Sammie Okposo, one of Nigeria’s foremost Gospel crooners slumped and died on 25th November 2022. I read many of the releases by online media, bloggers, and some more formal media. Interestingly, they all seemed to hinge their description of the man in question, on his stint with infidelity and his many indiscretions in matters of the opposite sex. In my opinion, people are focusing on the periphery that is the penumbra while as is the usual thing with us humans, we are evading either consciously or sub-consciously, the umbra and core of the matter. Most times, without knowing it, we evade what exposes our shared vulnerabilities as humans and assume the easier exit of our unshared “moral injury repair status” as each person begins to pitch their tent on a moral high ground.
When I heard this breaking news, that a man slumped and died in Nigeria, what crossed my mind was the number of people who are not as popular as this man, who slump and die on a daily basis. In Nigeria, let none of us think that we are immune to the abysmal mess which is currently our healthcare system. At 51 years of age, Sammie was yet to even hit our deflating average life expectancy figure, which is one of the lowest in the world of 55 years. San Marino is 89 years; Japan is 85 years Sweden is 82 years, United Kingdom is 80 years and United States has 77 years as life expectancy. Did I hear you say those are resource rich economies? Okay, then explain how our neighbouring Niger has 63 years as life expectancy?
Instead of chasing the scandals generated by Sammie Okposo, why do we not use this sudden death to reflect on our shared sword of Damocles, hanging over all our heads in Nigeria? Our poor healthcare sector will continue to expose how it is no respecter of class and status. As I stated in one of my earlier write ups, even our elite must realise that it is not everything that can make it into the pressurised metal birds and that stem cell infusions abroad do not treat everything.
Our healthcare awareness and our healthcare seeking behaviour as individuals are the non-edible icing on the ill baked cake of our Nigerian healthcare system. When a man or a woman slumps, and dies suddenly, there are some things that top the charts as potential causes of that event. Apart from the popular Nigerian factor that the spouse, village people or enemies of his or her father’s house paid the person a visit, there are other evidence based scientific and medical risk factors or probable causes. These are probably, a cardiac arrest from hypertensive heart disease. Another is that it could be an aneurysm where a blood vessel has busted or there has been a bleed somewhere in a major organ? There are other cases where it may be due to a massive blood clot that has floated to the heart and or lungs? In all these probabilities, what we can have a measure of control over, is first how we take care of our own health – which is our heath awareness and our healthcare seeking behaviour. Instead of fixating on Sammie Okposo’s scandals, focus on how you can ensure you have regular blood pressure checks, how you make better lifestyle choices like losing weight, stopping smoking, limiting alcohol over-indulgence, increasing healthy diet, and becoming a fan of all things exercise. Be compliant with your medications and realise that your Pastor. Imam or juju Priest cannot replace your healthcare providers. They can however, work in synergy with them.
That Sammie slumped is not only a Sammie phenomenon – it can be any one of us; it could also be you or it could be me. By the way, it has no direct link with his infidelity. If it did, I am sure many men and women in Nigeria and even the whole world, would be dead by now. It has a lot more to do with our lack of value for human life as a nation. On the flip side, it could also have been due in part, to Okposo`s lifestyle choices. Could the stress of his recent marital infidelity have been a contributory factor? As a public figure and gospel artist, could Okposo have been supported to deal with the magnitude of the revelation and the scandal any better? Sammie Okposo was obviously traumatised, and his blood pressure just may have soared as can any other person’s in the society. Being a celebrity does not make one super-human or change one’s physiological and psychological responses. What was the impact of the social media rumble during the debacle? Could the whole issue have been handled differently? I can understand that the permutations are varied.
However, leveraging on this loss, we must think of how to act out of the box. What is wrong if we have blood pressure checking booths in our churches, mosques, and markets? What would it really cost to run these? Certainly not as much as the sums we hear are being buried in vaults or rotting away in sewage sewers. On the path of those of us who are healthcare providers, what stops us from doing serial awareness talks in our community gatherings for free? Knowledge is power and the best gift we can give our generation. Currently, we have another election cycle upon us - what questions are we asking the front-line candidates about revamping our ailing healthcare system? What are their plans about strengthening and reforming the Nigerian Healthcare Ecosystem? Or wait, are we even asking them? Clearly, some of them appear not to be the poster children for optimal health at the moment, which is all the more reason to ask them how they can transfer and translate what they buy with their wealth, in the foreign healthcare systems that sustains them to our masses in Nigeria, if they were to win the presidential race come 2023. So, let us remember Sammie Okposo for the many souls he also brought succour to with his songs. May his `singing` soul rest in perfect peace and commiserations to the family he left behind. Let’s use his death as a catalyst to effect the push for the necessary changes in our healthcare system because, the Nigerian Patients Are Worth It.
Dr Loretta Oduware Ogboro-Okor is Author of the book My Father’s Daughter