The ambulance came about five minutes later. I walked into the vehicle unaided. After a couple of questions and note taking—age, medical history, etc—we left for the Brookdale University Hospital and Medical Center, located at the corner of Linden Boulevard and Rockaway Parkway in Brooklyn. It was about 4.5 miles from my home.
I called the ambulance because of what my wife had told me some years ago about how hospitals treat some types of emergencies. Although I was ill, I knew that if I walked into the hospital by myself, it would have taken several hours before I would be attended to. By arriving in an ambulance I was sure I would get prompt attention, but I would still pay for the emergency service. But I was wrong. I was in the hospital waiting room for about two hours, sitting unattended in a chair. Then I remembered what else my wife had told me about emergency.
“The only emergency in the U.S. is a gunshot or blood gushing out from your body.”
I looked at myself—no gunshot, no blood. I might as well sit there forever. I beckoned to the nurse and told her I was queasy and weak. She asked me some questions and left. She returned later and gave me three tablets of Tylenol—a pain reliever, and water in a plastic cup. I swallowed the pills. Thereafter, I sat down for the next hour or so. By that time, I knew I had malaria fever. That was my self-diagnosis, and my prayer was that the nurse would attend to me on time and give me some antimalarial tablets because I knew it was a relapsing fever. I was sure that the monster would creep back before dusk.
Instinctively, I called my wife to bring me some Fansidar–an antimalarial drug.
After what seemed like forever, the nurse called me. From her accent, I knew she was Indian. After a series of questions, she concluded that I could be suffering from a malaria attack and would soon be checked into a ward. That’s when my ordeal went from painful to unbelievable.
Everybody comes with assorted knives when an elephant dies – Yoruba proverb.
Many doctors, nurses and interns visited me, but not to offer assistance. They came because they had never seen a malaria patient. And they all looked at me apprehensively. I consoled myself. Was this real? Did I have a serious ailment?
I exhaled when they left and said to myself: “When a big embarrassment brings a man onto the floor, the little problems will climb on top.”
As the news of my foreign ailment circulated around the hospital, my only comfort came from a Nigerian pharmacist who stopped by my room to offer reassurance.
“You know, don’t worry about all the people coming. They have never seen a malaria patient in their lives,” the tall man said. “And the news is spreading like wildfire in the hospital.”
My wife brought the Fansidar tablets in the evening. I discreetly swallowed two of them since the hospital had not given me any medication. They had only taken my blood and urine samples, and until the test results were ready, I would be on observation only.
Two doctors came around 9 p.m. One was a white man and the other an Indian. They asked the same questions that others had asked me earlier.
“Where did you visit last?”
“What did you eat last?”
“Tell us about your medical history.”
“Do you vomit?”
“Do you sweat profusely at night?”
“How often do you eat?”
“Why are you so slim?”
The white man got closer to me, gave me this apologetic look, and whispered softly. “Just between you and me, how many sexual partners do you have?” He looked into my face and his colleague in turn.
“One,” I replied firmly, without hesitation. There was no reason for me to weigh the response.
“No, no, no, that’s not it,” said the Indian doctor, as he verbally shoved his colleague aside and slyly glanced at him. “You said you came from Nigeria this weekend.”
“Yes,” I replied.
“Have you ever had malaria attack?” the Indian doctor continued.
“Yes,” I said. “Several years ago.”
“When exactly,” the Indian doctor probed more.
“I can’t remember, probably 30 years ago,” I said.
“When last did you take any antimalarial drug,” the Indian doctor asked as he looked at me with authority.
“Maybe six months ago,” I responded with embarrassment.
“You know, you caused this embarrassment and unnecessary questions for yourself,” the Indian doctor said imperiously. “You should have brought chloroquine.”
I looked up, and thought how unlucky I was. I had been to the U.S. from Nigeria more than fifteen times in the past nine years, and this was the first trip I made to the country without bringing my travel medical kits, which contained chloroquine tablets.
That night, I was wheeled to a ward on the tenth floor and into a room where I was the lone occupant. A nurse gave me an intravenous drip, and I consumed three more drips before the next morning. Throughout the night, I was restless, half conscious, had fleeting dreams and felt powerless as a result of the power of the Fansidar tablets. After I had my breakfast, a nurse gave me three tables of chloroquine. I swallowed only one since I had taken the Fansidar tablets the previous day.
On Wednesday evening, a Jewish doctor stopped by and suggested that I take another type of drug. According to him, malaria parasites had developed resistance to a number of malaria medicines, including chloroquine. I refused. But that evening when my wife and children visited, I felt much better. Their presence was a great tonic.
