Medicare: The Return To ‘Elewe-omo||Sheriffdeen Tella

Inflation has a way of trivialising economic realities. It turns production, outputs, income and even profits into emptiness or nothingness. The high values of salaries and wages, real income and profits are eroded. Fixed-income earners and those who save their money in banks are negatively affected because of the inverse relationship between the price of goods and the value of money. Those who invest rather than save their funds may likely earn higher income if well managed. So, when a central bank says its monetary policy framework is targeting inflation, you must take that institution very seriously but the institution itself must be in constant touch with the commodity and financial markets dynamic games to achieve its aim. However, it is not just the central bank because crimes are implicitly associated with inflation.

After some rounds of lawn tennis games in my club at the weekend, we settled down to social interactions and started discussing Nigeria’s economic affairs. What else is there to discuss these days? In any case, we talked about the benefits of sports to healthy living. We wondered whether our office holders and legislators have the time to engage in sports, given the enormous assignments with governance in the case of the executive and seriousness with legislation in the case of the lawmakers, including the calculations of how to spend their humongous salaries, sharing the same among the citizens in their various wards, the home front and the ‘homely fronts.’

I believe Reuben Abati who said some demonic angels (my words) becloud one’s reasoning when you are engrossed in the art of governance in Aso Rock where he resided for some years during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Although he referred to Aso Rock, it can practically, or even theoretically (whichever you choose), be extended to other government houses across the country. Some governors behave as if they will be in that position forever, only to realise the folly when months become weeks and weeks become days. Finally, the end of one or two terms must come and they would need to get permission to enter the office where they used to call the shots. Life thereafter becomes a matter of how you used your position, as you now carry the appellation of ‘former.’

The personnel who served under former President Muhammadu Buhari are now in the open market with us and we can now ask them “how market” albeit, they are still enjoying the largess of their former office. The wise ones would have invested in the stock market or other income-generating ventures while others still living large will soon realise that the current inflation trend will shortly erode their purchasing power. That takes us back to the beginning of inflation.

Our club discussion led to health issues, particularly the prostrate epidemic. The rate at which the disease is catching up with men these days makes it an epidemic. Even the rate at which its treatment is advertised is alarming. One is not sure of the real cause as it is being discussed largely by ‘non-learned’ friends in the field of medicine. They say it is caused by too much or too little ‘partnership.’ It seems to be a male affair but a medical student told me there’s the counterpart for females. We need to confirm from his teachers. I am not interested in dreadful diseases because this life is too sweet for those of us who have the time for sports.

As I was saying before another diversion, one of us who just recovered from malaria explained how efficacious herbal medicine, which the Yoruba call agbo, could be. It was then that everyone started sharing their experience of how they have gone back to the roots since the prices of common medicines went up and the incidence of fake drugs also rose. It was then I realised my folly of insisting on taking anti-malaria tablets when I could easily go to the local market to buy the ingredient for one-quarter of the price of the tablets.

I need someone to convince me that it is dangerous to return to the elewe omo, or the herb sellers (one dare not call them pharmacists for fear of being referred to as an ignoramus) in the local market; that their products are inferior to the fake or the expensive drugs in the pharmacy. A pain killer I bought in February 2023 at the cost of N700 is now sold for N4,600 and my normal anti-malaria tablets sachet is going for N3,000 from N1,450! Before you buy these medicines, it is important to look at their expiry date, else one could be buying a genuine but expired drug. Those herbal leaves don’t expire because you use them as fresh as you get them from the market or plucked at the back of your house if you are not living in Lagos where every space is occupied with rooms.

A friend of mine, a medical practitioner who owns a hospital, complained recently about the rate of death of patients being brought to his hospital in recent times. He found that most of the patients would have been subjected to local treatment before being taken to the hospital when it became apparent that the case had become irredeemable. He explained that people easily forget how many lives one has saved when patients are brought to the hospital at the right time but always remember the number of dead bodies taken out of your hospital. I pity him.

This is the current condition of our health management and medicare. Even the so-called middle-class citizens have returned to consulting traditional medical practitioners and herb sellers who act as pharmacists for common and serious ailments because of the exorbitant cost of drugs in the face of increasing financial disenfranchisement. One can imagine what has happened to the poor and very poor citizens. Unfortunately, one is not even sure of the quality or genuineness of the drugs purchased. Every day, producers of fake drugs are surfacing. They are taking advantage of the high prices to produce drugs for common diseases, including painkillers and sleeping tablets. In the process, they erode the market and profits of companies producing genuine products. This implies that manufacturers of drugs eventually shut down, throwing their workers into the labour market.

Just as we are concerned with the prices of medicines, the prices of foodstuffs or materials are rising. The price of gari has quadrupled in the last six months. The bags of rice that were purchased at less than N40,000 in the last Christmas period have also jumped to N62,000 in less than three weeks! We don’t know whether the rice is imported or from the Buhari rice pyramid of deceit. The bread bakers are already complaining about the cost of production and what will normally follow is a price hike.

In the case of health care, one can scale down from orthodox medicine to Babalawo or elewe-omo, but where does one scale down to in the food pyramid? Parents no longer ask their children whether they are fully satisfied with the food taken but whether they have eaten something. A friend recently complained that he used to take home plenty of food and bones at parties for his dogs but not these days when foods served are rationed and people have realised the amount of desirable calcium in the bones!

There was a report in The PUNCH on January 24, 2024, that the devaluation of the naira would push imports of pharmaceutical products to over N900bn this year. That is the major source of inflation. The massive devaluation of the naira has serious implications for domestic prices and calls for thoughtful economic management to reverse the trend. The CBN governor recently told the nation and the world that the naira is undervalued. When a domestic currency is overvalued, it is devalued by the central bank and the converse should be true.

That converse is not easily achievable, particularly in a country where illicit capital outflows are openly or tacitly encouraged. Our CBN managers can visit the Reserve Bank of South Africa or the central banks of the Asian Tigers to learn some tricks on forex management. As of yesterday $1 is R18.80 in South Africa, less than R20 whereas in 1999, it was R6 to $1. What is the trend of the naira within the same period? Something must be done urgently because the return to elewe-omo is the last stage in medicare and staying alive.