Yinka Craig: Hope for a friend
Folu Ogundimu
Dear All:
Please read this fascinating, touching column by Tunde Fabenle for our good friend and famed veteran broadcaster, Yinka Craig. I once had the privilege of working with Yinka. I know of no finer gentleman. Thank you for your support.
Folu
Yinka
Craig: Hope for a friend
This, for me, is not an easy column to write and one I have struggled to keep
myself from writing for about a year now. Yes, a whole year, even longer, is
how long my friend, that Nigerian ace broadcaster and personable humorist, Yinka
Craig, has been battling to stay alive – fighting not to give the dreaded
C the last laugh over his self.
I’ve kept off writing about Yinka’s affliction and his struggle
partly because he may frown at making public his private fight, and partly
because I kept hoping that the frustrating on-and-off manner of the illness
would have been overcome for good by now. It has not been so and Yinka’s
need for help appears even more desperate now than ever!
Yinka Craig has spent the better part of his 60 years of life in radio and
television broadcasting, running oft-innovative programmes – from sports
to weekend newsline, to morning magazine programmes – and warming our
hearts with his inimitable style of presentation, genteel humour and a
characteristic toothy smile. His 40 years in broadcasting, from the days of the
old WNBS, is almost as old as the history of broadcasting in independent Nigeria , and
certainly synonymous with it.
I am not familiar with the equivalent of Yinka Craig in American television,
but in England
you would be thinking of a cross between that grand old embodiment of British
humour and conviviality, Bruce Forsythe, and Michael Parkinson! They
don’t make them like these any more.
Respected and invited by leaders of government, industry, monarchs, and topmost
foreign diplomats to their private and official functions, many simply proud to
flaunt their association with him.
Not for nothing. Yinka is a man of many parts, multi-talented, quick-witted,
and incredibly knowledgeable about most things, from astronomy and
space-technology to computer science, from sports to politics, from
entertainment to oil exploration! A master of rib-cracking anecdotes, Yinka
Craig is an entertainer extraordinaire and instrumentalist, at ease playing the
guitar as he is on the piano or the sax. He is also an addict of the game of
intellect; he could spend all day behind his desk navigating the seas or the
sky on his high-tech simulation toy, or routinely demolishing books and books
of hard cryptic crossword or logic-challenging sudoku!
It was one morning, some 18 or so months ago, when I got a call from Kenny
(Yinka’s wife, Dr. Kehinde Craig) informing me that Yinka was in an
hospital bed, a top private hospital on Victoria Island, Lagos . He had been there for almost a month,
but I was not in the country and my calls to him had eerily not been answered
or returned.
I rushed to the clinic and found my friend, hitherto of irrepressible
enthusiasm and cheer, in a limp and emaciated form. He struggled to put up a
smile for me, a smile of “see what I’m reduced to”. I
couldn’t believe my eyes. What ails you, Yinka? My mind raced through all
sorts of possibilities and I kept shooting them at him and his wife. Nope,
nope, nope, came the answer to my impatient flurry of questions.
Cancer! Lymphoma!! Late diagnosed, as the doctors and everyone had been testing
for everything I’d touched upon, leaving the real thing. I was shown
digital pictures of the various stages the damn thing had manifested itself on
Yinka over the many weeks he’d been unwell. Terrible pictures, of
paleness and disfigurement. So, actually, what I was seeing was a back-to-life
Yinka, I was told.
Lymphoma? What’s that? I quickly went on the Internet to find out more
about it. What I read, mostly from “lymphoma-net.org” website, gave
me some hope as I discovered that there is a good chance of survival for many
years, if treated promptly and adequately.
It describes lymphoma as “cancers of the lymphatic system” and the
lymphatic system as a network of tubes, glands and organs that is part of the
body's defense against infection – the immune system.
There are different types of lymphoma. Some lymphomas are called Hodgkin
lymphoma (HL), formerly known as “Hodgkin’s disease”, while
others are Non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHL). Non-Hodgkin lymphomas are more
problematic and that’s what Yinka is diagnosed as having. It is more
common in those aged over 60, although it can occur at any age. It affects
slightly more men than women.
“As in many cancers, lymphoma is most likely to be cured if it is
diagnosed early and treated promptly.” That, precisely, is the trouble.
Yinka’s lymphoma was diagnosed late, no thanks to the poor state of our
medical facilities that meant the specimen for everything being tested for had
to be flown outside Nigeria
, this time to South Africa
! What a shame.
