Once Upon a Life

Once Upon a Life, Book 2

Copyright © 2018 by Frank Fashina

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN: 978-1-54395-413-5 (Softcover)

ISBN: 978-1-54395-414-2 (eBook)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Homecoming

Chapter 2

Kaduna

Chapter 3

Minna

Chapter 4

Cleveland

Chapter 5

Minna Again

Chapter 6

Abuja

Chapter 7

Demolition

Chapter 8

Begin Again

Chapter 9

Home Alone

Chapter 10

New Dawn

Chapter 11

Tales Of Woe

Chapter 12

The Golden Fleece

Chapter 1

Homecoming

Two hours after departure from JFK, I woke up from my snooze, rubbed my eyes and paid some attention to my environment. The cabin crew was serving dinner. I pulled down the tray table in front of me and waited for my turn.

As I ate my chicken meal, I realized it was my first meal as a free man and I figured that the meal was good enough to celebrate, at least for now.

I was full of fortitude and was anxious to reconstruct my new future, as much of it as was in my control. I had played the tape over and over in my mind and knew the road map with my eyes closed.

We landed on time and I was the last to disembark, being a special category passenger. There was an airport official waiting for me at the gate. He offered a handshake and welcomed me politely.

He read through the paper handed over to him by the cabin crew, grinned and tried to explain to me the routine. I had no doubt that he had done this over and over before now and then he said, Well, doctor. Normally I should take you into detention until we finish our paper work, but I can’t do that to you sir, so I will take you to our office in this airport until the morning when we can do the processing.

I smiled back at him and said thank you.

We walked together towards an upper floor. He looked like any other gentleman in his gray safari suit, but I guessed he was either a policeman or an immigration officer.

I allowed him to ask all the questions and responded with exact answers only, mainly because I was still jet-lagging.

In a few minutes, we arrived at his office, a tiny 8 feet by 10 feet that appeared to be more like a store room than an office, obviously carved from necessity, but I reminded myself that I was back to Nigeria, my third-world home.

As I yawned quietly, I looked around the office and noticed a bunch of old newspapers littering a totally worn out wooden table with a matching aged chair. It was stuffy and there was no ventilation of any kind, natural or artificial.

Now, here is a prisoner in his own office, I thought.

Please doc, let me get you a chair, he announced without embarrassment and he quickly stepped out of his office. I thanked him for the chair as he returned with another aged wooden chair with broken back rest and we both sat down while he began some paperwork.

I knew he was bending the law for me by allowing me to spend the night in his office and I told him I appreciated the courtesy.

Just out of curiosity sir, he asked suddenly, what happened?

I told him the short and dry version; that I was seeking a greener pasture but had immigration issues, hence chose to be excluded instead of being deported.

Smart! That way they wouldn’t hold it against you.

That’s the idea but you can’t take anything for granted, can you?

That made sense to him and he agreed instantly.

I imagined he was tired but figured that the papers handed him were devoid of details. To confirm my instinct, I decided to pick his brain about exactly what his papers stated and began, How’s your health, officer?

That was a good opening line when your captor knew you as a doctor.

He smiled and said he recently had malaria. Then he began to ask medical questions concerning his recently diagnosed hypertension, all of which I answered with some details.

He explained that he would be taking me to the Criminal Investigation Department office in Obalende area in Lagos, which I knew was located at the famous Alagbon Close, the Police headquarters for big league criminals. But I didn’t panic because I wasn’t a criminal. With heavy eyes, he told me what to expect.

I listened to him and wasn’t surprised when he began to yawn. He explained that we would have to sleep in his office on our chairs and in a short while he leaned his head against the table and began snoring almost immediately.

It was around 6 a.m. when we were both woken up by the day shift officer. He introduced himself as John and explained again that we had to go to the Criminal Investigation Department. His colleague told him to be nice to me and we exchanged addresses and said goodbye.

We traveled in public transportation through the rush hour Lagos traffic and I wondered about the big difference that existed between being in Police custody in Nigeria and in America.

John was as helpful as he had promised, making good effort to fast-track me in the crowd waiting in the large, chaotic hall.

From the vantage corner where I sat, I watched different officers do their routine in what seemed to be a very busy office. I watched as suspects were bundled in and out from various corners of the large building. I watched as confiscated goods and contrabands were moved in. I watched anxious faces of the suspects as they were led by plainclothes officers into an interrogation room at the end of a corridor, only to return with a totally disfigured face; battered and bloody, in agony. It had to be a torture room and whoever the interrogator was must be a professional, I imagined.

