Bishopric drives the Nigerian, so also is battle of supremacy. The Nigerian loves to hold on to territories. The Nigerian Medical Association and Trade Union Congress frown at the planned invitation of 18 Chinese doctors to Nigeria with medical equipment to help the country in the current fight against Coronavirus.
This attitude beggars belief. What is wrong with a team of medical experts coming to Nigeria in an advisory capacity, to boost the capacity of Nigerians to fight the disease killing people worldwide?
The New York Governor recently complained about a deficiency of doctors in the fight against Coronavirus and called for help from overseas. Same with the Italian government – and in Nigeria, people who should know better are out in the public space making disdainful statements about doctors who volunteered to come to Nigeria to share knowledge.
You would be tempted to think that Nigeria has an advanced health system and further that the doctor to patient ratio in Nigeria meets international standard. Do these protesters assume that their stance forecloses the bilateral agreement between the Nigerian government and China?
The Chinese doctors know the history of this virus better than some Nigerian doctors since it first broke in their shores. And the TUC and NMA need no second-telling that China has managed the pandemic with reduced deaths in comparison with Spain, Italy and the United States.
China unlike the United States of America rarely shares knowledge and if they are willing to do so now, Nigeria needs to embrace it.
Humanity and love for all citizens of the world should come before ego, but ego appears to come swiftly for some people and it is really off-putting. The global army to fight pandemics is beyond borders. Nigerians hauled the coal-over-the heads of South Africans for racial intolerance against Nigerians in South Africa and yet we are guilty of doing same.
I see this as racial discrimination. Ironically, TUC and NMA members use Chinese products because they are members of the global community, and yet, find it fitting to worry about Chinese doctors coming to Nigeria to help fight a disease that, Nigeria, as yet, does not have a total control over.
The NMA has not been known to support even its own members. Jeremiah Abalaka, the doctor who said he could cure HIV/AIDS many years ago was abandoned by the Medical Association (when it mattered most) when the government of former President Olusegun Obasanjo decided to join issue with Dr Abalaka as a result of his invention(supposed).
Doesn’t the TUC have a lot on its hands to do for Nigerian workers other than shock tactics for ego sake?
Nigerians need to appreciate diversity, find common ground with professionals and relate with them on common interests; the chance to interface with the Chinese doctors will give the opportunity to ask better questions, value people other than Nigerians and respect them, submit selves to reverse mentoring especially in the areas of technology, and show genuine ties to global community and social responsibility. Lives are involved here and people should move away from playing politics.
Knowledge for development across all spectra is shared not hoarded.
Simon Abah, Abuja
