23-1-2025.

A couple of weeks ago, some uninvited unwanted guests, bandits, stormed the Kankara Hospital with guns blazing, carting away some people and items after killing four men and injuring the head of the institution, Dr. Murtala Saleh Dandashire. Dr. Mustala is laying at the Federal Medical Center, Katsina, receiving treatment for the wounds he sustained from the gunshots.

His admission to the government it expensive hospital, which never accepts patients before massive advance payment deposited, caused a POSITIVE ‘battle’ of sorts between the Nigerian Medical Association (NBA), Katsina State branch and the government of Katsina State about settling the hospital bills of the new patient.

On immediately realising that the new patient is a patriotic doctor of high pedigree and esteem the NMA said it would foot ALL his bills for the length of the time he would remain in the hospital. So too was the Katsina State government, which insisted that the responsibility for settling the hospital bill and other needs of Dr. Murtala is entirely her responsibility, and there is the government agency handling such cases.

The agency is headed by Alhaji Sa’idu Ibrahim, the Kogunan Jibia, and it promptly swung into action with the patient constantly looked after by the government with 100% attention at the Katsina Federal Medical Centre, which, along with the very cheap and easy to access General Hospital Katsina, offers services far more superior than what the private clinics in the state, offer.

For those who do not know the nearly assassinated doctor, he is Dr. Murtala Saleh  Dandashire, who is an indigene of Katsina State and the best graduating Medical student of the Metical School of ABU Zaria, class of 2019. He scored an ‘A’ in all the 15 subjects he sat for, and received ALL the prizes on offer.

He went to England for his masters and PhD degrees, and immediately returned to Nigeria for his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) assignment, and permanent work in his place, local government, state and country of birth, despite the insistence of hospitals in the host country and many others in the advanced countries for him to sign up as their staff.

Another gifted Nigerian Hausa medical doctor, who works as a consultant in the best hospital in Germany, had earlier refused to remain in Europe after finishing his post medical degree courses, and returned to Nigeria, where he works for a government hospital. One day a very rich and influential person met him in the Nigerian hospital and complained of ‘something’ that was bothering him. After attentively listening to the man, the doctor said it was ‘a simple case of malaria’ that needed no expensive treatment, and went ahead to prescribe some medication.

But not satisfied with the ‘local’ doctor, the rich man decided to seek for second medical opinion in the best German hospital recommended to him by a friend. On going to the hospital in Germany, he was told to come back in a few days when the hospital’s leading consultant was expected. On coming back to the hospital on the assigned day, he was directed to the office of ‘leading consultant’ where he came face to face with the Nigerian doctor, whose earlier sincere and cheap medical advice he had spurned.

As Dr. Murtala personally narrated, the ‘bandits’ were sent to specifically kill him, as they directly went to his office on arrival, and failing to find him in the office, they left all his belongings, which included wallet containing lots of money and two expensive phones on the table, untouched.

Then they headed for the ward were he was said to be checking on the patients, and still nobody was aware that he had gone to a shop immediately outside the gate of the hospital to buy a loaf of bread. When the ‘bandits’ could not find him anywhere in the hospital, they became frustrated and went on another random shooting spree, which resulted in his being shot on a thigh, outside the hospital. Nearly overwhelmed with oozing blood, he painfully dragged and hid himself in the grass, where he used his belt to tie around his injured thigh to stop the outward flow of blood from his body, until the killers had departed the scene with the abducted people.

The persistent insecurity ravaging some African nations is alleged to be sponsored by white foreigners, who sneak into the victims’s territories and provide the outlaws with sophisticated weapons and other lethal materials for their dastardly acts, in order to allow the foreigners to secretly cart away the riches of the hapless countries.

For a very long time, France, infamously known to be hiring and sending mercenaries (Dogs of War) to some African countries, has never been a friend of Nigeria’s. During Nigeria’s 30 months Civil War, France fought against the Federal Government, and supported the rebels and their course, which was the cessation of the South East from Nigeria.

This led to the sacking of France and the reversal of the country’s insidious manifestations from some of her former African colonies, where the white country, which hatred for ISLAM is notorious, ruled with extreme exploitation, heavy handedness and constant interference in the internal affairs of the host nations.

Surprisingly, most of France’s former African colonies have a Muslim population higher than any other religion. These include Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mali, Chad and Niger. And Paris, the capital of France, has more Muslim population than any other Western European country. So France rabid hatred for Islam is therefore hard to fathom.

A one time President of France, Jacques  Chirac, once stated that, “but for her former colonies in Africa, France would have been one of the poorest countries in the world. Her wealth has always been courtesy of her former colonies in the African continent.

The attack on government hospitals, where mostly poor patients are treated or admitted for treatment, is alleged to be orchestrated by those who do not mean well to Nigeria, for a very selfish reason.

There are the foreign powers who more often depend on African nations, where many corrupt men hold sway as leaders of their countries, to illegally enrich themselves from the mineral resources of the poor African nations.

Then there is the case of miracle healers. The late former Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, Mr. Robert Mugabe, was once asked why the many miracle healers in Africa never go to hospitals to preform their miracles on the many patients on admission, he was said to have quickly quipped that “in hospitals, there are no actors, only patients”.

A Nigerian wit also stated that there was a brain drain of doctors away from Nigeria to Western Europe and the Americas, particularly US and Canada, because the miracle healers in Nigeria have put the doctors out of work in the country, hence the need for them to go elsewhere and make ends meet.

It may be possible therefore, that the god they claimed frequently talked to them, told the miracle healers to treat only the rich, and avoid the poor, who go to the hospitals, because they did not have the money to afford miracle healings.

Anyway, the father of Dr. Murtala, Alhaji Saleh Isa Dandashire, is himself a very brilliant man, who read a pure science course from the university his son has attended, with a very excellent result. Though the older Dadashire has an excellent result, he ended up teaching in a rural secondary school where he rose up to be the principal. He was neither retained by the institution as a lecturer, nor was he employed in a prestigious government ministry or agency because, as this writer once noted in an article of this name:, ‘No Big Shoulders To Cry On’.

In another article titled, ‘Favouritism And Cronyism’, I also mentioned Dr. Murtala, who I mistakenly called ‘Dr. Mohammed’ who is still studying for his higher degrees in the UK, not knowing that he has since returned to the father land, Nigeria.

May God give Nigeria more Dr. Murtalas and protect them and us from the hatred and or envy of the enemies, who would rather we died than survive and continue being of immense service and benefit to the country.

Malumfashi wrote from Katsina.