The ‘Nigeria Factor’: Parallels to Systemic Failures Like the Titanic -By Saifullahi Attahir

“In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing…” – Thomas Carlyle

Around 7:00 am, I was awakened by a call from one of my friends. He wanted me to inquire on his behalf about getting admission into a College of Health Sciences I attended about a decade ago. During our conversation, he told me about another contact he got from another school. Considering the security situation in that state, he could get admission into the final year, take the final professional exams, and be awarded a certified healthcare practitioner.

When I asked further about how possible this was, considering his lack of knowledge in that field, I found out he had studied another related healthcare course and was looking to switch. His answer was, “You know the ‘Nigeria factor.’” I was dumbstruck and not prepared for this update. I was naive, not expecting this level of decadence. How does it happen that a person could obtain a certificate in any health-related course without the required rigorous training and hands-on skills? I thought this could happen somewhere, but not in my beloved profession. Our love for shortcuts is going to ruin us. If this “Nigeria factor” continues, it will definitely consume us.

It wouldn’t be surprising if some of our elites don’t believe in being treated at our local facilities. How sure are you that such a quack isn’t in the teaching hospitals or the National Hospital Abuja? The system that allows them to get a certificate without the required training is the same system that could get them employed ahead of the competent and well-grounded ones. With the way things are going, I couldn’t completely blame those who could afford the best private hospitals or abroad clinics.

Eight years passed, and one man was incapable of rectifying this mess. It was a systematic and complex problem that requires collective efforts. Buhari wasn’t present when the candidate paid the highest sum to that school director or head of department to get admission. Buhari or Tinubu wasn’t present when the National Board of Examination failed to do the necessary checks before approving those candidates or verifying whether they attained the required training. Jonathan or Obasanjo wasn’t present when the agency responsible for recruitment employed such reckless individuals without due investigation of their accredited institution or their level of expertise.

We may argue that our universities are well-regulated and only produce competent individuals. However, universities only produce the senior nursing officers, medical doctors, senior pharmacists, radiographers, or medical laboratory scientists. What about those responsible for taking your blood sample or giving your child vaccine doses? I’m not questioning the entire workforce. Indeed, there were a lot of hard-working and competent personnel, but with the way things are moving, there was a lot more quackery.

If things like this can occur in the most regulated sector like healthcare, how sure are you of other professions? What guarantee do you have over the NAFDAC recommendation on certain products? How assured are we of the technicians managing our airline services and the local engineers constructing our bridges? The system that you seem smart enough to outmaneuver, driving a car without the necessary papers and licenses, might be the very system that produces some of your teachers, drivers, and law enforcement whom you entrust your life to. This creates a form of distrust in Nigeria.

I was interested in a documentary aired by the BBC about Heathrow Airport in the UK. Although it’s an international airport and one of the best globally, comparing the standardized system there could be absurd. Still, it’s obvious the British have a culture of meticulous attention to details and ensuring everything is done correctly with due process. It’s not surprising that there are the least number of automobile accidents, maternal mortalities, electricity power grid collapses, and flood disasters.

In a system where everyone took responsibility as if the success or failure of a task depended on them, life could have been nicer. But in our kind of society, we like the blame game too much. Every failure is attributed to the leaders at the top, sometimes ridiculously upon a single soul, the president. In the movie Titanic, it’s obvious the fateful accident of the mega ship was attributed to some technical errors done by the crew assistants, not just the captain alone.

Imagine a minor negligence that led to such a catastrophe and compare that to the thousands of such mistakes, even greater, that we commit daily in our various walks of life. The deliberate 15 minutes late you were could have been the cause of someone’s death. The intentional habit of switching your phone off on duty could have been the source of losing someone’s life. The lack of a proper checklist could have been the cause of a conflagration, a dam breakage, a bridge collapse, or a building collapse. Trying to do the right thing doesn’t cost more than doing otherwise. It builds your character, gives satisfaction, and pays in the long run.

How sustainable is this “Nigeria

Attahir wrote from Federal University Dutse. saifullahiattahir93@gmail.com