Many readers will agree with me that the regular mentioning of the ill-health of President Musa Yar’Adua in the media is becoming quite nauseating and distracting. Everyday the media are agog with all kinds of stories on the indisposition of the President. They write with such relish and fanfare as if they delight in other people’s misfortunes. The situation in the past one month has become very critical as to elicit international attention. The stories are so alarming that one would think that the president would die the next minute. This is what I call over-sensationalizing. In mass media law sensationalism is allowed to a certain degree. But definitely not to a point of national odium!

I, as a person, feel for the president. I could imagine what goes on in his mind whenever he reads such fictitious and salacious stories. I feel this way, because three weeks ago the President left the shores of Nigeria to seek medical attention in Germany. Despite the clarifications made by his Media Adviser the media and other rumour-peddlers went to town with all sorts of false stories, some even purporting that the President would not come back to the country anytime soon. But to their chagrin and the relief of many of his admirers President Yar’Adua jetted back to the country looking trendier and radiating vivacity and resplendence.

I must confess that I have never seen the president as healthy as he appeared when he was alighting from his presidential jet that penultimate Friday of April 25, 2008.
There is something I love about the present president: He is usually calm in the face of adversity: A complete opposite of his predecessor who, for once, never brood any form of negative press. His predecessor loved publicity to the point that he had to spend huge sums to maintain his retinue of praise-singers and hagiographers. I knew that if it were his predecessor, he would have gagged those media houses that wrote negative reports about him.

Interestingly, the constitution of Nigeria guarantees its citizens an array of rights that include freedom of expression. But the makers of the 1999 Constitution never envisaged that some of these rights would be abused by the beneficiaries themselves. Is it not said that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander? I would want those engaged in this infamous practice to situate themselves in the shoes of the president and tell me how they would feel.

The undeniable truth is that ill-health is not a joking matter. Nobody, no matter how rich or famous, is immune to it. Both the rich and the poor can get sick. It is a common portion by the two categories of persons. Those who cherish to make mountains out of other people’s unfortunate conditions should not forget that it could be their turn tomorrow. You may be healthy and happy today and hit by a terminal illness the next day. Health and ill-health all belong to God. It is God that gives both.

Many rich and wealthy Nigerians suffer from all kinds of malignant and benignant sickness – name them: cancers [breast, colon, cervix, prostate, leukaemia, etc.), cardiovascular diseases (hypertension, hypotension, stroke and partial stroke, arterial blockade, enlargement of the heart, etc.), erectile dysfunction (inability to sustain erection, low sperm count, premature ejaculation, etc.) asthma, fibroids, arthritis, jaundice, pile, hernia, gall bladder stones, urine incontinence, glaucoma, bronchitis, tuberculosis, ulcers, and the almighty HIV/AIDS, etc]. The list is endless.

Permit me to ask you the reader if you do not suffer from at least one of these aliments. Some people suffer from as many as five yet they are still alive. I, for instance, suffer from asthma. I have lived with this condition for almost half a century but I have not died. I know that I am alive today because my redeemer has destined it to be so. There are some people that have lived with some of the health conditions listed above for the greater part of their lives yet they have not died. There are yet some people many had thought would die but have defied all known medical predictions and hypotheses to live.

As a person, I place premium on assisting the sick and the less-privileged. What they desire from us is not opprobrium but care and affection. They deserve our love and support and prayers as well. Denigrating or ostracising them will only add to their agony. This is why I deem it an unpardonable behaviour from those who look down on the sick, especially those suffering from HIV/AIDS and leprosy and other contagious or life-threatening ailments.

If you do not wish to come near them for fear of contracting the diseases you can support them financially. After all, there are persons well-trained to handle their conditions and look after them.
I want to predict that president Yar’Adua will not die any time soon. This is evident in the new-health he enjoys. I remember some people predicting that he would die before his swearing-in last year. They arrived at this unfortunate conclusion because the man collapsed during electioneering. Sadly, these merchants of death never bothered to check out the man’s medical records first. Yar’Adua collapsed during his presidential campaign out of sheer exhaustion. Nothing more! He might be suffering from an undisclosed ailment, which is not totally strange, but that had nothing to do with his collapse. Any other person could have faced the same situation.

The way things are going in Nigeria nobody is sure of anything. We have seen people slump and die in the streets. Or have you not witnessed a scene where a well-dressed person collapsed and died in the busy street of Marina? A healthy person today can become endemically sick tomorrow. Nobody is sure of tomorrow.

There is so much stress in Nigeria and things are getting harder and harder by the day. Who will bell the cat? The situation we find ourselves calls for sober reflection and brotherly love; not ridicule or chastisement. But let me quickly state here that whatever situation we face in life is designed by God for a purpose. In fact, we should see it as a cross, to draw us closer to God. God has given me everything a man could desire in life, but he punctuated it with asthma. I do not blame anybody for my condition rather I see it as a deliberate design by God to show me how incomplete I am. If money could buy good health, at least, I have enough to pay that asthma would leave me alone.

Yar’Adua, for now, is not the problem of Nigeria. His presence on the nation’s political firmament is God’s making. There was no way he could have ascended the exalted office of president if the good Lord had not willed it. We should know that there can be only one president at a time. Agreed, the election that threw Yar’Adua up as president might not have been free and fair, but it is only a court of competent jurisdiction that can ultimately determine his fate since the matter is already at the tribunal. Until the matter is finally decided critics should leave the president alone to do his best to redirect the nation on the path of steady growth.
To govern a nation as diverse and large as Nigeria is no mean task. It requires concentration, rest of mind, collective input by all Nigerians and divine providence. The little progress we have recorded so far under Yar’Adua is borne out of his humility, urbaneness, and obedience to the rule of law and constitutionality.

No matter how anybody looks at it Yar’Adua’s government is 100 times better than Obasanjo’s. At least, Yar’Adua will always tell you frankly how he feels on every issue you discuss with him. He is not like Obasanjo who tells you one thing and does another. Obasanjo can never be trusted in and out of power. He is the same in both circumstances; after all, the leopard cannot change its spot.
It is important to admonish these negative publicists that life and death are exclusively determined by God, who is the Alfa and Omega, the Author and Finisher of our lives.

The Bible tells us to carry one another’s burden in prayer and not to derogate them.
I believe that we are safer under Yar’Adua. For this singular reason we should leave him alone to do his work. He needs it now more than ever before.