I
have extracted this piece below from a series of articles I wrote mid
last year, entitled ‘’Driving Against Traffic: Signs That Our Rulers
Need Psychiatric Evaluation’’. Enjoy…
OF BED REST, FOOD POISONING AND RUPTURED APPENDICITIS
When the news broke out early last week that the wife of the Nigerian
president, Dame Patience Jonathan was flown abroad a week earlier in
emergency air-ambulance, the web-space was a-stir with all sorts of
posturing - from the rude to the malicious and to the vaguely
sympathetic.
The cause was food-poisoning, probably contracted in
Dubai - the new destination choice of the adventurous – that was the
leading speculation. Then the hoopla took a dramatic curve when the
Presidency supposedly announced that in fact the woman of timber was
merely taking a deserved rest in Germany.
Less than 24 hours after, some major newspaper pointed accusing finger
at a ruptured appendicitis that was earlier misdiagnosed as food
poisoning. No wonder, our hospitals are not fancied by the wealthy since
they can turn food poisoning to damaged appendicitis! Even as you read,
no one is certain what Dame Jonathan is doing in Germany - or what
ailment has temporary halted her colourful meanderings across the globe.
The dark metaphor here is a throwback to the sad last days of former
President Umaru Yar’Adua when only a sprinkle of whodunits knew where he
was or what ailed him. That scepter of mismanaged communication and
retarded psyche of the African leader to hide everything from public eye
- even the (health) status of prominent functionaries - that could have
benefitted from the public’s metaphysical pool of goodwill and warm
wishes.
It is a reflection of the governor’s disdain for the
governed that information concerning the nonspecific, security-deficit
whereabouts of elected officials and their prominent partners are hidden
from the public eye. It is such clannish, voodoo-themed communication
strategy that informs a presidency unwilling or afraid to reveal the
true nature of the first wife’s state of health - or lack of it. Won’t
it be wonderful for millions of Nigerians to spend few minutes each day
to pray for the quick recovery of Dame Jonathan – after all, she is one
of us, whatever arguments we enlist in defence of our differences.
