Hell? Please. I live in Nigeria (II)
The continued tale of Kuffy Eyo vs. the Nigerian bureaucratic machine.
My most protracted and agonizing confrontation with the Nigerian Bureaucratic machine began in early November 2024, after I had just completed my medical internship (house job).
In the first part of this two-part series, I took you through the labyrinth of dealings with the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital—my training hospital, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board and the Nigerian Immigration Service.
For the second part, we tread further into the stench of decay. We resume on January 5, 2025, when I uploaded the digital copies of my internship documents to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) portal, paid for my full registration as a medical practitioner, and waybilled my documents to the parastatal’s head office in Kaura, FCT, Abuja, Nigeria.
I had asked around, read blog articles, and was informed that full registration application verification takes about seven working days. So I patiently waited, in the meantime trying to find a job in private medical practice, which ended up being its own issue, discussed here.
By the end of the seven working days, my mates who had sent their documents at the same time as me had their applications approved but mine took over two whole months.
Why?
Please keep reading.
By the third week after submitting my documents, I had become more than quite perturbed. I started wondering what I had done to incur this delay upon myself. I would spend dark hours making up scenarios in my head. Many of me on my knees, tears in my eyes, beseeching the Registrar to forgive whatever misdeeds I was guilty of.
They say that if you take even one extra day out of your 12 months of internship, you will have problems with the licensing body. But I had started the program on 6th November 2023 and finished on the 6th of November 2024. Which, as perfect as it sounds, was technically a day over 12 months because 2024 was a leap year. So this fueled incessant worries.
But I refused to believe that they could be that cruel. They wouldn’t so callously punish a hardworking, intelligent, and committed young doctor like me? After all the sleepless nights, annoying patient relatives, mosquito-ridden wards, and paying out of my pocket for patients' bills. No! They couldn’t be so ruthless.
In fact, for their information, the only reason I overstayed was that my documents were not signed on time as I transferred between internal medicine, obstetrics and gynaecology postings (we rotate between four departments during internship). Besides, I knew people who finished weeks after their supposed end date and had no issues with MDCN. Plus, even if I was getting penalized for this, why had they not sent a simple email to let me know why my application was still pending?
Fortunately for me, in late December 2024, I had had an ICT issue on the MDCN portal. One that prevented me from uploading my documents as soon as I’d received them. In an attempt to rectify the bug, I had mailed the three contact emails and dialed the two helplines MDCN provided on their official website and in return received crickets. Out of desperation, I reconnected with a staff member at the parastatal whose contact was saved on my phone as “MDCN no.” from when I needed help with my provisional registration in mid 2023. Let’s call him Mr B.
When I had called Mr B over the ICT issue, he knew my name. Jovially, he addressed me as Dr. Eyo. Apparently he had saved my number from our first and only contact. This time, despite his warmth, he complained that I had forgotten him and that we doctors only remember MDCN administrative staff when we have issues. Me, I actually thought he was like a customer care staff but I said, “sorry sir, sorry please…” and when he had given me the phone number of an ICT staff (who ended up being of no help and I sorted out the site error myself), I sent him airtime money to “remember” him.
This gentleman called me back immediately, sounding disappointed and disapproving. He proceeded to dish out a 20-minute lecture on how it is his duty to help, how much he loves his job, and how I am just starting life and need the money more than him. He then insisted on knowing my network provider and sent back double the airtime I had sent him.
Mr B was even on leave during this period, so I was like, “Haba, no sir, it’s because I bothered you during your break that’s why.” I needed to save face because this man was very insulted. But could I be blamed? In my experience, the only time civil servants ask about your memories of them is when they want a bribe. But I learnt from this man that honest, diligent people still work for Nigeria.
As time went on, I maintained contact with him, and he was genuinely good company. One of my favorite conversations with him was when we talked about the literature I was reading at the time.
It was early February when Mr B asked if I’d been fully registered. I told him no and that I didn’t understand why there was a delay, and because he was still on leave, he asked me to mail the registration unit for an explanation. Even though it was the same email address that had never responded to my ICT issue, I decided to follow his advice, and until today, those emails have not been opened (I use MailCheck).
Kaura is almost an hour away (by Bolt) from where I lived, and to go there would cost 16,000 naira in to-and-fro fares, so I didn’t want to go to the MDCN office unless I absolutely had to. Through a friend, I was linked with a man who worked in the registration unit. I would call this man day after day, and he’d either tell me he was not at work or that he was still “checking.”
By late February, after two weeks of this man “still checking,” I became worried that my documents had never gotten to the office. I went through my ride history on the Bolt app and found the dispatch rider’s contact. Over the phone, the rider was very nice, and he told me that he had even signed a register in the correspondence office when he submitted my documents. When my patience grew thin, I was ready to storm the office. But then I called Mr B to lament because I suspected his two-month leave was over.
This man went from the correspondence office to the registrar’s office, down to the registration unit, tracking my documents, calling regularly to update me on the outcome of his enquiries. Mind you, he doesn’t even work in the registration unit, so this should not be his work.
