By Henry Akubuiro
The Tailor, Albert Ekop, Whitedove Publicity, Ikoyi, Lagos; 2023, pp.248
The heroics of medical doctors in the theatre are kept under the wraps. The ethics of the profession and doctor’s private lifestyles often prevent them from popping the champagne in public for every remarkable feat. But, for how long can humanity muffle the decibels of the drum? Not forever! The Tailor, a memoir written by a surgeon, Dr. Albert Ekop, is skin to celebrating the uncelebrated. It is an eye-opening book that takes us to the theatre and the sacrifice made by doctors to wrestle lives from the jaws of death.
Dr Albert Ekop, as a surgeon at St. Luke’s Hospital, Uyo, during the Nigeria Civil War, made all to marvel “at the dexterity and prowess with which he manipulated the surgical process/to stitch war-torn bodies and/ casualties from the civil war,” as depicted in the introit (p.iii), where we learn that, no matter how badly fractured the human body was and no matter how impaired and disfigured it was, he would fix it, like a tailor, during the Nigerian Civil War. Perhaps the greatest challenge faced by Dr. Albert Ekop was early in his career during the civil war.
Ekop’s story, woven in this memoir, The Tailor, echoes a life of grace and impact. The book regales the reader with the early childhood and school years of the doctor, born in 1935. He grew up in a polygamous family, and his father was a strict disciplinarian. He started school at St. Michael’s Central School, Obong Ntak, run by African Church, and now known as Government Primary School, Obong-Ntak. Ekop transferred to St. Patrick Practising School, Urua Inyang, Ika, for Standard 5 and Standard 6. The author describes his father, Chief Charles Obudu Ekop, as a trader, a farmer and a visionary leader full of wisdom, who travelled to places like Onitsha, Aba or Port Harcourt for business. Ekop’s mother was a second wife in a polygamous family and a strict woman.
Ekop wasn’t just a “tailor” of wounds in later life. He was meant to be a professional tailor as a young man, after his Standard 6, according to his father’s wish. But his elder brother, Francis, kicked against it. His father was only concerned about how much it would cost to train him in secondary school, and saw tailoring as a cheaper option. Francis convinced him to sit for a late entrance to secondary school, which he passed. Without that intervention, he would have ended up with a tape and a sewing machine.
The book chronicles Ekop’s secondary education at Holy Family College, Oku Abak, from where he headed for Saint Patrick’s College, Calabar, for higher school, where the students were bamboozled by their lecturers with highfalutin words. Two years later, he sat for the Overseas Higher School Certificate Examination. He gained admission to the University College, Ibadan, where he observes that “the university was an interesting place” and, unlike the secondary schools, there were no bells for rising, prep or lights out. For him, it was freedom, indeed. One thing Ekop’s transition tells us is that an intelligent student will always find a nestling ground in the best centres of excellence.
In the seventh chapter of the book, the author dwells on how he made a choice to study medicine at the University College, Ibadan, where they were treated like kings and queens. But, when exposed to a cadaver as a first year medical student, Ekop wasn’t comfortable with dissecting dead bodies, which made him, at the end of his first year, to contemplate the idea of making a switch to zoology. But reason prevailed eventually, and he stayed back and graduated with MB BS (London) in 1963, and received a handshake by the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Belewa. As one of the top 10 students, he was retained at University College Hospital, Ibadan, for his housemanship.
Reading The Tailor is like a lollipop in your mouth – you feel its taste would last forever. With the drums of the civil war beating, Ekop left Ibadan in 1967 for his home in the defunct Eastern Region. He recalls sadly: “The University College… didn’t have anybody left in Ibadan, who came from the order side of the river (River Niger). Everybody had run away because of the killings of non-natives. I was so frightened about what might happen; so I joined the movement” (p.86). Ekop chronicles harrowing experiences practicing medicine during the war. He walked at a hospital in Mbano in present-day Imo State before moving closer home after being profiled to serve as a doctor with 3rd Marine Commando Division of the Nigerian Army in 1968. He was overworked at St. Luke Hospital, Uyo, which was close to the theatre of war. Sometimes, over a hundred patients were brought for treatment. He also had a close shave with death.
After the war in 1970, he returned to UCH, Ibadan, where he stayed for nine months before travelling to the UK to study at the Royal College of Surgeons to study basic medical sciences in Nuffield College, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, and completed it in two years. The latter part of the book details getting married in November, 1969, close to the end of the civil war, to marrying his heartthrob, Martina, and raising a family. Ekop also narrates his appointment as a consultant surgeon in 1974 at the St. Margaret Hospital, Calabar.
The author also held the position of Permanent Secretary with the Akwa Ibom State Government, a Visiting Chief Consultant Surgeon at St. Mary’s Hospital, Urua Akpan, and a Consultant Consultant with the state government at Immanuel Hospital, Eket, while working as a private practitioner. The humane side of the doctor is writ large in this inspiring book. “I recognise that He gave me His immeasurable gift to serve humanity on this planet,” writes the author on page 215. This book is full of life’s lessons to anybody floundering in the long voyage of life.