I am glad he is not around to see that our leaders remain unashamed, we are renowned for businesses shutting down, for brain drain, for power cuts, for miserable public schools, for roads decorated with potholes, for public libraries with ancient books, for government hospitals forsaken by government.
By Olukorede Yishau
I am glad my father died October 1st, 2012. That is the lie I tell myself once in a while.
To humour myself and hide the pain of losing my dad, I have chosen to find solace in the fact that it is a thing of joy that he died instead of ‘entering the market naked’.
I also pretend it is a thing of joy he is not alive to see the nonsense going on in Nigeria, where cows no longer moo, where cats have stopped meowing, where sheep find it hard to bleat, where bulls see bellowing as herculean, where ducks quack no more, where donkeys have long abandoned braying, where horses no longer neigh, where geese have forgotten how to cackle, where chickens can’t cluck again and where peacocks no longer fancy screaming.
I lie to myself I am glad he is not around to see that our leaders remain unashamed, we are renowned for businesses shutting down, for brain drain, for power cuts, for miserable public schools, for roads decorated with potholes, for public libraries with ancient books, for government hospitals forsaken by government, for high level insecurity, for rise in inflation, for absence of jobs, for ritual killers, for yahoo-yahoo boys, for authorities stealing more than armed robbers, and for mediocrity.
It is difficult to accept it is already ten years. My son, Toluwanimi, who was two years then, is now twelve, and my daughter, Opemipo, who was five, is now fifteen.
Time has no wings, but the speed with which it flies is a mystery hard to fathom.
So, it has been ten years, ten years without my father, Olukayode Yishau, better known to some people as Kayusco. He died October 1, 2012. Besides the day being Nigeria’s 52nd independence anniversary, it was also exactly 42 years since my father and mother had lived together as husband and wife.
When we broke the news to my daughter, Opemipo, we chose euphemism to do it. We said: “Grand Pa Agege has gone to heaven.” Opemipo then simply said: “He is with Jesus.” She later added: “That means he is dead.”
He was 68. He would have been 78 now. Before his death, he was up and down for about three weeks. The last thing that ever came to our mind was that he was going to die with what we thought was one of his small illnesses.
According to our mother, the last time he was terribly sick was 41 years before then. At the time, they had only my elder sister, Funke, who works as an Education Officer with Onigbongbo Local Council. Then, he took a photograph, which occupied a prime position in his sitting room in his Orile-Agege home until his death, and gave to my mother to use for his obituary. He did not die then, but lived to sire seven more children. One, Olusola, died painfully in 2001 after years of sickness that medical science could really not explain to us.
When my father died, I wondered what could have gone wrong. Could he have lived longer if he had checked his health status very well and taken necessary precautions? What made me feel this way was the doctor’s discovery that his heart was not functioning well. Could that have happened suddenly? Or had it been there all along undiscovered?
May be the story of how we discovered what was wrong can help understand my inquisitiveness.
Early morning on October 1, 2012, I had called him to explain something. When he picked the call, his voice scared me. He, at a point, urged me to come and see him if I had time. Even without him asking, I would have gone hearing him speak that way.
On getting to the family house, he told me a doctor asked him to do ECG. He also showed me the left side of his neck, which appeared abnormal. Two of my uncles were with him. We arranged and got him to go for the ECG. I left for work after making this arrangement.
In the afternoon, my elder brother, Muyiwa, called me and said the doctor said he had heart-related problem and that it was critical.
The doctor, a cardiologist, suggested we either allow him to care of our father or take him to LUTH. We ruled out LUTH, which always had issues with bed space and all that. I understand our father even told the doctor that if it was about money, his children would pay. Of course, we paid some money, including for a test he never did. The only thing he waited for was the reading of his heart with a machine my brother, Jide, told me was always writing: “Time out”.
The doctor could just not get his pulse. At exactly 7:43pm, he mistakenly called me asking me to buy him ointment. He was feeling pains on his neck. He got the ointment through my younger brother, but some minutes to 9pm, his time was up. It was God that saw me drive safely to Agege that night.
We buried him in Epe according to Islamic rites. We were told we should thank God that he died a grandfather and all that. But, all that did not answer my question: Could he have lived longer if there was proper system through which citizens from time to time check their health at no killing cost?
In advanced economies such as the UK and the United States, there are medical insurance in place that ensures citizens check their health status regularly.
In Nigeria, we have the National Health Insurance Scheme which has been crawling for decades and working as though bugs are in its system.
Hospitals, especially government-owned ones, are glorified dispensaries. There are no staff to go round the patients. A friend once told me that his one-year-old daughter needed a simple corrective heart surgery and one of the General Hospitals in Lagos gave him appointment for March of the following year. Yet, the poor girl slept with difficulty everyday, with the parents unable to sleep soundly too. Another friend lost his first child to such lackadaisical approach to healthcare.
It has been ten whole years and things have become worse in the country. When are we going to ever get it right?
Till we meet to part no more, dad. Remember that your widow, Titilayo, and children, Olufunke, Olumuyiwa, Olukorede, Olujide, Oluwabukola, Olumide and Oluwaseun, miss you. The grandchildren and well-wishers do too.
Rest well, my dear father who came, saw and conquered. The Nigerian Association of Auctioneers (NAA), in which you played a leadership role, also misses you. Bye for now, dear father. Bye for now.
* Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author of ‘In The Name of Our Father’and’Vaults of Secrets’.