Myth, Belief and Nigeria

I grew up in Nigeria with a lot of myths that I was told were realities or facts. You know, those kind of situations you see in the Nigerian movies. Good vs Evil, witch vs. God's power - The whole shebang. The classic cases are always the fact that anyone that didn’t grow old and die must have been killed by his/her stepmother or a witch in his/her family.

It got to a point where one of my uncles that died in 1995 then of obvious cause of Pancreatic cancer still had someone blamed for his death. I mean, Pancreatic cancer is a very aggressive form of cancer that doesn’t get diagnose until it is too late. He was a Director-General in one of the Ondo state parastatals and they blamed his death on one guy that was his predecessor. How fair is that?

Even accidents that are mostly caused by bad roads, bad vehicles, bad driving skills and just careless driving are blamed on some demons on the road. Don't get me wrong, I believe in God. Of course, the bible talks about principalities and powers, demons, rulers of darkness in high places and the whole lots but in our case in Nigeria which of those actually cause some of our predicaments?

How many roads in Nigeria have speed limit signs? How many roads give you a speed advisory when you are approaching an intersection or an exit? Any reflectors on the road to caution you about curves or dead-end road? If we put in more efforts in getting our government to be responsible in getting our roads ok than being spiritual about it, I think we can reduce a lot of death and carnages on our roads. How many times have you seen Nigeria's Highway Patrol calling tow trucks to move a disabled trailer/car off the road so that oncoming speeding car doesn't run it? Are we going to blame devil for that? This is not rocket science or something to be spiritual about - Get the damn disabled vehicle of the road and some lives can be saved.

What kind of responses do we have for emergencies? Most accident victims die within the first hour of their injuries. Most could have survived with good emergency services and getting transported to the right trauma units within an hour.

I know our health sector has totally broken down but that shouldn’t stop us from paying a little attention to ourselves. I know as Christians we talk about divine health but at least we should try once in three years (if we can’t afford to do once in a year) do our physical. Some of the diseases that kill a lot of Nigerians could be taken care easily if detected early. I know lot at people will talk about poverty and all that prevailing among the larger population but one thing I also realize is that the apathy is prevails among the upper middle class - People that could afford these checks.

One of my maternal uncles died of diabetes some years ago. The man didn’t even know he had diabetes. He just knew he was getting tired a lot. He went to see his doctor and the latter was so alarmed after seeing his blood test result that he had to drive down to his house. It was that bad. His diabetes was already in advanced stage - The Nigerian medical system couldn’t help him again and he died. Of course, someone was blamed for his death too.

I still follow Nigerian news online and the cause of death most times of a public figure never get revealed. I understand that the Muslims have to bury their dead within 24 hours but that shouldn’t stop a pathologist to determine the cause of death - If only to create public awareness of what killed the public figure.

No Nigerian today knows what killed Abacha. We all speculate between liver cirrhosis, cardiac arrest, etc. Let’s assume it was cardiac arrest, what triggered it? What kind of condition hasdhe been living in healthwise? Had he lived most part of his life with Blood pressure? High cholesterol? High sodium content? This is not about making fun of his death but just for the people that are still alive and the future generation. The press was already on and over his death; the government didn’t need to spend any money to talk about that condition again with the publicity and awareness the cause of his death could have been used to educate the masses. I guess no one will get money to embezzle in that kind of simple situation.

Back to my myth subject, I think we allow ourselves to be put in the realm of fear just by not thinking beyond our noses. A lot of diseases and conditions we attribute to devil can easily be solved by either checking out what we eat or take better care of ourselves. Maybe we can serve God even better if we use our head better. What better ways to serve God, when we know we don’t have to bother him praying 30 minutes for journey mercies and casting out demons on the bad roads when all we have to do is just take care of road and the demons will be cast out (lol). If and when we understand that a molue speeding at 70-80 miles per hour on a bridge that is not lined, with a driver that most likely had a high alcoholic blood content, you don’t need a demon or yemoja to push him into the Lagoon. I guess with that we would be able to put our belief and myth in perspectives.