₦airaland Forum

Gabriel Onogwu, 20, from Benue, has become a symbol of hope for patients with failing kidneys across the country, after successfully undergoing a transplant.

His surgery in December is the first recorded in Abuja, done by a team of surgeons at View Point Hospital, a private clinic in the suburb of Gwarimpa.

Gabriel’s transplant was funded by Nafs Kidney Foundation, a philanthropic group run by Suleiman Sulu-Gambari.

For days after the surgery, he walked around with a mask across his nose to ward off germs that could compromise his immune system and force his body to reject the kidney donated by his elder brother.

Weeks later, the SS3 student of GSS, Karu is out of hospital and attempting to return to what his life was before his surgery.

“I feel great, normal, just the way I used to feel before my kidney failed” he says. This time, his mask is off as he speaks to Daily Trust. But the reporter who met him had a nose mask on. “I am very, very happy to have my life back.”

Millions of Nigerians are not so lucky. Many are as young as 18 years, and are coming down with chronic kidney disease (CKD) — the gradual loss of kidney functions. Leading figures from the National Association of Nephrology indicate up to 32 million kidneys in Nigeria are failing.

When a kidney is compromised, the body loses it greatest natural filter–and with that the ability to remove toxins from the body. Prompt treatment is dialysis–a procedure that imitates the function of the kidney to remove toxins and waste from the blood. It is effective, but it also expensive.


“They deserted us”

Experts worry that the age of Nigerians facing failing kidneys is falling. Gabriel’s age at 20 makes him a poster child for the poster. His situation worsened in 2011 when “he started complaining of sever headache,” recalls his mother Comfort Onogwu.

“He was healthier and fatter than we knew him. We could not look at him like that. We took him to hospital, did twenty something tests before they realized it was kidney failure.”

It took nearly a year, but Gabriel was finally placed on dialysis in June 2012. Each dialysis session cost N20,000 and required up to three pints of blood (blood is the medium used in dialysis). Gabriel estimates the weekly cost of his kidney management at around N150,000–money his family couldn’t afford.

“It affected my family more, because getting that amount of money every week was not easy. We couldn’t continue with [three dialyses] weekly, so we had to reduce to twice weekly.” Experts recommend three dialyses a week as optimum, but Gabriel’s sessions dropped to just once a week eventually.

“Our relations couldn’t help again. They deserted us. Help was coming from people we had never met, neighbours–helping with lots of test.”

Gabriel started treatment at Asokoro General Hospital, then was moved to National Hospital. A transplant was the only option left when he came onto Nafs’ radar at View Point “in a very, very pathetic situation and in severe pains,” says Nafs founder Sulu-Gambari.

“When they were told the options of treatment and the financial implications, which obviously the family was nowhere capable of financing; I asked the management how we could assist.”

The option was a transplant, and the choice was between the US at N16 million and India at N8.5 million. View Point, which has been doing minimal-invasion surgeries since it started, agreed it could do the transplant for N5 million but it didn’t have every equipment needed.

“The foundation took it upon itself to acquire some equipment from London to enable them perform the surgery,” says Sulu-Gambari. The acquisition was outside the N5m agreed upon, but the extra spending is being considered down payment for future surgeries for indigent patients.

Nafs has opened an account at the hospital through which anyone can directly fund future transplants. A second kidney transplant for a 50-year-old patient is scheduled for some time in March.

“The whole idea is not to assist only one person. We want it to be a continuous thing whereby other indigents that cannot afford it, the foundation will be able to step in to help. For us to have good result and sustainability, we have to be able to part with money.”

Nearly 16 surgeons hovered over Gabriel in the theatre, headed by Dr Nadey Hakim, director of kidney and pancreatic transplant, Imperial College, University of London, with some 2,000 successful transplants under his belt.

The foundation has defended using a top brain in kidney transplant as a means of teaching local doctors to carry out future transplants on their own. It also plans to invite surgeons from as far as Maiduguri, Kano and Abuja to sit in on the next transplant.

