NIGERIA: Person Of The Year
The great milestones of history often come at a huge price. It sucks the best out of you. Smiles disappear. Emotions take flight. It co...
http://www.africaeagle.com/2015/01/nigeria-person-of-year.html
The great milestones of history often come at a huge price. It sucks the best out of you. Smiles disappear.
Emotions take flight. It consumes you. But in the end, you become an exemplar of sacrifice, of forbearance, of service. It leaves in your wake a legend of greatness, the well worn path of the select few whose efforts have brought civilization thus far; who have deeply affected society, and made the world a better place. It runs counter to the human instinct which seeks to keep hope alive, to survive adversity at any cost.
Instead, it takes the unnatural course of willingly resigning to certain fate, becoming the fabled sacrificial lamb, dying so that others may live. This doesn't happen often; it occurs once in a long, long time.
And this was the story of one woman's unflinching commitment to her professional calling, her burning desire to help others out of their pains, and an ability to literally hand life back to the dying. It was the story of Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, 58. She was the Physician who turned the hand of death from Nigeria. She had admitted into her hospital in Lagos, one Patrick Sawyer, the Liberia man who came into Nigeria with the deadly Ebola disease. She wouldn't budge to pressure or succumb to threats and blackmail, but insisted on not allowing the patient onto the streets of Lagos. That singular action staved off what could have become a pandemic of unimaginable proportions. In the process, she did what over-paid public relations consultants could never have done for Nigeria: she ensured that Nigeria received wide acclaim from all over the world, and that it became a pointer to other nations on how to handle a deadly plague. Her action probably saved lives in their thousands. But in the end, she took the hit for all Nigerians. And then, she died. On August 19, 2014.
Dr. Adadevoh, free spirited, simple, aways happy, would never have contemplated of herself as a heroine. She would have laughed off such a prospect. But she has in death become a Nigerian legend. And the usually debate-prone Editorial Board of The Guardian, had no hesitation in posthumously recognizing Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh as this newspaper's Person Of The Year 2014. The story of this remarkable woman is told by Dr. Odion Akhaine and Dr. Tony Okeregbe, members of the Board.
Eluem Emeka Izeze, Managing Director, The Guardian
ADADEVOH: Patriot, queen who gave her life to save Nigeria
"What's true of all the evils in the
world is true of plague as well. It helps men
to rise above themselves."
- Albert Camus, The Plague
By Sylvester Odion Akhaine & Tony Okeregbe
THE Nigerian condition is well known. She suffers from moral decadence; lacks a visionary, nation-building elite; lacks adequate infrastructure; her people are not united and primordial values such as ethnicity and its ancillary, nepotism, rule.
Insurgents hold sway in many parts of the country; her teaming youths, unemployed, have become hopeless, and constitute a tinderbox waiting to be ignited. Nigeria's leadership has no vision and is distinguished by its unparalleled ineptitude. Corruption walks on all fours even at the highest levels as the economy is being run aground. Nigeria cannot even feed herself and on every score, she performs below standards and targets she has set for herself.
As A. H. M. Kirk-Greene put it in his Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria, "In the final analysis, the Nigerian tragedy has been bedeviled by a set of oppositions: generalised, stereotyped, not necessarily of the same order, and maybe imaginary, yet each widening the wound and reducing the hopes of healing it."
What a country! In dire need of heroes!
Enter Ameyo Stella Adadevoh.
"No! You are not leaving this place! You are not leaving!"
With this emphatic exclamation of defiance, Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, Senior Consultant of First Consultant Clinic, in a display of uncommon courage and superlative sense of commitment, prevented a possible Ebola Virus pandemic that would have ravaged the whole of the West African region like a cataclysmic holocaust. Had Dr. Adadevoh, Consultant physician and endocrinologist not held down the late Liberian-American diplomat and Ebola virus vector, Patrick Sawyer; had Mr. Sawyer found his way to Calabar for the alleged sub-regional meeting, or sneaked into the Synagogue Church of All Nations as many sick but influential African leaders are wont to do, Nigeria would have witnessed a harvest of death far more absurd, ravaging and pestilential as the bubonic plague of the Algerian town of Oran depicted in Camus allegorical novel, The Plague. Tragically, Adadevoh lost her life as a result of her determination to save humanity. She gave her life so her nation and her people would live.
