I am sitting up in Wings, the restaurant at the top of our office block at the airport and the latest Davido video comes on.
Naturally, he is surrounded by women, alcohol and has a few fast cars
parked outside his building. I think what artists sing about and the
images they portray are simply a reflection of what society wants to
hear.
Right now, majority of Nigerians measure success according to how
many women they can sleep with, how much champagne they can drink, how
many fast cars they can buy and what designer labels they can wear. So
Davido follows that trend, dishing out our fantasies in droves. This is
wonderful for his bank balance, but this lifestyle sucks in terms of the
way it’s affecting our health.
In terms of healthcare, we are facing a double threat. Firstly, from
what I will call the ‘unfinished business’ of infectious disease, then
also a new threat from the lifestyle diseases. The spread of infectious
diseases such as HIV, malaria and TB can be stopped completely in the
next 5 -10 years if an aggressive approach is embraced by all
stakeholders within the healthcare sector.
I call it unfinished business because we should have been done
tackling these diseases long-ago so we could concentrate fully on how to
manage lifestyle diseases. Malaria has been completed eradicated in
several countries some with larger populations that Nigeria.
However, lifestyle and popular culture are much harder to change. HIV
is spread by s*x. Condoms do not offer 100% protection against all
STD’s including HIV, they offer some protection. But our culture
promotes promiscuity, belittles women’s rights and makes it difficult to
punish perpetrators of r*pe and abuse. This in turn has given us a very
laissez faire attitude to multiple s*xual partners, child marriage and
s*xual abuse.
This is bad for the country economically, but has catastrophic
consequences to our s*xual health. We currently have the highest number
of people living with HIV in the world in Nigeria and this number is
growing. It is growing along with the numbers of people infected with
other STDs like gonorrhea, syphilis and herpes.
Our lifestyle is not just affecting our s*xual health, it stems to
other areas as well. Our food in Nigeria is delicious, but can be cooked
in healthier ways. We desperately need to reduce our salt consumption
to reduce the prevalence of hypertension. Many of our dishes such as
‘akara’ and ‘dodo’ contain extremely high levels of fat that predispose
us to heart disease and strokes.
Many of Nigeria’s urban poor no longer walk anywhere. We will take
‘okada’ or ‘kekenapep’ to destinations that are actually just a 30
minute walk from us. This sedentary lifestyle has engulfed us urbanites.
There are very few gyms even in Lagos and Abuja that are economically
viable as so few people go.
Cigarettes are also very cheap, meaning that both the rich and the
poor in Nigeria smoke. Then there’s alcohol. For the poor it is often a
form of escapism; for the rich popping six bottles in the club is a
status symbol. For both the rich and the poor, the combination of lax
s*xual health, sedentary lifestyle, smoking, alcohol consumption and
poor diet are ensuring that the lifestyle diseases will be causing death
and illness across Nigeria for decades to come.
However, there is a bright side. The tools we need to conquer the
lifestyle diseases are in our own hands, in our homes, in our
nightclubs, with our friends. We need to change the way we live, change
the way we eat, change the way we view relationships and monogamy.
Then perhaps the next Davido video will be filmed in a gym, with him
drinking fruit juice and eating museli or salad with his wife.
____________________________________________________________________________
Ola Orekunin is a medical doctor, a trainee helicopter pilot and
an entrepreneur who founded West Africa’s first indigenous air ambulance
service, the Flying Doctors Nigeria which saves hundreds of lives
across the region every year. She is extremely passionate about
healthcare in Africa and works with various foundations, charities and
governments to improve standards of healthcare.
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