Joke Silva

I will begin with a disclosure: I love Joke Silva die! I admire her for so many reasons and have done so for a very long time. One of the highlights of my life was meeting her in Benin City years ago after my novel, On Black Sister Street came out, and then hanging out with […]

I will begin with a disclosure: I love Joke Silva die! I admire her for so many reasons and have done so for a very long time. One of the highlights of my life was meeting her in Benin City years ago after my novel, On Black Sister Street came out, and then hanging out with her in Nsukka at the NLNG award ceremony for On Black Sisters Street. Someone at UNN, Nsukka campus has a photograph of the two of us. If you’re that person and you’re reading this, I’d appreciate a copy of the picture. I also love and admire Joke Silva’s husband, Olu Jacobs a huge deal. I love that Joke Silva and Olu Jacobs are an item and have been for many years. I love the reciprocal affection and respect one feels in their presence and senses in their interviews. 

Recently, the ever fabulous, ever classy Joke Silva revealed in an interview that her fellow veteran actor husband, Olu Jacobs has been suffering from  dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). Nigerians reacted. Most reactions gushed with praise for Joke Silva for different reasons.  Some praised her for her honesty.  Others lauded her for her commitment to her husband, her steadfast ( and obvious love for him) in the face of his health challenges.  Almost everyone used the word, ‘courageous’ to describe Silva’s revelation. Courageous, because in our society people tend to hide away relatives with certain illnesses or to lie about their illness. I recall that someone on Twitter reacting to the video of Olu Jacobs at the African International Film Festival (AFRIFF) 2021 event where he was honoured with a lifetime achievement award for his contribution to the industry, questioned why his  family allowed him to attend the event. The unreasonably irate user accused the family of being selfish (don’t ask me how they got to that absurd conclusion) and insinuated that the better thing would have been to keep Olu Jacobs hidden from the public. Tufia! The video of Joke wrapping her arms around her husband who appeared somewhat disoriented and hugging him close to her and kissing him was so heartwarming it brought tears to my eyes. In an era where public displays of affection are orchestrated and curated for Instagram likes, many recognised the genuineness of this spontaneous show of affection. May we all be so lucky as to be loved so fully and unabashedly. May we all be deserving of such love because we have given it too when we could. And if we ever get sick, may our loved ones treat us with the kind of respect and dignity that Joke Silva treats Olu Jacobs. It is a mark of her love and her respect for her husband that Ms Silva refused to hide the fact of his illness. I am incredibly grateful to her for (arguably) igniting a conversation about dementia in a country where dementia often goes undiagnosed (and unreported). Or worse. I read a piece – and I forget where- a while ago about dementia patients being accused of witchcraft in some communities in South Africa and I remember thinking that this could easily happen in Nigeria too.  It isn’t unlikely because ours too is a space where witchcraft is often the baton with which we beat anyone whose behaviour is considered ‘abnormal.’

Sadly, geriatric care in Nigeria is barely existent. Speaking to a Punch reporter in 2020, the President, Association of General and Private Medical Practitioners of Nigeria, Dr. Iyke Odo, stated that Nigeria had less than 100 geriatricians. In a country that the global watch index has stated will have over 20 million 60 plussers by 2030, this is worrying. In addition to the paucity of geriatric experts, Nigeria has (per an Al Jazeera report in 2020), only one full-fledged geriatric centre (where you have all the specialists an aged patient needs to see) : the Tony Anenih Geriatric Centre at UNCH Ibadan. Each of UNIPORT and UNIBEN has a geriatric unit. The WHO estimates that   about 50 million (aged) people around the world have dementia and by 2050 that number would have tripled with many cases in developing countries. Nigeria, obviously, is grossly underprepared for this explosion. Nigeria must do better to make the lives of our senior citizens more comfortable. Whatever policies the government puts in place must prioritise their health care and ensure income security for them. The aged must not depend on their families alone for support. Olu Jacobs is lucky to have an affluent, supportive, educated family. What is the fate of a regular senior citizen suffering from DLB or other forms of dementia without access to healthcare or the other types of support Jacobs has?

DLB patients like Olu Jacobs hallucinate, in addition to having cognitive impairment. I know this because like so many others, after Joke Silva revealed his diagnosis, I googled symptoms of DLB. I can imagine that some Nigerian, somewhere, whose old neighbour or aged parent or grandparent is seeing things or exhibiting other symptoms of DLB and who hitherto had no inkling it was a medical rather than a spiritual challenge has been educated, and will now get the sufferer the help they need. But above all, they’d treat the sufferer with the compassion and respect that they deserve. Thank you Joke Silva. You are one major league class act. I wish you and your better half all the best, from the bottom of my heart.