For this display of courage, for her selflessness, professionalism and an uncommon patriotism which has inspired not only her country, Nigeria, but all of humanity, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh is THE GUARDIAN'S PERSON OF THE YEAR. For even in death, she remains a beacon of hope and a compass for a rudderless nation.
The world had been battered by plagues like the Black Death of the fourteenth century and the cholera epidemics of the nineteenth century are examples. In contemporary times, the African continent has experienced outbreaks of Cholera, Lassa fever and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) which ran their cycles and ended within the confines of communities in which they occurred. There was no way, therefore, of knowing the fate that awaited West Africa in 2014. But the worst happened and assumed a proportion least expected by its victims. It came by way of micro parasites which William H. McNeil described in Plagues and Peoples as "tiny organisms, viruses, bacteria, or multi-celled creatures as the case may be, that find a source of food in human tissues suitable for sustaining their own vital processes. Some microparasites provoke acute disease and either kill their host after only a brief period of time, or provoke immunity reactions inside his body that kill them off instead." The one that hit the West African sub-region was virus, the Ebola Virus described by Dr. Michael Smith as wormlike and having a devious way of attaching itself to the surface of the cells. "Then, it invades them, replicates and causes cells to explode, sending infectious particles flying. From there, Ebola overpowers the immune system. It uses the very cells that are meant to fight infection to travel to other parts of the body, including the liver, spleen, kidneys and brain. It attacks almost every organ and tissue." Its main symptoms are sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, and high fever and its victims succumb to the cold fingers of death within days of being infected. It could spread like fire once it arrives the shores of a nation.
When it arrived Nigeria, Ameyo Adadevoh helped extinguish it. With her own life.
The West African outbreak of EVD was first detected in December 2013. A two-year-old boy, Emile Ouamouno, from Meliandou village in the Gueckedou region of Guinea, fell sick and died within a few days of showing some strange symptoms. Gueckedou is a few kilometres from the Sierra-Leonean and Liberian borders. A month later, after Emile's health attendants fell sick, his three-year old sister, mother and grandmother also fell ill and died, the domino effect caused by this "mysterious illness" spiraled into an outbreak that grew exponentially to remote towns and villages in 2014. But like the reluctant elite of Camus' Oran, a wave of denial and hesitation initially swept over the minds of Guinea's power bloc, and before long, Ebola had spread like wild fire until it hit the capital Conakry with a devastating blow. According to the World Health Organization Situation Report on Guinea, the national trend of Ebola has been fluctuating since September, with intense and persistent transmission. A recent situation summary puts the total Ebola cases at 2, 597 with a death figure of 1,607.
With the Guinean outbreak and its attendant humanitarian crisis, people started trooping to neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia, carrying with them the deadly virus. In Sierra Leone, the outbreak took a turn for the worse when a female herbalist and traditional healer in the remote eastern village of Sokoma, claimed that she had special powers to cure the EVD. Her claims caused an influx of Guineans and other infected Sierra Leoneans seeking treatment of the disease. Before long, the female herbalist got infected and died. During the herbalist's funeral, her mourners got infected (perhaps from contact with her corpse during traditional rites), causing a chain of other infections to other neighbouring towns.
However, this worrying outbreak, occasioned by migration and visitation to spiritualists of all shades, became a major epidemic when the virus finally hit Kemena city in mid-June. By the time the outbreak became a cause for global concern, over 700 deaths had been recorded. As at December 21, the cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone stood at 9004 while reported deaths stood at 2, 582.
