23 October
Dear Muhammadu Buhari,
I am writing to express my concern for the country of Nigeria following recent events and my personal experience in the country over this past year. I reside in London, England, however me and my family are originally Nigerian and have visited the country a handful of times over 2020 and 2021 for an array of reasons. My name is Gloria Nwachukwu, I am a student in the UK and I keep up to date with what is going on in Nigeria through my family and the media. I would like to bring to your attention three of my biggest concerns in this letter since I care dearly about my country and want nothing but the best for it however I cannot help but be disappointed about the way the land and its' citizens are being treated at current.
The medical services in Nigeria are incredibly at fault and this is costing the lives of many innocent people. It is common for the staff in hospitals to take bribes or prescribe medicine without enough justification which in my own experience cost the life of my grandma very suddenly earlier this year. Usually, in the UK, cause of death is clear and the person's illness will be identified before the death. However, my family received terrible service from staff and virtually no explanation for the death which suddenly happened after the staff prescribed my grandma a very strong medication. Additionally, the provision of medication is not adequate - we had to give my grandma a common blood pressure medication ourselves (bringing this over from the UK) despite paying thousands for her to be in hospital just to end fatally. It is heartbreaking to even fathom the amount of people who can barely afford these unprofessional 'bribes' or extortionate healthcare costs and lose their lives so quickly due to this unjust system which seems to favour the rich but sometimes still does not. I also lost my father two years ago - he was a healthy 50 year old man who caught malaria, a very common disease in Nigeria, also very commonly recovered from especially by healthy adults having as low as a 6% mortality rate for his age group in 2017 according to 'Our World in Data'. The information we received about this was inadequate despite how much of a tragic situation it is - it almost feels like nobody cares about anyone there, not even their own citizens, which is difficult to admit. I believe a good solution to this would be stricter recruitment procedures, restricted communications with the actual surgeons/doctors (etc.), better financial support from the government and strict sanctions for out of order behaviour.
Furthermore, I am concerned about the poverty levels in Nigeria. As a 'foreigner' when I visit, it saddens me that I cannot help every single suffering person - which is extremely common to see every where you go. More than 5 million people in Nigeria are facing extreme poverty - which could be solved with just the top 5 politicians' wealth. Nigeria's politicians are being paid substantially more than countries where the poverty rate is no where near as bad and this, and as a Nigerian this is frustrating to see. The politicians have a responsibility to look after their people which makes me question, respectfully, what is all this money for? I think a lot of things would need to be addressed in order to help this - for example better housing, possibly the introduction of some sort of benefits and the creation of more fairly paid jobs. Also, it is difficult for children who are living in poverty to afford a decent education and I do believe education is where this starts. Better education could stop the cycle of poverty for a lot of families. Nigeria has the money to solve this but needs more motivation to help its' people - it is such a powerful country.
Finally, I would like to briefly mention the corruption and terror - the EndSARS protests just last year in particular. It is no question that Nigeria unfortunately deals with a lot of terrorism but the EndSARS movement, where innocent Nigerians protested peacefully to be treated with less corruption by the extremely corrupt anti-robbery (SARS) group. To the rest of the world watching, this made so much sense, but unfortunately many Nigerians lost their lives for doing absolutely nothing but wanting fair, safe lives for themselves and their families. The rest of the world watched in anxiety and shock at these events. The anniversary was just last week and still, nothing has been addressed. It's a heartbreaking story to hear in 2021 and as part of the government, more should be done to protest people from groups like SARS that abuse their power immensely to ruin lives. The first call when there is a protest should be to listen, not kill. Not to mention the removal of Twitter being accessed in Nigeria further emphasised how little the opinions of Nigeria's own citizens do not matter and it is not shocking to hear so many Nigerians unfortunately do not appreciate living there anymore. I am saddened every time I think of this event and hope nothing of the sort will happen ever again as I do believe somewhere there something would have been learnt from such a drastic event.
I really appreciate your time reading this letter. These issues are held very close to mine and many others' hearts and just by reading I do believe this can be considered in some way whether big or small.
Yours Sincerely,
Gloria Nwachukwu
Gloria Nwachukwu
Gloria Nwachukwu