I heard noises and whispers from various corners as I moved down the hallway with my processing officer. I listened to desperate arguments, cries and pleas for mercy by various suspects, some of whom were described as career criminals by the officers. The scene reminded me of movies where culprits were forced to confess, except this was no movie.

By 10:45 a.m. I had completed the documentation process and was a free man. I walked out of the jungle, flagged the first cab that passed the terminal end of the street and headed to number 21, Akanbi Street, Onitiri, in Yaba area of Lagos Mainland where mom lived, confident of succor.

Chapter 2

Kaduna

Twenty-four hours after my arrival, I was still bubbling with vigor like popped champagne. I was at the bus station buying a ticket to Kaduna. I knew no one in the Northern city but it was not my first time of exploring an unknown terrain. I took along enough money because I knew I would have to spend a few days on the field searching for a job. Everything depended on it.

By the time the packed bus arrived the station in Kaduna, the rough ride had begun to fade in my mind and I checked into a cheap, but half-way decent hotel.

I was well-rested on the following morning and so began my search for the first private hospital that I could find, making enquiries about location of the big private hospitals in town.

I had decided it had to be a private hospital; I knew what I wanted I wouldn’t find in a government hospital. I reminisced about what I knew about various doctors working for the government over the years. While it guaranteed a stable and secure job, the salary was never good enough. I wanted not only to be able to work, but to enjoy my work and make a decent living; enough money to take care of my family and enough money to justify all the years and hardship of acquiring the knowledge and skills. I knew I could start from there and that it was a sure pathway to success. I needed fulfillment in my job and the ability to control my growth. I needed freedom in my free time. It was only reasonable that a man should know exactly what he wanted from life by the age of thirty-three and pretty much how to get it.

I hired a taxi to the various destinations and by the evening of my first day, I had a job lined up.

The Barewa Hospital was owned by a general practitioner named Dr. Usman, and he saw a big opportunity in hiring a specialist obstetrician/gynecologist to augment his practice, so he could compete favorably with the top ten hospitals in the city. Any private hospital without a general surgeon or an obstetrician/gynecologist was considered rudimentary. There were other offers too but for the moment I decided to settle for Barewa because of the attractive conditions of service.

Dr. Usman was anxious for me to resume immediately, perhaps because he saw me as highly employable and therefore likely to be wooed by other private hospitals. However, I asked him to give me a week to prepare to relocate from Lagos.

I returned to my hotel with a smile, ate a special dinner of pounded yam and egusi soup and had a cold Heineken beer to wash it down.

I called Jeanne before going to bed and told her the good news, I’ve got a job! I got a job! I said with excitement.

Of course, you would get a job; we knew that. That was never a problem. You are very smart and are a rare breed, Frank.

No, I’m not, my darling, I protested. You always give me more credit than I deserve.

Don’t kid yourself, Frank, I know you very well. Her tone was serious, and I wasn’t sure if I detected a note of admonition in her voice. Now go get ’em, Lion, she added in a sweet and encouraging voice.

I laughed, blew her a kiss then hung up, satisfied that the mission of the trip had been accomplished.

On the following morning, I took a trip around the town, trying to get a feel of my new city. I familiarized myself with the downtown, the market, residential areas, parks, gardens and everywhere worth knowing. It was an exciting excursion indeed.

Kaduna was busy and growing. Its popularity in the northern part of Nigeria at that time was only surpassed by Kano. The population was cosmopolitan, with a fair proportion of expatriates who worked for the oil and construction companies. The most important university in the northern part of Nigeria was located there: the Ahmadu Bello University, and its Teaching Hospital ranked number one in the North. The Military Academy was also located there as well as an important Air Force base. The introduction of the railway system into the country by the British colonialists in the pre-independence era had caused a lot of people from the southern part to migrate and remain in the city as the city became commercialized. It was no doubt a bubbling city.

On my third day in Kaduna, I checked out the schools. The schools were good but expensive and expectedly, the good schools were the private schools. I made enquiries about admissions and I narrowed my search to private schools in the low-density areas. The Essence International School came highly recommended but was too expensive and out of my league. I felt sad that despite my status, my salary could not put my children in the best school that I could find, and I recognized instantly the major challenge that I would need to overcome in the short time before resumption of schools in September.