While deaths were recorded in Guinea and Sierra Leone, it was inevitable that Liberia would be hit sooner or later. And so, when on March 31, 2014, the country confirmed its first two cases of the EVD, only a few expressed any surprise. In fact, it was predicted that should there be an outbreak, given its postwar structural weakness, where a third of its population suffer from malaria and with only 50 doctors to cater for 4.3 million people, Liberia would experience an Ebola scourge that would be devastating. And true to bookmakers' prediction, Liberia had 34 cases and six deaths. By June, 16 deaths had been recorded and doctors had begun to get infected as the virus spread to hospitals. In July the death of four nurses followed, and then the deaths of one of Liberia's top medical doctors, Samuel Brisbane, and another Ugandan doctor, while two US doctors became infected. By July 30, borders were closed, medical checkpoint and quarantine units erected, and schools shut. Ebola had become an emergency. In the ensuing politics of disease management and crisis control, the EVD spiraled into a national calamity of unprecedented dimension. In fact, latest official records put its confirmed cases at 7,862 and its recorded deaths at 3,384; Liberia has the highest fatality rate of EVD so far. According to figures, "more than 17,800 people have been infected with Ebola virus in this epidemic and more than 6,300 have died since this outbreak's first known case in rural Guinea in December 2013." This figure reminds of what Camus writes in his allegorical novel The Plague, "The Plague was no respecter of persons and under its despotic rule everyone, from the governor down to the humblest delinquent, was under sentence and, perhaps for the first time, impartial justice reigned..."
With the largest population on the continent, it was only a matter of time before the virus wormed its way into Nigeria through her porous borders. The country was not proactive and nothing was put in place in anticipation. Its disease control centres had become decrepit, so were her entire health facilities. In short, Nigeria's officialdom slept as it was wont to do on matters light or severe.
It was into this state of health care delivery chaos that, on July 20, 2014, a passenger aircraft landed at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport. On board was the Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, a financial consultant who had taken ill aboard the flight which brought him to Lagos. He was immediately admitted at First Consultant Hospital, Obalende, Lagos under the care of Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, a lead consultant in the hospital. Although he was first treated for malaria and Liberia being the patient's port of departure, Adadevoh suspected Ebola and got in touch with the World Heath Organisation (WHO) which liaised with their country Office in Dakar and Sawyer's blood sample was taken for screening and was consequently found to be Ebola-positive.
Prior to this finding, there was pressure both diplomatic and otherwise to discharge Sawyer who claimed he wanted to attend an ECOWAS conference in Calabar; Ameyo Adadevoh resisted the pressure to discharge him. "You are not leaving this place! You are not leaving!" With that defiance, Adadevoh, professionally quarantined Sawyer. That singular display of uncommon courage and superlative sense of commitment, a trait attested to by those who knew her, prevented a possible Ebola Virus pandemic that would have ravaged Nigeria, West Africa and the world which was why it was read as a threat to global security though without a corresponding global response. Afterwards, Nigeria moved fast adopting a two-way strategy that worked: management of confirmed cases who were treated in isolation centres and epidemiology and contact tracing.
Naturally, upon confirmation, that Sawyer had Ebola, the Lagos State government swung into action and the Federal Ministry of Health also joined the fray. Quarantine centres were created across the country in anticipation of possible escalation. While all these were being done, the country's hygienic culture was being transformed overnight. Meanwhile, the Patriot Queen, Ameyo Adadevoh, who saved the lives of Nigerians and by extension the global community was overwhelmed by the Ebola virus which she contacted while attending to Sawyer. And, in the end, the woman died.
William Shakespeare spoke of the enduring nature of evil which lives after the culprit's mortal passage. Virtues live forever. They shine in darkness and daylight, never to be extinguished by the infamy of mortals. In the manuals of safety and emergency, one of the first lessons of survival is that you save your life first before saving others. But in the esoteric wisdom of the canons of pure self-giving, we are confronted with a paradox: he who loses his life finds it. How can one lose one's life and find it? Where does one lose one's life and find it? Maybe in adversity, or in travail, or in an epidemic. But Robert Frost's poem, 'The Road Not Taken' gives us a pointer. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -/ I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference." By losing her life for country, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh chose the road less traveled by most. And that made all the difference for her mortal state, for the many Nigerians and Africans saved from Ebola scourge and for the human condition.
