Author: The Nation

 Simon Utebor, Yenagoa

ABOUT 106 special constabulary policemen have been trained for community policing in the eight local government areas of Bayelsa State.

Commissioner of Police Mike Okoli spoke on Thursday during the community policing sensitisation/awareness campaign organised in partnership with the state.

According to him, the 106 special constabulary cops, who make up the first batch, were among contingents from Edo, Delta and other states who finished recently from the Police Training School in Nonwa, Rivers State.

Okoli described community policing as ‘a brilliant idea’ of the Inspector-General of Police (IG), Mohammed Adamu, stressing that the concept meant taking policing back to the people.

He said: “Let the people participate in policing the community because provision of security cannot be done by the police and other security agencies alone. To drive this concept of community policing, about 106 indigenes were recently trained at the Police Training School in Nonwa, Rivers State.”

Governor Douye Diri, in May 2020, inaugurated the state community policing advisory committee and nine-member state community policing committee.

Deputy Inspector-General of Police Sotonye Wakama (DIG), who represented the IG, said the concept of community policing thrives on the three pillars of partnership, problem-solving and organisational transformation.

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According to him, the current approach to policing in the country is reactive and not proactive, intelligence-driven and evidence-based.

Wakama said: “We are in a democracy. The police must respect the rule of law. We must render service. The police must be service-oriented; we must be accountable and transparent. Adding corruption and intimidation affects the whole mixture.

“Community policing will not go away after the IG Adamu because it has become part of the law. Every officer must internalise it. Community policing is basically about partnership, problem-solving and organisational transformation.”

Chairman of the State Traditional Rulers Council Alfred Diete-Spiff, who was represented by the king of Ekpetiama Kingdom, Bubaraye Dakolo, expressed dismay that police duties had been usurped in the country as all security personnel were bent on doing the job of the police.

Adekunle Jimoh, Ilorin

UNIVERSITY of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH) on Thursday presented to the public a set of hitherto conjoined twins it separated by special operation.

The successful separation by the institution’s team of experts was accomplished in the face of the dearth of equipment at the hospital, it was gathered.

Addressing reporters in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, UITH Chief Medical Director (CMD), Prof. Abdaullah Yussuf, attributed the feat to the doggedness and determination of the 66-membered team.

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Yussuf attributed frequent medical tourisms abroad among some Nigerians to the menace of obsolete and absence of equipment in many public hospitals in the country.

He said: “You are here to celebrate with us one of the milestones we achieved in the last few days. This was the separation of conjoin twins by this hospital. This was done by a team of experts in the hospital, ably led by a paediatric surgeon.“

 Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

VICE President Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) has urged the managers of the nation’s healthcare sector to seize the opportunity provided by the outbreak of the COVID-19 to ramp up public health infrastructure in the country.

Osinbajo stated this on Thursday at a virtual meeting with top government officials and a group of Nigerian scientists, who have been working on some of the public health dimensions of the pandemic.

According to a statement issued by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Office of the Vice President, Mr. Laolu Akande, the Vice President said the ramping up of the sector should include the training of the required experts, even as governments should be doing more in the area of funding.

The interaction, which focused on Nigeria’s response and the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, featured presentations by one of Nigeria’s leading virologists, Prof. Oyewale Tomori; Infectious Diseases Scientist, Prof. Philip Onyebujoh, and the Director, African Centre of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID), Redeemer’s University, Prof. Christian Happi.

On the government side at the interaction were Minister of Health Dr. Osagie Ehanire; the Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr. Aliyu Sani; and the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu.

It was the second interaction the vice president held this week with professors and scientists on the medical and public health dimensions of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Tuesday, he met with a group of scientific investigators into the possible use of Ivermectin in the treatment of COVID-19.

“We are at a point where we can gain tremendously as a people from this pandemic and a lot of what has been said will really help in putting this in perspective for us as government, so we can actually go out and resolve many of these problems and improve the environment for ourselves, and for the coming generations in particular,” Osinbajo said after listening to the experts at the over two hours long meeting.

Acknowledging the significance of the interaction with the scientists, especially in providing valuable suggestions in addressing the country’s public health challenges, the vice president noted that the meeting was “an inspiring intervention and discussion”.

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“I say inspiring because it is evident that our experts (whether they are directly engaged or not) are also paying attention not just to an unfolding public health problem, but also the very many opportunities that this problem provides for us, the many opportunities to ramp up our public health capacities in various ways,” he said.

Prof. Tomori emphasised the need for authorities across different levels to leverage the opportunities created by the COVID-19 pandemic to overhaul the entirety of the country’s health system, noting that “we cannot let this pandemic go without starting the production of vaccines here in Nigeria”.