Read more:
http://www.ynaija.com/hopeisalive-first-successful-kidney-transplant-in-nigeria-recorded-in-abuja/

I recently read this article on how we don't experiment when cooking Nigerian dishes and thought to share. I don't mean a tweak here and there but transforming a dish. I am not sure if this has been discussed but I enjoyed the below article.

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‘She’s eating!’ Though I was not the only one having piping hot amala in the local Ebute Metta joint, I did not have to look up from my plate to know the lady’s exclamation was about me. Since my stay in Agege last year I have gotten used to being stared at when I eat Nigerian food. It is the very reason I stopped having draw soup in public: till a certain level I have become immune to attention, but looking up with slimy ogbono threads running down my mouth to be confronted with six curious pairs of eyes upon me still makes me uncomfortable.

This time I was not going to let myself be distracted. I ignored the outcry of the woman who had just entered the busy joint and concentrated on kneading the smooth lumpless amala into a chew sized ball and dipping it in the peppery stew I’d mixed with my efo. When I felt a tap on my right shoulder, I realised this lady was not going to leave me alone. Reluctantly I let go of my perfect amala ball and turned to he lady who had stopped at my table. Her eyelids painted metallic orange and pale blue blinked theatrically as she pointed down at my food in front of me.

‘Can you eat that?’ she inquired. I looked at my food and then back at her.

‘Of course I can. I have a stomach, just like you.’

She laughed and I continued my meal.

‘You eat amala?’ is a very common question I get in Nigeria, second only to ‘Would you marry a Nigerian?’ Few things make Nigerians happier than my response that, yes, I do eat amala, preferably with efo riro or edikaikong. Food is an all round ice breaker here. Tell people you eat amala, and they take an instant liking to you. Tell them you prepare your own moinmoin, and they become your life long friend. A Yoruba taxi driver who took me from MM2 to my place phoned his brother and his wife driving 90 kilometres an hour on the expressway to tell them he had an oyinbo costumer in his car who claimed she knew how to cook moinmoin.

Now appreciating the local food is a universal way to people’s hearts. If you ever get to the Netherlands and you manage to gobble up a raw herring with onions at one of the street stalls, you will gain popularity among all Dutch witnessing the occasion. And the Eastern Congolese in the Kivus rejoice when they see a foreign visitor devouring a good plate of foufou with sombe – pounded cassava leaves with palm oil and ground peanuts. But the Nigerian culinary pride comes across as even more intense and deep felt than elsewhere.

Admittedly: I have also fallen in love with Naija food. Every day I discover new treasures of the Nigerian cuisine. Only recently I was introduced to the sourishly fresh joy of ijebu-garri mixed with ice cold water on a hot day. (‘She dey chop garri?’ a saleswoman asked my companion when I purchased this grated cassava at my local market.) The simplicity of pepper soup that makes it fit to combine with any thinkable ingredient from snails till fish and cow’s tail (I am planning to travel east to have yam pepper soup some time soon), ranks it second on my list of Nigerian delicacies that should become worldwide export products. After steamed bean cake, obviously. My moinmoin love affair can hardly have escaped the attention of regular readers. And just last week a Northern friend shared some of his dambun nama with me, another mind blowing culinary invention, like delicate spun sugar in savoury meat form.

Cooking is a hobby of mine and I am trying out all my favourite Nigerian recipes in my doll’s house kitchen. I also love to experiment. By doing so I unknowingly break the unwritten rules of Naija cuisine. This is where the Nigerian appreciation of my food caprioles usually ends. My unconventional combinations or preparations make the average Nigerian cringe. People are still talking about the day I had moinmoin with my amala (in my defence: there was some vegetable soup involved) as if blasphemy was committed. Most of my Lagos friends shake their heads in disbelief about the way I cook yam, pretending it is potato and using the tuber in every potato dish I can think of, from German potato salad to Spanish tortilla omelette. I hardly dare to mention how one day I am planning to use ijebu-garri to make fried tuna fish cookies… When it comes to their food, often even the most progressive Nigerian thinkers turn out to be ultra orthodox.