As The Guardian had earlier observed in a tribute to this patriot queen, "Between Sawyer's case and the possibility of a pandemic in Nigeria, Ameyo Adadevoh was the rock that stood and prevented death from assuming a national reign. Hers was an uncommon story of diligence, exceptional ability, sacrifice, heroism, selflessness and an unwavering commitment to the Hippocratic Oath. In saving Nigeria from a crisis by that exemplary conduct, she taught all citizens the finest ideals of service to humanity, and she is now in the caravan of the greats. Adadevoh has made history and has changed the course of Nigeria's history... Her simplicity, inner and outer beauty were legendary and her devotion to her duty as a physician made her the poster girl for the culture of service that Nigeria so desperately needs."
Ameyo Adadevoh was born on Saturday, October 27, 1956 in Lagos, Nigeria to the late Prof. Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh of the Adadevoh Royal House, Ghana who was a Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos. Her grandfather was Herbert Macaulay, Nigeria's foremost nationalist. She began her academic career at Mainland Preparatory Primary School in Yaba, Lagos in 1961 and spent another two years in school in the United States when her parents sojourned in Boston, Massachusetts from 1962. The family returned in 1964 and she continued her education at Corona School, Yaba, Lagos. She enrolled at Queens School Ibadan in 1968 and finished in 1974 with distinction in her West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Exams. She gained admission to study medicine at the University of Lagos and earned Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree in 1980, at the age of 24. She began her professional career with a residency at Lagos University Teaching Hospital from 1983 to 1988 after which she earned the West African College of Physicians and Surgeons credential. From 1991 to 1993, she completed her fellowship in Endocrinology at Hammersmith Hospital of the Imperial College in London, United Kingdom on British Council Scholarship. She worked at the First Consultants Medical Centre for two decades and became the Lead-Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist. Ameyo was a member of many professional organisations such as Nigerian Medical Association of Nigeria (NMA), Medical Women Association of Nigeria (MWAN), British-Nigerian Association, and National Postgraduate Medical College. She got married to Afolabi Emmanuel Cardoso on April 26, 1986 and had a son, Bankole Cardoso.
Ameyo Adadevoh was humble and never got carried away by her illustrious background and enviable qualities. While we extol her commitment and courage in arresting the spread of Ebola in our country, the Ebola battle is yet to be won and the sub-region hurts under its excruciating pangs and Nigeria is not totally free from its threat. Unlike Dr. Bernard Rieux, the narrator in Camus' The Plague who survived to tell the story, Ameyo Adadevoh is not around to tell hers but her spirit calls out for commitment and the need to be proactive, to equip Nigeria's health facilities and to sustain the new hygiene culture engendered by the Ebola tragedy.
Among the many virtues which the leadership of this country lacks are the courage to speak truth to power; sacrifice to do the needful and the spirit of solicitude and other-directedness. By that singular act of defiance against the pleas of ECOWAS officials and influential persons who wanted Sawyer out of the hospital, Ameyo Adadevoh exhibited all these virtues in an accustomed, effortless and simple manner that gave the Nigerian people hope. This is an exemplary gesture given our present circumstance and political situation, where those who call themselves leaders and opinion moulders have either sided with the oppressive political class, or are too weak and compromised to stand up forcefully against inept leadership and speak truth to power.
She was a beauty. She was a brilliant mind. She cared for people at the expense of her life. She loved her country and served Nigeria unto death. All these converged in the choice of Ameyo Stella Adadevoh as The Guardian's Person of the Year. She did not have a competitor in choice; it was simply unanimous and went against this medium's tradition of choosing only the living as 'Person of the year'. For, again, even in death, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh is a banner of hope aloft for Nigerians and all of humanity.
