By Batou Saidy
Greetings. If you’ve already made it here with me, you’re welcome.
This article is more of a revelation of some of the issues faced by Public Health Officers (PHOs) in the field, both at health facility and program levels, essentially the former; but particularly the ones that resonate around the PHOs themselves. So it’s exclusively a family affair.
To build momentum into this revelation, it’s important to define some terms that might sound or appear technical. Also, I’ll occasionally use euphemistic slangs and adjectives to avoid explicit vulgarity because it’s a family thing. I’ll also employ allegory, creating a few characters here and there to convey certain messages to avoid direct representations. Nevertheless, wherever necessary, I’ll maintain my literary autonomy as a columnist to lift the lid on certain issues that confront Mansa Kunda PHOs, keeping it in check, without necessarily making too fine a point.
So as far as this article is concerned, Mansa Kunda is a society of PHOs in The Gambia hired by the Gambia government, exclusively at health facility and program levels. Sam Hill is the next line of promotion for PHOs at any level.
Nyominding is a long-serving PHO who worked in the countryside for about a decade. She gained promotion to the Sam Hill where she worked for some time before being promoted to program level, a new level where she joined a staunch ‘terri kaffo’ mainly interested in corruption. But even before that, she was allegedly caught up in a massive scandal where she served as an acolyte to a falsely implemented national pseudo-something of the program she currently serves.
Jommaring is a highly praised ‘Toubab Kunda’ PHO who upheld honesty, worked with diligence, and promoted public health. After working for some time, her efforts were rewarded with a Program Officer position to continue her work at an upper level, a capacity she grossly abuses now, recruiting a syndicate that comprises local aides and proxies into economic criminal executions majorly in the countryside.
Sambujang is a bald young man who has a tattered relationship with the Sam Hill he works at because of how overly corrupt he is. He’s an excruciatingly ambitious man who sometimes flies alone, low and solo, often going out of his way to sideline his Sam Hill colleagues to siphon some stuff to himself during overflows of pending activities to be implemented. He’s famous for the wrong reason, even beyond Sam Hill and Mansa Kunda.
Sutayring is a Mansa Kunda demigod in ‘Toubab Kunda’ who fell from grace, now at least two tiers below his league. He’s an overly angry man who ‘takes care of’ anyone who dissents or accounts him. He befriends and rewards unquestionable compliance, blind loyalty, and sycophancy instead of performance, diligence, and merit. Ipso facto, he thrives on the subordinate ‘divide and rule’ Machiavellian tactic because anyone who dares him goes out of ‘Toubab Kunda’ at a canter. PHOs fear him, not because he’s that fearsome, but because he wins ‘defantehs’ with his subordinates.
Sadly and unfortunately, the victims of all these distinctively famous people and suchlike in Mansa Kunda are their fellow PHOs.
Now, what can we do about that? Will you, in your capacity, remain quiet because you fear falling out with them, or do you simply fear losing whatever small favors they accord you? Would you rather uphold the true and sincere values of our work, demand accountability and transparency, or do you merely care about protecting your sycophantic relationship with them? Do you fear them or are you just another “hardliner” PHO who is running away from the “insubordination” tag? Discover yourself.
At some point last year, Burama, a renowned PHO in the countryside, was involved in a frustrating drama with Jommaring during the implementation of a particular multidisciplinary intervention in rural Gambia. He held Jommaring and her team accountable for some of their entitlements shared by Jommaring and her team, calling for absolute transparency. Interestingly, that didn’t sit well with her, so she lobbied for assistance from her aide, Sambujang, who was somewhat moving under the radar during the first few days of the implementation after apportioning the entitlements to themselves. When things started to get out of hand, Sambujang resorted to threatening Burama to subdue under duress, which failed woefully because Burama made his stand clear that he was not batting an eyelid over threats, only welcoming discussions that would involve the entire Sam Hill. They didn’t buy that because that would make the rest of the Sam Hill aware of the apportioning betrayal they suffered therein. It was that serious.
Then, desperately, they resorted to involving Burama’s boss, Landing, to intercede for them so that things remained under the radar, not hitting the papers. Eventually, Burama, after being respectfully and thoughtfully engaged by Landing, decided to let it go. But what was even more interesting was that, thereafter, Jommaring, just because she’s a Program Officer, was making suggestions to Landing that Burama should not be part of any subsequent interventions her program implements in the countryside because she thinks that he’s a problem, like many other PHOs who make things difficult for them. So sarcastic. But Landing made it unequivocally clear to her that she cannot dictate which PHO he should select for any particular intervention as it mostly and normally involves a Public Health Office to decide who should attend one. Quite interesting. Innit? Burama wo baraka ding.
Paradoxically, men are the enemies of their fellow men. This is true for PHOs as well. How? Imagine Nyominding, a provincial PHO who served the better part of her career in the countryside, but upon gaining promotion to a program level barely few fortnights ago, suddenly started making assertions that PHOs should be excluded from the interventions her program and unit implement because their involvement would jeopardize their siphoning ploys; brazenly opting for a certain stakeholder instead, as if she’s running a family enterprise or a profit-making venture; intentionally forgetting that certain interventions target Mansa Kunda directly by default. Aliko.
If that’s not enough, imagine Jommaring, Sambujang, and Sutayring ‘partnering’ to apportion recruitment slots to themselves, their ‘terri kaffo’, their family members, their “other people of special interests” (haha) while not allocating the bare minimum to the PHOs who should lead such interventions. How do you reconcile that? Maybe you should try to digest the audacity of Jommaring and her proxies to recruit people from outside rural Gambia for implementations therein at the expense of those PHOs who left their comfort zones to live and work in rural Gambia. Bro, you cannot digest that because this is not ‘yomba’ or a ‘small thing’ (haha). Innit?
Now, let us try to come to terms. What is our problem in our Mansa Kunda? I’m as confused as I am concerned because you cannot be in a struggle with people, your colleagues, and suddenly and brazenly join the far-left front barely a fortnight after climbing Sam Hill, making these same people your victims. That is depravity and excruciating betrayal of Mansa Kunda’s values.
Dudes, we might not all have the platform or wherewithal to raise or address concerns that involve Mansa Kunda. Notwithstanding, I believe we can all do our quota towards having a better professional society. But we cannot achieve that through sycophancy, timidity, blind loyalty, and unchecked conformity. If we want a better Mansa Kunda that we can all be proud of, recommend to our kids, mentees, and loved ones, we must start to do things right. It is never too late. If we are ready, we can achieve it. Likewise, when Burama nods to becoming a Confidential Informant (CI) for The Republic, the leading investigative society in Jollof, many things would probably reconcile.
By and by, I believe that Mansa Kunda can uphold the Cabrini Principle of our job. But if bush fowls claim to be afraid in the bush, I don’t know how the home fowls would be.
