Nigerians are impatient with the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, Professor Ade Ojeniyi has said maintaining that it is too early to criticise the current administration for problems that are embedded in the foundation of the country.
In his opinion, Nigerians are expecting results too soon, “because the foundation for our suffering as a people was laid on 15th of November 1884 at 2:00pm in Germany where all the European countries except Switzerland had the Balkanisation of Africa.
Prof. Ojeniyi, who holds doctoral degrees in both veterinary and human medicine further noted that Nigerians need not blame the current recession on the Buhari-led administration, noting that many should revisit the country’s history for a better understanding of the crisis.
The Professor admonished Nigerians to return to those days when farming was the major
abroad have proved their mettle, their capacity, their efficiency, their devotion, their knowledge and their experience.
He lamented that the professionalism and skills of these professionals are hampered by so many factors that introduce so many variables in their functionality when they return to home country to practise.
The one-time Chief Physician and Government Medical Advisor to the Ministry of Health in Greenland identified the lack of power supply, lack of equipment as well as the lack of drugs, and of course security, which affects all, as factors that compromise the energy, the enthusiasm, the devotion, the conviction, their truism of Nigerian professionals abroad.
The Denmark-based Professor, who emphasised that the lack of security heightens the tension for all Nigerian professionals in the security service, the state and civil services, and others, condemned the level of noise pollution in the country observing that besides transporters who make unnecessary noise on the road, religious activities have also become another major source.
His words: “The noise pollution is just deafening. When somebody returns from work, then in the neighbourhood you see some people shouting ‘Jesus is coming with noise’ you can’t even rest your head. At 7pm, the Arabic people start with loudspeakers; ‘Allah Akbar’.
“If you say your religion is the best and it is a personal thing, why do you want to disturb your Neighbour? Probably your neighbour wants to rest or perhaps he is on night duty and he works 5 days in a week, the noise damages or lowers the loop of people that are exposed to it.
“If somebody does that in my wife’s country (Denmark), no problem, within 10minutes, there would be a Police car and an ambulance with a doctor, so that the person would be handcuffed by the police and the doctor with the ambulance would take such a person to the psychiatric ward and all the shouting would be over once the person is taken. Then they would check if something is wrong with the head because you have neighbours who want to rest.”
It is very dangerous to people’s ears, some people don’t relate it and they discover that as time goes on people have to raise their voices to communicate because they think that they are not been helped because the number of decibels should actually determine the level of reaction to sound.
Speaking about the level of concentration at the workplace from the perspective of a professional surgeon, Ojeniyi observed that sometimes you may be doing something and the electricity distribution company decides to interrupt power supply or somebody comes in for some injury of a nature, which demands that you do something right away but can’t be done because of power outage.
“It is just difficult for you to concentrate on a major operation per time because of so many interfering factors from the government to individuals and even other societal issues,” he said.
According to him, industrial actions may not be the best for medical professionals to express their grievances but maintaining that when you have a medical personnel, for instance, going on strike, it has to be extremely serious before they do that, even when they go on strike, they always ensure that emergency service is still maintained.
Currently a visiting Professor at the University of Texas, School of Public Health in Houston, Texas, Ojeniyi said: “Industrial action can be based on several things; one, is it because of selfishness, is it because of greed, or is it because you are frustrated that you can’t give that service you really want to give because of lack of this or that, because of passion. So it is difficult to just condemn outright.
“We have also gone on strike in Denmark where things work perfectly. Maybe just a tiny thing, when they take action it could be for one hour or two hours, but that one o two hours would be effect by the society because everything goes smoothly.
“So, when there is any strike, it affects the system, it reverberates. It is like pulling a net and it affects the whole system. So ideally, there shouldn’t be reasons for any strike but frustrations many times necessitate their attention because when they do not draw attention, it is ignored. And when the attention is gained you discover that it is bureaucrats who have no idea of what medicine means, that are taking the decisions.”
