SANCTITY OF LIFE by Abiola

Where is the sanctity of life?
The beauty of life hangs majorly in the rise and fall of health, a part of our existence that clearly declare our imperfection; this is a fact that an ordinary layman would know, hence the reason for the general saying “no one wants to die” as well as the sensitization to always run for your life. With this, you can easily trust a man to always guard his dear life at all cost because there isn’t a spare but what are we to say about those who were paid for safeguarding lives.
Let’s start with the hospitals, I’m sure one or two of us have witnessed a harsh treatment of patients by nurses especially in government hospitals where every worker’s action is in the caution of a body of ghost invigilators, that comes once in a blue moon and whose eventual visitation would be announced about a fortnight earlier in order to get a grand welcoming. A rather bitter and eventual fortunate experience for a young man who fell sick in secondary school and was rushed to the health center, he was given several ample of injections on an empty stomach, simply because the nurse failed to ask if he had eaten. Thanks to God for grace because the young boy now a man fell to the floor and fainted but was brought back to consciousness with drips after the doctor’s intervention. I wouldn’t like to go into details on how I had to scream at a nurse before someone could go call the doctor to attend to my dying little brother. Let’s just cut the chase about the flaws and give kudos to the government on the provision of health centers but there’s more to be done, perhaps proper orientation. Some of these nurses probably already forgot the university courses that thought them on sanctity of life.
An organization with yet the duty of safeguarding life is the police force but how much of these duty do they execute? I started journeying around this country constantly every year since 2007 and all via road, a period of which I have literally “seen a lot”. From several robbery and accident escape to annoying police reactions to situations. To begin with the faithful day when the bus conveying us to Lagos from Akungba-Akoko in Ondo state developed a major fault on the Lagos-Ibadan highway close to a so called police checkpoint, on pushing past the checkpoint, the driver suggested we pushed the bus back to the check point, then pandemonium broke loose with the officer shouting atop his voice “wetin happen again, sebi una don push dis moto comot before” with response from us being “oga the motor don spoil, we push push e no gree work” the reply was pitiable and so was the total reactions. The police man reported us to the superior saying “oga see dis pippu, dem don push this moto comot before oo, dem com dey carry am com again say e no gree work” the superior then insisted “oya oya carry am carry am, make una just dey go”. That was how the squad denied us of the security we were entitled to as fellow citizens, but you probably don’t want to ask what happened next, I’m still alive writing about it.
It was from a police man that I knew there is a difference between local and international armed robbers, when on escaping slightly from the grip of a gang on a highway towards Delta state we came across a police checkpoint about 2 kilometers away. As law abiding citizens and knowing they have started robbing a bus on the other part of the road we reported the case and the response was terrible, he replied saying “oh, those wans dem be local armed robber, dey go dey go”.
However, the saddest and the reason for this call for the appreciation of life albeit ours or others was an event I briefly witnessed on the 25th of October, 2016 when I saw a man chase another with a machete and saw him angrily aimed at him at a very close range while running still, I didn’t see the end result because my bus was on the move in an opposite direction. It obviously was a rubbery case because a fuel tanker was parked most likely broken down, what I don’t know is what party the victim was. The deed was done at a place where a police squad should be on a watch because several reports of robbery by motorists have been raised. This raises the question all round, where is the call and where is the response to protection of life? No one deserves to be a victim of these acts; I hope this touch the heart of Nigerians in positions to influence the change. Let those in positions to make things right do, the patriotic citizens will surely follow and the nation at large will respond. I am a positive patriotic Nigerian who will influence a change when given the chance. If truly the change begins with me let the leader guide our path with exemplary deeds.