At the break of dawn on the following day I checked out of the hotel and headed for the bus station to return to Lagos. I had come to Kaduna, seen it but needed to conquer it for the family before I could consider the move as successful, at least until we all could return to the States.

I called Jeanne the moment I arrived in Lagos to update her. Naturally, she was mostly interested in the schools and I gave her a run down.

I wasted no time in completing my preparation, including purchasing a used Honda Quintet, and with all my possession in its trunk, I drove to Iddo train station to cargo all to Kaduna ahead of me.

I resumed work at Barewa Hospital, Kaduna in mid-August and was accommodated in a one-star hotel within a five-minute drive, since my contract required additional perks to my monthly wages. It was a temporary arrangement till they could find a decent, furnished three-bedroom apartment for me, but while in the hotel I was entitled to three square meals a day plus telephone privileges.

My hours were eight hours a day, five days a week, plus call duty and the pay was equivalent to below five hundred dollars a month; not fantastic but far above the government wages for a similar position.

A medical practitioner in Nigeria at that time had two major options: to work for the government (State or Federal), or to work for a private hospital. I had considered extensively the pros and cons vis-à-vis my goals, and my conclusions were very well informed.

My goals were set and realizable, the cost being very hard work and sacrifice for the future. Not only did I need to earn a living making the highest possible salary as an employee within the private sector, but also to prepare for my final examination of the West African Postgraduate Medical College, Faculty of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and become a Fellow of the college, a status that would make me eligible for the position of a Consultant in the field.

As I sat in my new office in Barewa awaiting the arrival of my Medical Director and proprietor, I thought about the challenges ahead and realized that my first year in Kaduna required in addition that I continued the fight for my green card as soon as my documents were forwarded to the American Embassy in Lagos, by which time I was sure Jeanne and the kids would be back.

My thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock at my door.

It was my boss, Dr. Usman, who came in, dressed in a white Khaftan as though he were going for some traditional occasion.

I greeted him respectfully and asked if I could be orientated.

Sure, he replied with enthusiasm. That’s why I came in early today.

Do you call 9 a.m. early? I almost said but decided to shut my big mouth while discretion prevailed.

He looked elegant in his outfit, with his sideboards and glistening black mustache. He was tall, dark and heavy-set and was in his early forties. His midsection and beefy face suggested he was well to do, and though a general medical practitioner, it seemed he had made a reasonable success out of this as he owned the building and the equipment in it.

I grabbed my doctor’s coat and jumped out of my chair to join him for my orientation of the hospital and staff, ready for my first day.

The hospital was a two-story building located in a high-density neighborhood of the city center and had fifteen beds for admissions, along with the operating theater, laboratory, dispensary and waiting hall. It operated on a retainer system which involved giving care to a group of companies contracted to send their staff to the facility whenever there was need, while the bills were forwarded to the respective offices at the end of the month. However, private patients paid cash for treatment. It was a system that worked out well because the government hospitals were not efficient and because most people realized that the preponderance of patients at the public hospitals rendered the overworked doctors inefficient, along with a very long waiting period.

I met the entire staff, including three other doctors that worked for him full time and I was quite impressed by his tidy set up.

I returned to my consulting room and waited for my specialty cases to roll in.

They did. The patients liked me, and I liked them too.

Things should work out, I concluded at the end of the day, with a big smile of satisfaction.

I stayed on track and everything was on course. My employer continued to work hard towards securing an accommodation for me and I talked to Jeanne and the kids almost every night despite the expensive overseas calls, only because the hospital paid for everything while I was at the hotel, but I looked forward to the following month when my family would be joining me.

The first week at work passed so fast and I enjoyed the various challenges that I encountered, learning the ropes in private practice and giving good service. The word began to spread that Barewa Hospital had a specialist in Obstetrics and Gynecology and the patient flow began to build up. I was getting busier by the day and each time I ran into my boss, he offered me a proud and generous smile of acknowledgement or encouragement.

On the first Sunday in Kaduna, I had attended the 9 a.m. mass at the Pro-Cathedral Catholic church on Independence Avenue but was surprised to see that the big church was fully crowded already. It appeared that there were more people standing.

During the communion, as I returned from the altar, head bowed in reverence, I noticed from the corner of my left eye someone too familiar to be mistaken, standing at the back in the crowd. It was Polite.

