Why do Nigeria, VSF treat bomb victims like trash?
President Muhammadu Buhari reportedly spent about N20m of Nigeria’s public funds treating an ear infection overseas.
Boko Haram victims do not only need medical attention, they need to get their lives back on track.
But what do they get?
In 2014, former president Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the Victims Support Fund (VSF) to help bomb victims “rise and walk” again. VSF is chaired by Theophilus Danjuma.
Donors reportedly pledged N54b. However, VSF Director, Sunday Ochoche said only N28b has been redeemed. He said the fund has so far spent N3.8b of that amount.
Spent how?
He told Premium Times N227m was shared among 14 hospitals across North-East Nigeria for the care of civilians affected by bomb explosions. That’s about N16.2m per hospital. Each hospital will definitely treat more than one bomb victim.
Another N35m was given to two military hospitals for the same purpose. That’s N17.5m for each military hospital.
That’s N262m accounted for. Where’s the rest of the N3.8b? How was N3.5b disbursed? Ochoche said monies were spent on empowerment schemes for bomb victims. The fund is also involved in other “rebuilding” efforts.
But bomb victims complain that VSF-funded hospitals now refer them to those not among the 14.
Ochoche, responding to that, told Premium Times:
“If they go to hospitals that we have asked them to go to and they are referred to other hospitals, I am sorry but we cannot take responsibility for that. It is the hospitals that will know how to sort themselves out.”
Seriously?
In other words, Buhari can travel abroad on public funds if there are no hospitals equipped enough to treat him. But bomb victims in Nigeria won’t get any help from VSF if funded hospitals refer victims elsewhere.
Of course “VSF is not government” as Ochoche said. I shouldn’t be making any connection between the fund and our president. And I should definitely not expect too much from VSF.
Meanwhile, VSF has an office at Central Business District, Abuja. I don’t know how much it costs to run it though.
And there are no surviving bomb victims on the VSF committee. I wonder why. It’s like setting up an all male committee to address anti-women policies.
“There’s nothing I can do about that”
I met Joy Musa some weeks back. She was shot, and lost her husband and four children in a Jos attack. She’s not been able to walk unaided since 2010. She needs N1.2m for surgery on her left leg. Her surviving children, a boy and a girl, are out of school. The family is squatting with another family in Lagos.
That’s a picture of what bomb victims go through.
When I told Ochoche about Joy, the professor said I should refer her to any of the two VSF-funded hospital in Jos. Joy said she’s broke and doesn’t have money to travel to Jos.
I told the professor. “There’s nothing I can do about that,” he responded.
If we raise enough money for Joy to travel to Jos, there are no guarantees the hospital won’t refer her elsewhere. If that happens, VSF (as Ochoche said) will not be bothered.
While people like Joy daily writhe pain and watch their children go hungry, Ochoche and members of his VSF “sorry-no-bomb-victim-allowed” committee seat in air-conditioned offices “fighting” for the downtrodden.
A year after VSF was inaugurated, bomb victims became so disillusioned with the body that they had to form theirs: the Bomb Victims Association of Nigeria (BVAN).
Kayode Olatunji, a Boko Haram victim, leads BVAN. He told me Ochoche had told him not to refer victims to “those hospitals” and not to VSF because “we’ve given the hospitals the money”.
I’ll stop here for now.
Views expressed are Rotimi Akinola’s. Take them personal if you so wish.
