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PAGE 8 — SUNDAY Vanguard, APRIL 28, 2019 08112662589 Are men who deny paternity cowards? When Bukky’s husband died suddenly of a heart attack tude was touching, refusing the in his early 60s, she was inconsolable. They’d been inseparable over out of the door. “That was my offered refreshments, he bolted the decades and the obituary she half-brother” Wemi, my relative put in the papers would draw tears told me, “But my mum knows from a sadist’s eyes. She cut a pitiable figure as her husband laid in the last person to tell her’. nothing about him, and I will be state in the beautiful expensive Apparently, Wemi’s mum is the casket she had insisted he bought. type who has a tight control over As sympathisers filed past the her husband. He’d promised her corpse, a little boy of about ten when they got married that he stood rooted to the spot, gazing would never take a second wife. with the morbid fascination children have for the dead. The have children by other women? But did that mean he would never widow was now curious. “Whose Wemi was just 15 when her halfbrother was born. “My dad never child is that?” She wanted to know thinking acknowledge him publicly for he might be a relative’s child. fear mum would leave him”, she Nobody offered an answer in said. “As a matter of fact, I was spite of the fact that she could be the lad who came to introduce heard loud and clear. That really himself to me when he got admission into a polytechnic and made her suspicious. She then asked one of her daughters to his mother couldn’t afford the find out who the little boy was. fees. He was a spitting image of The daughter shrugged and told my dad too and I promised to see her mother they would discuss him through his higher education. Since then, he’d always been the matter later. That she knew who the boy was. there for me whenever I want time for heaven’s sake. Everyone tell me of the existence of a wife She quickly forgot her grief anything done – unlike my full has their skeletons rattling in the with whom he had a child who and comported herself. Were siblings. cupboard and I would have preferred my late husband to tell me children”. Wouldn’t it have saved was as precious to him as my people laughing at her show of “When I asked dad about him, deep bereavement, knowing of he he looked a bit frightened. He about the existence of a child a lot of people unnecessary little boy’s presence and probably her mother’s? Or do they but when I told him that I’d al- pleaded I shouldn’t tell my mum rather than find out in this cruel heartaches if Bukky’s husband way. I mean you can imagine how had come clean about his other feel sorry for her? Talk about the ready agreed to see the poor lads desperate he boy’s mother would child before he died? And poor wife being the last to know! But through school, he was so pathetically grateful that I felt sorry have been to pay his last respect Bukky’s daughter was so afraid did that make her departed husband any less the wonderful hus- for him. Why was he hiding the to his father. to tell her mum about her halfbrother for fear of what? Some “She’d carefully dressed him up band and father she remembered child? What about the poor boy’s in his best suit and the boy had years back, I was with a relation him to be? mother? I later learnt she hadn’t obviously been schooled not to when she had this male visitor “That’s hardly the point, is it? married well and her three other utter a word. He just stared. I who looked a bit apologetic She said heatedly a few days after the funeral. “He succeeded in my half-brother. A little financial children weren’t better off than will never forget that scene as long when he was ushered in. He’d as I live. It is sad that we were obviously discussed money matters with her as she presented him deceiving me over he years. help from dad from time to time married for so long without my Things like this happen all of the would have made a lot of difference. The thing is dad had husband trusting me enough to with a fat envelope. His grati- been in trouble with the law once and it was mum’s family that bailed him out. But that doesn’t mean he has to be grateful to her for the rest of his life.” Wemi’s dad finally kicked the bucket early this year and the truth was out when the obituary came out with the man’s name as the third child. He’s done well at school and has a very good businesses selling cell phones and SIM cards to various outlets all over the place.” Mum pretended to be shocked at first”, Wemi said. “But I had this feeling she knew all along about this man (you can hardly call him a boy now!) He formally met mum before the funeral but came the day of the funeral reception, his table was impressive. It was with pride that I poached choice wine and food from his wife who showed me more respect than my siblings and their partners! I was proud of the difference I made in his life. “I wish dad were alive to see how well turned out his secret son had been. He knew he was doing well, but he would never guess it was well enough to almost outshine his other `legitimate’ children. Nobody gives a damn these days how you have your child or with whom as long as that child is not delinquent!” Thankfully, as far as the law goes now, there’s no ‘illegitimate’ child as long as such child is acknowledged by its dad. This will surely bring some sanity