Source: The Guardian
Emotions take flight. It consumes you. But in the end, you become an exemplar of sacrifice, of forbearance, of service. It leaves in your wake a legend of greatness, the well worn path of the select few whose efforts have brought civilization thus far; who have deeply affected society, and made the world a better place. It runs counter to the human instinct which seeks to keep hope alive, to survive adversity at any cost.
Instead, it takes the unnatural course of willingly resigning to certain fate, becoming the fabled sacrificial lamb, dying so that others may live. This doesn't happen often; it occurs once in a long, long time.
And this was the story of one woman's unflinching commitment to her professional calling, her burning desire to help others out of their pains, and an ability to literally hand life back to the dying. It was the story of Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, 58. She was the Physician who turned the hand of death from Nigeria. She had admitted into her hospital in Lagos, one Patrick Sawyer, the Liberia man who came into Nigeria with the deadly Ebola disease. She wouldn't budge to pressure or succumb to threats and blackmail, but insisted on not allowing the patient onto the streets of Lagos. That singular action staved off what could have become a pandemic of unimaginable proportions. In the process, she did what over-paid public relations consultants could never have done for Nigeria: she ensured that Nigeria received wide acclaim from all over the world, and that it became a pointer to other nations on how to handle a deadly plague. Her action probably saved lives in their thousands. But in the end, she took the hit for all Nigerians. And then, she died. On August 19, 2014.
Dr. Adadevoh, free spirited, simple, aways happy, would never have contemplated of herself as a heroine. She would have laughed off such a prospect. But she has in death become a Nigerian legend. And the usually debate-prone Editorial Board of The Guardian, had no hesitation in posthumously recognizing Dr. Stella Ameyo Adadevoh as this newspaper's Person Of The Year 2014. The story of this remarkable woman is told by Dr. Odion Akhaine and Dr. Tony Okeregbe, members of the Board.
Eluem Emeka Izeze, Managing Director, The Guardian
ADADEVOH: Patriot, queen who gave her life to save Nigeria
"What's true of all the evils in the
world is true of plague as well. It helps men
to rise above themselves."
- Albert Camus, The Plague
By Sylvester Odion Akhaine & Tony Okeregbe
THE Nigerian condition is well known. She suffers from moral decadence; lacks a visionary, nation-building elite; lacks adequate infrastructure; her people are not united and primordial values such as ethnicity and its ancillary, nepotism, rule.
Insurgents hold sway in many parts of the country; her teaming youths, unemployed, have become hopeless, and constitute a tinderbox waiting to be ignited. Nigeria's leadership has no vision and is distinguished by its unparalleled ineptitude. Corruption walks on all fours even at the highest levels as the economy is being run aground. Nigeria cannot even feed herself and on every score, she performs below standards and targets she has set for herself.
As A. H. M. Kirk-Greene put it in his Crisis and Conflict in Nigeria, "In the final analysis, the Nigerian tragedy has been bedeviled by a set of oppositions: generalised, stereotyped, not necessarily of the same order, and maybe imaginary, yet each widening the wound and reducing the hopes of healing it."
What a country! In dire need of heroes!
Enter Ameyo Stella Adadevoh.
"No! You are not leaving this place! You are not leaving!"
With this emphatic exclamation of defiance, Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, Senior Consultant of First Consultant Clinic, in a display of uncommon courage and superlative sense of commitment, prevented a possible Ebola Virus pandemic that would have ravaged the whole of the West African region like a cataclysmic holocaust. Had Dr. Adadevoh, Consultant physician and endocrinologist not held down the late Liberian-American diplomat and Ebola virus vector, Patrick Sawyer; had Mr. Sawyer found his way to Calabar for the alleged sub-regional meeting, or sneaked into the Synagogue Church of All Nations as many sick but influential African leaders are wont to do, Nigeria would have witnessed a harvest of death far more absurd, ravaging and pestilential as the bubonic plague of the Algerian town of Oran depicted in Camus allegorical novel, The Plague. Tragically, Adadevoh lost her life as a result of her determination to save humanity. She gave her life so her nation and her people would live.