I have often wondered how a country that invented such adventurous dishes has become so conservative in its cuisine. Imagine the consequences if the woman who woke up one fine morning and thought ‘Hmmm, I wonder what happens if I ground these beans into a pulp with pepper and onions’ had been told off to do so by her neighbours. The world would never have been blessed with moinmoin!

This afternoon I was driving through a little street in Mushin with a friend who was born and raised in the area. The pool sized potholes slowed my car down to a bare footpace. My friend reminisced how well paved the street used to be in the eighties, a story I have heard in many tones from many Nigerians about many aspects of society. Their love for Nigeria often translates into melancholy, because the here and now does not give them a lot to be proud of. This country is very loveable, but not easy to love.

Maybe that is why the appreciation of Nigerian food runs so deep. NEPA/PHCN will screw up, politicians will steal with impunity, services will deteriorate and buildings will collapse, but you can always count on finding a proper amala joint around the corner with vegetable soup that only your mama could have prepared better.

It might also be the reason why meddling with the traditional menu or recipe is not widely appreciated. The last decades in the Nigerian context change has hardly ever been for the better. I imagine how people wish for at least the food to stay the same: something every Nigerian can be proud of without reservation.


Bean cake: A Love Affair Recipe

@femkevanzeijl

This babe smart o! At the pearly gates when God asks if she's preached to others, ID will show this post.
Naija no day carry last o!

You can visit this thread
https://www.nairaland.com/1145601/bloggers-introduce-yourselves

There's a fashion section here as well
https://www.nairaland.com/fashion

At a burial? Hahaha!

Its a lie, LMAO!

Gun ke? Is he an armed robber officer or civilian?

Killz, must you reply to everything?

dhardline: How did you get this images bro and have you tried calling the numbers on the cards to see if they are real?just asking.

No, you can google them if you want

Mynd_44: Real bad

Sorry about that

Hahaha, I've seen her threads ItsModella just not worth mentioning at the moment.
I'm on record mode

Oh please don't start that Illuminati crap here

He's a musician signed with Marvin Records

Did you guys really make Sweetlemon cry? Is this an intervention?
It looks like she deliberately the Romance section only to be followed here hahaha. You guys should all chill and give her some breathing space.

Eze Promoe: [color=crimson]Even me, I just knew of recent. I was like [/color]

So I'm not the only one! And someone was laughing at me

Mynd_44: A lot of Temperature, Pressure and Density factors

That bad, huh?

..

.

Is that it Lady Gaga?
Lol, Castro had to write his number

They don't need any introduction now but there was a time they used to.

The revealing business cards of successful artists, tycoons and politicians contain some remarkable insights into the personalities of their owners.

Donald Trump's showy card hints at flamboyance, Harry Houdini's unusual triangle gets immediate attention and Andy Warhol's demonstrates his understanding of the link between commerce and art.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg shows that when you're the boss you can put anything you want on your card, and no one can say no.

For more than a century before the arrival of 21st century tools LinkedIn and Facebook, business cards were a vital introduction and source of information.

In the infancy of business cards, lawyer Abraham Lincoln included a small essay explaining his credentials.

"Business cards provide a very pragmatic function", says corporate psychologist Travis Kemp.

"For an individual however, it can be a more personalised vehicle that enables a little more freedom to express uniqueness and to communicate a nuance or more intimate insight into who the owner is as a person, what they stand for or what they want the receiver to know about them."

http://www.flavorwire.com/364847/the-fascinating-business-cards-of-20-famous-people/1

Caracta: As in ehn...no be small thing. Few days left.

Now I know ur plan!

Maybe an added criteria for the next competition should be that all participants should be regular members.
Bennyraz will be happy

Allo! What's up?

Caracta: *pukes*

Will you strip me naked and parade me around NL before delivering me to the authorities? Haha!

Eh? Lmao! Olodo