Superman is a Nigerian

“I believe that Nigeria will be the most desirable country to live in by the year 2025″ 

I had just returned from an interesting meeting that comprised the staff of the organisation I worked with when all of a sudden, one of the senior partners in the firm rushed into my cubicle and spoke sharply to me “Busayo, oya! oya! let’s go now!” I rushed out of my cubicle “What’s that?” I asked with a worried look on my face.

“My sister just had an accident at CMD. She just called asking for help.” she said.

“Sugar!” I screamed. “how did it happen?” I asked as if there was somebody present who was at the scene of the accident when it happened.

We rushed down the stairs of our office building and raced for the car. Quickly, we got in and screeched away in the direction of the accident scene. As is characteristic of Allen Avenue roundabout, we soon got stuck in traffic. It took us about 35 mins to move 100 yards. I was frustrated and angry.

“Why today of all days would the traffic be so bad?” I grumbled under my breath several times.

Meanwhile, matters were made worse by the fact that the accident victim kept moaning and weeping unbearably over the phone any time her sister called her. I thought to myself “IF ONLY I WAS SUPERMAN….”

“Why weren’t we living in Gotham or Metropolis?” I asked myself. “Why couldn’t I just run into the closet and shoot our the window flying towards the injured girl?” I continued “or why couldn’t I just carry the car out of the traffic area, put it down where there the road was free and drive off to the accident area?” As I mused over these thoughts, my friend and boss whose sister it was that had an accident called her again to find out the situation of things. Lo and behold, she informed her that she was in an ambulance and was being rushed to the orthopaedic hospital around the city.

A wave of mixed feelings hit us both. We didn’t know whether to be ecstatic that the impossible was happening in that emergency health services had come to the rescue or to be sad that she was injured badly enough to be taken in the direction of an orthopaedic hospital. “When did emergency services become so efficient in Nigeria?”, “How come they had come to her rescue so quickly?”, “Who called them?”, “Where they state-run or private?”, “Would they get there soon enough?”, “Lord, please don’t let them cut her hand or leg or any part of her body for that matter” I found myself praying.

Of course, we didn’t know the true state of things so we could only imagine as we headed straight for the hospital. I don’t recall ever being as angry and impatient with co-motorists on the road as I meandered the car through traffic hoping to get to the hospital early enough. By this time, my boss’ wife, who’s also my boss had joined us in the car and informed us that the commuter bus she had boarded had somersaulted several times because the driver had hit the brakes unprofessionally when he ran into a ditch. The resulting impact made him lose control of the vehicle just before it started tumbling on the road.

According to eyewitnesses, when the bus came to a halt, the passengers scrambled out quickly from any avenue they could. My boss’ sister came out through a window. She saw a lot of blood around her and wondered who it was that had lost so much blood. Only when someone screamed pointing at her hand did she look down to discover that her hand had been crushed and that the blood that was around her was hers.

She immediately began to weep. Surprisingly, an eyewitness to the accident who was also a policeman rushed to the scene and remembering his vow to protect and save lives, carried her on a motorbike and rushed her to a nearby hospital. You might be surprised, I said surprisingly but those who know in Nigeria understand that that act is an act out of the ordinary.

On getting to the hospital, the medical team there took one look at her hand and rejected her immediately. “Please take her away”, they said “We can’t treat her here”. “We’ll advise however, that you take her to igbobi.” They didn’t even administer first aid treatment. The police man immediately carried her again on the motorbike headed for another hospital. On the way, they came across an emergency rescue team called AVRIS emergency services, parked on the highway with their ambulance. He stopped by them and explained the situation of things and imploring them to please help the young lady he carried.

Swiftly, they swung into action, loading her into the ambulance and speeding straight towards the orthopaedic hospital while blasting sirens and administering first aid to the patient. It was somewhere in-between these activities that my boss called her sister and discovered that she was already on her way to the hospital.

We didn’t recover from our surprise at the emergency response of the AVRIS team all the way to the hospital (by the way, we discovered their name after we got there) and couldn’t stop praising and blessing them. On arrival at the hospital, we met the AVRIS team members who had ensured that the patient was given immediate medical attention. In fact, she was already in the theatre undergoing preliminary treatment to save the hand and clean the wound. The Good Samaritan policeman was also there.

They had purchased what drugs and materials were necessary to help the patient awaiting her family (us). They recounted the story to us from the beginning and intimated us with what treatment was being administered and what they had bought to facilitate it. We listened in awe and with deep appreciation thanked both the AVRIS emergency team and the policeman, returned to them all they spent and rewarded them minimally for their heroic and exemplary attitude towards life and health.

It finally dawned on me that superman couldn’t have done better if he had the limitations these laudable Nigerians had. So, there and then I christened them “SUPERMAN”.

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