A young apprentice sits on a bench with his colleague in an auto-repair shop tucked away in an unprivileged part on the outskirt of the city, he watches with vain fantasy as yet another exquisite automobile cruise out of the dusty environment, stirring up dust that tails it and then thins out as the car glide into oblivion. The young apprentice with an awkward standing position, conditioned by the rigours of the job, and his thick hands folded across his chest, turns to his colleague and mumbles endlessly about the spectacle of the wonder on wheels and how he wished he could own one of such. The colleague, a bit more experienced and advanced in age conceals his own fantasies and gives a terse albeit philosophical response, “the rich also cry”.
It’s indubitable that virtually everyone with functional auditory and optical nerves would have come across that phrase if not used it directly either as an admonition to caution a seemingly over-ambitious friend or as a means of self-consolation used in pushing aside the saddening weight of thoughts about the social inequality in the society most especially if one’s portion is the short end of the stick. However, in whatever way one considers the phrase above, it will be discovered that it’s more or less a truism with a plethora of cases around us to prove its astuteness. Aside the peripety tales of once-rich-gone-broke, there are several other instances where the rich, relatives and acquaintances have wished that things were otherwise and perhaps of those circumstances, fast gaining morbid notoriety in Nigeria is that of the grief-birthing phenomenon of cancer, in its various forms.
While it’s agreed that cancer refers to any malignant growth or tumor caused by abnormal and uncontrolled cell division; it may spread to other parts of the body through the lymph, it’s harvest of influential members of the Nigerian society suggests ‘a choosy-killer’ should be considered for addition to its meaning. Cancer has indeed had a rich harvest of death among the Nigerian populace with its latest catch being Maryam Babangida, the former first lady of the nation between 1985 and 1993, who died on December 27, 2009 of ovarian cancer at the University of California’s Jonsson’s Comprehensive Cancer Centre in Los Angeles, USA. She was aged 61 and it was her second encounter having earlier survived cancer of the breast. Before Maryam Babangida, erudite lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Gani Fawehinmi(SAN) had also lost the battle against lung cancer on September 5, 2009, aged 71.
Before these two, there had also been other cases such as that of renowned broadcaster, Yinka Craig who died on September 23, 2008 at the age of 61 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota in USA of non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, a cancer disease that attacks the white blood cells. Also in May 2008, African Soldier crooner, Evangelist Sunny Okosun died at the age of 61 of colon cancer. Before him, cancer had also claimed another eminent personality in the person of Mrs Alaere Alaibe, wife of former NDDC boss, Timi Alaibe on January 31, 2008 at St. Mary’s Hospital, London. She was aged 44 and died of Renal Cell Carcinoma. These people are among many other Nigerians, popular or not who have lost their lives to the menace of cancer.
From research, cancer is a class of diseases in which a group of cells display uncontrolled growth(division beyond the normal limits), invasion(intrusion and destruction of adjacent tissues), and sometimes metastasis(spread to other locations in the body via lymph or blood). These three malignant properties of cancers differentiate them from benign tumors, which are self-limited, and do not invade or metastasize. Most cancers form a tumor but some, like leukemia do not. Cancers are however less effective when early detected and arrested, a phenomenon lacking in the Nigerian health system as all the cases stated above were all detected abroad and with the exception of Chief Gani Fawehinmi, all the victims died in foreign hospitals.
Conclusively, it’s pertinent to recommend that the health system in Nigeria be upgraded to allow for the timely detection and control of such deadly diseases as cancer among other benefits such an upgrade would avail the nation for even while cancer might have proven itself to be a king to the Nigerian elites, it has among other diseases also been a lord to the sprawling masses who have neither the means to afford treatment nor have media value that would give their cases widespread publicity.
TOBI ‘SAMMYJAY’ ADEBOWALE
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