Hospital eases bureaucratic stress

All-round advisor

Another day at the hospital planned just last week and besides that planned for tomorrow to see the foot and rehabilitation specialist.

Last Friday, I decided to avail myself of the hospital social services having seen my quest for welfare support derailed by ping-pong bureaucracy.

The appointment was an early on set for 9:00 AM, I do not think I slept that much overnight but I got all the files and papers filled in last month together and that seems to have been all I needed.

I vacillated about taking my laptop with me and eventually left it at home thinking the problem will be taken out of my hands and sorted somehow, I was determined I would not be further burdened by the stress of navigating the system.

When I met my advisor, she first wanted to know about my health, my strength, my mind and my expectations – well, I feel good, though my right foot does flake a bit and offers me a good itch due to fungal infections and blisters that might well be dealt with soon.

She obtained an alternative prescription cream for help deal with the itch as we talked about other matters of post-chemotherapy conditioning for the return to work and so on.

Not so easy, it was not

Then we moved to the matter for which I was visiting, my application for benefits that had been stuck in the system – we drew a timeline of time of unemployment, when I first fell ill, the progression of illness to the diagnosis of cancer, the treatments and the post-chemotherapy issues.

It appeared my business was not particularly a walk in the park; she left to explain the situation to a psychologist who also happens to be the resident expert on these bureaucracies and persuaded her to review my papers.

The times and records became the more important issue apart from the fact that my not realising my health was deteriorating meant I did not seek medical help promptly nor resort to welfare funds, I needed a narrative.

The expert called all the offices to find out the best kind of approach to deal with my situation and fortunately she linked up with someone who had a good idea of what to do, albeit the suggestion was offered as a very long shot.

My new application

My last contract, bank details, identification papers, records of last payments and a reasonably lengthy litany of the how I found myself in the situation I was in and the why it took so long to register the situation was needed to make my case to the bureaucracies.

Fortunately, I had all that information and the services of the hospital internet service computers to craft my supporting letter which the expert reviewed, amended, notarised and packaged for delivery on the hospital’s livery along with all the photocopies of requested material.

Just over 4 hours at the hospital and I could maybe breathe a sigh of some relief and hope for a very favourable response to my application in the not too distant future – even tomorrow already seems too late, that is how much I need this matter resolved now.

Nigeria: Enough is Enough! March

The gathering

Tomorrow morning, the youth of Nigeria will gather at the National Assembly in protest about current issues affecting the governing and progress of Nigeria.

Courtesy of the http://whereisyaradua.com website [1]

I would believe that the collective noun of youth probably pertains to everyone who is 35 years of age and below which from certain statistics represents the majority of the Nigerian population.

I am pleased that they have gathered together to provide a significant and noticeable constituency to the leadership of the country and hope that their demands are met with some form of positive response.

When I wrote [2] about the impending protest last week, I felt their demands were hardly visionary nor bold, they have somehow fine-tuned those demands but they are hardly earth-shaking as to convince me of their readiness to seize the initiative on the leadership of the country.

Answers not easy questions

For a long time, we have known that our politicians are not given to providing answers to questions no matter how easy they are; rather they can only be out-flanked by answers that trump the ready excuses that belittle the intelligence and ability of the young and vibrant.

Much as I support this protest in spite of the difficulties of gathering the kind of support that allows them to be a noticeable voice of reason with Nigeria, I do hope their next attempt of garnering support reaches beyond détente and the comfortable to the challenging, exemplary and future-looking.

As a first step, indeed – Enough is really Enough.

Sources

[1] Enough is Enough Nigeria! Logo/graphic courtesy of the http://whereisyaradua.com website

[2] Nigeria: Enough is Enough [akin.blog-city.com]

On the 8th day, the shop opened

Times are moving

One might just venture the idea that progress of sorts has come to my neighbourhood and that is in my local supermarket, 7 floors below my apartment and round the side to its entrance.

When I moved here just over 8 years ago, the supermarket opened for 6 days and closed at 19:00 hours, then a few years after it closed at 8:00 PM and soon after it closed at 9 ‘o clock.

The shelves were probably most empty on a Saturday night just as people rushed in for last minute shopping only to realise the goods had been cleared by those who shopped earlier in the day.

A different competition

If you found you had to shop for morning goods, you had to wait till Sunday morning for a shop opening 4 tram stops away.

Just about 2 months ago, a Turkish corner shop opened its doors on a Sunday and whilst you could not get the great variety of goods, it was nice to see that what you could get there was much different from the Dutch fare you got from the supermarket chain.

If I could muster the energy, I made the 500 metre walk to that store to feast my eyes of high capsicum factor peppers and other tropical foods I would have no idea how to for eating.

