By Fada Ameh
I still can’t believe this happened
I know we already know that our dear Nigeria is a place where impossible things are possible and abnormal things have been normalized. But nothing ever prepared my mind for the experience I had on Friday, 6th November 2026.
After a good game of football in Kubwa, I was leaving the field to go home, and Fada Oluoma was driving behind me. Then I saw a man lying on the ground, unconscious. We both stopped and got down to check on him.
Though he was unresponsive, he was still breathing faintly, with a very faint pulse. As soon as I established he was still breathing, I called 112, our country’s emergency line to report the situation and request for an ambulance. Then I proceeded to attend to the man with the little knowledge of first aid I had, thanks to Kat Gurum who taught me
14 minutes later, no one came, so I called again and the operator told me help was coming. By this time, I had succeeded to stabilize the man and I tried to keep him conscious and focused on me to prevent him from slipping into unconsness again.
Ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, 27 minutes after I made my first call, two young guys from NEMA (I suppose from the NEMA post across the road opposite Papal Ground) strolled in to meet us. Guess what? They came on foot, no ambulance, no stretcher, no first aid box (not even a first aid kit). All they came with was two sachet water (pure water)!!! This was the response team to an emergency I reported that someone was lying unconscious by the road side. My God!!! I was gobsmacked. Two pure water, for real?
At that point, I asked myself what a human life is actually worth in this country.
While I was still processing this in my head, someone called me that he was responding to the emergency I reported and wanted to know how to locate us. I told him. 43 minutes after I made that first call, this other person arrived. To my further shock, he came on a bike. I felt like crying.
I was both angry and sad at the same time by what I saw, but I was also relieved. My relief was because I could hand him over to them and go home. But I was angry and sad that such a thing could be happening in Nigeria in 2026, not just anywhere, but in the nation’s capital, and this wasn’t in a remote part of Abuja oh, it was in Kubwa.
What then is the hope of those who live in remote places?
If we will be honest with ourselves, we should have far gone past such things in this country. If emergency services continue to be so poor or non-existent, then we have a real problem on our hands.
Many lives are lost because no emergency medical team could be accessed in moments of medical crisis. Some manege to get to the hospitals but either there are no doctors or no drugs. Health is a critical sector of the society’s life and it must be given very serious priority.
As we approach the 2027 elections, these are the kind of things we should be demanding from those seeking our votes, not rice, oil, t-shirt or 5k. We need to rise up and demand better so that Nigeria will be OK for all of us.