Cut a long story short, Yinka had to be flown out to the UK a few days
after I saw him. And that is the beginning of the story. Millions of naira has
gone down to give him some of the best treatment possible in the UK . Yinka has
been back twice to Nigeria
, each time as it appears the demon had been wrested, or resources had run out,
or both, only for the damn thing to rear its ugly head again! It’s called
“remission” and “recurrence”, a syndrome apparently of
common occurrence in Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
Four days ago, the day after I arrived Nigeria again this time, Kenny
called intimating me of developments. An aggressive relapse had occurred and
Yinka had been back to the private hospital in Victoria Island (V.I) where he
started a year and a half ago. That was two weeks ago. “We have to leave
for Abuja
now,” Kenny said in a low, sad, tone. “The doctors here believe he
needs to be taken to a hospital with an Intensive Care unit. So we’re going
to try the National Hospital , Abuja
. If you have to see him before we leave then you’d better come
now.”
I hurried down to V.I where I found my friend looking awful. He couldn’t
even manage that self-deprecating smile anymore. I think he was getting tired
and pissed off with the whole thing. The battle is getting too long drawn and
the fighter is weary. He rolled over on one side, to look into my eyes.
I tried to avoid his weak eyes and gave him our traditional call, “baba
mi.” I heard him mutter the response, “we(y) ti mo baba re,”
and rolled back away. The rest of it he left unsaid, “o to goloto goloto
bi ye e, we(y) mo baba re!” Well, it’s good enough he responded at
all anyway.
I’m now told Yinka urgently needs to go back abroad, this time preferably
to the States where he would have to undergo a transplant treatment. The
process may take up to two months hospitalization and the overall cost would
come to about $300,000 (US dollars). I did a quick calculation, that’s
about N38 million. Not bad, I thought, then I remembered the kind of country we
live in and held back my optimism.
The Craigs have expended virtually all their resources on the illness so far.
Yinka’s pride wouldn’t let him make his situation public. He knows
all the big men in the country, and I mean that literally, and most of them on
first name basis and with their private numbers. And they all know him. Very
few have come to his aid so far. The real big ones for whom this sort of money
he’s looking for means nothing have been all promises and promises. And
Yinka would not call them again. I understand. It’s not ego, but decency.
Why would he have to go begging and crawling to people who would before not
have a party without including him on their guest list, now need for him to demean
himself before they would keep their promise to help?
What’s even a million dollars to save a man like Yinka Craig, a national
asset if there was one, and daily we hear of billions of naira, nay, dollars,
being cornered here, there, and everywhere? It’s a national call, Nigeria must
not let Yinka die without giving him the best chance to survive.
While at it, I must mention one particular giver who surprised us all at the
very first time Yinka had to go abroad. The surprise was that this was someone
who did not count amongst Yinka’s personal friends but merely know him
from the distance just as most Nigerians do. Somehow it got to his ears that
Yinka needed to go abroad for treatment and he called him and asked for him to
send someone down in the morning. Yinka did and was N5 million up. To be
honest, we were expecting no more than N500,000. Thanks, Dr. Erastus Akingbola,
CEO of Intercontinental Bank Plc. Of course, there have been a few others
chipping in little sums here and there that helped to get him so far.
A little on the transplant treatment, again, I went on the Internet to find
out:
“Transplantation may be used in patients whose non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has
relapsed as an aggressive form of the disease or in patients with aggressive
non-Hodgkin's lymphoma that does not respond to ordinary chemotherapy. The
transplant can be from another person or, more often, from the patient
themselves, with the cells needed for the transplant collected before the
high-dose chemotherapy.”
The irrepressible TV presenter and producer in Yinka is undaunted by it all. He
tells me he will survive this, no matter what. Indeed, his mind is already
working on another baby, a new TV program that he says will break the box. This
poor turn of his health is a mere “irritant” that will go away, he
says. He can’t wait to get started again.
Yinka needs to go for the transplant in the States immediately. Those with a
large heart may call Yinka’s wife, Dr. Kehinde Craig on 08030780129 or
08058466857. You may also email: yinka...@gmail.com.
Yinka may not be President Yar’Adua who can be flown to Germany for
regular medical attention, but he has lived his life bringing us exciting
television programmes and giving us all hearty laugh. Some silly lymphoma is
threatening to rid us of that laugh. Nigeria and Nigerians must deny it
that pleasure.
Yinka Craig: Hope for a friend - Copied from Tunde Fabenle's column on today's
Sunday Tribune (Nigerian Newspaper)
Folu F. Ogundimu, Ph.D.
Michigan State University
Ayoola Tokunbo
What a pathetic story this is.
Is it possible for you to coordinate collections here in USA, so that those of us who want to send something could do that through you.It is not phone calls now, but money.
Tokunbo Ayoola
From: ogun...@msu.edu
To: USAAfric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Yinka Craig: Hope for a friend
Date: Wed, 30 Apr 2008 12:12:15 -0400
Folu Ogundimu
Thanks for your prompt response, Tokunbo. I will call Yinka’s wife in Nigeria, to see what arrangements the family would like to make in that regard. I agree that it should be possible to set a US Fund Account available to the family for this purpose.
Thank you
Folu
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