For this display of courage, for her selflessness, professionalism and an uncommon patriotism which has inspired not only her country, Nigeria, but all of humanity, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh is THE GUARDIAN'S PERSON OF THE YEAR. For even in death, she remains a beacon of hope and a compass for a rudderless nation.
The world had been battered by plagues like the Black Death of the fourteenth century and the cholera epidemics of the nineteenth century are examples. In contemporary times, the African continent has experienced outbreaks of Cholera, Lassa fever and Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) which ran their cycles and ended within the confines of communities in which they occurred. There was no way, therefore, of knowing the fate that awaited West Africa in 2014. But the worst happened and assumed a proportion least expected by its victims. It came by way of micro parasites which William H. McNeil described in Plagues and Peoples as "tiny organisms, viruses, bacteria, or multi-celled creatures as the case may be, that find a source of food in human tissues suitable for sustaining their own vital processes. Some microparasites provoke acute disease and either kill their host after only a brief period of time, or provoke immunity reactions inside his body that kill them off instead." The one that hit the West African sub-region was virus, the Ebola Virus described by Dr. Michael Smith as wormlike and having a devious way of attaching itself to the surface of the cells. "Then, it invades them, replicates and causes cells to explode, sending infectious particles flying. From there, Ebola overpowers the immune system. It uses the very cells that are meant to fight infection to travel to other parts of the body, including the liver, spleen, kidneys and brain. It attacks almost every organ and tissue." Its main symptoms are sore throat, vomiting, diarrhea, and high fever and its victims succumb to the cold fingers of death within days of being infected. It could spread like fire once it arrives the shores of a nation.
When it arrived Nigeria, Ameyo Adadevoh helped extinguish it. With her own life.
The West African outbreak of EVD was first detected in December 2013. A two-year-old boy, Emile Ouamouno, from Meliandou village in the Gueckedou region of Guinea, fell sick and died within a few days of showing some strange symptoms. Gueckedou is a few kilometres from the Sierra-Leonean and Liberian borders. A month later, after Emile's health attendants fell sick, his three-year old sister, mother and grandmother also fell ill and died, the domino effect caused by this "mysterious illness" spiraled into an outbreak that grew exponentially to remote towns and villages in 2014. But like the reluctant elite of Camus' Oran, a wave of denial and hesitation initially swept over the minds of Guinea's power bloc, and before long, Ebola had spread like wild fire until it hit the capital Conakry with a devastating blow. According to the World Health Organization Situation Report on Guinea, the national trend of Ebola has been fluctuating since September, with intense and persistent transmission. A recent situation summary puts the total Ebola cases at 2, 597 with a death figure of 1,607.
With the Guinean outbreak and its attendant humanitarian crisis, people started trooping to neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia, carrying with them the deadly virus. In Sierra Leone, the outbreak took a turn for the worse when a female herbalist and traditional healer in the remote eastern village of Sokoma, claimed that she had special powers to cure the EVD. Her claims caused an influx of Guineans and other infected Sierra Leoneans seeking treatment of the disease. Before long, the female herbalist got infected and died. During the herbalist's funeral, her mourners got infected (perhaps from contact with her corpse during traditional rites), causing a chain of other infections to other neighbouring towns.
However, this worrying outbreak, occasioned by migration and visitation to spiritualists of all shades, became a major epidemic when the virus finally hit Kemena city in mid-June. By the time the outbreak became a cause for global concern, over 700 deaths had been recorded. As at December 21, the cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone stood at 9004 while reported deaths stood at 2, 582.