The look and the taste

The other day, I picked up what I thought were sweet potatoes only to peel them and find they were orange in colour, I was in two minds between binning or potting them, in the end they went in the pot and disintegrated into a pudding of sorts.

It reminded me of seeing “coco-yams” in an English supermarket and on cooking them they fell apart disastrously that the bin got well fed and I had an empty stomach, they were in fact dasheens.

Appearances are so deceptive, the grapes from my supermarket taste so different from the grapes in the corner shop, so synthetic as plastic behoves the beauty of supermarket chains over corner shops – food does not necessarily come from the farms without scientific intervention that changes it into something different and probably cheap too.

Open for the Sabbath

The perception of any of the Western European countries being Christian is slowly but surely gaining the spectre of secularism, very few shops except in tourist prone areas tend to open on Sundays and then we have Sunday-shopping days, usually once a month.

The Sabbath is losing its significance to Mammon, on the 18^th of April 2010 my local supermarket 7 floors below will be open on Sunday for the first time – I do wonder how many people in my neighbourhood would postpone their late Saturday shopping to brunch-time shopping on Sunday.

Forget the idea that Sabbath might be the Friday evening to Saturday evening, the Saturday or even the Sunday – man never seems to rest on any of the 7 days of the week, maybe we need an eighth day.

Is this progress or what?

A partner drawn through a list of musts

An observer one is

I was reviewing my Google Reader list the other day and happened on one of my infrequent posters with an interesting take on issues.

What jumped out to me was the search for a partner which we all sometimes do in a world where companionship of sorts is an essential component of life.

As an observer and sometimes spectator of life because for so long I do not seem to have successfully fostered a partnership that hasn’t brought me to grief that I have reluctantly opted out of the scheme but maintained interest where I can to help people believe more so in relationships.

For long, I have surmised that break-ups teach you amazing lessons, what you take away from a break-up is usually what you do not want and not necessarily what you desire in the probable next relationship.

Must be, must be

How, with a wry smile, I read all the conditions of a new relationship the writer put down all listed as “musts”.

Yes, must be this, must have that, must do thus, must say how, must think big, must touch not – by the time I got to the 4^th must, I was beginning to rule myself out, not for the reasons of qualification by location but by the notion that this innocuous list of expectations began to read as aggressively demanding and high maintenance.

Surely, any relationship might just have the hope of eternity but people would rather be eased into the commitments that lead to lifetime relationships.

The perfect grows on you

We are the products of our experiences and in no way would I begrudge the expectations of anyone who seeks new partnerships.

It is strange how after reading that, I was almost inspired to create my own list of “musts”, then I realised placing insurmountable hurdles in the way of smoothing out possible companionships might well have me looking for the perfect.

Then I remembered, none of my partners were ever perfect when I met them, they became more perfect to me over time till it seemed I could not do without them – then something happened progressively that lead to break-ups – I think.

I have some preferences, probably some expectations; I will pass on the “musts”.

Nigeria: General T. Y. Danjuma - a very influential Nigerian

Dished out willy-nilly

Some three weeks ago a very influential Nigerian revealed an interesting power dynamic in how the resources of Nigeria were profligately handed out without accountability or scrutiny.

This man was endowing $100 million to a foundation and revealed how he made $500 million in profit [1] from the allocation of an oil block tossed to him by the then Head of State, General Sani Abacha [2].

An oil block in the general sense is a prospect that requires surveys and analysis that might yield the possibility of oil and gas which can be exploited to its full potential for great profit.

Oil for money, gas for nought

Where there is the discovery of oil, the owner of the oil block might well have hit the jackpot, unfortunately, the dearth of imagination and professional ability has also left oil blocks abandoned if gas was discovered because the infrastructure in Nigeria has not been developed sufficiently to profit from gas exploration through to the market.

General Theophilus Danjuma (rtd.) [3] was Chief of Army Staff in the 70s and the Minister of Defence between 1999 and 2003, but some 12 years ago he was influential enough to profit from the generosity of being tossed an oil block.

If he not being in government were able to get a piece of Nigeria’s resources without recourse to some due procedure by the big chief under whom power and authority is exerted for the Nigerian entire beyond any accountability, one can only wonder what those in power did and what everyone who could peddle influence could get in oil blocks and more.

A really lucky chap

The oil block that General Danjuma got was sold off on its potential for $1 billion and after paying off his dues, taxes and other matters he was left with $500 million profit that he could not find much to do with.

Many questions arise from this revelation of truth as to how Nigeria’s great fortunes and potential has been squandered off for patronage and the maintenance of power along with the quest for power by others who might want to have access to the means of doling out these resources for unspeakable amounts of wealth and amazing influence. [4]

Retired at 41

General Danjuma is 72, he had risen to the highest ranks in the army allowing him to retire at 41 – I would not suggest that he did not attain this position by merit and dint of hard work but it is rather exceptional that anyone anywhere in the world in whatever profession can retire at 41.

