Ibejii, an eclectic and enigmatic Nigerian music artiste has taken to social media to launch a campaign against social ills and bad governance.
The campaign dubbed #AfroHeadWithASign sees the music artist leading a one-man protest brandishing placards that address issues pertaining to governance and human existence.
In one of the pictures the artist uploaded, he made reference to the controversial police report which most medical facilities ask for before attending to victims of road crashes and violent crimes in Nigeria. He had written on one of the placards: ‘Police reports are medicine after death’ with a reference to the avoidable December death of 28-year-old Moradeun Balogun.
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It would be recalled that December last year, Moradeun Balogun was robbed and stabbed in the neck on her way home in the Gbagada area of Lagos. It was gathered that the victim was rushed to R-Jolad Hospital, where she was allegedly rejected because a police report was not presented by the good Samaritans, who came to her rescue.
When contacted on his motivation for the campaign, Ibejii said it had become important to continuously raise awareness on the heart-wrenching effects of avoidable deaths premised on health facilities’ asking for police reports before attending to emergencies. He noted that when a person dies because he/she could not get medical attention owing to a lack of police report, the society loses the potential value of the victim and the grief has a ripple effect on every fibre of the society, from family, friends, acquaintances you colleagues at work.
“It’s painful that human life is not valued in this part of the world. That is why medical facilities will callously reject victims of road crashes, gunshot or knife stab wounds because of a so-called police report.
“Until we place value on every human life, we will continue to lose precious lives to this counterintuitive act of callousness. In other climes, people who need emergency medical attention are first attended to before they are detained, arraigned and convicted depending on the circumstances that led to their injury.
“It’s even worse that we have a law that compels health facilities in Nigeria to treat victims of road crashes and violent crimes before demanding police report yet, medical facilities brazenly flout this law without any punitive measure,” Ibejii noted.
In 2014, the Nigerian government signed into law the National Health Act which stops medical practitioners or health facilities from refusing a person emergency medical treatment for any reason whatsoever. Any person who contravenes this law is guilty of an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine of N100,000 or to imprisonment for a period not exceeding six months or to both.