While deaths were recorded in Guinea and Sierra Leone, it was inevitable that Liberia would be hit sooner or later. And so, when on March 31, 2014, the country confirmed its first two cases of the EVD, only a few expressed any surprise. In fact, it was predicted that should there be an outbreak, given its postwar structural weakness, where a third of its population suffer from malaria and with only 50 doctors to cater for 4.3 million people, Liberia would experience an Ebola scourge that would be devastating. And true to bookmakers' prediction, Liberia had 34 cases and six deaths. By June, 16 deaths had been recorded and doctors had begun to get infected as the virus spread to hospitals. In July the death of four nurses followed, and then the deaths of one of Liberia's top medical doctors, Samuel Brisbane, and another Ugandan doctor, while two US doctors became infected. By July 30, borders were closed, medical checkpoint and quarantine units erected, and schools shut. Ebola had become an emergency. In the ensuing politics of disease management and crisis control, the EVD spiraled into a national calamity of unprecedented dimension. In fact, latest official records put its confirmed cases at 7,862 and its recorded deaths at 3,384; Liberia has the highest fatality rate of EVD so far. According to figures, "more than 17,800 people have been infected with Ebola virus in this epidemic and more than 6,300 have died since this outbreak's first known case in rural Guinea in December 2013." This figure reminds of what Camus writes in his allegorical novel The Plague, "The Plague was no respecter of persons and under its despotic rule everyone, from the governor down to the humblest delinquent, was under sentence and, perhaps for the first time, impartial justice reigned..."
With the largest population on the continent, it was only a matter of time before the virus wormed its way into Nigeria through her porous borders. The country was not proactive and nothing was put in place in anticipation. Its disease control centres had become decrepit, so were her entire health facilities. In short, Nigeria's officialdom slept as it was wont to do on matters light or severe.
It was into this state of health care delivery chaos that, on July 20, 2014, a passenger aircraft landed at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport. On board was the Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, a financial consultant who had taken ill aboard the flight which brought him to Lagos. He was immediately admitted at First Consultant Hospital, Obalende, Lagos under the care of Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh, a lead consultant in the hospital. Although he was first treated for malaria and Liberia being the patient's port of departure, Adadevoh suspected Ebola and got in touch with the World Heath Organisation (WHO) which liaised with their country Office in Dakar and Sawyer's blood sample was taken for screening and was consequently found to be Ebola-positive.
Prior to this finding, there was pressure both diplomatic and otherwise to discharge Sawyer who claimed he wanted to attend an ECOWAS conference in Calabar; Ameyo Adadevoh resisted the pressure to discharge him. "You are not leaving this place! You are not leaving!" With that defiance, Adadevoh, professionally quarantined Sawyer. That singular display of uncommon courage and superlative sense of commitment, a trait attested to by those who knew her, prevented a possible Ebola Virus pandemic that would have ravaged Nigeria, West Africa and the world which was why it was read as a threat to global security though without a corresponding global response. Afterwards, Nigeria moved fast adopting a two-way strategy that worked: management of confirmed cases who were treated in isolation centres and epidemiology and contact tracing.
Naturally, upon confirmation, that Sawyer had Ebola, the Lagos State government swung into action and the Federal Ministry of Health also joined the fray. Quarantine centres were created across the country in anticipation of possible escalation. While all these were being done, the country's hygienic culture was being transformed overnight. Meanwhile, the Patriot Queen, Ameyo Adadevoh, who saved the lives of Nigerians and by extension the global community was overwhelmed by the Ebola virus which she contacted while attending to Sawyer. And, in the end, the woman died.
William Shakespeare spoke of the enduring nature of evil which lives after the culprit's mortal passage. Virtues live forever. They shine in darkness and daylight, never to be extinguished by the infamy of mortals. In the manuals of safety and emergency, one of the first lessons of survival is that you save your life first before saving others. But in the esoteric wisdom of the canons of pure self-giving, we are confronted with a paradox: he who loses his life finds it. How can one lose one's life and find it? Where does one lose one's life and find it? Maybe in adversity, or in travail, or in an epidemic. But Robert Frost's poem, 'The Road Not Taken' gives us a pointer. "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -/ I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the difference." By losing her life for country, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh chose the road less traveled by most. And that made all the difference for her mortal state, for the many Nigerians and Africans saved from Ebola scourge and for the human condition.