Polite Onwuhafua was my closest and favorite friend whom I had first met in Jos during my National Youth Service Corp in 1983. He was undergoing a residency program in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Jos University Teaching Hospital, having completed his medical education in Romania. He had provided enormous information for me concerning my enquiries about residency program and had offered good advice about options available in getting a training position for the highly contested few vacancies. I had acted on his good counsel and begun studying for my primary examination and it had paid off.

At that time, he was already two years into his residency and was indeed a registrar. He was a bright guy, very hard working and his Romanian wife, Aurora, was also a doctor, specializing in Anesthesiology. They had met in Romania during his medical school years, gotten married and returned to Nigeria together. They had two kids. By the time I was leaving Maiduguri for Cleveland to face sentencing, Polite was preparing to transfer from Jos to the Teaching Hospital in Kano. He had stayed in Kano for a while but had left for the Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital in Kaduna as soon as he became a senior registrar.

I managed to contain my excitement until after mass when I approached him.

We played catch up and celebrated our reunion with great enthusiasm. I told him that I was back from the United States to defend my book and sit for the part two final examination so that I could become a consultant.

We talked the whole day and most of the night. His family was also back to Kaduna with him and he was enjoying his program while preparing for the final examination as well.

Within three weeks that I returned to Kaduna, Jeanne and the kids joined me. I had done the preliminary work and it was easy for them to key in, notwithstanding the challenges of another beginning.

The plan was for Jeanne to be a full-time housewife, looking after the home and the kids, and I was to face my job as a private doctor at Barewa hospital and prepare for my part two examination. However, it turned out that we stayed together for another three weeks at the hotel before the management at Barewa Hospital found a suitable accommodation for us at Kawo, ten minutes’ drive to the hospital.

The kids settled down uneventfully and enjoyed their school. Jourdan was making friends in her nursery class and Frank was doing well in his first grade.

Jeanne had no problem having lived in Nigeria in the past. Her experience with the culture of the people of Northern Nigeria paid off. To a reasonable extent, she had learned to speak, understand and write the Hausa language generally spoken in Northern Nigeria while we were in Jos, having taken a language course with the American missionaries at the Evangel Hospital.

I had decided that nothing would hold me back from putting the kids through the best available school system and ended up sending them to Essence International School. But on a salary of eight hundred naira per month, there was hardly enough money left for a balanced diet.

I suddenly realized we were poor and were merely struggling. It was blatantly obvious, and I was very ashamed of my status. So, we began to dig into our accumulated savings from over the years, believing it was a temporary measure till we could return to the green pastures of the United States as a family, or rather, till my green card came through.

By simple arithmetic computations, I realized that our reserve would be depleted in no longer than six months unless something big was to break. But nothing was breaking, and so I dropped applications at the bigger private hospitals with the hope that I could get a better pay package.

One bright Monday afternoon, I had a visitor at the Barewa Hospital. She had waited for almost an hour to see me because she had told the receptionist that she preferred that I completed my consultation with the patients.

As soon as I was done, she was ushered into my office.

She was a tall, fair lady with a pleasant smile and looked very responsible in her black skirt and white blouse.

I rose from my seat to welcome her with a smile, asking in a soft polite tone how I could be of assistance to her.

She wasted no time in telling me the motive of her visit, introducing herself as Mrs. Alabi and that she was interested in recruiting me to work in her husband’s hospital.

I was surprised that she could offer me a job on the spot, but she assured me that she was representing her husband’s interest. He had reviewed my curriculum vitae and was very much interested in my application submitted one week earlier.

She explained to me that her husband, although a doctor, was heavily involved in politics and was at that time the Commissioner for Health in Ogun State. Her husband visited Kaduna every weekend to see his family and would like to talk with me at his next visit.

Opportunity, welcome to my doorstep, I said to myself.

I asked Mrs. Alabi what the terms were, and she told me without hesitation. My salary was going to be a whole two hundred naira higher than my current salary and that seemed good enough for me. There were also benefits that included a three-bedroom flat at the best residential neighborhood in Kaduna, a paid annual leave and medical coverage for me and my family.

I took the job on the spot and asked her for a month to serve my notice of resignation.

It was unbelievable, but I kept my excitement until she departed.

I turned the lock to my door and shouted alleluia seven times, as my mom would whenever she was overwhelmed by something good, and I couldn’t wait to get home to break the news to Jeanne.

