Permit me to preface this essay with a personal story. On February 11, 2016, I arrived the University of Aberdeen, UK for a doctoral research. Before my arrival, I had been assigned two supervisors – Edward Welch, a French man and Timothy Baker, an American.
The tempo of work was so excruciatingly high that I felt I was being suffocated. My two flat-mates, who were Nigerians – an ESUT lecturer and doctoral student in Engineering, and an Akwa Ibom man, still in Engineering had just been dismissed from their programmes on grounds of inability to cope. Another friend of mine from University of Agriculture Makurdi, Benue State had also been shown the door.
By September 2016, I was facing the same fateful seminar, which was decisive for my continuation or withdrawal. I was beleaguered by volumes of work, lack of sleep, skyrocketing exchange rate, and all. Expectedly, I came down real sick. One afternoon, I called Emergency Services. The next minute I was huddled in the corner of an Ambulance, and was being sped to Aberdeen Teaching Hospital. It was a Friday. On arrival, I was told that I would be watched over till the following Monday. I began to protest. I did not like the smell, the cries, the morbid atmosphere of sickness and death all of which I had grown to associate with hospitals. But they ignored me.
Several minutes later, I was ushered into a room. And then I was transfixed! I could not believe what I was seeing – the trim cleanliness of the room, the neatness, the marble floor. In fact, the toilet and bathroom looked like I was the first person to use them. I could not remember whether I was a tourist admiring new sights or a patient in a hospital.
Thrice daily a smartly-dressed steward would wheel in a trolley with a menu for me to select what I wanted to eat. For citizens, health-care was completely free.
So, when I was discharged the next day, I was unwilling to leave. Why would I? After all, did they not say they were keeping me till Monday? Why did they change their mind? I hovered around for almost an hour hoping they would find a reason to ask me to complete ‘my remaining’ two days. In the end I had to leave remonstrating myself for the initial signs of hospital-phobia.
Why do I tell you this story? Some people think that Peter Mbah’s health-care package is too good to be true. ‘Where is he going to bring the money from?’ they ask. ‘Is he not biting more than he can chew?’ I can understand. Sometimes, it is impossible for us to see beyond the limit of our experience. Folks, there is nothing that Peter Ndubuisi Mbah has put forward in his manifesto that is not materialisable – he has the will-power as well as competence and character.
Mbah studied and lived abroad, and has first-hand experience of how systems work in advanced societies. During his presentation, he demonstrated in concrete terms how he intends to grow the economy seven-fold leapfrogging from the current IGR of 4.4 billion to 30 billion (dollars).
Does he intend to overburden the tax-payer to generate and increase revenue? By all means no! His target, as he said during the outing, is to ‘expand the tax net’ – that is to say, make tax evasion impossible as well as create job opportunities so people can have employment and pay tax. But most importantly, Peter Mbah is committed to make the tax-payers’ money return to them in the form of social services.
Even the staunchest enemies of Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi would concede one thing: his impact on health-care is phenomenal. In this respect, Igbo-Eno Medical University, and the tier-4 hospitals all over the State easily come to mind. But Peter Mbah is taking health-care a notch higher – he is set to build Specialist Hospitals in each of the Zones.
What I find most touching, however, is Mbah’s plan to add a Trauma Unit to the State University of Medical Sciences, Igbo-Eno (SUMAS). Judging from the thoughtful silence that followed the statement, it was clear that the historical significance of this exceptionally brilliant idea was not lost on the audience.
There is no ethnic group in Nigeria that has need to pay attention to Trauma like the Igbo people. Even in the next hundred years the inter-generational trauma of the Civil War will not leave our people. The pain is only repressed, but not erased. A recent example is Professor Uju Anya’s outburst at the death of Queen Elizabeth that sparked both commendation and outrage. The psychologists refer to it as the ‘return of the repressed’.
Do I intend to re-invent the War by this? Not quite! After all, a whole lot of injuries come under Trauma. But note that though the Second World War ended in 1945, there are vibrant Trauma Studies spotlighting the massacre of the Jews during the War. An advanced Trauma Unit in our hospital is more than timely.
Everything about Peter Ndubuisi Mbah is deep, well-thought out and radically new. His emergence as the PDP flag-bearer is for us like chancing upon spring in a desert. For me and my family and friends we shall use our PVCs to deliver ourselves from economic bondage and hardship. I don tire for suffering. What about you?
Long Live Enugu State!
May God prosper, protect and guide the Mbah/Ossai project.
