National Assembly, on Thursday, appealed to the members to call off their ongoing strike in the interest of all Nigerians.

The lawmakers assured the resident doctors that their grievances would be resolved in the shortest possible time, Daily Dates Nigeria reports.

Chairman, Senate Committee on Health, Ibrahim Oloriegbe, and his House of Representatives counterpart, Yusuf Tanko Sununu, made the appeal during the flag-off of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) sensitization campaign in eight states.

Oloriegbe said, “I appeal to our resident doctors to please go back to work. A strike by any doctor can lead to loss of lives and any life lost can never be regained.

“Every issue about the strike is mostly about money, and we can always pay arrears, but there are no arrears to life.

“In view of this, whatever the issues are, they can always be resolved through dialogue. I call on them to go back to work while discussions are going on.

“The issues are with the Ministry of Health. They have held a meeting, and meetings will continue to ensure that the issues are resolved.”

“It is important that Nigerians have access to health care and access to qualified and competent doctors in our public hospitals. I hope they will listen and yield to this call and ensure that services are restored.”

The Chairman, House Committee on Health, Yusuf Sununu also said “We do know that there are some issues raised and we are working hard to ensure that those issues are resolved within the shortest possible time.

“I do hope that they will get the cooperation of everybody, including the Executive arm of the government so that we can fast-track the calling off of this strike.”

NAFDAC earlier announced that it has embarked on a public sensitisation campaign across the nation, to combat the high rate of unregulated products and their inherent dangers to public health.

NAFDAC’s Director-General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye lamented the alarming rate at which substandard products were being paraded.

Adeyeye noted that it has become crucial for the agency to embark on a significant sensitisation campaign to regulate substandard products in Nigeria.

According to her, the awareness campaign is important to promote and protect the health of citizens.

The NAFDAC boss earlier disclosed that significant sensitisation campaigns were scheduled to hold in eight states of the federation, adding that the first phase of the sensitisation campaigns will be held in selected states across the country from August to September 2021.

Adeyeye noted that the sensitisation campaigns are being organised in phases as the agency intends to cover all 36 states of the federation within available resources.

She also mentioned that a well-informed, sensitised, and educated citizenry is the bedrock of effective regulation.

According to her, citizens need to be informed about the deleterious effects of unwholesome food, falsified medical products, harmful cosmetics, poor water, and other substandard products.

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The president traveled a day before the National Association of Resident Doctors, (NARD), went on strike to push home their request for improved services in the nation’s health sector. The president is also reputed to have spoken vehemently against foreign medical trips by rich Nigerians during the tenure of his predecessors. He wondered aloud why Nigerians should devote their resources to seek medical attention abroad while leaving the nation’s health sector comatose. Almost six years after, it is “audible to the deaf, and visible to the blind” (apology to Patrick Obahiagbon), that president Buhari’s words were the usual political rhetorics anchored on deceit to hoodwink the hapless voters. Those words have become the subject of hypocrisy.

A man who does not care about his legacy will certainly go down in history, as the worst President, that Nigeria has ever had.

I am yet to draw my conclusion about president Buhari’s neglect of the health sector even to the point that the Aso Clinic that is designed to cater to the first family has been literarily abandoned.

I am yet to lay my hands on any plausible explanation as to the reason why this Buhari presidency had invested so little in a sector that he so much criticized during his campaigns. What is wrong if the president decides to revamp the health sector and make real his promise to avoid foreign medical trips? Why is it difficult for a man of supposed “integrity” to fulfill his promise of helping to stop foreign medical tourism and save Nigerians huge capital flight? Why is it difficult to replicate back home the services he often gets each time he embarks on these numerous foreign medical trips? It is becoming more like playing “kalo-kalo” with Nigerians; his wife returns from Dubai, then he took his turn to London. And just imagining the protests in London against his continued stay, gives me a thought for concern and heightens the urge for a more holistic intervention in the health sector back home. If our hospitals were in good shape, will the president find his present obsession for medical tourism? Following his initial condemnation of foreign medical trips, will it not be right to accuse him of a double standard? Is he not guilty as charged? He has stayed outside the country for medical reasons more than any public officer in recent times. It is a shame!

Nigeria, under President Buhari, has become a country drifting aimlessly like a ship on the high seas, inching ever so slowly towards a gigantic iceberg with a Captain in a seemingly drunken stupor, at the wheels. A captain either totally oblivious of the impending danger or is indeed on a suicide mission, with innocent lives at stake. A president who seems either disconnected from the plight of the people or totally incapable of showing any empathy for those he is sworn to serve.

