Bricklayer vector created by storyset - www.freepik.com

I know when you read the heading of this post you got angry, or you were wondering where Bayelsa is and why they would make the place so unhabitable for an essential profession.

But it is true, it is sad but it is true.

How I know this

I used to work as a bricklayer. I was just talking to my brother about how they paid #25 per brick. The best we can currently find in Bayelsa is #650 per hour. By the way, #650 is just about $1 an hour.

As a Bricklayer, I would lay more than 20 blocks in 1 hour, so that already put me on the same level as a doctor on a bad day. But the issue with laying brinks is that the blocks would finish and I would have to wait for them to dry.

While drying, I get paid #15 to flip them so the sun can touch them. Ultimately if I don't run out of space to dry blocks I could keep on stacking. I never went home with more than #5,000 but on a day when there were fewer blocks to stack, I went in search of more blocks at another site and there I saw a man who was stacking more than a thousand blocks over a long period of time with more space. They had block mixers so he could keep on stacking till he was tired...then he could continue with flipping blocks.

If the weather would permit him, he could make more than #20,000 a day.

Now I'm not hating on this guy, he has mouths to feed. But in a system like that where he can make that much, one would expect that a doctor would be able to make more given that his labour is skilled, it involves human life and requires extra carefulness. But this is not the case...

It makes me even more tired of the country and rationalise leaving it.

I put together a Whatsapp group page for doctors so that we can organise ourselves and build a greater number and fight for higher pay in Bayelsa state. I hope I can make some form of change.

Get my merch...Just send me a message here so we can start working on it.