As The Guardian had earlier observed in a tribute to this patriot queen, "Between Sawyer's case and the possibility of a pandemic in Nigeria, Ameyo Adadevoh was the rock that stood and prevented death from assuming a national reign. Hers was an uncommon story of diligence, exceptional ability, sacrifice, heroism, selflessness and an unwavering commitment to the Hippocratic Oath. In saving Nigeria from a crisis by that exemplary conduct, she taught all citizens the finest ideals of service to humanity, and she is now in the caravan of the greats. Adadevoh has made history and has changed the course of Nigeria's history... Her simplicity, inner and outer beauty were legendary and her devotion to her duty as a physician made her the poster girl for the culture of service that Nigeria so desperately needs."
Ameyo Adadevoh was born on Saturday, October 27, 1956 in Lagos, Nigeria to the late Prof. Babatunde Kwaku Adadevoh of the Adadevoh Royal House, Ghana who was a Vice Chancellor of the University of Lagos. Her grandfather was Herbert Macaulay, Nigeria's foremost nationalist. She began her academic career at Mainland Preparatory Primary School in Yaba, Lagos in 1961 and spent another two years in school in the United States when her parents sojourned in Boston, Massachusetts from 1962. The family returned in 1964 and she continued her education at Corona School, Yaba, Lagos. She enrolled at Queens School Ibadan in 1968 and finished in 1974 with distinction in her West African Examinations Council (WAEC) Exams. She gained admission to study medicine at the University of Lagos and earned Bachelor of Medicine/Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) degree in 1980, at the age of 24. She began her professional career with a residency at Lagos University Teaching Hospital from 1983 to 1988 after which she earned the West African College of Physicians and Surgeons credential. From 1991 to 1993, she completed her fellowship in Endocrinology at Hammersmith Hospital of the Imperial College in London, United Kingdom on British Council Scholarship. She worked at the First Consultants Medical Centre for two decades and became the Lead-Consultant Physician and Endocrinologist. Ameyo was a member of many professional organisations such as Nigerian Medical Association of Nigeria (NMA), Medical Women Association of Nigeria (MWAN), British-Nigerian Association, and National Postgraduate Medical College. She got married to Afolabi Emmanuel Cardoso on April 26, 1986 and had a son, Bankole Cardoso.
Ameyo Adadevoh was humble and never got carried away by her illustrious background and enviable qualities. While we extol her commitment and courage in arresting the spread of Ebola in our country, the Ebola battle is yet to be won and the sub-region hurts under its excruciating pangs and Nigeria is not totally free from its threat. Unlike Dr. Bernard Rieux, the narrator in Camus' The Plague who survived to tell the story, Ameyo Adadevoh is not around to tell hers but her spirit calls out for commitment and the need to be proactive, to equip Nigeria's health facilities and to sustain the new hygiene culture engendered by the Ebola tragedy.
Among the many virtues which the leadership of this country lacks are the courage to speak truth to power; sacrifice to do the needful and the spirit of solicitude and other-directedness. By that singular act of defiance against the pleas of ECOWAS officials and influential persons who wanted Sawyer out of the hospital, Ameyo Adadevoh exhibited all these virtues in an accustomed, effortless and simple manner that gave the Nigerian people hope. This is an exemplary gesture given our present circumstance and political situation, where those who call themselves leaders and opinion moulders have either sided with the oppressive political class, or are too weak and compromised to stand up forcefully against inept leadership and speak truth to power.
She was a beauty. She was a brilliant mind. She cared for people at the expense of her life. She loved her country and served Nigeria unto death. All these converged in the choice of Ameyo Stella Adadevoh as The Guardian's Person of the Year. She did not have a competitor in choice; it was simply unanimous and went against this medium's tradition of choosing only the living as 'Person of the year'. For, again, even in death, Ameyo Stella Adadevoh is a banner of hope aloft for Nigerians and all of humanity.
Source: The Guardian
