“You would have been surprised that outsiders know the story of your state and have been following the trajectory of Governor Otti’s struggles to evolve not just a new state but a new people and a new society.”
It feels good when you are far away and the doctor administering you, upon discovering you are from Abia State, suddenly shifts from interrogating you to discussing about your state Governor and applauding his good works and his rapid transformation drives. The whole room turns to a favourable discussion about your state, Abia. You would have beYou would have been surprised that outsiders know the story of your state and have been following the trajectory of Governor Otti’s struggles to evolve not just a new state but a new people and a new society.en surprised that outsiders know the story of your state and have been following the trajectory of Governor Otti’s struggles to evolve not just a new state but a new people and a new society.
So all national and global spotlights are on Abia? So outsiders are interested in the Abia success story? You wonder, though silently but in reassuring pride. Then, you use the opportunity to tell the New Abia story. You talk about Otti’s resilient struggles, his consistent vision. The will and the determination of a man who came prepared. The new glitter of light, you begin to mention projects after projects, the paradigm shift, the overhauling of the workforce, the mental re-orientation. The doctors chip in to tell you that they saw a new Aba and a new Umuahia when they visited Abia last year. There is this happiness that overwhelms you when the talk is about endorsement, applause and ovation, unlike in the past when you have to struggle to defend and explain.
Then, the doctor comes back to your leg: “Raise the right leg up!” The right leg goes up immediately in a reflex. He commands again: “Raise the left leg up” The left leg refuses to go up. He shakes his head. He has got the message that he wants. He turns his face to the ultrasound scan, not reading it, but studying every line. Then, he places your Xray plate on a screen, your entire bone structure and the fixtures show up. He comes back to the laboratory tests and the swap result. “You are having a quadriceps tendon rupture from your previous surgery. You will have to go for a repair,” he announces, without looking at you but with his eyes now fixed on the MRI results. “Doctors and big grammar!” you mutter silently. Repair? Your mind immediately runs to the images of repairing a bicycle, a car and household items. Doctors also repair human bodies!
Then, he quickly comes back to Abia again. “I did my NYSC in Abia in 1990. That’s why I’m so happy for what Otti is doing in Abia,” he declares.
Igbobi, here I come!
Igbobi has come to be the sobriquet for the National Orthopeadic Hospital, Igbobi, Lagos. A place of fractured legs, degenerating spinal chords, broken spines, broken angles, displaced joints and hips. A place for emergency accident victims. A place of wheelchairs, clutches and iron supports. A place of inevitable amputations. A place where cries and wailings from the physiotherapy section turn to music. The doctors have to take it as music for that is the only way they can stay sane and maintain their own mental sanity.
Igbobi here I come! A place of specialists.
A proud Abia man
Proud of my Governor
