Fellow Nigerian, Get Some Sense! 

Thursday the 22nd of November, 2017 saw the screening of injuries sustained by a crop of former employees of British - American Tobacco Company in Nigeria...on tv.

In the news item, a lawyer led the diseased workers to the company premises to draw public attention to the plight of his clients.

Inter alia, he as corroborated by his delegation, stated:

That the injured men were all given a clean bill of health on assumption of duties at the company.

That they sustained injuries while in the service of the company.

That duties performed by them while in service caused such injuries.

That other conditions subsisting in the company contributed to the injuries.

That they were discharged without adequate compensation by the said company.

It was revealed that the materials used to set up the factory in which the workers worked were those from a dismantled factory in Cardiff!

Shirts were pulled off to reveal plastered wounds and scars purported to be consequences of unsafe working environment of the factory. A claim of abnormal gaits from hip grafts to spine deficits. Another claim of resected intestines from cancer. A cervical collar with a tracheostomy for an excised laryngeal tumor!

My worry is: If a concerned doctor had called the attention of these damaged workers to the risks they stood in their service years, would they have listened?

It is on record that as companies go the extra mile to compel workers to wear protective clothing freely given to their workers, these employees do all they can to avoid wearing them!

Mummy M a canteen operator, did a most amazing thing right in my presence. She wiped spilled salt off a stove and rinsed it all off her hand into water just placed atop the stove! Once. Twice. Thrice! Until stove was wiped clean!

Now, some people would correct her there and then. Some others would stage an immediate walk out and never visit the place again. Some would continue with their meals unperturbed. If they were to relate the incident to others, some people would unmask the identity of the culprit. Some would be more swayed by the need for the felon to sustain a means of livelihood!

Many would never relate the story just so they don't "spoil market" for this woman.

What would YOU have done?

Dr Tosin Akindele is currently writing his biography. He is a medical practitioner and public affairs analyst.