After retirement, he apparently did not sink into the background per se, he engaged in business activities that probably bought him some grief that he was readily able to have the sop of an oil block tossed to him by a Nigerian leader though not in our name.

It would be nice that some oil block were awarded for meritorious services to Nigeria as a whole, but no, this was all for personal enrichment at the expense of Nigerians, banditry attempting to gain respectability and even succeeding in Nigeria.

Half a billion with no sense

This oil block was award according to the time frame in 1998 and it was held on to for 10 years and sold in 2008 having not yet been exploited but having the potential persuading some other company to shell out $1 billion for it.

General Danjuma, a not so notable businessman in Africa somehow acquires liabilities totalling half a billion dollars – you wonder how he could have been under the radar for so long with no one realising he was a man of such considerable means.

Then with $500 billion in hand, this is cash in the bank, not assets as other businessmen are usually valued, he finds himself in a Midas dilemma; all this money and no sense of what to do with it – this again exemplifies the Nigerian story, so many resources, so much money, maybe so much talent but no wherewithal to do something wonderful and beneficial to the nation that supplied the means to be raped and plundered with impunity.

What oil does to Nigerian politics

Now, General Danjuma, revealed this as a microcosm of how Nigerian resources have been expended as well as the underlying psyche of why there is a quest for power by many interests that might make a grab for that power if they are not kept comfortable by sharing that largesse in a circle of the corrupt palliation of rivals and power bases.

There is no telling that this plunder continues under the stewardship of whoever is leader of the country even if it seems to be more transparent than during the military era, but a good deal of the people who claim to be leaders were once in the military, at least 3 of them have run for presidential office with one having ruled for 2 terms.

With this in the public domain, it is no wonder that there is unrest in the Niger Delta when people see the rich pickings that people with influence can take at the expense of the indigenes who suffer in squalor and penury.

It goes without saying that, if a non-player like General Danjuma could have access to an oil block and make so much money, many others would have made much more along with the usurpation that might have occurred exploiting the more viable oil blocks – the mind-boggling figures of over hundreds of billions made from oil but lost in the system cannot be far from the truth.

Prescription for good health to Nigeria too

Lest I forget, though I can no more find the source, it was General Danjuma who having fallen ill a few years ago got a prescription from his doctor to spend two weeks of recuperation in the French Riviera – now, that is a prescription I would want to swallow till I am overdosed; on the Nigerian people’s money to boot.

General Danjuma, is back in a position of great influence [5] advising the Acting President just because every Nigerian leader still has to have some influential retired general in the background to ward off other pretenders – despite this blot on General Danjuma’s seemingly questionable record, in all honesty, he is perhaps the most acceptable of all the other generals the Acting President had to choose from.

General Danjuma, was launching an endowment of $100 million to his foundation established to tackle health issues that might hopefully allow him and our comatose President to seek treatment in the country, one wonders if this is his purgatory presaging absolution.

He is left with $400 million that he could disburse to other worthy Nigerian causes and maybe persuade other looters of our resources to put something back into Nigeria or allow his children to squabble and destroy themselves fighting to be sole inheritors of the loot – such is the tragedy of power and money in Nigeria.

Sources

[1] I made $500 million from oil block -TY Danjuma

[2] Sani Abacha - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[3] African Success : Biography of Yakubu Theophilus DANJUMA

[4] The Punch:: How Nigeria lost billions of naira to discretionary – Google advisory – harmful website

BBC News - Explosions hit Nigeria oil amnesty talks

FT.com / Comment - Observer: Hu and cry over Chinese oil deals – Comment in 2006 talking about the prospect of General Danjuma making $1 billion from the oil block he was gifted by General Sani Abacha.

The Nigerian tale of two oil blocks – Some additional background to how oil blocks were retained or usurped depending on who was wielding power and influence.

[5] Danjuma to Jonathan: Act now, time is short – After his appointment as chairman of the Presidential Advisory Council.

Pambazuka - Nigeria: Executive Director - T. Y. Danjuma Foundation (TYDF) – The foundation swings into action.

Clerical child sex abuse was by human-beings not the devil

I am incensed

I got asked yesterday about the news that the Catholic Church in the Netherlands taking responsibility and acting proactively to deal with the issues of child sexual abuse in the church and institutions run by the church.

I responded saying I was incensed about the fact that the abuse happened at all recalling the many scandals and reports that highlighted how children were taken advantage of by so-called respected pillars of society.

A probe is being conducted headed by a Protestant to investigate claims, somehow, they expect the abused to come out and report the crimes against their persons like someone reporting the trivia of a penny falling through some grating on the street – some of us just want to get on with our lives not recount the dark times of our childhood. Thank you.

