running out of the wards like they’re being chased by fire. Who wants to stay in a hospital with no light? That’s just waiting for sickness to finish you off.

They say services are collapsing completely. Operations are difficult, tests are delayed, and even keeping drugs that need to be cold is a problem. Nurses and doctors are trying their best, but their hands are tied. It’s like a mechanic who wants to repair a car but has no tools. Frustration is getting to everyone. And all this is happening in a country that loudly proclaims it has a health budget of 10.7 million dollars! Ten point seven million dollars! In Nigeria, that money should be a mountain of cash, right? But it seems the money disappears like a puff of smoke in the harmattan wind.

Now, let’s use our Nigerian common sense to think about this matter properly. 

That joke we started with, about the crippled man, blind man, and deaf man, it’s funny, isn’t it? But it has a serious meaning if you look at it deeply. The crippled man, who has no legs, represents the health system that is crippled, not working as it should. The blind man, who cannot see, represents the people in charge, maybe they don’t see the real problem, or they are just closing their eyes so they don’t have to see. And the deaf man who saw everything but can’t speak well represents the citizens who see the problems but don’t have a voice strong enough to make the government hear.

But make we no just laugh am off as joke, because “pikin wey no cry, na him mama no dey breastfeed”. Dis joke dey mirror our society in a way wey dey pain us for chest. E dey show how things dey breakdown, not just for hospital, but for many corners of our Naija life. E dey talk about leadership wey dey like blind man, dey grope for darkness, no dey see di road wey dey front of dem. E dey talk about followership wey dey like deaf man, dey see di wrong thing, but no fit shout loud enough make dem hear for corner office. And di kombo health system, na di result we dey see, patients dey suffer, doctors dey run, and di whole house dey burn slowly-slowly while we dey argue who light di match. “When two elephants dey fight, na grass for ground dey suffer,” and for dis case, na di ordinary Naija person wey dey sick dey collect wotowoto.

UCH suffering from lack of electricity is just one example of how our health system is crippled. Many hospitals in Nigeria face the same problem, not just UCH. It’s not just electricity either, there’s no water, no drugs, equipment is broken, and doctors and nurses are running to foreign countries because conditions are bad. What’s left for us? It’s to pray we don’t get sick because if you get sick in Nigeria, you are in God’s hands.

And that $10.7 million budget? It sounds like big money on paper, but when it reaches the ground, it melts like ice cream in the sun. They say Nigeria has a population of over 200 million people. If you divide that $10.7 million by 200 million, what do you get? Does it even reach $1 per person for one year? It doesn’t! It’s like the government is giving each Nigerian person one chewing gum for the whole year to take cure sickness. It doesn’t make sense!

Where is the money going? That’s the question everyone is asking. They will say they are building hospitals, they are buying equipment, they are paying doctors. But what we see on the ground doesn’t match what they are saying. 

Corruption is eating the money, mismanagement is scattering it, and at the end of the day, it’s ordinary people who suffer. It’s the patients in UCH who are paying the price for the darkness, it’s their family members who are suffering with them.

Nigerian Pidgin is sweet because it uses humor to talk about serious matters. We laugh about the crippled man who kissed the blind man’s wife, but within the laughter, there’s a serious message. It shows us how things are upside down in our country, how communication is breaking down, and how people who are supposed to help us are failing us. The situation at UCH, and the meager health budget, is a big joke that’s not funny at all. It’s a joke that hurts, a joke that is slowly killing people.

What should we do now? Should we fold our hands and watch? No way! We have to use our voice, like the deaf man who saw what happened, to tell the blind man, to tell the government, “Oga dem, you are sleeping on duty! Your eyes are closed, your ears are blocked! People are suffering in hospitals, the health system is falling apart, and you are sitting down doing nothing!”

We must demand a better health budget that will reach everyone, not just on paper. We must demand transparency, so we know where the money is going and how it’s being spent. We must hold the government accountable, so they know we won’t accept this kind of nonsense again. Because health is a human right, not a privilege. And if our health system is crippled, then the whole country is crippled too.

So, next time you hear that joke about the crippled man, blind man, and deaf man, remember UCH, remember the patients suffering in darkness, remember the $10.7 million that vanishes. Let the joke not just be a joke for you. Let it be a wake-up call, let it be a reminder that we must strive for a better Nigeria, where everyone gets good healthcare, no matter who they are or where they come from. Because if we don’t strive, darkness will continue to reign in our health sector, and it’s us and our families who will suffer in the darkness. It won’t be good at all—May Nigeria win