A dupe’s encounter with “Dr. Sidibe”!
Part one
By the time you reach the end of the first part of this story and were unable to define Dr. Sidibe the more likely that you would have suffered the same fate with the dupe. I traveled to Bamako for a one week meeting of the West African regional network (WARN) of roll back malaria for another push towards the heated fight to deal a massive blow to one of worlds most deadly diseases malaria. In focus is the 2010 targets agreed by heads of states in Africa for reaching universal access to malaria treatment and prevention services. Two days into the conference, a colleague in the Nigerian delegation and I met a very friendly and welcoming Malian doctor from the ministry of health of Mali wearing a tag as a rule for all participants at the meeting with the name “Dr. Sidibe”. Dr. Sidibe is the God-sent savior you would like to have if you are Nigerian or from and English speaking country attending this kinds of meetings. He was all you would want to get in this place – understands English (a big relief for non-french speaking participants as only 5 out of 16 ECOWAS countries that are also members of WARN are English speaking – so you are almost always wearing the ear piece as only way of following what is happening in the meeting hall through hardworking but not so effective translator, Dr. Sidibe is also very friendly another very scarce attitude as every body is the who-is-who in the world of malaria (WAHO, WHO, UNICEF, PMI, etc) and would expect you to be the first to initiate communication and to be diplomatic, he is also generous and was even offering a drive round Mali for sight seeing when his driver is back from school and domestic runs for his wife in addition to promise of souvenirs for his newly acquired Nigerian friends. This is also a very attractive prospects for those that are familiar with “baba oyoyo” !
Dr. Sidibe introduced himself as a doctor trained in Mali, France and on his way to Cuba for additional training. He is specialist gynécologie and a key figure in Mali’s ministry of health. He had worked in South Africa and was on visit to Nigeria in 2003 to a conference he could not come up with the name immediately but with my prompting he remembered – ‘yeah SOGON’. At the conference in Nigeria, he met and made friends with a Nigerian doctor – now I can not remember the name. The Nigerian was very kind to him treated him like a prince in Abuja and bought him lots of stuff as souvenir for himself, his wife and children. So he feels indebted to pay back to his new friends from Nigeria. Dr. Sidibe offered to get me a SIM card of Orange Mali GSM network at FCFA 300 and was furious when I bought it at FCFA 3000 from the hotel reception. His friendliness is only matched with his voracious appetite at tea breaks, group lunch and cocktail dinners. He has the most robust servings among meeting participants and waiting for cocktails and dinners are observed with religious seriousness which is a little bit strange for me for such a well to do family oriented man and one with such deep pockets for gifts for his friends.
He actually kept his promise and brought me a souvenir of art work. A frame with crafted piece of wood in the center which I could not say what it is all about? But all the same it is made in Mali and it was a gift so I collected and thanked him. But why is the gift looking old and used and why is it not wrapped but enclosed in meeting folder. Well may be he removed it from his house and was on hurry and did not care to get a polythene bag or wrapping paper so he had to empty his conference materials and put the item in the file.