By FUNKE EGBEMODE
For the 10th time, Nigeria’s female national team, the Super Falcons, returned home with the trophy of champions. In other words, this was not the first time these super ladies were winning at the finals of the Women’s African Cup of Nations. They had won nine times earlier. Nigeria now has 10 trophies of that tournament shining proudly bright on a shelf somewhere.
Our basketball team, D’Tigress, followed suit a few days after the Falcons feat. They were treated the way the Falcons were treated.
An ope [novice] may win once, may even win the second time; but the Yoruba will insist that no ope wins three consecutive times. Our girls have shown the world that their superior skill and wins are not a fluke; that their victory is not a flash-in-the-pan thing. The Nigerian teams are the undisputed total champions of the tournaments. Whatever or whoever has shamed the nation till those trophies berthed on the shores of Nigeria, the Super Falcons and the D’Tigress lifted our heads and gave us bragging shoulder pads to walk tall and proud.
There is something about women and consistency in victory. President Bola Tinubu said as much in a statement a few days ago:
“Nigerian women have never failed this nation in sports. From the Super Falcons standing tall on the world stage, to our athletes breaking records on the track, and D’Tigress building a basketball dynasty, our women have consistently made us proud. To all our young people watching today, let the story of D’Tigress remind you that greatness is a product of hard work, discipline, and belief. Nigeria belongs to those who dare to dream and are willing to give their best to make those dreams a reality.”
Now, let me dare to ask: What did the nation do to celebrate our warrior girls after each of the past nine wins? Did we give them $100,000 each? Did we give them three-bedroom apartments? Did all the governors of Nigeria speak with one voice and announce N10m for each player? Did the presidents in the saddle during each of the previous nine wins beautify the wings of our queens with national honours? Did those former Presidents give each member of the coaching team $50,000 (about N75.6m)?
No, they did not. They were either too busy, too unaware, or too broke to do anything. We know the right thing, what we don’t know is how to do what is right.
Have you ever seen a juju or fuji musician at an owambe party who doesn’t know what to say or sing when he or she sees the rich and famous stroll into the arena? Have you even been to a Nigerian wedding or 50th or 60th birthday party without aso-ebi and ‘amala-on-point’ and hawkers of crisp naira notes for spraying, EFCC be damned?
There are unwritten rules for all our engagements. Nobody needs to tell us. We just know what is socially expected of us.
I have always known that Nigerians, leaders and followers, always know what is right. We know what to do and when to do them. Our problem is not lack of knowledge. It is refusal to do that which is right and proper. Have you ever seen a Yoruba socialite not raining money on a musician when the band ‘louds’ it for him?
Back to where we started. Nigerians are people who know what is right. Our leaders have and will always know what is right. Whether they will do it and when they will do it is the problem. When I heard the announcement of the largesse, my heart leaped for joy, then my head butted in and started asking questions.
Now, if our leaders know what is right, why is the country like this? Is it that they do not have what my people call ‘itiju’ or why are we surrounded with so much shame and shameful scenarios?
And for those whose fingers are itching to finger President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, put your fingers right back in your pocket. As far as I am concerned, what President Tinubu did for the Falcons was right, timely and appropriate. Rewarding excellence can never be wrong. The governors and their N10m each was not also bad.
We didn’t get here in one day. Let us not be emotional. The people who did not see the shame in not blessing the Super Falcons’ first nine trophies were the ones who watched arrogantly as our doctors and nurses left in thousands. And that is my grouse today.
Can we appreciate our doctors and nurses the way the Falcons were appreciated? Can we just focus on our real problems, our leaders through the years who picked their teeth, adjusted their caps and ties and did nothing as our hospitals lost their glory?
What Tinubu did for the footballers is done, let us look back and ask why some people behaved as if once the sun went down they could go into their gardens to pluck replacement nurses and doctors. Let us ask why those we elected to protect us between 1999 and 2025 allowed the rest of the serious world take almost all our doctors and nurses away, doctors and nurses that were trained with public funds, your tax and mine?
What kind of people are we, really?
In three years, about 42,000 nurses that we trained with billions of naira left Nigeria. Most of them are in the NHS system in the UK. Five years ago, both Nigeria and UK needed more nurses than they had. UK system knew what to do and did it. The country offered our nurses more money than they had ever seen, hauled them on the plane and left our healthcare stranded.
The National Association of Nigerian Nurses and Midwives estimates that Nigeria currently needs at least 800,000 additional nurses and midwives to meet its current health care requirements. Meanwhile, as at March 2020, there were only 180,709 registered nurses and 126,863 midwives. Deduct 15,000 nurses who japaed in 2024 alone and imagine how bad things have become.
