Nigeria: Let us include the rite of the autopsy in the burying of the dead

Speculation was rife

The apparently sudden death of Prince Abubakar Audu who was more or less on the cusp of a gubernatorial victory has elicited much commentary on social media.

When the news of his death as we were awaiting the announcement of the electoral results first emerged, I was persuaded to overlook the breaking news and curb my curiosity for the frenzy to dissipate enough for the facts and the truth to emerge.

The only truth that has emerged from this tragic tale is that he is deceased and has been interred according to Islamic rites, everything else with regards to manner of death, cause of death and other extenuating factors has been a matter of accusation, supposition, speculation, conjecture, suggestion, rumour, innuendo and fable. This list is hardly exhaustive.

Nothing really was known

I cannot attribute anything, but in all the reports I have read, there has been mention of cardiac arrest, stroke, poisoning, paranormal activity, voodoo and all sorts of silliness. None of this helps the matter at all.

For all the enlightenment we have acquired, we tend to heighten our superstitious predilections at times of birth, at marriages and at death, even if our general lives are hardly lived in any recognised adherence to faith or religion and the tenets the books require us to espouse to be model examples of our belief systems to our common humanity.

Now, I have no medical training, but the most recent pictures of the man depicted an unhealthy pallor, very much like that of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua when he ailed with nephrological complications that led to his demise.

Besides looking overweight and other deleterious conditions that might evolve from that, it is very likely that there is a clear-cut medical condition that resulted in the man’s death.

Bound to ages gone

Yet, as we live in the 21^st Century, our lives and livelihoods are majorly trumped by belief systems, traditions and cultures that have not evolved for many quincentenaries, that we fail to benefit from the knowledge, logic, reason and developments that have brought humanity to the amazing modernity and comforts of the present times.

One such area we fail to deploy at death is medical examination and autopsies, the advances in modern medicine can in most cases determine the cause of death, not only to put beyond doubt the rife speculations that surround a sudden death, but such knowledge in either a minor or major way can also help the living.

Knowledge from deaths

In cases of cancer, it might cause survivors to check if they might be susceptible to the same  type of cancer especially if there is a genetic predisposition to it. It might aid medical science in know what to look for if anyone presents symptoms that might lead to complications. This is a valuable knowledge that goes beyond the individual and the present tragedy to the greater good of humanity.

Part of what has given medicine the tools to treat many ailments has come from the study of the dead and much as it has from observation of the living. It is sad that one only has to leaf through the pages of a Nigerian newspaper to read obituaries of many of died of a brief illness. The brief illness is a catch-all term that covers everything from a fatal asthma attack, through epileptic fits to cancer discovered so late that nothing could be done beyond providing palliative hospice care.

Bringing reason to belief

Whilst there is nothing wrong with being religious, we allow religiosity to becloud both judgement and reason. In the absence of a modicum of reasonableness compounded by grief and loss, we accentuate a fanatical tendency to fatalism, providence and destiny allowing the burning questions to remain unanswered in submission to the primordial where ignorance becomes the cradle of bliss and succour.

Whether, there is a soul or not, once the force that animates and enlivens the body is gone, we have just a body in the process of decay and disintegration. We must respect the memory of the person departed and treat the body of the said departed with dignity, but there is no rule created in anticipation of the modern times that prevents gaining knowledge from an autopsy.

The rite of the autopsy

In times past, there were probably no means of preserving the dead, the Egyptians of old used mummification and embalmment for their pharaohs, other cultures found burial, cremation or some other means of disposing of their dead. Yet, we attach ourselves to age-old customs at our convenience when at other times we desperately avail ourselves of the benefits of medical science.

We need to rethink this clash of options and the time has come to include the autopsy in the burial rites and have civil law demand that where cause of death is inconclusive or death is sudden, internment will not proceed before medical examination, else the body will be exhumed for final determination.

Thought Picnic: Resumenda vox mea

Fiducia mea frangitur (Latin)

Of all the things I lost to illness and there are many things to which I cannot begin to put a quantifiable monetary value on, what has been most difficult to recover has been my confidence.

The ability to project myself with the extraversion that comes with knowing what I know and knowing what I can do had diminished that I had literally lost my presence in voice, in tone and in assertiveness.

It fell to just my ability to write to keep an aspect of my expression alive, that was the only kindling I had left and it never failed me.

The bearing environmental factors

However, when it came to pushing my professional abilities, I just did not have the verve and the drive, that is where I needed the most help, this, being able to rediscover myself and stand tall knowing who I am.

Something in my character had become feeble and fragile as the worlds I built around me collapsed in ruinous calamity; a tale to make strong men cry in anguish, if not in resignation.

The environment in which I had suffered great ruin was no more fertile for the regeneration of self and esteem, something radical had to be done.

Making changes

That chapter was closed by following some advice I took over 12 years ago when an occupational therapist told me I was suffering the classic symptoms of a mid-life crisis 10 years early and that I had to do something radical like change my career, change my country of residence or do something as mundane as take up a new hobby.

That was when I moved to the Netherlands and it amazingly rejuvenated my zest for life, my sense of daring and adventure along with the renewed hunger for learning that I took on a Masters course with enthusiasm I had not known for ages.

Making changes again

Just to show how the change of environment can alter perspective, focus, realities, vision and boost morale to levels that make things happen like miracles – I have only relocated six days and things are looking really exciting, I feel confident, I have found my voice and that quality of assertiveness is coming forth quite noticeably.

