"I DO NOT WANT TO GO BACK TO NIGERIA" - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

For much of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's life, Nigeria was not simply the country where she was born. It was the place to which she returned, the place that gave her stories to tell... The death of her 21-month-old son in Lagos has changed that relationship.

"...her son, Nkanu, died after medical procedures at a private Lagos hospital while the family was preparing to take him to the United States for further treatment."

Adichie and her family had traveled to Nigeria for the holidays when her son, Nkanu, fell ill. After initially being treated at Atlantis Paediatric Hospital in Lagos, preparations were made to fly him to the United States.

"A team at Johns Hopkins was waiting to receive him in Baltimore, US. The Hopkins team had asked for a lumbar puncture test and an MRI."

Atlantis referred the family to Euracare Multispecialist Hospital to have the scans, tests, and a central line procedure done prior to the flight.

"During an MRI, he was sedated with propofol.

Adichie told the New York Times that she was later informed that her son had received too much of the anaesthetic...He suffered a cardiac arrest and died in the early hours of Jan. 7."

In accounts detailed to the publication, Adichie criticized the medical handling of her son, questioning how a sick child could be sedated and inadequately monitored. The family alleged severe professional oversights, inconsistent reports on his condition and a desperate bid to save face at the child's expense..."So they basically are doing cardiac resuscitations on this poor boy for more than four hours, until 8 in the morning, when they decided to call it,” Egese said. “Nkanu, our son, was gone.”

The family has since pursued two different processes. One is disciplinary, through Nigeria's Medical and Dental Council. The other is judicial, through a coroner's inquest intended to establish the circumstances surrounding the child's death. Neither process has produced a final determination of responsibility. Rather, in a defensive counter, the hospital's lawyer has charged them with destroying evidence.“I feel so bad for IV (referring to her husband),” Adichie said. He’s on Zoom. He’s hearing it all. He’s hearing when someone is saying that he destroyed evidence, and by evidence, they mean our child.”

Even before Nkanu’s death, Adichie and Esege were adjusting to the losses of both of her parents and Esege’s brother in recent years. Facing another burial was an emotionally heavy task and they had opted for cremation in sending their child off.

The Medical and Dental Council's investigative panel subsequently concluded that three doctors including Euracare's medical director, its anesthesiologist, and a physician from Atlantis, all had a case to answer. Meanwhile, the public judicial process stalled because "Euracare's operators went to the Lagos State High Court seeking a judicial review of the coroner proceedings."

The country she has repeatedly described through questions of belonging, migration, class and home has now become inseparable from the place where her child died. She told the New York Times that her feelings toward Nigeria had changed. Despite having to return for her children's sake, she explicitly reiterated

" I do not want to go back to Nigeria".