to inheritance law and the right of the ‘other’ child. Sex, Marriage And Relationship – A Practical Guide oday I am yielding this Tcolumn for an excerpt from the book, Sex, Relationship & Marriage: What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You. This unputdownable book is authored by Ade Ebimomi, the CEO of FDIB Limited. Ade, a friend of over three decades, is a very brilliant and successful investment broker and Consulting Economist with specialities in Development Economics and Foreign Direct Investment. A straight-talking individual and a compulsive writer, Ade does not limit himself in any way. I have read a lot of his writings - from politics to economics – and I am always amazed at the clarity of his thoughts and ideas. Below is a cut from Chapter 13 of the book, titled – Do Not Be In A Hurry, Guys. Ade asks a few questions on why society puts too much pressure on newly wedded couples to have children. Enjoy the excerpt - One of the felicitations friends and family kept sending my way after my daughter's wedding was, "Congrats! You will soon become a grandpa". While this message is obviously a beautiful and well-intentioned one, I've had to ask a few of these friends why they think I would actually want to be a grandfather right after my daughter's marriage. Kids are great - and coming from me, that's really an understatement - and their arrival is seen as completing the family, as well as it is incontrovertible evidence that the newly-married couple is fertile. But kids that come even before the ink dries on the marriage certificate? I have my strong reservations about that. And I had a long discussion with my daughter and her husband about this a few days after their wedding. What is wrong in a newly-married couple - especially one where both spouses are still relatively young - spending the next one or two years just enjoying themselves exclusively? No kids for that one or two years, that is. What is wrong in spending the next one or two years solidifying their love and friendship, building bonds and creating memories that would last a lifetime? What is wrong if they spend the next one or two years going to work, coming back and generally being each other's companion, to the exclusion of all others? Why should a young, newly married couple rush into becoming parents? Yes, that's what the society wants and that's what the society expects, but who cares? Has the 'society' ever bothered to pause and look at the drawbacks of early parenthood for a newly married couple? Child-bearing and child-nurturing are two of the hardest endeavours in life, and most stressful. They bring so much demand on the couple's time, finances and physical wellbeing that often times, extreme and debilitating stress (and sometimes, illness) becomes inevitable. Apart from the ever-present danger of post-partum depression on the young mother's side, and the obligatory demands on the finances of the young father, childbirth and child-nurturing leave a young couple feeling like the other party is responsible for the state they are in and are not doing enough to help the other out. Friction, resentment and subconscious regrets usually follow. A young woman who, barely 10 months ago, was in total control of her time and her resources wake up and go to bed whenever she wants, pursues her business or professional hustles without let or hindrance, to now have to wake up at odd hours, hardly even sleeping herself, and rather than the constant snuggles of the strong, warm body of her husband, cradles an infant, an adorable infant nonetheless, one who tugs at the strings of her heart as she tugs at her sore nipples. A young man who, barely 10 months prior, enjoyed the weekend watching the English Premier League, his beautiful babe on his lap, a bottle of beer in his left hand and the TV remote in his right. Today, as his young wife spends practically every waking hour tending a baby whose three pre- occupations in life for that period are sleeping at odd hours, crying and getting fed, the young man feels left out and side-tracked. Of course, his attempt at fatherly role at that early period is most often rebuffed by the mother-inlaw who has come for omugwo. Naturally, a mother's caring instinct is to her offspring first (ever seen a brooding hen fight off a threatening hawk?) before her husband. That is the way Mother Nature got it made. Men are, therefore, left to hold the extremely short end of a stick that came in already short to start with. They are wont to feel estranged and abandoned - even when they barely notice or willing to admit it. Subconsciously, they would start wishing for the good old days when it was just him and his babe, getting all the attention and rolling in the hay whenever the body needed it. Sadly, some of these new husbands, in a selfish bid to connect with their strafing bachelor days, reopen lines of communication with an ex-girlfriend or two, and end up rekindling an affair with her. And putting his new marriage in danger. Where the ex has been a onceloving and ever-caring lady, chances are that she may dig her fangs so deep into the new husband that extricating himself and finding his way back to his babynursing young wife becomes an onerous task. And this circle is hardly ever interrupted or stopped before irreparable damage occurs. For, while the man (and the wife) is still trying to get to grips with not having his