The West is hardly the whole

In the West, we might well have expended and exhausted ourselves with the news and happenings in the United States and Ireland; that it has come so close to the Vatican might well just show that this is really a problem.

I volunteered my conversant a few bits of information, that I was abused as a child by people in whose care I had been placed by my parents intimating him of the fact that whilst it might be “easier” to raise matters of abuse in the West, we cannot seem to countenance the fact that it happens in Nigeria and dare I say, even in Africa.

In fact, all the revelations we have heard of in the “enlightened” and “empowered” West might well be the tip of a humongous ice-berg of global child sexual abuse where societies are literally intimated by the awe of the church and its priesthood they are not to be able to challenge such heinous and sinful conduct.

The ones we so respect

Child sexual abuse is however not limited to faith-based organisations to which we entrust the care of our children, it happens in homes, amongst relations and with members of society to whom we pay respect and fear to dare when we see wrong.

This is not to castigate the many helplful and selfless organisations that have pitched tent in Africa, South America and Asia to help where our governments or welfare systems have failed, but to pretend the issue of child abuse has been fully exposed in the West and dealt with is to be naïve about the nature of humanity regardless of location.

The detail is not in the devil

I just read three news stories that I micro-blogged as tweets, then I realised there might well be a sinister ploy towards absolution that we cannot allow to stand.

Chief exorcist says Devil is in Vatican http://is.gd/adQHF New battle lines drawn or an atrocious distraction from Catholic sins?

Cardinal says celibacy partly to blame for clerical sex abuse http://is.gd/adSvT Sex is part of life, morality is the detail.

Catholic sex abuse scandals are 'evidence the Devil is in the Vatican http://is.gd/adZ9X Confused - celibacy & devil to blame now?

Having read in one place that the devil was in the Vatican and then another that partly blamed celibacy for clerical sex abuse the deduction that linked the sexual abuse to the devil was just too much for me.

People not phantoms at work

It is adults in positions of authority, responsibility and power that take advantage of innocent children to fulfil their perverted sexual lusts, to try and mask that very obvious earthly activity behind some supernatural or paranormal manifestation that excites religious passion and possible acquiescence is deplorable and contemptible at best.

I know the people who abuse me and I know the ones who abused others I knew, they had names, they had influence, they were respected and to everyone around us, they were beyond reproach – they were neither gods, nor were they devils, they were flesh and blood like you and me.

We must never lose sight of that clear fact and everything must to done to bring those nasty people to justice, no matter what façade they have been able to put up to mask their devilish acts.

A devilish act does not a devil make and I will not allow the Catholic Church to pass off those acts as if the people are not liable for their activities because they are under the influence of some devil – I will not buy that view and by God, we must all condemn that view before it gains any traction. Today!

Where has my taste gone?

Where is my taste?

Encoded in my memory somewhere is the remembrance of tastes of things I have enjoyed eating giving the pleasure you get from good food.

To be honest, something has happened to my taste, things do not taste like I once knew they did, it makes me wonder if I would ever get that taste back again.

One month after my last chemotherapy treatment I went over the notes the hospital gave me about undergoing the therapy and what I should expect – it would appear after 5 months of therapy I probably need just about 5 months for my body to fully recover and with that, I hope the other cognitive things that have confusing indicators.

Not like I knew then

Before I went to hospital, I used to have natural Greek yoghurt and honey, nowadays, I cannot seem to stand the taste of honey and that of yoghurt is just so strange as to be unpalatable.

Fish tastes funny and certain high-protein meals have become completely off meals, in their place, I have taken to beef casseroles and Nigerian dishes like yam porridge called asaro in Yoruba.

The other day, I bought some spiced chicken, either roasted or fried, the taste just does not go down well with me considering I used to gulp that down and that took me to my highest weight of 83kg well over a year ago.

Lemons and limes

Drinks too have suffered, in hospital long before chemotherapy I went off the high-energy drinks, whilst I seem to handle milk quite well, all other milk based drinks taste horrible.

I also found that most of the tropical mix drinks that contain mangoes, oranges, guava and so on are a complete put off, I take to lemon and lime based drinks, however, I have also found strawberry and raspberry based drinks are quite tasty.

Needing some normalcy

With the reintroduced of pain management though on half dosage, the salivation is considerably reduced and the stomach ache is a lot less frequent, my sleep is getting regulated though I have not exerted myself enough to discover how much strength I have to expend.

In general, I have to control my anxiety which gets agitated by letters, bills, emails and threats, I can only do what I am able to do, though the welfare service is comfortably dragging their feet without a care in the world.

I need to get busy, busy with productive work doing something useful and rewarding – where is that sterling opportunity?