It is becoming more like playing “kalo-kalo” with Nigerians; his wife returns from Dubai, then he took his turn to London.

A President in a true state of utter confusion apparently unwilling to take responsibility for the oath of office he swore to uphold. It makes one wonder if the sole purpose of pursuing the Presidency was simply the allure and trappings of the office of the President. While poverty is on the rise, anarchy brews in the forests, and a select few vicious vultures, waiting in the wings, ever ready to feed on the spoils that the vacuum of an absent leader creates. As the incompetence lingers, exploitation increases, bandits and kidnappers are emboldened, with monetary rewards, while the enduring flock is fed with false hope by advocating more patience. Patience for what? For the fraud on the Nigerian people to be perfected or for the incoherent President to finally regain consciousness?

But the question is when is it time to draw the line in the sand and demand accountability from a failed government?. What compounds the problem is that he is surrounded by enablers, who have no regard for the country and are strictly in power for self-enrichment. The enablers will do everything in their power to keep the President in a state of “mental paralysis” as it serves their purpose.

The President is bereft of all qualities that would have made him a good leader. He has absolutely no clear vision for the country and to date has not and is not capable of articulating what his goals are for the nation he serves. Aside from a lack of a well-defined vision, he is sorely lacking in communication skills. The only communication skill he seems to exhibit is how to seek foreign medical attention.

In addition, he obviously lacks crisis management skills, a key prerequisite for a strong, problem-solving leader in a contemporary world. He has shown time and time again that he is incapable of uniting this nation, eradicating domestic terrorism, and has zero interest in doing so. He cannot engage in constructive dialogue with his own cabinet on the way forward for this country, let alone give regular updates on the state of affairs of the nation. He makes all his predecessors look like saints and to say that his presidency has been a dismal failure is putting it lightly. A man who does not care about his legacy will certainly go down in history, as the worst President, that Nigeria has ever had.

The protests going on in London are part of the symptoms of failed leadership, the reason why leaders must ensure at all times that they live above board in delivering their responsibilities. If President Buhari had delivered on the promise, we won’t see such rejection by his own nationals in another man’s country. They would rather celebrate him and play good hosts to him as a responsible president. But his failures have become his Achilles heels haunting his past and present and preparing the way for his awful tomorrow. President Buhari would have emerged as the luckiest president in Nigeria if he was able to exploit the leadership gap he inherited, and consolidate on the opportunities around, to fulfill the expectations captured in the APC manifesto, chief of which is restructuring. Trying to play smart, he created his own manifesto in his heart, abandoned his party in the first three years, and ran Nigeria aground simultaneously. The equation of a united Nigeria began to whither away, assuming a frightening dimension, each zone talking about secession and self-determination. Protest after the protest, Nigerians keep the agonizing day in, day out as life rapidly becomes cheaper. The killing field is getting wider and wider, the killers multiplying in geometric proportion, and the stream of blood flowing from the North to the South. Our wailings are drenched in the sea of voices as our president who should offer succor is hibernating in the inner comfort of the Queen’s Orchard, “unaware” of our sullen predicament.

I have this sober feeling that president Buhari surely needs help from us, but he should be humble enough to so declare. Instead of allowing sycophantic aides to continue to glorify his failures, and calling them achievements, the president should seek penitence from a populace that has become victims of his incapacitation. Anybody can fall ill. It is nothing to celebrate about. But not being able to solve the problems for which you were so avuncular, becomes an unpardonable sin against humanity. And the neglect of the health sector is a handy reference. And for me, the Buhari presidency has since become a retirement package for him, enabled by conquistadorial aides, plowing our till and stealing our collective patrimony.

The Vice President is kept in abeyance, seen as a suspect to the throne. The president carries with him the aphrodisiac of the villa, clutching at it with religious fervor to imprint his maximum rulership. That is surely not how to cultivate power or its allure. Nigeria is burning every day. From Owerri in Imo state to the far North, it is one killing after another. The Airforce is still searching for the Alpha Jet in its pockets, churning out all manner of analysis to put a lie on Boko Haram claims, but the remnants of that plane have refused to surface.

This is Nigeria of anything goes, but the unconscionable minds have no place to hide anymore. That is why President Buhari is being ridiculed and humiliated in London, but like a man in medical trouble and trauma, he appears helpless to do otherwise. If I were in his shoes, I will join the next available flight to Nigeria and declare an emergency in the health sector. But under President Buhari, that won’t happen. The moral lesson is that there is no hiding place for the good, the bad, and ugly leaders. Not any more!.

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