On the night of Friday 9th March, 2018 Mrs Betty Irabor was a guest at an exclusive women event organized by Pastor Mrs Dayo Benjamin’s Laniyi. Celebrity host and wife of the senior pastor RCCG Throneroom Transcorp Hilton Abuja in commemoration of the International Women’s Day 2018. I was opportuned to be there as a media officer but I left with a broken heart.

Few years ago, Mrs Betty Irabor and her team at genevieve magazine started the Genevieve pink ball as it’s CSR to raise awareness about cancer and its effect especially breast cancer, to show how determined they were they pulled resources together and bought a mammogram machine worth eleven million Naira which was donated to the Lagos state university teaching hospital.

Their intention was to provide free cancer treatment for indigent women and other Lagosians who couldn’t afford it but it seems the staffs at LASUTH had another intention Betty Irabor was not aware of as they literally sabotaged her efforts and turn the machine to scrap.

As stated by her, LASUTH was offering the mammogram service for fifteen thousand Naira only while Genevieve magazine offered theirs for free, as a result of this, the targeted Nigerians could not benefit from the intervention by Betty Irabor and her team due to the act of sabotage from the staff at LASUTH. It started with them telling would be users that “Genevieve magazine machine is not working, but the one for LASUTH is available”.

When this lie was busted they finally resorted to sabotage the intervention completely by removing parts of the machines and summarily the machine packed up and that’s how thousands of Nigerians were denied the necessary care for their cancer and many went to their early grave courtesy of fellow Nigerians.

As she was sharing this story, tears rolled down my eyes, the camera in my hand was shaking as i couldn’t believe the level of wickedness that abounds in the heart of Nigerians. It’s worthy of mentioning that the sabotage was not enough to dampen the decision of Betty Irabor to save Nigerians suffering from cancer from going to their early grave as they keep spending millions annually to save cancer patients.

However, in my silent moments, i begin to ruminate on the number of medical equipments that have been donated by individuals and corporate organizations to our hospitals which was not allowed to work due to the saboteurs in the system. This is not an issue of PDP nor APC its the behavior of some group of individuals that never meant well for the development of their country.

Before Betty Irabor story, a friend of mine that once lived at Ore shared an experience behind the unending damage of the Benin – Ore road, he explained how road side traders will break the road in the midnight with diggers to create wide potholes big enough to make vehicles plying the road to make a stop and while they were struggling with the man made pot holes,traffic will build up and the demand for their goods will surely increase. While they make sales, road users are groaning and Nigeria is bleeding.

Betty Irabor’s experience is one out of thousands that have been sabotaged by the saboteurs in the system, this has slowed down developments and we are paying for it heavily. Nigeria won’t develop until Nigerians stop destroying Nigeria.

tosin adesina