Why Onyejeocha Can’t Stop

By Eshioromeh Gabriel

The sheer number of patients is the first thing that strikes you. At the General Hospital in Isuikwuato, they overflow from consulting rooms, fill the corridors, and occupy every available space in the compound. Some sit on the bare floor, leaning against the walls. Others sit on chairs. A handful, too frail to sit or stand, are carried in by family members, their eyes shut.

It is a scene that would leave anyone in tears. And I confess: I cried, but quietly, as I watched a mother press her forehead against her child’s chest, saying prayers I could not hear. The child, a boy of perhaps four, had a swollen belly, staring as if he had already accepted what no child should have to accept.

At the edge of the compound, an elderly woman sat alone on a plastic chair, with her legs twisted beneath her. She had walked from her home to get there, because her grandson had told her about the free treatment. She had only hope, and hope, in this place, is the rarest commodity of all.

Then there were the others. A young man whose eyes had been failing him for three years. A woman clutching her abdomen, unable to straighten her back. A father carrying his daughter, her limp body draped across his shoulders like a sack of yams. And everywhere, the children, silent, watchful, their eyes carrying the weight of poverty that no child should know.

As I walked through the crowd, I noticed something that touched me even more. One elderly man had urinated on himself. It was not because he could not leave his spot in the queue. It was because his ailment had robbed him of control over his own body. He had simply lost the ability to hold it in. And still he sat there, in his own waste, waiting for a doctor and a chance, perhaps, if luck would smile on him that day. That is what hope looks like in a country where healthcare is a luxury.

To the glory of God, and by the healing power of the Almighty, these patients, driven by fate and faith, successfully underwent their surgeries.

The Isuikwuato phase lasted for three days. When it ended, the team packed up and moved to Umunneochi, where the second phase began on Sunday, 26 July, at Madam Susan Mba Memorial Health Centre, Ugwuodo Umuaku Isuochi. That phase was scheduled to run for five days. Two facilities. Thousands of faces. Each one a story of neglect, of suffering, of resilience.

Onyejeocha was seen moving quietly through the corridors, checking on patients and issuing instructions.

The numbers, impressive as they are, tell only part of the story. Over 800 residents received free prescription glasses during the Isuikwuato phase alone. Hundreds more underwent surgeries—hernia repairs, hydrocele operations, cataract removals, and even a complex exploratory laparotomy that saved a man whose intestine had turned gangrene and was leaking faeces into his abdominal cavity.

The total number of beneficiaries across both phases was about 5,000.

But statistics cannot capture the anguish of a young mother at Umunneochi with her baby, born without an anus, passing faeces through a hole in his stomach. She had been told the surgery would cost between three million and five million naira. She did not have fifty thousand. She came to the outreach with nothing but the clothes on her back and a child who was slowly dying.

Onyejeocha, upon hearing the case, did not hesitate. She offered to cover the full cost of the surgery. “The girl that has that baby cannot even afford 50,000,” she told me later. “I said, please, this is free medical. And she has come to get this attention. If you don’t help her, nobody will help her.”

This is the philosophy that has sustained the programme for nearly two decades. For Onyejeocha, it has never been about politics or election-season goodwill. It is, as she puts it, a covenant with God—a tradition passed down from her grandmother, who would personally take sick neighbours to hospital and cover their treatment costs. “I started it before I entered politics,” she said. “It’s a tradition in my family.”

The scale of the operation is staggering. The facility in Umunneochi is her personal hospital, built and equipped from her own resources. This year, she had to replace nine air conditioners and electrical wiring after thieves carted them away. She did not complain or use it as an excuse to scale back. She simply replaced them and kept going.

Dr. Eziechila Joseph Chukwuma, the chief surgeon, recalled how Onyejeocha brushed aside his concerns about logistics and cost when she insisted on including Isuikwuato in this year’s edition. “When she said she must do it at Isuikwuato this year, I told her about the logistics, the cost, the coordination,” he said. “She looked at me and said, ‘Don’t worry about logistics.’ She was inspired.”

He noted that the outreach has never been about politics. “It’s not because of politics that we take it around. She has been there for the people, in season and out of season. This is the 19th edition. It’s not small money involved.”

Patients come from far beyond her constituency. Abia, Anambra, Enugu, Imo, they travel across state lines, some walking for hours, others hitching rides on whatever their hands could touch. The Arewa community alone has over 200 members who received treatment in this year’s edition. She does not ask about tribe or party affiliation. She does not ask if they voted for her. She simply treats them.

But the moment that will stay with me longest happened late in the evening at Umunneochi, even as the crowd continued to swell and the queue showed no sign of shortening. The ex-minister, I had noticed earlier, kept moving between the theatre and the wards, checking on those who had gone under the knife. She did not delegate that part. She went herself, again and again, peering at charts, whispering to nurses, holding the hands of those still groggy from anaesthesia. It was only when the worst cases had been seen that she finally stepped outside. And then something remarkable happened.

A boy, perhaps seven years old, had just received treatment. He was small for his age, with large eyes that seemed too big for his face. As Onyejeocha passed by, he reached out and grabbed her hand. He did not let go. He looked up at her and said, in the quiet voice of a child who has learned to ask for little, “Please don’t go.”

She stopped. She sat down beside him on the bench, right there in the open corridor, her fine clothes touching the bare floor where others had sat for hours. She smiled at him. She asked his name. She asked about his siblings, his school, his favorite food. She spoke to him not as a politician addressing a constituent, but as a grandmother speaking to her own grandchild.

He relaxed. His grip on her hand loosened. He began to smile. For a few minutes, he forgot that he was sick. He was simply a child, and she was simply a woman who had stopped to listen.

That image, more than any surgery or any bill paid, is what Onyejeocha’s outreach truly represents. It is the recognition that healing is not just about medicine, it is about dignity, about presence, about letting people know that they are seen.

As I left Abia after the exercise, I understood why she said she cannot stop. Not because she needs to win an election or because she is building a political brand. But because the faces I saw, the hopeless mothers, the silent children, the old woman with various ailments, the young boy who held her hand and begged her not to leave— others like them are not going anywhere. They will be there next year, and the year after that, waiting for someone to care.

She has chosen to be that someone. And that, I think, is both her triumph and our indictment.

In an ideal arrangement, this work would be the responsibility of the state. Hospitals would be properly funded. Doctors would earn enough to stay. Poor families would not have to choose between feeding their children and treating their ailments. And no baby would be born without an anus and left to die because three million naira stands between life and death.

So Onyejeocha steps into the gap—not because she has to, but because she believes she has been called to. “It is not about how much money you have,” she said. “The bottom line is the passion to make an impact. And if I can’t make an impact, there is no need.”

I asked her, finally, whether she ever gets tired. Whether she ever wonders if it is worth it.

She laughed—a warm, genuine laugh that seemed to come from somewhere deep. “I get tired,” she admitted. “But I can’t stop. Because when I stop, people die. And that is something I cannot live with.”

So she keeps going. Year after year. Facility after facility. Patient after patient. She keeps going because someone has to.

As we drove away from the scene on the 7th day, I looked back at the hospital, the crowd was still there. And somewhere inside, a former minister was still working, still holding hands, still saving lives. And even as I write, she is already planning for the next phase and thinking of health related legislations when she eventually returns to the House next year.

It is one woman doing what she can, because the state will not do what it must.

And that is the story—not just of Onyejeocha, but of Nigeria itself. A country where hope depends on the kindness of individuals, not the duty of institutions. A country where a child must beg a politician not to leave, because no one else will stay.

That is why she says she cannot stop.