by Buki Otuyemi
I came across a story today about how a 10-year-old goldfish with a tumour in its head was operated on by Dr. Tristan Rich, the Head of exotics and wildlife medicine in Lort Smith Animal Hospital, Melbourne. Ten-year-old George (the goldfish) is a pet whose owners really love him and so seeing him in such distress equally caused them distress as well. George’s owners had the choices of either spending $200 on a surgery or putting him to sleep, they chose the former.
Thankfully, the surgery went well and George is currently in recovery. According to Dr. Rich, ‘For the owners, it’s not about having a fish, it’s about having this fish’.
As lovely and sweet as I found this story, it made me extremely sad because I realize that George’s owners place far more worth and value on his well-being and life than our leaders place on the lives of Nigerians.Yesterday I got a call that my mum was ill and I had to rush to go see her. (she’s much better, thanks for thinking of asking :). On my way back to a family function, I saw an accident that shook me to my core. A car appeared to have knocked down a man dead and while the badly damaged car was moved off the road, the dead body was left lying by the side of the road uncovered. There were several policemen and even a new station camera crew at the scene. It bothered me greatly that he was just left lying there, exposed, contorted and stone-cold dead. There were no concerns of the effects seeing the dead body would have on passersby nor the effect of seeing him like that could have on any member of his family who happened on the scene. It was a grim and pathetic sight to behold.
As lovely and sweet as I found this story, it made me extremely sad because I realize that George’s owners place far more worth and value on his well-being and life than our leaders place on the lives of Nigerians.
I am a member of the NGO Stand To End Rape (S.T.E.R) and today I got a horrifying call from my boss, Ayodeji. She was pretty distraught and I had to calm her down a bit. Apparently, there was a brutal rape case last night in Delta state and our NGO was contacted to help out. She advised them to get the poor victim, who happens to be a minor, to a hospital as quickly as possible. When the victim’s family got to the hospital, they were turned back to go get a police report BEFORE she could be attended to!!! They headed out to the police station only to get there, make a report and be told they had to pay N3,000 before the police report could be issued to them!! Flamin’ balls of fire, I saw red.
Suddenly, nothing made sense to me any longer. Sending the money across to them wasn’t the issue here because we were willing to do that, but that would have been a temporary solution to a lasting problem. I needed a solution that would be more permanent. I was furious at the injustice of it all, our silly laws and our seemingly lackadaisical attitudes to such horrors as are seen in the country in recent times. I vented out my fury on my twitter timeline and I ensured I copied the two police handles I could find. Thankfully one of them, @sho_NPF, responded and provided the phone number of the Delta Command PRO of the Nigerian Police Force. Ayodeji made the call and true to her words, the PRO came through for us. It was a small victory, but it felt great. The S.T.E.R team will ensure that little girl gets justice.
These incidences and the several others like them often deflates my hopes in humanity most times and it is getting more and more difficult to overcome the forbrooding feeling that washes over me at their occurrences. It is becoming more glaring to me that empathy seems to be only felt by a handful of Nigerians and this is not good enough. I don’t know at what point we got to this junction of nonchalance and absolute disregard for human lives, but I do know that we cannot/must not continue this way. We would do well to place better value on each and every Nigerian life. We would do better to know that every life is valuable.
Sadly, some Nigerians will read this post and still think George and his likes should be used in a pot of pepper-soup where they would imagine they are worth more. Sigh. *drops microphone*
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Buki Otuyemi blogs at www.bukiotuyemi.blogspot.com
Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.
I was hoping there would be a place, somewhere in this article, where the exact worth of Nigeria life would be valued in Naira and Kobo. All the same, I would say that there is very little value for the life of a Nigeria.
Some months ago, a man killed a boy because of some spoons of party rice. That would have mostly resulted from anger, rather than the value of rice itself. However, when a Policeman shoots a danfo driver over N20, that’s just that!
I believe to geniunely estimate the worth of a Nigerian life though, we have to visit the sector that handles Nigerian lives on a daily basis, which is the Nigerian Health Sector. To start with, there are less than 2000 ambulances in Nigeria. Secondly, if a treatment costing N100,000 would save a Nigerian’s life, and he’s unable to provide that amount at his hospital, he will be sent out to die.
After N1.9 billion was released to the Ministry of Health to fight Ebola, but immediately there was some improvement, Minister said the money was for buying of vehicles. If you calculate N1.9billion divided by 170 million Nigerian lives which that man is willing to risk, you will realize that to him, a Nigerian life is worth N11. So generally, it varies.
We’ve heard of local assassins in Nigeria who were paid N10,000 to take down a bigwig and so-called ritualistic who murder to harvest vital organs of their victims, dismember the bodies, then sell the organs for about a million Naira. There are “Baby Factories” where young mothers ‘lay’ babies, and are paid N500,000 for their byproduct.
On the average, I’d say the value of a Nigerian life is (N20 + N100,000 + N11 + N10,000 + N1,000,000 + N500,000) ÷ 6 = N268,338. 50 depending on whose hand the life is in.