wife to himself during the day, and barely able to recognize his present sleeping (or lack of it) arrangement, the second child pops in. And then the third. And possibly the fourth. Sadly, also, many men never truly recover from this fall. Many have been known to just coast along with the wife at home, keeping up appearances of a perfect husband, while the heart and mind are really with the girl outside - one whose total, unfettered and unshared attention he gets. And people tend to underestimate the importance of regular, uninterrupted sexual encounters in a fresh marriage. For a guy who has perhaps kept himself celibate for years during dating - either deliberately or forced on him by the fiance - you better know it now that that guy, by the time his marriage rolls around, already has a quiver full of arrows, arrows that he has serious plans to shoot the way of his sexy and delectable wife, one night after the other. Then, because society expects the wife to carry a protruding stomach a few months into her new marriage, Mister Lover Boy would only have shot only one or two of the arrows in his quiver, and Aunty New One would start spewing sputum and vomiting all over the place. I ask, what does the society expect our strafing the young man to do with the remaining arrows - a young man literally bursting at the seams with all the stocked-up 2-year semen in his scrotal sac? C'mon, let's get real! This guy wakes up in the middle of the night to enjoy his Godgiven and society-sanctioned better half, and what does he see? A poor woman exhausted from carrying a protruding stomach around all day, characteristically deeply snoring! Even a hard-pressed, sexstarved man would just take pity on her; cover her up while bottling his sexual needs. It gets worse when the baby finally arrives. Get a copy of Sex, Relationship & Marriage: What Your Mother Didn’t Tell You, by Ade Ebimomi to read this and many more practical stories. Available on Amazon C M Y K
SUNDAY VANGUARD, APRIL 28, 2019, PAGE 9 •Ngige- Minister of Labour and Employment BUHARI’S MINISTER’S ‘SURPLUS DOCTORS’ CONTROVERSY Why Nigerian doctors are rushing abroad – NMA, others •’We have excess doctor ors s if we add traditional healers’ •My stor ory, , by y Ngige By Chioma Obinna For almost a decade, the exodus of Nigerian doctors to other countries has led to acute shortages in the nation’s various medical specialities. Some years ago, a former President of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA), Dr Osahon Enabulele, had said that about twothirds of Nigerian doctors who leave the country end up practising medicine in foreign countries while some of them switch professions. According to him, of the 72, 000 doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN), only about 27,000 are practising in Nigeria while others are practising outside the country. Enabulele also revealed that up to 7,000 Nigerian doctors combined work in British and American public health sectors, while some have left the medical profession on account of better working conditions in other professions. While WHO recommends one doctor to 600 patients, in Nigeria, due to the acute shortage, one doctor attends to around 6,000 patients. And with the nation’s population put at 170 million some years back, experts said the country needs not less than 283,333 doctors to meet global standards. Now, Nigeria obviously needs more than 283,333 as the population has reportedly escalated to almost 200 million with over 2,000 doctors migrating to the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia, United Arab Emirates (UAE), and South Africa, among others, every year. Also, figures released in February 2018 by the British government indicated that no fewer than 5,405 Nigerian-trained doctors and nurses were working with the British National Health Service (NHS). It showed that Nigerian medics constituted 3.9 per cent of the 137,000 foreign staff of 202 Even a blind man knows we don’t have enough doctors except he is referring to traditional doctors nationalities working alongside British doctors and nurses in the United Kingdom (UK). Nigeria’s poor doctor-patient ratio (roughly 1:6000) is regrettable, according to analysts, when compared to the ratio of doctor-patient in India (1:2083) and in the United States (1:500) apparently due to the fact that fresh doctors no longer see a bright future within the shores of Nigeria. Despite this disturbing scenario that has worsened the nation’s health indices and promoted medical tourism, the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Emeka Ngige, last week, was quoted as saying he was not worried about the situation. “No, I’m not concerned at all. I’m not worried. We have surplus. If you have surplus, you export. It happened at one time with Indian teachers here. I was taught biology and chemistry by Indian teachers in my secondary school days. They’re surplus in their country. We’re surplus in the medical field here. I can tell you, it’s my area. We have excess. We have more than enough”, Ngige allegedly said on a television programme. He was reportedly responding to a question on alleged braindrain in the medical sector against the backdrop of the recent visit of a delegation from Saudi Arabia to recruit doctors to work in the Middle-East country. Sunday Vanguard spoke to some leaders of the various medical associations, among others, on the controversy