Stating his desire to help authorities resolve lingering issues in public health management, the renowned virologist noted that he has benefited so much from the country, hence his love and desire to see a better society.

In the same vein, Prof. Happi emphasised the need for a closer collaboration between the public and private sectors to transform the health sector not only in providing the necessary infrastructure but in making possible the local manufacture of medical consumables.

On his part, Prof. Onyebujoh advocated improved coordination, especially in the states in the areas of identification, isolation and clinical management of infected persons, for the country to effectively manage the current rate of transmission.

Addressing some of the concerns raised at the forum, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire said the country was expecting about 10 million doses of the COVID-19 viral vector vaccine.

The minister added that the 10 million doses is aside the 100,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine being expected in the country, noting that both types of the vaccine would be received, sometime in March 2020.

Our Reporter

THE World Health Organisation (WHO), through COVAX facility and Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), are expected to deliver close to 900 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa by 2021.

Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa, stated this yesterday at WHO first online media briefing for 2021 from its regional office for Africa, based in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo.

The director said WHO Regional Office for Africa through COVAX facility would deliver 600 million doses and Africa CDC would secure 270 million doses of the vaccines.

COVAX is co-led by Gavi, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and WHO. It aims at accelerating the development and manufacture of COVID-19 vaccines, and to guarantee fair and equitable access for every country in the world.

The regional director said: “The COVAX facility, which is coordinated by GAVI, WHO and CEPI, aims to provide around 600 million doses for Africa in 2021.

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“We expect the first doses to arrive by the end of March with large roll out by June.

“However, COVAX facility can only cover 20 per cent of Africa population. So, it is really wonderful to see the Africa Union efforts to secure provisional 270 million doses by the end of 2021 are achieving success.

“Together, we will deliver 900 million doses this year and we know still more is needed,” Moeti said.

He said the top priority for Africa was to ensure access to COVID-19 vaccine, saying “it is unfortunate that so far, vaccine distribution has been inequitable but this a massive undertaking that will take time.”

According to her, as COVID-19 cumulative cases in Africa top three million and daily case numbers exceed the first wave peak, the continent is now confronted with emerging variants of the virus.

 Tony Akowe, Abuja

AN audit report from the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation (OAuGF) has linked the inability to adequately tackle the COVID-19 pandemic to failure to utilise available resources.

It said there was the need for government to review public expenditure regulations to take care of future national emergencies.

The audit report said this became necessary because of the low level of utilisation of budgeted funds as a result of lack of proper approval for virement from the previous purposes (line items) to COVID-19 specific line items.

The 51-page interim report, which is broken down into four different sections and dated September 2020, was conveyed to the Clerk to the National Assembly vide letter reference AuGF/SA. 2020/COVID/19/SIM/01 and signed by the then Auditor General of the Federation, Anthony Ayine, who retired from service on October 25, 2020.

It stated that out of the N83,895,139,427.00 budgeted by the government for the fight against COVID-19, N63,797,839,685.42 had been disbursed to implementing entities and states at the time of the audit, adding however that there was low utilisation of available funds for the fight against the pandemic.

Of the amount disbursed, N22, 163,130,411.00 was to the PTF, N24, 634,709,274.42 was to participating agencies and N17,000,000,000.00 to state governments.

It attributed the low level of utilisation to proper approval of virement from the previous purposes (line items) to COVID-19 specific line items, saying: “We further observed that the level of expenditure on COVID-19 from the 2020 appropriation of each participating agency is unclear, as is the extent to which the agencies were able to vire funds from the COVID-19 allocation to replenish existing budget lines applied towards the pandemic under emergency.

“Funds made available directly through the PTF for the operations of the task force and for the benefit of participating agencies were also not spent for reasons as yet unclear. These funds amounted to N4.5bn for the operations of the PTF and N17.6bn for the participating agencies. We understand the core reason may be delays in the administrative processes for accessing the available funds,” the report said.

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It stated that information from the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation suggested that a total of N1.9 trillion was received as donation out of which N494,768,059.95 was received directly into the CBN TSA from specific contributors.

These are: N70 million from the Nigeria Content Development Monitoring Agency, N48.120 million from the China General Chamber of Commerce in Nigeria, N47,768,971.31  from the Senate and delivered in two tranches, N278,879,088.76 from the House of Representatives and received in two tranches and N50 million from the Petroleum Equalisation Fund Management Board.

The report said that while there were detailed arrangements by the PTF to deliver on its mandate, including setting out specific pillars of activity/response, there were notifiable gaps in the evidence presented to show that the PTF has a full overview of the activities of all of the participating stakeholders.

“Although we did not fully expect the groups to fall under the remit of the PTF, we are concerned that unless efforts are better aligned, there will be inefficiencies, duplication of efforts, waste, delay etc,” the report stated.