January 19, 2020. There was a motorcade ahead of us preventing us from overtaking. One of the vehicles was a police pick-up while the other were black SUVs. The SUVs were full of men in military fatigue wielding guns. They menacingly waived down anybody that tried to overtake them. But their speed was not bad…
To Atlanta again, via Istanbul
I looked at my boarding pass and saw the words ‘saat’ and ‘tarihi’, Arabic words meaning time and date respectively, and chuckled as I always do when I see the stubborn residue of Arabic in the modern Turkish language. Starting from the 1930s the Turks, under the guidance of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, had conducted the…
Universal Health Coverage – the right thing, the smart thing
One cold evening in 2005 I was with my cousin in Grays, a quiet town in Essex County some 35 km east of London. Glued to the computer screen as was my wont for several hours every day, I was utterly oblivious to my surroundings until I began to hear a barely audible, almost musical…
From compassion and charity to health economics
We learnt more than clinical medicine at the bedside. We also learnt that poverty and ignorance could make people deadly sick. We learnt that illness could also further slide already poor people into deeper poverty. We learnt that a lot of people were suffering from acute and chronic diseases but could not help themselves. We…
Nigeria at 59: we need to rekindle the dwindling patriotism
Individually and collectively, we need to build a Nigeria that our children can be proud of. Some have to start from a point of patriotism and optimism and work to give the rest something to be patriotic and optimistic about.
Walk the Talk and Keep Abuja Clean
We were supposed to gather at the Millennium Park at 7:00 am for the second edition of the Abuja Walk the Talk: The Health for all Challenge – the first edition last year had been part of the celebrations of the World Health Organization’s 70th anniversary and I had missed it. But I didn't get…
Thinking in English, Expressing in another Language
Yesterday morning, as I was preparing to leave for work, I listened to VOA Hausa’s health program Lahiya Uwar Jiki. Na taho - In gaisheki, lahiya uwar jiki Babu mai fushi dake It was a reproductive health topic focusing on highly technical stuff like in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination and hormonal therapy. The doctor started…
Remembering things: Mugabe, Ilorin, Tuwo, Salisbury, Harare,
This morning I woke up tired. I slept off with a lot on my mind and I must have been thinking very hard in my sleep. Many pending tasks in my head. A to-do list which I needed to write down and tick off this morning. But as happens very often, serious-looking potentially busy mornings…
On the Road on Sallah Eve
The traffic jam started just after the Kaduna International Trade Fair grounds in front of the National Teachers Institute. There had been an accident involving a Sokoto Transport bus, a car and a kekenapep. From the way the three vehicles were smashed, battered and mangled, and facing different directions, it was hard to divine how…
Sweet victory for the bloody civilians
It is a few minutes before the hour of departure. An agitated man stands in the middle of the aisle of SP0001 around the group of ten seats with a table. Doesn’t he have a seat? Maybe he is one of those people who managed to buy a ‘standing’ ticket. He has a single diagonal…