On Thursday morning, a female doctor who had treated me the previous evening returned. I surmised that she was an Indian but without an accent.
“This floor is for patients with communicable and serious disease,” she said soothingly as she looked at my medical card on a clipboard. “Since yours is just malaria, we thought you should be discharged today and go home to get well. You shouldn’t come here with a minor illness and go home with something serious from other patients.”
She left. Immediately, I called my wife and asked her to pick me up. Omolade was happy. However, since she worked in Manhattan, she said she wouldn’t be able to pick me up until after she left work.
While I waited eagerly for the hours to pass, I continued to ponder on the saga. The Indian doctor was right. I really should have brought chloroquine. When I was young, up until I was around twelve years old, my father gave me and my siblings Daraprim (pyrimethamine) an antiparasitic compound tablet, every Sunday. With the weekly treatment, we were protected from malaria attacks for many years.
On my hospital bed, I mused that the Indian doctor was, indeed, my savior. What would have happened if the white doctor had come alone? It’s possible I could have been misdiagnosed. How many patients have endured a misdiagnosis? I was very lucky because I could have been a victim. Then I remembered a Yoruba proverb: When it’s not yet time for a sick man to die, Death will get him a good herbalist.
Mobs and Mayhem
When the forest is ablaze, the antelope ceases to fear the hunter's bullet. - Nigerian proverb
Who set the Nigerian External Telecommunications (NET) building on fire? That was the question we were asking in January 1983.
I was a first-year student at the Yaba College of Technology (Yaba Tech) in Lagos. I was a few months old as a freshman and lived off campus with my parents at Ilasamaja in Lagos.
I had come for lectures on that sunny day in January. But that was not to be. The students had gathered in front of the Student Union (SU) building for a rally. The SU building was adjacent to the male hostels of the Higher National Diploma students, which was close to the female hostels, known as Akata.
As someone shouted, “Great Yaba Tech,” the roar of excited voices filled the arena: “Greaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.”
A stout, bone-headed fellow then appeared in the window. He tried to work up the crowd, which was becoming agitated. “They are fascist, ultraconservative, neo-federalist and neocolonialist,” he said. “The orgy of inferno, climate of arson, and circle of conflag
ration must end today.”
He continued: “This is an uncivil nation, and we have to stop this destructive epoch and wrest our destiny from the political cartel.”
As one speaker after another animated the crowd, with the clarion call “Great Yaba Tech,” the crowd responded. “Greatttttttttttttttttttttttt.”
“These are political wickedness in high places,” said a fellow with a coarse voice. He was grotesquely attired with a black bandana on his head. “Let’s break down this iron curtain of democratic unaccountability, political shenanigans and chicanery.”
Another shrieked out from the balcony, “These are plundering, pesky political parasites.”
From the center window in the student union building, speaker after speaker talked about the breakdown of morality and what they described as “a decadent generation” and a “pariah country in the comity of nations.” In unison, they exclaimed: “the only solution to this perilous state is a revolution.”
Those were not the exact words spoken then, but it sounded like that in my ears—a student who had just finished secondary school education. I couldn’t really understand what the big vocabulary was all about. Yes, the razing of NET was despicable; and yes, the burning of the tallest building in Nigeria then was condemnable because it tied into a pattern of setting offices on fire after fraud had been perpetuated. On September 5, 1980, the 10-story Federal Ministry of Education building was burnt. On December 14, 1981, arsonist(s) set the Republic Building of the Ministry of External Affairs on fire. Two years later, it was the 37-story NET building. But what I couldn’t understand was the call by my colleagues for a revolution in the country. To me, it was like a needle was missing, and we had called a town crier to announce the loss.
What do students really want? I thought. I looked at my colleagues who lived on campus. On a typical day, with 50 kobo, they had two pieces of eggs, oats, six loaves and tea or coffee for breakfast at the cafeteria through government subsidies. For lunch, they had a sumptuous meal of chicken, rice and ice cream for 50 kobo. And a typical dinner was also rich–beans, plantain and two or three palm size meats—all for 50 kobo.
So what type of revolution do they want? Then I recalled what happened about five years earlier.
I was a student at Imota Grammar School in Lagos State. It was in April 1978 during the long term holidays, and I was returning from school to my home. The traffic was a gridlock when I got to Ketu. It was heavy as people trekked and vehicles stayed in the same spots for hours. What was the cause? I and other passengers in a commercial bus wondered. About two hours later, our bus moved at a snail’s pace for some minutes then stopped. And this happened again and again for several hours. When we arrived in Fadeyi, about five hours later, I was shocked. Here and there, I saw the charred carcasses of busses, overturned cars engulfed in smoke, and burning houses.
