The People That Matter

I was in a bus today and for the rhyme of it, I’d like to say it was headed nowhere, but then…

Anyway, one of these Did you know shows came on the radio and I’m thinking they’re about to tell us for the umpteenth time that Nigeria gained independence in 1960. *insert rolling eye emoji*

Surprisingly, this time, they talked about Adadevoh, the Dr. Adadevoh. You see, I knew her generally as the doctor that prevented the spread of Ebola in Nigeria in 2014, and just that. I didn’t know, and I just found out, from listening to her citation, that she is a direct descendant of Herbert Macaulay and is linked to the famed Adadevoh clan of Ghana, to which she was strongly linked before her death.

Her father was a one time vice chancellor of the University of Lagos and she studied for a bit abroad – you’ll see where I’m going with this. 

The point I’m trying to make is that she had the world at her feet – a privileged kid, one of the elite and she chose to lay down her life. Even me that nobody knows, I don’t really think I can lay that kind of sacrifice. Forgive me, I’m only human.

I still remember the story like yesterday, when the Liberian National came into the country, dying from the virus and was taken to the hospital where Dr. Adadevoh was a consultant. Despite pressure from the Liberian Government, she insisted he be quarantined, an act that singlehandedly saved the rest of us. I mean, what would have happened if she had acted the Nigerian way, turned a blind eye, probably with money changing hands and allowed him to walk.

She would have been richer, a virus would have spread and it wouldn’t bother her because if you didn’t notice, she comes from a very connected lineage, she could always relocate till things blow over. However, she stayed, and contracted the virus herself and gave up the ghost on August 19 2014 while undergoing treatment.
You see, it takes more than a citizenship certificate to be a true citizen and have national interest at heart. 

This is one doctor that took the Hippocratic oath to the letter, an oath which has seemingly become a joke in our beautiful country. In a world of increasingly selfish people who almost never do. anything, unless there’s something in it for them, she took a risk that put her life on the line and posterity will never forget, even if we do.

 She is a person that matters.

A lot of people probably do not even know who she was ; their earliest memories of Ebola being the salt and bitter kola solution that went viral.

In a few weeks, we would even forget this memorial, when Davido buys a new jet or someone calls a celebrity out on Twitter.

The other day, a video went viral, a presidential candidate in a chat stated that black people do not have the mental ability and capability to produce anything. According to him, we run a consumption economy, a stomach infrastructure.

It caused an uproar on the Internet that forced him to step down and even while down, he tried to defend himself. Problem is, it’s a video, you said what you said, nobody put your words out of context.

It’s sad because he’s supposed to be a person that matters. In light of the #NotTooYoungToRun bill, he ought to be one of the people to put the youth in limelight. You know how we complain that the elders claim we are the leaders of tomorrow, yet do not give us chance. Now we have a chance, someone goes on live TV to say this. Funny how we were upset when Donald Trump Called us a shit hole country.

In his example, he said to FalzTheBahdGuy, that if you left a black man (a Nigerian) in a room and told him to create the fancy glasses FalzTheBahdGuy had on, he wouldn’t be able to replicate. This is a slap on the face of the growing community of manufacturers in the city of Aba. I tell you without an iota of doubt that these boys can create and recreate any and everything, it’s only a pity they don’t enjoy the same spotlight Louboutin and Givenchy shares.

It’s even more pathetic that it’s a black man putting his fellow black man down. Funny how the same person ever thought he would be president. Same with the Female Aspirant who claimed to not be a feminist but complained when the Men in her party accused her of sharp practices. It’s funny that she doesn’t own a dictionary to define the meaning of feminism and know that it is geared at protecting her from gender based discrimination and she’s supposed to be a lawyer that graduated from the abroad. I guess she lost parts of her faculties with each and every of her divorce that not being a feminist couldn’t help her curtail. She also probably doesn’t know she’s canceled already.

You can’t be too stunned, if you remember that a president of a certain African country went to the US and instead of selling his country in good light, stated that the youths are lazy. Same youths that have to provide everything for themselves, from light to water, struggle with a minimum wage of less than 100 dollars and still manage to be woke.

You see these people, they are the ones in the spotlight who perceivably are the ones that matter, the ones meant to make the decisions and all that. When the world thinks about Nigeria, they are the people in the limelight, they are the people they see.

I hope one day, the world sees people like Dr Adadevoh that placed humanity over politics or money. I hope they see the Nigerian doctor that operated on a unborn baby and returned the child to the mother’s womb, all before delivery. I hope the world sees our nationals breaking bounds in every sphere of life, overseas because their own country stifles them and doesn’t give a chance or proper infrastructure for intellectuals to grow.

I hope that one day when you mention Nigeria, people do not think you come from a long line of scammers, kidnappers and human traffickers. 

I hope one day we get it right, and I hope we never forget the people that actually matter.