I did just that when I returned home and we both jumped up, singing Moving on up… To the skies… To a deluxe apartment… In the skies…We finally got a piece of the pie… Just like the Jefferson’s on the popular ABC Television series.

On the following morning, I dropped my resignation notice at Barewa. I also picked up my employment letter at Alba Medical Center on 25, Constitutional Avenue in Kaduna.

I seized the opportunity to look it up, guided by the administrative officer. It was certainly a busier hospital: thirty beds, comprising of General Surgery, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics and Internal Medicine units, and miles ahead of Barewa Hospital.

There were consultants in all these units except in my field. They even had a consultant Ophthalmologist as well. I could see myself fitting into this system like a hand in a glove. I liked the atmosphere; quite academic. I liked the orderliness of the modus operandi, and I liked the fact that there was a full-time anesthetist on staff. I saw instantly the prospects of a great and fulfilling practice within the private sector and realized that the following one month of my resignation notice from Barewa was about to drag, mainly because of my excitement and anticipation to join Alba.

Dr. Usman would not accept my resignation without a good fight to keep me on his team, so he invited me to renegotiate my terms.

I knew, however, that beyond the better package of Alba, its academic atmosphere and stimulus was second to no other private hospital in Kaduna, and this was not negotiable.

By January of the year 1990 I moved to the apartment provided by Alba in the high-brow residential neighborhood and started work fully on a proud one thousand naira per month salary, the equivalent of about five hundred dollars.

The apartment was fantastic; three bedrooms, spacious, clean, nice fixtures, decent amenities, inclusive of a ground telephone line and furnished. There were three other specialists living within the apartment building and in another section of the large complex, the medical laboratory scientist and the pharmacist occupied a duplex bungalow that faced our two-story building, separated by a well-manicured lawn framed by a hedge of red Ixora. Parking space was abundant.

Medical practice at Alba Hospital was everything I had expected: busy, exciting, challenging, and always fun. I made friends easily with the doctors and other staff and took special interest in the pediatrician, who like me, was a senior registrar and was preparing for his final examinations in the Faculty of Pediatrics of the Nigerian Postgraduate Medical College. He had completed his preliminary training at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital in Zaria, an adjacent town to Kaduna. His name was Emmanuel Quaitey.

We had case presentations and grand ward rounds on every Saturday that lasted four hours. Every doctor got a chance to shine if he studied his cases and prepared well to defend his management because it was gruesome. Questions were fired at the presenter to challenge his line of management by bright doctors that had done good research on the topic and were almost as knowledgeable as the presenter himself.

It was at one of such meetings that I met my new boss in person for the first time.

At forty-five years of age, he was clearly a very successful private medical practitioner, because of his outstanding business acumen, entrepreneurial and political interests. He was also greatly interested in academics and had managed to participate in a postgraduate diploma in Anesthesia even as a serving commissioner for health in Ibadan.

He was impressed by my performance at the grand round and, with an ear to the ground, it was not surprising that he had already heard that I loved my job and worked far and beyond my normal working hours. Somehow, even though he only came to Kaduna to see his family and check on the hospital every weekend, he seemed to be well abreast of events and his large workforce.

Frankie, he said with a wide smile in deep baritone that matched his height and weight which I considered enormous. Ride with me in the elevator. I want to talk to you in my office.

Yes sir, I replied softly.

We were both silent as we descended from the second floor to the ground floor where his office was situated.

He opened his door and let me in to his massive office that doubled up as consulting room for the VIP patients that he saw whenever around. Grab a seat, he said.

Thank you, Boss, I replied politely, wandering what the subject of discussion would be now that he had singled me out of a team of about a dozen doctors.

I sat down and crossed my legs patiently while he rearranged the papers on his table.

I’m happy to finally meet you, young man. My wife told me you are a good man after she met you, and she is a very good judge of character.

Thank you, sir.

He seemed to ignore my response and continued almost immediately. I’m impressed with your c.v. and with all the wonderful reports coming to me about you: your skills in surgery, your style of consultation, your commitment to duty, all the extra time you put to your work… I even hear you don’t observe the two hours of break and put in no less than ten hours daily. You must be a workaholic, young man. Now he paused for my response, looking straight into my eyes.

I wasn’t prepared for such compliments and mumbled, "Not really, sir. I just love my job. Besides there’s a lot of crowd to see in my field, and it requires some