In due course, I will share even more about what is going on, but the power of a journey to new places to change the direction of life such that one is not left in a rut cannot be underestimated – I have lived this reality twice already – I know.

Thought Picnic: My hopes coaching my reality

Wanting to board

Days come and go as a recent past seems to hang on to my present with a grasp that beclouds the future offering a story that I feel is already worn and probably excites no more of the context it once had over a year ago.

My options appear varied but the direction is fuzzy, it is like I got to a station and the train I was about to board just sped through without stopping and there is no inkling when the next would arrive.

The strings on my violin have been strained out of tune, somehow the chap who was diagnosed with cancer just over 19 months ago, who more or else enjoyed 5 months of chemotherapy and returned to work within 6 weeks of that appears to be at a loss.

Laurels looking tarnished

My experience could stand me in good stead but it does not seem to be enough, it appears one has been left behind with the stark reality of having to recoup, realign, rearrange, rethink, refocus and probably restart.

A fearful crossroad looms where divestment of a life of acquisitions might well be the lightened burden one needs to consider however uncomfortable it might be.

I call it the long tail of disease, it does not really stop when you appear to be well enough to reengage, the residual effects continue long after one has been through the darkest recesses of life when all hope is so distant it takes the love of many and some amazingly daring faith to come through it all.

Getting beyond around

At a point where I seem to be losing my religion and running out of ideas of maintaining relevance without going back to the fundamentals you really hope rock-bottom provides a bounce of sorts and a plateau that is much higher that the depths and travails that encircle making your heart skip multiple beats as you draw deep breaths contemplating what is ahead.

I am continually asking questions whilst I am working to appreciate what change is required like writer’s block this is looking like a career block the jobs out there all just seem to have one hurdle more, one requirement more, one barrier more, one consequence more, it all appears to add up to something beyond reach.

I dare to think I have not really reached that stage but what I have left is really my hopes coaching my reality; it is needs to be exercised to the point where all my capabilities are resolutely with much to spare beyond my realities.

Favourable welfare outcomes

The re-application

Two weeks ago, I decided to avail myself of the services of my hospital’s social services department because my application for social security entitlements was stuck in the quagmire of bureaucratic indifference and basically in limbo.

I was to call the sickness benefit department last week but that was overrun with events regarding my new job so I just let things go and hoped for the best.

Two letters arrived in my post on Saturday with favourable decisions considering the lateness of my application and the complexity of the circumstances which had also suddenly changed.

All in to help

My very first formal application where I had the work coach fill in the forms at the unemployment office was in February and it became the datum for reckoning everything else.

All benefits can only go back 6 months at the maximum, so I will now be entitled to unemployment benefit at first and then sickness benefit from the day after I was admitted in hospital for treatment.

That would however end on the day I started my new employment which was last week – now one just has to wait for something to be paid into my account.

The system does work and in flexible enough if you know the system or having someone who knows the system sort things out for you.

Thanks and gratitude

I have been very fortunate that way and I have expressed thanks to all those wonderful people who contributed to making this work and I was so taken by the response when the social services expert replied saying she took great pleasure in helping me out.

The social security safety net is there for a reason and even for usually very independent people like myself, I find that anyone can need help and it is good to ask for that help, humbly but with a sense of entitlement too, if we have through our working lives contributed, it is there as a bridge through lean times to more prosperous times again.

Thanks to the system and its lifeblood of bureaucratic sustenance.

Working up the sick for rules sake

Not us, it’s them

What I never expected was to be caught in a ping-pong game between social security departments but that seems to be the case.

On Friday, the unemployment benefit office called to ask if I was available for work or still sick; well, whilst I am quite available for work, the fact is there is a recuperation time after chemotherapy that means I might not really be able to work at the moment and hence, I would still be on sick leave.

So, because I am on sick leave I can only apply for sickness benefit and not unemployment benefit – the letter I received the day after advised me to call in and register as sick.

Double Dutch or quits

I called the number this morning and typed in my Social Security Number which allowed me to be connected to an agent, I explained that my Dutch was not that fluent and asked if we could converse in English, she sternly refused and rained a torrent of Dutch down the phone.

As I tried to slow her down, the conversation descended into confusion and finally I said in English, I will end the conversation and get someone who speaks Dutch to help make the call – she very well understood that sentence and we stopped.

Thankfully, my other neighbour was in and I explained my situation to him regarding when I was unemployed, when I fell ill and all the other aspects of dates, registrations and their so-called rules.

Working the sick seeking work

Another call was made where I explained that I had a friend with me to help and a long conversation ensued about employment, sickness, eligibility and whatever else.

Now the technicality is because I fell ill after I became unemployed, I have to be paid out of the unemployment benefit funds rather than the sickness benefit funds – how that was confused by all the other people I have talked to about this situation escapes me.

Apparently, the unemployment funds are loath to pay up because I am registered as sick and the sickness funds are loath to pay up because I fell ill after I was unemployed.

The rules

In 24 hours, I should get another call from the unemployment benefit office where I really do not know what will happen.

Office automation is one of my areas of expertise and one would really expect that these matters have a protocol for handling the issues internally without having to bounce the system off the claimant – they have all the information.

As the conversation closed, I asked the agent how she felt about introducing the stress of keeping abreast of their system on a person who calls to register as sick – without saying it, I realised the famous Dutch cop-out for the establishment and bureaucracy, “The rules are the rules”

I just hope this ping-pong game ends with a speedy resolution rather than this passing of the buck, the situation is very clear and at the end the fault is because I did not resort welfare funds as a first option; as a last resort, the matter has become a bit more complicated.