By Muyiwa Adetiba
A couple of weeks ago, the Sunday Vanguard lamented the mass exodus of the country’s medical doctors in its front page story. The article talked of a medical workforce so depleted that retired doctors had to be coerced back to save our hospitals and offer a semblance of professional service to the people. These days, almost every young intern dreams of going abroad to continue their career.
I can testify to this in a small, miniscule way. Three young doctors, in as many years, have stayed in our home to facilitate their internship on the island. Each one of them saw staying and practicing in Nigeria as a dead end and merely used the year of internship to put finishing touches to their traveling arrangements.
I can confirm from talking to them, that none of
them thought through the wider implications of cutting ties at such a young
age, with an environment they grew up in, beyond the advancement of their
chosen careers. Nobody explained the likely culture shock, the loneliness and
the greatly decreased probability of getting husbands of similar background and
values – they were young women of 23, 24.
I may be wrong, but my
conclusion is that it is either a peer pressure thing or there is a
sophisticated recruitment network that has been set up with the aim of catching
our doctors young. Whichever the reason, and it could be both, Nigeria is now
serving as a feedstock to more developed nations. After so many years of
supplying raw materials to the West, we are now also supplying freshly minted
professionals.
The UK has lost a lot of its
medical personnel to Brexit and to Australia. Nigerians are replacing them
through recruited and un-recruited labour. It is ironic that a country which
has dire needs for its young medical personnel is the one having to cede them
to countries with a far better doctor/ patient ratio. It is sad that a country that
has spent a large chunk of its scarce resources to train its young ones at
subsidized rates through medical school, is not reaping the fruits of its
labour. Rather than abate, the situation is rising to an alarming proportion.
I believe the authorities have
to think things through instead of believing the situation will resolve itself.
That belief, given the realities on the ground, amounts to living in denial. I
don’t have the answers, but I have some suggestions and they are threefold.
First, is the need for some public enlightenment that should list the familial,
social and cultural implications of cutting ties with your home to start afresh
in a foreign land – some have burnt their bridges so completely that they can
no longer come back even when they find their situation abroad unconducive.
The second is to consider a form
of bond to be served by those who pass through our highly subsidized medical
schools – it could be for two or three years. That way, the country at least
gains something from its investment. The third and the most germane, is to make
working conditions attractive for young doctors. These conditions could include
accommodation and transportation which used to be taken for granted in the 60s
and 70s.
On the positive side, while
diaspora remittances have been good for the fiscal health of the country, the
work ethic of our people in the diaspora has also been good for the mental
health of the country. We feel proud when we see sportsmen and women with
Nigerian names glittering in different parts of the world. We take them as our
own even when they no longer represent us. And those who come back to us, those
who win laurels for us, might have been sired by us but not nurtured by us.
So we are not really their
parents in the modern, or even practical sense of the word. How much credit for
example, should a biological father claim when the son becomes a success in
life after being groomed by foster parents? What pride of place does a father
want at the wedding of a daughter whose training as a medical doctor he was not
even aware of, let alone participated in? We celebrate Nigerians in the
diaspora who break different glass ceilings in their new homes. We assume they
are still our children even if they no longer speak as we do or think as we do.
This is how I feel about the
sudden interest we as Nigerians now have in Kemi Badenoch, the new Tory leader
in the UK. She might have Nigerian names but she is not Nigerian. She
apparently doesn’t even want to be. She has thrown enough darts and barbs at
Nigeria to send that message home. Whatever she might have been in the past,
she is now unapologetically British. I admire what she has achieved. And while
I do not necessarily identify with her politics or her stance, I admire her
tenacity and forthrightness.
I admire that at 44, she has broken a major glass
ceiling as the first black woman to head a major political party in UK if not
the entire Europe. That is where it stops for me and that should be where it
stops for all Nigerians. Anything else is seeking to reap where we have not
sown. Or trying to be holier than the Badenoch Pope who has all but renounced
Nigeria. There are many very successful Nigerians in the diaspora who feel
nostalgic about the country and still feel a part of her in spite of her many
failings. We could ‘own’ those ones and seek to learn from them.
We should meanwhile, ask
ourselves some silent but salient questions. How many Badenochs have we allowed
to slip through our finger by way of Japa? Had she remained, could she at 44,
be able to head a major political party in Nigeria? Would our patronizing
system allow the likes of Badenoch to reach the zenith of political power
through merit? When would we have the courage to look at our socio/cultural cum
religious system that sees women largely as second class citizens in almost all
parts of the country?
Badenoch’s success and those of
the many Nigerians in the diaspora prove that the fault is not in our stars.
Neither is it in our DNA. Rather, it is in our environment and our visionless
leadership. Badenoch’s anger at Nigeria might actually be borne of frustrations
at seeing how a country is frittering its enormous potentials away.
*Adetiba is a commentator on public issues
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