Towards the end of the work day, we found out that the registration unit had dispatched a (physical) mail to my training hospital to cross-check a discrepancy on my documents. This mail had been sent since the last week of January and had yet to get a response. This was the 3rd week of February.
After two or three troubled days and nights of wondering what discrepancy was in my documents, he found out the details and told me it was a mistake the hospital had made. The University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital had made my internal medicine and surgery rotations overlap in the documents. Instead of me completing Surgery on 29 January 2024, they wrote “29 February 2024”, which was not possible since I resumed internal medicine on 6 February 2024.
To fast track the resolution, I contacted a relevant admin staff at the teaching hospital, but over the course of about five days and with the grease of a little bribe, this man still could barely understand my problem. MDCN themselves were not faultless because they had sent the letter to the Chief Medical Director's (CMD) office instead of the Chairman Medical Advisory Committee’s (CMAC) office and unlike what I learnt was their due process, had not sent an accompanying email.
Thankfully, Mr B knew the CMAC’s secretary and was able to get the mail rerouted to the correct office without waiting for the CMD to minute it. Once MDCN got the updated document, he ensured my application was accepted the same day. For about a week, Mr B would reach out to me, say, “I don’t want you to be anxious, that’s why I’m calling,” and share progress reports. An angel was trapped in Hell.
Now, let us face the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), the trigger for this essay, both at the time of the initial draft and at this point, when I have decided to polish and publish it.
My misery began in early January 2025 when I couldn’t register for NYSC because my name didn’t appear on the senate list. It was during this period that I learnt we had to fill out a form at our university for mobilization. Because we move from university to internship instead of NYSC, these details are not really explained to medical graduates. What we all understand from school is how to get ready for house job.
The process of getting from internship to camp remained nebulous in my mind, and that is how I found myself in this position. Another reason why I didn’t know much about the NYSC process is that, unlike my mates who had begun house job in June/July of 2023, I had taken a four-month “sabbatical” because in my last four years there, medical school had driven me to the point of near constant suicidal ideation. So by the time my mates had finished their mandatory 12 months of house job and were figuring out/sharing information about the NYSC process, I was in the throes of internship.
How silly of me to assume that because I had filled hundreds of forms while I was in the University of Calabar, in the eight and a half years I spent with them, they would already have my details and send it to NYSC at once. How silly of me to expect the process not to be tedios and duplicative. So I took full responsibility for the delay and contacted a friend in Calabar to help me fill the mobilization form and from this point, let’s fast-forward to 1pm on the of 8th April 2025 when registration for Batch A had begun.
I had been at an NYSC registration center in Ajah, Lagos, Nigeria for over five hours, waiting for a confirmation link to be mailed to me after I created an NYSC account. It was during this wait that I drafted 80% of this two-part series.
Quick question.
Why is all this okay?
Why is it so easy for millions of people to sit and watch simple processes like sending a confirmation link to an email not happen in a matter of seconds?
During the last batch’s registration in January, the site was down for almost the whole time, and many people could not commence or complete their registration. Now, they have delayed futures by almost two months by moving the majority of people from Batch A stream 2 to Batch B.
Why are we so scared and too docile to heal the rot of our institutions? Why are Nigerians considered generally confrontational, loud, and aggressive, yet concurrently doormats? And the most annoying part about our deference to these corrupt and incompetent institutions is that they are not even rewarding. After all these years, hoops, delays and insults, we come out still unable to secure gainful employment. We have nothing to show for our suffering, and we spend our days wrapped in anger and frustration. Feelings we never direct above, only below, because punching down is what our culture upholds.
Positive change will never come from those who benefit from this corrupt system. It must be grassroots because social justice, infrastructural, and human development are in the interest of the masses, not the ruling class. Even these civil service and paramilitary staff are part of the oppressed class but they are so brainwashed that they identify with the oppressors while their salaries remain the same as inflation soars and they retire from decades of service only to grovel for pensions that someone stole to build a block of empty mansions in Knightsbridge, Banana Island, Ikoyi, and Asokoro.
Meanwhile, as I write this, calling out six government parastatals, I wonder if they will revoke my practicing license. I wonder if they will refuse to allow me register when it’s finally my turn to enter camp. Will they try to make my life miserable in some way because I expressed my dissatisfaction and demanded more? Well, Ishoyor did remind me that our “leaders” don’t read. So I am safe. I guess...
That is Nigeria for you.
Happy Democracy Day!
Author’s Notes:
I said I would release this last Sunday but then I had NOCTURNA to execute and decided to focus on that instead. My next Substack will come on the 22nd of this month (June 2025) sharing the process behind planning and hosting the first EDM rave in Calabar.
I am planning to take on another, more visual, creative project that I know my audience will enjoy so stay tuned.
Super grateful to Ufana Ishoyor who has not only allowed me to share some of his unreleased work but has been of immense help in my general creative life. He is a fantastic writer himself even though he focuses on photography. You should check out this post on his blog.
If you made it to this point, you are a real one. Do leave a like to please the algorithm and a comment to please me. Share this with someone else.
Till next time.
I hope you get some relief after writing this, may God help us.
I was marinated in your story. Interesting read.