My Hippocratic brothers… I started a thread some few weeks back on this platfor which generated a lot of reactions for weeks… if we all can remember the title of that post, “CASUALIZATION OF DOCTORS in LAGOS STATE MAY BURY NMA”… I’m sure we can all remember. I wrote then having seen into the future… for the things of the spirit cannot be measured by designation, age, or political positions… For the holy scripture even attest that “There were the children of Isacchar who have been given the wisdom of knowing the time and the season” Perhaps some of us have this instinct within us… perhaps. Having just concluded this EDM, I tried to sleep… but my sleep was full of nightmares!... I could not help asking myself???How did we get here? What happened? What did we do wrong? How come we were boxed into a corner and now had to be negotiating from the point of a great disadvantage? Where did we miss it? etc… different rhetoric pumping through my mind. Let the truth be told…I AM PROUD OF NMA…I AM PROUD OF BEING A DOCTOR!...I AM PROUD OF OVER 60% of doctors throughout THIS Federation that STOOD for what is JUST and for what they believed in. Our LOSS is not a perculiar one, FOR We were just unfortunate to HAVE LOST and LOST Gallantly we did! In trying to x-ray the struggle for the past 7weeks 6days, as a “veteran” now turned “victim”….Here is my submission for our loss. (1). I still maintain that ours is an “INSANE” society whose leaders value no life of its citizenry, hence if over 200 Chibok girls and another 100 Borno boys can be watched to ‘vanish’ one by one without FG blinking…WHO ARE WE AS DOCTORS before him!...If ASUU can be on strike for 5months and up till now “shin shin” they did not get…WHO ARE WE AS DOCTORS before him!... If Polytechnics can be on strike for almost a year and had to go back just on the word of the new minister of education, achieving NOTHING. WHO ARE WE AS DOCTORS before him. IF Sanisi Lamido Sanusi can be sacked just like that …THEN to HELL WITH Residency Training Govt will say!... (2). Our democracy is not fully matured, hence the will of the electorates (or a unit of the electorates) is highly STILL subjugated…hoping that one day we will get there! (3). As at present, the power at the center is HIGHLY concentrated … who can withstand the MIGHT of the presidency who is ONLY bothered about nothing but 2015!!! (4)With the present composition of the Ministry of Health whom we directly get our benefits from.…i.e. With the Perm Secretary who is a Pharmacist and a staunch HATER of doctors… who was said to have frustrated CONMESS implementation before he was moved to Ministry of Defence and now UNFORTUNATELY back this year January! We are bound to Loose for now and of course JOH-esu his colleagues will “seem” to win! (5). Still xraying my thoughts on why we lost…With the “unfortunate” natural outbreak of “Ebola” which comes with it a GREAT sentiments from the GENERAL PUBLIC…it further boxed us into the “cul-de-sac” OF redeeming our fading image before the public or maintaining our STand! Suffice to say that we chose the latter while we tried to manage the public perception that “we will attend to all public emergency’…the resultant effect of that decision was that THE PUBLIC WERE NOT FOOLED BY THAT AND THEY HATED US the MORE! (just like the biblical Joseph’s brothers). The hatred was however further fuelled by our VERY own- who kept informing the public that the FG has met 80-90% of our demands, yet we refused to bulge and that ‘resident doctors” are not part of the SUCCESS story of Ebola knipping The Big question is ‘would we have won if our own did not turn against us or we did not have cracks within our walls starting from the NOC and MDCAN (for history will judge us all)??????????????????? I BELIEVE “NO” we would not have won…But perhaps, IT WOULD Have probably not made us to suffer as much casualties as these (for truly brothers and sisters, seeing the facts emanating from the just concluded EDM, I have no doubt to say Resident Doctors have been wounded, butchered, packed inside a box and summarily CREMATED! i.e WE HAVE BEEN technically SACKED whether we accepted the letters or not – Never in the years to come as long as this present Government is in power can NARD raise its head again!!!) (6). My sixth point still on why we lost …We started the battle without no clear “Exit Strategy”…We were determined to get ALL we wanted!...Such that we didn’t quit when the ovation was loudest…The “Ebola” Outbreak!... now we were put in a position of having to trust “Mr Senate President” by force, having been reminded by this same Senator David Mark that “IF YOU DON’T TRUST ME, and YOU and MR PRESIDENT decide to maintain a hardline, for the sake of the Nation, we in the House of Assembly will have to protect the Citizens by IMPORTING DOCTORS from Cuba and Pakistan at a higher cost to the Government…just as it was done in the past before the advent of the residency training” … WHat a SUBTLE THREATS!!! What a FOOD for THOUGHTS!!! Hence, for those of us who may be thinking that “NMA/NARD have shamed us” we might need to reconsider our stands, be fair and think if we would have done otherwise, given the same position and scenario! I will conclude tjis short deep thought of mine in the wee our of the night by asking ….”So which way forward???. Hmmm…as a VISIONARY who sees beyond today…I see a nation that is going through a phase and ultimately will get there ONE DAY! I see a nation that is being encumbered by lots of “evil, malicious and mortally minded that they have forgotten that indeed there is a GOD” (I say this out od seriousness). I see a nation turned upside down by inordinate ambition of men…I see a nation that care less about its Citizenry….These are all I see for now…But for the future I see the ENTIRE reversal of the OLD ORDER!...where everything will be based on EQUALITY, and FAIRNESS...where the dignity of every human labour will be adequately rewarded! I believe we will get there, for I have seen from the mountain top beyond the river…I will get there, you will get there and Nigeria will get there…I refuse to give up on Her, I will nurture her and I will watch this dream come true…While the change happens, I beg of us to RESTRATEGSE” as an individual…. FOR ThERE WILL Definitely BE A CHANGE!!! If However you want to stay and do Medicine…please do it as business but with human face…remember #NoMoreCorridorConsultation. If you want to do Masters, MSc etc…do it…But NEVER allow your “ego” to diminish…never give up to defeat, never believe JOH-esuites are better…they are just lucky to have their people in places that matter FOR NOW…because Nigeria has not yet built its institution where things we run irrespective of who you know or who is calling the shots!...Let us hope that government keeps his promise to “RECALL the letter of the suspension and reinstate the residents and probably meet SOME of our 24point demands”…BUT IF and NOTHING of such happens…Events will unfold and actions shall be met with reactions (but what the reactions will be Time will TELL). BUT WHATEVER MAY…THE LION SHALL STIill remain the KING of THE JUNgLE!!! I rest my case for now to take the next flight back to join my family, restrategize and PLAn my LIFE Peter Ogunnubi (JP) A once “jobful” but now “jobless” Lagos NMA Deputy Secretary.
Posted on: Sun, 24 Aug 2014 11:06:56 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015