Mohbad, Adebola Abiodun, New Adverts For Nigeria's Unending Trajedies

Ernest Omoarelojie

Thirteen year-old Adebola Abiodun, was diagnosed of a ruptured appendix over which an unnamed private medical facility in Ile-Epo, Abule Egba council area of Lagos state, booked him for a surgery session. But the procedure was wrongly done, making it imperative that a second one be conducted to correct the first. Yet, the second went even more horribly wrong as it resulted in intestinal obstruction.

While going through the second session, he lost parts of his intestine. As if that was not enough, his stomach began to leak about seven days after the second procedure in the same hospital, prompting his distraught mother had to call for help.

He was ushed to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, where doctors, backed by resources from state government backed, assured they would do everything possible to bring him back to health and back to school in no time.

But on Tuesday, September 19, he was pronounced dead, obviously a victim of the unending Nigerian tragedy, via professional faux pas.    

While Nigerians were still ruing Adebola’s case, the one with Ilerioluwa Oladimeji, better known as Mohbad, already on ground, continued to unfold. News had it that the budding music star, had cried out that his life was under serious threat. He narrated his ordeal in some of his works. Some reports say he actually reached out to the police for protection over same. But they never answered his call.

On Tuesday, September 12, 2023, he died. He was just 27. Again, his was a case of being visited by Nigeria's avoidable but unending tragedy, via professional negligence of a different hue.

In the main, Mohbad allegedly pointed accusing fingers in the direction of a colleague in the music business, one of Nigeria’s entertainment mavericks, Azeez Adesina, otherwise known as Naira Marley. Marley, he said, is the one who wanted him dead, come rain or shine. The threat was like a case of impunity advertised in pump and ceremony.

Reports have it that the face-off between Maobad and Naira Marley, if it can be referred to as such, has been long in coming. They cite instances, including videos of how it blossomed, part of it being when he was mob-beaten by Marley’s errand boys, allegedly for voicing his desire to leave the latter’s musical label to which he was initially signed. Sundry reasons were given for their romance gone south, including the bizarre one which has it that the deceased chanced on some of Marley’s shady undertakings that he had no business being privy to. However, the major thread is that their relationship had gone so bad that Marley vowed to end his life.

Like Adebola, Mohbad has passed, both cases are still evolving, typically exemplify ING the nature of Nigeria's culture of negligence and impunity. But while the former has gone very cold by its nature, as a case involving a virtually unknown young man, the other is turning out to be one too hot to handle. That is for obvious reasons. It does not matter that the police raised a red flag by refusing to ‘swing into action’ as it claims always, before or after his death.

The police didn’t ‘swing into action’ either when the young artiste died in circumstances that fell short of the normal. It did nothing until public outcry threatened to unleash unimaginable mayhem. But when it did, it was an afterthought by its spokesperson, who referred to the possibility of an autopsy in the context of "if necessary", prompting the feeling that even if it was done eventually, Nigerians would likely hear nothing other than the rather trite but familiar submission that he died of natural causes.

If anyone is in any doubt, the real truth to take home now is that Mohbad is dead and will remain dead, autopsy or not. Anyone still in doubt should consider the outcome of the panel of inquiries set up to unravel the deaths of school children in different private schools across the state, not forgetting the very distressing one involving the collapsed multiple storey building belonging to the Synagogue of All Nations, in which tens of people died. The are instructive.

Similar instances of the Mohbad case abound everywhere across Nigeria. His is turning out differently because he is a popular music star with huge follower-ship, most of whom have followed the matter from the beginning, who could also pose a threat if nothing is seen to be happening about what they perceive as murder. Clearly however, it would appear that whatever the Lagos state police command is doing right now is, more or less, designed to take the sail off the rising tension.

By the time the autopsy result is out, many would have settled into the usual let-us-move-forward mode. In the end, both the Lagos hospital whose action ended the life of 13 year-old Adebola and those responsible for what befell Mohbad, would go Scot-free. The Lagos state police command can prove that wrong.

For crying out loud, heinous and gruesome crimes are going on everywhere, including our hospitals-private or public. The police is aware. Yet perpetrators will, almost always, get away with them because we are not only indifferent to the crime until they affect us, we often rely on reports of panels of inquiries even when they are more of attempts to convince us against what we already know. It does not matter either that we are aware the results are padded to make us doubt ourselves.

I know how it feels because I also experienced a personal tragedy arsing from criminal negligence in one of the respected public hospitals in the same Lagos state.

My aunt was admitted for an appendicitis surgery. Done, she was declared good enough to go home. Home she went only for her to relapsed in excruciating pains a few days later. She was rushed back to the same facility, directly taken into one of its operating theatres for immediate remedial surgery. Only then was it discovered that her first surgery was performed with non-sterilized equipment. Between when she was admitted and when she was brought back, her system had almost short down, having gone horribly septic. She died while remedial steps were being taken to save her life. She was an only child, with her mother still alive. Suffice to state here that the incident left the family broken and distraught.

As it is in our public institutions, so is it in the private sector as shown by Adebola’s case. Whenever they happen, the culprits are often exculpated by their peers, the police and or subsequent panels of inquiry where they are often frivolously excused. We can only hope that one day, relevant control institutions will be decisive enough to consider putting an end to the country’s era of negligence and impunity, the harbinger of our preventable but unending tragedies.