KOLA MUHAMMED reports that though the festive season was full of activities and celebrations, many people, for one reason or the other, could not celebrate.
Her birthday was December 27, 2020 and it was her 78th birthday, but lying on the bed at the teaching hospital of a first generation university and breathing with difficulty, her children were distraught afraid they were going to lose their mother just as they lost their father many years back.
Madam Dorcas (not real name) and her children had looked forward to this particular celebration but this time, Christmas Day was nothing to her as she battled for survival on life support. Though she survived, recovery has been very slow but it was just enough to keep her children thanking God.
Madam Dorcas is just one out of many people in different circumstances who were not even aware that the festive season was around just like Mr Josiah Fatiregun who celebrated his 70th birthday in October. Ordinarily, he looked forward to celebrating the Yuletide which was two months away at that time, with the same romp he celebrated his platinum jubilee.
However, in the early days of December, Fatiregun suffered a stroke and the whole right side of his body was left paralysed. He was rushed to the hospital and has been on admission since then.
His last daughter, Caroline, recounted the days leading to the illness: “We noticed that he had been pale for close to two days and we felt it was just an old man not in the mood for laughs and all.
“This particular evening, it was time to take dinner and we noticed that he was still in bed. I got to him and he was lying still, just groaning, unable to move major partsof his body. At that point we decided to rush him to the nearest clinic before he was transferred to this specialist hospital, here in Osogbo.
“Till now, he could only nod his head in approval or rejection of whatever he is asked,” Caroline added sadly.
At Onward Hospital in Osogbo, Osun State, Fatiregun, among many other patients, had spent the Christmas period there and appeared certain that they were going to be there through the New Year festivities too.
Another patient who wanted to be identified simply as Eniola is spending the festive season in a hospital in Ogbomosho, Oyo State. He had suffered serious injuries in an auto-crash which left his limbs in a terrible state, unable to move without aid.
One of the physiotherapists attending to him, while pleading anonymity, disclosed that Eniola has to recuperate up to a level before he could be discharged and attended to at home, else he runs the risk of disrupting the healing processes.
“Accidents are unfortunate and nobody wishes to be in a hospital during this festive season. Even we practitioners have no option than to attend to patients all year long. In the case of the patient here [Eniola], he has to recover up to a certain stage before we can allow him to go home, especially because of the attention that bone recovery deserves.When the situation is a bit better, we will allow him go,” the physiotherapist added.
“What the hospital does is to decorate bed corners of patients, give them toiletries like tissue papers, tooth paste, soaps and the likes that they can use.
“On the New Year, we don’t do the regular happy New Year greetings because of some patients with high blood pressure and similar conditions which can’t bear noise.
“Basically, the festive period is like every other period in the hospital as the prayer on the lips of patients is to return to their homes alive and healthy,”Adufe added.
When Sunday Tribune visited Iye Hospital, Ibadan, Oyo State, the relative quietude of the place suggested that the festive season was an alien atmosphere.
Although many patients chose to remain silent on their conditions, the Chief Medical Director, Dr Solomon Kupolati, said that it is because of the season and the attendant rush that attends the festive period which makes certain patients to patronise private hospitals which would afford them the privacy they crave.
“Nobody prays to be in the hospital during these times. That is why there is no celebration of sort or anything to indicate festivity. Patients are in pain, in undesirable conditions. So, there is no point in putting up anything to suggest happiness or revelry.
“Hence, things remain the way they have been all year round. If it were to be up to their wishes, they wouldn’t be here in the first place,”Kupolati added.
When Sunday Tribune spoke with some of the members of staff of the hospital, they explained that some patients just finished surgical operations and were in severe pains. Such people, according to them, would give anything just to be in good health.
At the Correctional Center, Agodi, Ibadan, Sunday Tribune learnt that as usual several Christian organisations and philanthropists came to make the inmates happy by donating toiletries and other materials just to remind them that they have not been forgotten.
However, the question is: Who wants to have his freedom curtailed when there is so much celebration in the air. An officer who did not want to be named because he was not authorised to speak said nothing could be compared to freedom no matter the amount of goodies brought to the inmates.
Chibok Girls
It has been six years since the Chibok girls were abducted. No one could have predicted such an abduction of a massive proportion but it happened on the night of April 15, 2014, during which about 276of them were kidnapped by Boko Haram fighters from a girls secondary school in Chibok, Borno State.
It would later be reported that 57 of the schoolgirls escaped in the months following the kidnap incident while others had been rescued at different times by the military. A child born to one of the girls was also released, according to official sources, thereby raising hopes on the release of the remaining 219 girls.
In May 2016, Amina Ali, one of the girlswho was found claimed that the remaining girls were still in captivity. Twenty-one more girls were freed in October 2016, and another rescued the following next month. In May 2017, 82 more girls were freed and another one rescued in January 2018.
However, till date, approximately a third of the abductees are still in the hands of Boko Haram. Their case which had become a global issue with the #Bringbackourgirls campaign has continued to put pressure on government to secure their release.
For months, there had been no precise information about the girls and they are in fact fading away in the memories of the average Nigerian. It is hard to imagine the girls celebrating Christmas in captivity.
Similarly, four years after the kidnap of Chibok schoolgirls, Boko Haram would strike again in Dapchi, which is approximately 275km North West of Chibok. At about 5:30 pm on February 19, 2018, 110 schoolgirls aged 11–19 years old were kidnapped from the Government Girls’ Science and Technical College (GGSTC) where the girls supposedly converged for an examination.
The face of that Boko Haram abduction would later be Leah Sharibu, who reportedly refused to convert to Islam and was not released along with others.
Reports gathered from several sources, including the schoolgirls, said five of the girls died on the same day of their kidnapping. Freedom would later come the way of the girls later on in March 2018 when they were released, apparently after a ransom was paid except for Leah Sharibu.
At the time of her abduction, Leah Sharibu was said to be aged 14 years. Several reports had trailed the young girl since her abduction. Reports had said she at a time escaped from her abductors but was intercepted and returned to her abductors.
Almost three years down the line no one could say precisely what has become of Leah. Apart from report that she has been given to a Boko Haram militant as a sex slave, an audio was released in August 2018 of Leah pleading for her freedom. There were also reports that Boko Haram had threatened to kill her in October 2018 should the Nigerian government refuse to heed the militants’ demands.
There had also been reports of her death, but she is still believed to be alive as there was also a report that she had given birth to a baby boy in captivity in January 2020.
For the young girl, there would be no Christmas and New Year celebrations, just like inmates in prisons, patients in hospital beds and captives in the dens of Boko Haram militants.
- Additional story by Bayo Alade
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