In October 2014, Nigeria
received universal praise
for its swift and efficient
tackling of the Ebola
pandemic which had
struck West African
neighbours Sierra Leone,
Guinea and Liberia.
But the core team of staff
from the Nigeria Centre
for Disease Control (NCDC)
who led the effort have
since quit their jobs,
because their salaries had
not been paid for nearly
three years.
"If they play back the
clock, they won't get me
to do that job again," says
Dr Kenneth Madiebo, the
53-year-old medic who
dealt with the body of
Patrick Sawyer, the first
identified Ebola case
Nigeria in 2014.
A project officer with the
NCDC since September
2012, Dr Madiebo was
assigned the task of
decontaminating the
hospital room where Mr
Sawyer had died in July
2014, and preparing his
body for cremation.
In a video he showed me,
Dr Madiebo, the only
health official involved in
the process, dons his
protective gear and enters
with a team of morticians
to remove Mr Sawyer's
naked body from the
narrow toilet where he
had died.
Mr Sawyer had been
certified dead at 7:30 but
the removal of his body
took place at 23:30 that
night.
"Everybody was afraid,"
said Dr Madiebo. "Nobody
else wanted to do it. But I
did it because it was my
job."
"I was ill for days
afterwards but it was
more psychological, not
Ebola."
Public praise came his
way when Nigeria was
officially declared Ebola-
free on October 20, and
the then Health Minister
Onyebuchi Chukwu asked
Dr Madiebo to stand up
during a press conference
and commended him
openly for his key role in
containing the virus.
That same month, the
minister resigned his
position to pursue other
interests, while Dr
Madiebo was promoted
from project officer to
incident manager, a
position that came with a
salary increase.
But, he has never received
the new salary, or any
other salary since then.
His colleague Colette Isu-
Ezumah, a 43-year-old
public health worker who
moved back to Nigeria
from the US in 2011,
shares these frustrations.
She was a driving force
behind the 250-strong
group of Nigerian
volunteers sent to Sierra
Leone and Liberia for six
months to help in the
fight against Ebola, when
infection rates were at
their peak in 2014 and
2015.
'No right to email'
Despite this, and just like
Dr Madiebo, Ms Isu-
Ezumah has not been paid
since October 2014.
"Our boss kept telling us
not to worry, that we
would eventually get
paid," she says.
The 2014 Ebola crisis:
Most deadly Ebola
outbreak in history
More than 11,000
people killed - mostly
in Sierra Leone, Liberia
and Guinea
Other deaths recorded
in Nigeria, Mali, US
Started in Guinea in
December 2013,
declared over in
January 2016
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world
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Tired of all the placations,
Dr Madiebo decided to
take matters into his own
hands.
At the time, President
Muhammadu Buhari had
just been elected, and
with no new health
minister named,
Permanent Secretary
Linus Awute was in
charge.
Dr Madiebo sent an email
to Mr Awute, copying in
his six colleagues who
were also out of pocket
for nine months' pay.
"You have no such right
to write me directly,
knowing that you are
under several layers of
authorities in the Federal
Ministry of Health," came
the reply from Mr Awute
in July 2015.
"Where is such impunity
and unsatisfactory
conduct coming from?"
He added: "The terms of
your engagement and
payment of salary, to the
best of my knowledge,
was strictly under the
Federal Ministry of Health/
CDC Cooperative
Agreement.
"Funding for your salary
can only be
accommodated under the
Project and subject to
availability of funding for
which the CDC was unable
to make further funding
release to the Project.
The only mistake here is
that Management of the
Federal Ministry of Health
ought to have disengaged
you promptly to prevent
this tendentious email."
'Show magnanimity'
But the final words in that
verbose email from Mr
Awute offered some
hope:
"After my brief and the
discussion that followed
with the relevant
Department, I went out of
officialdom to abandon
the nicety to show
magnanimity by
developing a plan to
absorb you into the main
stream Civil Service."
Why Nigerians love
flowery language
Clinging to this glimmer
of hope, Dr Madiebo and
his colleagues kept on
working.
"I resigned my job in the
UK to bring my 15 years
of specialist training to
help improve the
deplorable health
conditions in my country,"
said Dr Chuks Ukpaka, one
of the medical doctors
who established the NCDC
in September 2012.
"We were never
disengaged but promised
payment in arrears."
Dr Madiebo's next task
was to co-ordinate a
three-week monitoring
period.
Nigeria's praised but unpaid Ebola heroes. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-41147691?iorg_service_id_internal=624173547714020%3BAfp6Bd4miLC5nxdJ