What exactly were our leaders thinking, that the hospitals will run themselves, that those in the administrative departments will transform into midwives with the wave of a magic wand?
We lost 42,000 nurses in three years. In one year we lost 3,974 doctors. And we did what?
What was the right thing to do? Filling the gaps with fresh employment of nurses and doctors would have made a little sense, right? Increasing the wages of those who stayed or are yet to leave would have also helped, but did we do any of that?
The cost of training one doctor in Nigeria has been put conservatively at $21,000 and we let them go!
Let us leave God to judge the men of yesterday who did not do what they ought to have done. Let us come to the ones in charge today. Let us ask them if their legacy will also be to do things by the book, hide behind civil service rules and thumb their noses at us by being politically correct.
Dear Ministers of Health, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate and Dr Iziak Adekunle Salako, will these hospitals where one doctor is expected to see 50 patients per day and nurses work endless shifts be what you will be remembered for?
Dear Head of Civil Service of the Federal Republic, Mrs Didi Walson-Jack, do you have plans to do something about the figures on your table showing the nation has more civil servants in Housing, Water Resources, Census offices etc than in the health sector?
A nation that does not have enough teachers, nurses or doctors is a nation playing Ludo game with its future.
I believe doctors, nurses and teachers should earn more anywhere in the world. Luxembourg, Switzerland, the United States and America agree with me.
South Africa pays its doctors $3,400 (that is about N5 million per month.) Before you start a protest that doesn’t mean anything, look at those countries again, are they not the ones where Nigerians go to for medical tourism?
The lender will always be the master of the debtor. Period.
Even with the special salary scale for health workers, doctors in Federal Medical Center earn as low as N250,000 and N300,000. South Africa just down the road pays $3,400. What is a smart young doctor supposed to do when he gets that kind of counter offer?
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Maybe because those who fix wages in Nigeria are envious and unpatriotic because this is nothing personal. Leaders who treat doctors and nurses like clerks will always have blood on their hands.
How? Because those who cannot afford to go to Canada and Switzerland to get good healthcare will die needless deaths. Because the doctors and nurses will down tools, ignore the dying and both government and striking medical personnel after plenty of back and forth will walk through the blood of the dead to sign agreements.
How many Nigerians have died in how many strikes of doctors and nurses? How many more will die before we agree that we are a nation of bloody money ritualists?
Or is it not ritualist that we call those heartless fellows who pluck out eyes and scrape off women’s breasts to get ahead in life?
After years of not doing right by our health sector, loss of brilliant doctors and nurses to more serious climes, we are still at this point where nurses and doctors still go on strike and we carry on as if it is just another industrial dispute.
Really? Do people go into coma or die when clerks and executive officers down tools?
It is either these basic things elude us or governments through the years do what they do intentionally.
The most disheartening, disappointing, sad and tragic part is when Nigeria finally decides it has enough to employ, it opens its portals to all the sectors, yes, to employ for every ministry and agency, in the spirit of whatever drives the recruiters.
Why? This is the part that leaves me befuddled.
You need philosophers and journalists the same way you need doctors? How?
This is a desperate situation Nigeria is in and state and federal government must find ways and means of addressing this matter with the attitude it demands.
There it is, ways and means. Let us do what needs to be done.
It is bad enough that we cannot turn our palm trees to palm wine or palm oil for export.
Can’t we also do ‘ways and means’ to lure our stolen doctors back to the country? Considering the number of Nigerian doctors doing well overseas why can’t we fund their return so we can replicate more five-star hospitals like The Duchess in Lagos?
This is not about one profession being more important than the other. It is about being realistic about our national needs.
A nation that does not have enough teachers, nurses or doctors is a nation playing Ludo game with its future. Britain, Canada, America knew we are not a serious nation. They brought their Ludo board, trounced us while pretending that it was just a game. Then they took away our best brains.
The 36 states, all of them are guilty. They all have Ministries of Local Government and Chieftaincy that are better staffed than the hospitals.
We cannot continue to create all kinds of ministries and agencies for political opportunities instead of funding and fixing our real problems.
Let me stroll off on a justifiable arrogant note: Our boys should come and learn football from our girls. They should come and take lessons in how to play and win back to back, ten times and forever.
The organizers of Women’s African Cup of Nations should leave this WAFCON thing with us and find a new name for the next tournament. Our shelf is full, we are unbeatable, and we have just started.
*Egbemode ([email protected])