What was the cause of the destruction? The federal government had increased tuition at universities and higher institutions. So, the students protested peacefully. The National Union of Nigerian Students (NUNS) was led by Segun Okeowo. That was the “Ali Must Go” episode. Col. Ahmadu Ali was then the Federal Commissioner for Education, while General Olusegun Obasanjo was the head of state. The military tanks were rolled out and the incident turned violent. The riot in Lagos was not the only one. There were also others in several parts of the country. In the end, ten undergraduates of institutions of higher learning had died.
“Great Yaba Tech,” howled a speaker from the window as I was brought back to the present.
“Greeat Greatttttttttttttttt,” thundered the crowd.
“We have reached the zenith of this kleptocracy. We have to march down on Babylon and take the stronghold of the Goliath,” the pint-size speaker said. “Let’s march to the National Assembly and rattle the legislators.”
“How can President Shehu Shagari travel out of Nigeria to China when NET was on fire?” shouted someone from the crowd.
After more fiery and feisty talk, the procession started.
The National Assembly was in the Tawafa Balewa Square (TBS) then before it was relocated to Abuja following the official movement of the capital from Lagos to Abuja in 1991 by General Ibrahim Babangida.
At that time, the entire population of Yaba Tech was about 3,000 students. I don’t know how many students joined in the protest, but it was massive.
We moved to the gate by the West African Examinations Council headquarters office, then into Herbert Macaulay Way, where we took over the entire road and made it impassable for vehicles. I imagined the commotion and the traffic chaos we had caused. One kilometer later, we were at the Yaba Bus stop, on the Murtala Muhammed Way, where many traders hailed us and praised us for standing up for the nation and the masses.
At the Nigerian Railway Zonal District Headquarters, Ebute Metta Junction, just by Adekunle Street, hordes of women came out from the row of bungalow houses, sheltered by tall trees. The women danced and waved leafy branches. And I said to myself. “Rebellion is sweet when women support it, and even sweeter when they start it.” I felt like a conquistador.
We moved on, chanting and singing.
Suffer suffer for World
CHORUS: Amen
Enjoy for Heaven
CHORUS: Amen
Christians go dey jab
CHORUS: Amen
“In Spiritum Heavinus”
CHORUS: Amen
Moslems go dey call
CHORUS: Amen
“Allah wa Akbar”
CHORUS: Amen
That was the music of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti from the album, Shuffering and Shmiling.
Five kilometers and about one hour after the procession started, we got to Iddo. All along we had been on the right traffic way. But at the Iddo Railway Terminus, we veered into the oncoming vehicles and moved into Idumota. As we moved, some of our leaders moved back and forth, advising us to prevent hoodlums from breaking into our ranks and joining the procession. We watched out but it was difficult to know who was who in such a mammoth gathering.
I cannot now recollect how we proceeded from Idumota either because of fatigue or because I was so engrossed in the rally. Anyway, I made it to Marina on the Lagos Island, from where I could see the profile of the NET building not far away.
The sun glared in the hot patchy afternoon when we arrived at the TBS—about 2½ hours and eleven kilometers or so since we left our campus. I was tired.
We entered the TBS through the west side pavilion. Immediately, I noticed the swarm of policemen, in full combat gear. They had taken strategic positions inside the TBS, and the entrance to the National Assembly complex. They had batons and AK rifles.
As we danced, chanted and sang, the atmosphere became charged.
Won ti’na bo’le o
Awon ole
Won ti’na bo’le
They’ve set the house on fire
The thieves
Have set the house on fire
After about ten minutes, some of our union leaders approached the leader of the police team. Both parties agreed that our union leaders should go into the National Assembly chamber to meet with the legislators to lodge our protests. So, our leaders left for the meeting.
In the absence of our leaders, the procession scattered. Some students went to the East side pavilion gate, along Macarthy street, to buy soft drinks and water to quench thirst; others gathered close to the High Court of Lagos annex by Moloney Street. I went toward the TBS shopping complex at the East pavilion. As I took the staircase, I thought about my parents’ advice of never being part of any student protests and not to talk of being in the forefront. I was still engrossed in this thought when I suddenly went blank and blind. It started first with a pungent and peppery whiff, which hit my eyes and nose. I gasped for breath. The air was hot and smoky. I took in more air. It hurt more and my lungs pumped heavily.
The Tale of the Cow Tail & Other Stories from the African Diaspora Page 3