the Labour Minister’s statement, who is also a medical doctor, is generating. To them, the statement was a reflection of the fact that those who make policies have no solution to the problems in the health sector. They argued that Nigeria needs about six times of what we have on ground for minimal acceptability. Ngige displayed ignorance – National Secretary, NMA, Dr Olumuyiwa Odusote I see the statement of the Minister of Labour as displaying ignorance of the problems on the ground which is government’s primary responsibility to solve. It is not true and I am sure the rest of us know that many doctors are leaving in droves. We have less than 40,000 doctors and many are leaving on monthly basis which further drops the number and the population of those leaving keeps increasing. If you have one doctor to about 5,000 Nigerians, is what he said is surplus? Then we have a big problem in our hands. When the World Health Organisation, WHO, is saying that the minimum we should have is one doctor to 600 patients, I don’t understand the basis for the minister’s assertion and, definitely, it is not supported with facts. His statement is on the contrary. I think that the problem here is on the utilization of skilled manpower. It is the duty of government to assess the need and distribute available resources appropriately and, if the government cannot assess and determine what we need, then we have a major problem. If those who make policies are saying we don’t have problems, it means no one will find solution to the problems because they don’t perceive that there are problems. It also means that the health system has a very long way to go if this opinion is what is held in the Federal Executive Council. The NMA has been doing a lot in terms of brain-drain. Last year, the theme of our conference focused on brain-drain. And next week we are going to hold our annual delegates meeting in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State and brain-drain is also going to be the main theme. We are trying to bring it to the fore and find solution. We have invited all the tiers of government, from the President down to the chief medical directors of teaching hospitals and general hospitals, to attend the meeting so that we can brainstorm and everybody will appreciate the magnitude of the problem. And then work out a solution. We have been in the media advocating, making noise and trying to push for a solution. In 2017, the Vice President responded that government was going to do something to reverse braindrain. It is pathetic that two years after, one of the serving ministers is encouraging doctors to go abroad because he knows one or two doctors who went abroad, 25 years ago, and came back to establish one or two centres which are catering for 10 or at most 30 patients a month in a country of 200 million. That is like a drop in an ocean. It is not going to impact any of the worst indices that we have in the world. We are talking about reversing the trend by ensuring that Nigerians are able to live longer, and in good health, and, for that to happen, we have to look at it in totality. Not just what happened in a few urban centres where only the rich can afford the service. We are talking about what is happening in the rural areas where the people cannot access basic care and survive long enough to change their economy and the economy of the nation. It is unfortunate that a minister is encouraging brain-drain – Lagos NMA Chairman, Dr Saliu Oseni It’s an unfortunate situation that a minister of the federation is encouraging brain-drain. Currently, we have about 35,000 doctors serving a population of over 200 million, which means you have one doctor to about 5,700 citizens. This ratio is frightening in some rural areas. Studies have shown that Nigeria has 0.2 doctors per 1,000 populations compared to the UK and Germany which have 2.8 and 4 respectively. WHO has recommended one doctor to 600 populations; so if a minister, who happens to be a doctor, can be saying we have surplus doctors, it’s clear why our health sector is in ruins. We currently have one of the highest perinatal mortality, maternal and infant mortality and yet a minister is encouraging brain-drain. It means we have more problems than we think, as there is need to have appropriate insight into a problem to render solution. So, one can best imagine the advice of such doctor in the Federal Executive Council meeting on matters of manpower deficit in the health sector. Even a blind man knows we don’t have enough doctors except he is referring to traditional doctors. We will still advise government to improve the welfare package of health professionals to discourage their migration and also support the establishment of more medical schools to churn out more doctors. It’s clear why we had the rot in the health sector. We can be sure that even the ministry of health doesn’t have the correct population of its staff. Well, government is trying to show some interest of recent but complete sincerity is only what God knows. That’s why we are saying that medical tourism should be denied public officers, so that they can feel the effect of bad governance on the people. Also, don’t Continues on page 10
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28042019 - No delaying minimum wage, go ahead and pay, FG tells MDAs, states, others

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