Abuja: Cancer as business

As young Bartholomew was slowly pulled through the dense vehicular traffic at Kagini between Kubwa and the Mobile Police Barracks along the Kubwa Expressway early one Tuesday morning. He seemed to  find  solace in the promise that he might soon be flown on a medical trip abroad, where the huge tumor weighing down his right […]

As young Bartholomew was slowly pulled through the dense vehicular traffic at Kagini between Kubwa and the Mobile Police Barracks along the Kubwa Expressway early one Tuesday morning. He seemed to  find  solace in the promise that he might soon be flown on a medical trip abroad, where the huge tumor weighing down his right jaw, would be excised to enable him enjoy life as a normal human being.
“They say they will take me to India to remove this from my face,” the lad seemed to muster some energy to say, after the apparently scared leader of the 4-man team, all of them wearing white vests and face caps, who introduced himself as Alphonsus, had, after  long persuasion, approved that the ‘patient’ speak briefly to this reporter in his presence. He would not approve of any photograph being taken.
“My papa and mama took me to them to help in begging for money for the treatment, and I want people to help me with the money. They say I will need more than one million Naira,” he said in the very short interview after the early morning vehicular traffic had eased sufficiently to guarantee the interface. At this point, Chuks barked: “that is enough, Oga journalist. Help us to tell people to help the poor boy. As you can see, we are busy. We are going to other places for assistance.” They dispersed into the traffic, begging for alms for young Barth.
At the Tipper Garage adjacent Katampe at about 7:20 am of the following day, a completely different set of five–persons one of  them  occasionally carrying Bartholomew chest-high to arouse deeper compassion among the teaming motorists and commuters, maneuvered through the rows of the dense vehicular traffic, shouting their rather guttural pleas for financial assistance to help carry this ‘poor boy’ for treatment. “No amount is too small. Please help!” they would occasionally exclaim with some expertise, suggestive of long periods of training and practice.
“We can’t talk to you now. Our office is at Biazhin (a ward on the northern fringes of Kubwa). We will call you to come there,” a tall, dark-complexioned Dogo, so he introduced himself, promised as he paced to the side of the road and stretched the green-clothed mini sack to enable this reporter to drop his N100 note inside, while his four apparently suspicious colleagues maneuvered away into the dense traffic, occasionally looking back as though caught unawares by the reporter.
“Let me give you my number so that you can call us before you come, but you can call me in the next one hour for me to save your number,” Dogo promised, as they would not oblige this reporter any access to their ‘patient’ for a little interview.
“We are going out to other places. Call us later when we are back in the office,” Dogo concluded. This reporter’s call to Dogo has never gone through for a fortnight now.
At the City Gate at about 8:00 am on a Wednesday, a group of three other ‘professionals’ were ‘helping’ a lady, in her early forties, who dragged what looked like a severe case of elephantiasis dripping puss, or what looked like it, to collect ‘N500,000’ to complete the amount needed for treatment abroad. As usual, they were wearing white vests carrying an odd incomprehensible logo and face cap. They continuously dodged this reporter until they had to retort: “Help this sick woman or leave us alone please.”

For a very long time now, all the entry points of the Federal Capital City have been replete with the workers of what seems a highly organized outfit going by various names, carrying along seemingly incurable cancer patients, in the name of collecting money from the compassionate public.
Their business locations are all the usual points of dense vehicular traffic, especially Zuba, Kagini and the Tipper Garage adjacent Katampe, along the Kubwa expressway; Nyanya/Karu, Abuja-Keffi expressway; Giri flyover and the City Gate, Gwagwalada-Abuja expressway; Karmo/Kado, Karmo-Abuja road; and several other locations of dense vehicular traffic within  Abuja metropolis.

Their tools of operation are three: The cancer patient, the mostly green-clothed mini sack into which the alms-givers drop the ‘little they can afford’, and an auto vehicle, usually any affordable brand of car, hired or owned by their organization, to shuttle them quickly between  ‘lucrative’ locations, to enable them collect as much alms as they can, before the dense vehicular traffic melts into or out of the city around noon or at nightfall.
These professionals seem to have mastered the art and science of melting a  heart of stone with their method of begging for alms, using different novel approaches and tones of voice to tickle the compassion of even the most miserly person. The effectiveness of this method is, however, waning fast with the rising frequency of their operation in these routes, which has gradually hardened the hearts of a large percentage of regular alms-givers who routinely ply the routes.
Using cancer patients to make money by begging for alms for the patients, seems now a brisk business in Abuja.
“Although we sympathise with the patients, as we see most of them in a pathetic state of the cancerous infection, these uniformed beggars are beginning to strike me as a heartless and fraudulent set of people,” Boutros David, who had just alighted from a taxi at the City Gate, observed. Continuing, “In the past most people pity them and their patients, and even commend them for offering an exceptional service very few can volunteer to offer. But nobody has ever heard of  them taking such patients to the hospital.”
Boutros said: “If a group of people or organization can decide to take it up as a duty to help their fellow citizens in most unfortunate situations, then it is good indeed. And a mere look at the patients and the way the helpers operate to assist them creates a semblance of an honest situation. But as time went on, with people seeing such patients increasing, and seeing them and their beggars everywhere, you are tempted to doubt if they mean well for the hopeless and hapless patients. You are tempted to doubt if they are not defrauding two people: the alms giver and the patient for whom alms are given.”

Dr. Biodun Ogungbo is a Consultant brain and spine surgeon, SFIA Spine Clinic, Abuja said:
“Most of these things are criminal,” he observed, recalling, “A pastor once brought a young boy suffering with a brain tumor to me. After observing the boy, I advised the pastor to go and raise money for his treatment. But, to my utter bafflement, the pastor told me pointblank that he would instead use the boy to raise money for the treatment of other people. So, I believe that these beggars are only raising money for themselves, not for the cancer patients they are pulling along.”
The surgeon further observed: “They never want the patients cured of their deformity, because it yields  money for them. It is a fraudulent operation. They collect money for as long as the patients remain with the deformity. I am stressing it to you that they don’t want their patients treated because it is business for them.”