Dear Dr Obembe,
In this season of open, leaked
letters and counter bullets, I am a little hesitant to write to you using this
medium. Yet, I am constrained to adopt this medium because I sought your
personal e-mail address and could not get it. It was actually a surprise to me
that I found it so difficult to get your email; I had expected that I could
somewhat manage to get the email address of someone of your status without too
much hassles. I was wrong.
Therefore, using the only means
available to me, I write to you this day as a concerned Nigeria, and one with
multiple interests in the ongoing strike action embarked upon by the Nigerian
Medical Association - multiple because I am a recipient of your services on the
one hand and on the other hand, I have about Eight friends and family members
who are Medical Doctors. You can see that I would naturally be sympathetic to
your demands.
However, I am pleading with you
to call for a temporary suspension of this protracted strike on humanitarian
grounds. I know this may not be popular with some of your colleagues.
Nevertheless, you would agree with me that great leaderships are not built on
sheer populism but on sound reason, empathy and courage. I therefore urge you
to show empathetic leadership and prevail on your colleagues to call of the
strike at this time for reasons including below:
1. It would be redundant for me to presume to tell you that
the strike action is taking a huge toll on innocent Nigerians, who are already
unfortunate victims of an extremely harsh and inefficient health system. Prior
to your strike, Nigerians already get one of the worst medical services
obtainable anywhere in the world. Now, with the NMA strike, we have a double
tragedy on our hands. Multitudes of people who cannot afford the exorbitant fees
charged by private hospitals are dying daily, some painfully slowly.
2. Furthermore, I know for certainty that you are following
developments on the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa. We have so many other
nationals volunteering and staking their lives to come to Africa and help out
at this critical times – The Chinese, the Americans, the French (with Medecins
Sans frontiere) etc. I feel it would be an honourable thing for NMA to call a
temporary truce to help with the Ebola outbreak. After the outbreak is
contained, NMA would be on a higher moral ground to push its demands and people
will even be more sympathetic to their course.
3. Whereas the Ebola outbreak is an emergency, the issues
leading to the strike are not; they can still be pursued even after dealing
with the common enemy - the Ebola virus is as much a threat to Medical Doctors
as it is to every other Nigerian. Dealing with the Virus now will help ensure
that even Doctors are preserved to continue to pursue their demands.
4. The NMA can still continue to pursue their demands
through the negotiation table even within the temporary truce while they
continue to contribute to the battle against this deadly virus.
5. Finally, you would agree with me that the response to
this Ebola outbreak has been quite commendably decisive and the results
remarkable. If this disease is comfortably contained as the possibilities show
with NMA on strike, I fear that it would diminish the significance of NMA
strikes in future.
With the foregoing and knowing
you to be a kind, compassionate and consummate Medical Doctor, I urge to
consider and suspend this strike temporarily in the public interest. Nigerians
I know would be profusely appreciative of the gesture and you can count on
their reasonable support in future.
This request is without any
attempt to disregard or trivialize the effort you had made in the past to
suspend the strike. However, I suggest you step down your feet and if your
colleagues reject every entreaty to fight on the side of the Nigerian people in
the face of this severe threat, the most honourable thing for you is to follow
your conscience, resign for good and let whoever wants to preside over an
association without a human face to take the saddle. It is difficult to justify
the fact that people are coming from all over the world to help Africa contain
this epidemic while our doctors continue on strike.
Thank you as I count on your
positive response.
Yours Faithfully,
C.J. Asogwa
teamupafrica@gmail.com
