The Nation Newspaper

Category: Saturday

  • Jimanze-Ego Alowes, the African scientist and coronavirus

    Jimanze-Ego Alowes, the African scientist and coronavirus

    Segun Ayobolu

    This is the third time that I will refer in this column to the book, ‘The University-Media Complex’ published in 2018 by the polyvalent thinker, Jimanze-Ego Alowes, which signifies how important I consider the book’s subject matter. Unfortunately, the book has not generated the kind of debate, which it deserves perhaps because the author’s style tends to be obscurantist and he has a penchant for making a detour from his principal argument into several spheres of knowledge, which the reader may find ponderous and distracting. Yet, it is a book worth reading even if one disagrees with the reader’s point of view.

    Aspects of Jimanze’s book came to my mind again against the background of the current coronavirus pandemic ravaging the globe with African countries, including Nigeria, being the most vulnerable because of their poor economies and weak healthcare systems despite the low level of deaths recorded on the continent so far relative to other regions. While most African countries are striving, many belatedly, to contain the pandemic and contain its spread through drastic restriction measures, it appears as if African leaders have left the search for a vaccine and eventual cure for the disease to the developed countries although the continent is blessed with limitless plant and herbal resources that many believe, if researched and tapped, could help the world find a solution to this health challenge and several others.

    But then, do we not have a deluge of highly trained scientists, including medical specialists in diverse disciplines, as well as higher institutions of learning and research institutes that ought to be able to rise to occasions such as this?And this is the central thrust of Jimanze’s thesis in this book. He argues that passing examinations in flying colours or acquiring first class honours or doctoratal degrees may be evidence of consumption of received knowledge and ideas rather than a capacity to produce original ideas and knowledge thus enriching humanity in the process.

    The author wonders why Africa’s intellectual class has been largely ineffective in helping to find effective and practical solutions to the continent’s myriad challenges of underdevelopment in their various fields of assumed expertise. While he agrees that in the humanities, arts and music, for instance, Nigeria has produced world class scholars and performers in the mould of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Christopher Okigbo or Fela Anikulapo Kuti, he sees absolutely no reason why the story cannot be the same in the fields of science, technology and mathematics.

    Jimanze disagrees vehemently with the view that poor funding, inadequate equipment and facilities are responsible for the inability of African scientists to exhibit enough proficiency in their disciplinary specializations to  contribute positively to the scientific and technological development of the continent. He makes his point with characteristic bluntness thus: “…are there also no America and Europe- based Nigerians who are in the faculties of Physics, Chemistry etc? Are these not sciences in which Nobel Prizes – that is, one measure of global distinctions- can be earned?…If Nigerians in Nigeria lack the equipment for cutting-edge research in some cognate sciences, what of the Nigerian scholars in Europe and America? What is stopping them?”

    He continues: “The issue of lack of modern equipment cannot totally exclude Nigerian scientists from Achebe-level global achievements. Why? There are incidences of theoretical physicists winning the Nobel Prize, and you do not need more than a brain, a pencil, and blank papers. Examples like Albert Einstein and Gell-Murray come to mind. Both won Nobel Prizes in Physics and both are notorious or famous for being impractical enough to not know how to screw a nut to save their lives…Therefore, in several areas of sciences, you do not need equipment. Thus, it can be said that nobody is excluded, save the fellow excludes himself on grounds of poor brains”.

    Too harsh? Well, that is Jimanze for you. He is particularly vexed with intellectuals who rather than ‘tackling real life problems’ in their fields are better known for public opinion commentaries or dabbling in politics. In his irreverent, no-holds-barred manner, he uses the late Professor Tam David-West, as an example in Nigeria. To establish his premise, he starts with a possibly imaginary but nevertheless instructive discourse between two pseudonymous characters, American Abroad and John West. Here is an abridgment of their discourse:

    American Abroad: “Mr. Tam David-West, a gifted scientist and uncompromising administrator, has given unstintingly of himself to his country in ages past. A long time ago…he wrote a philosophy column in our daily newspapers which content and breadth were simply outstanding (and unimpeachable) to my juvenile mind. I fondly recall his son, also a professor, gently upbraiding him for “goofing” on his interpretation of an obscure philosophical point. Those were the salad days of public intellectualism in Nigeria”.

    John West: “Now you are beginning to upset me my dear friend. Tam David-West, a gifted scientist and uncompromising administrator? You must be living on a different planet…Yes, Taminosoari David-West, graduate from the Canadian Ivy League University, MacGill, in Montreal, with a doctorate degree in virology and became a Professor in the subject at the University of Ibadan. However, he has never practiced as a virologist, his subject of education and profession. Instead, he has constantly dabbled in politics of all pettiness…”.

    The author wondered why, when the country was faced with such crises as the Ebola Virus attack or Monkey pox virus, for instance, the voices of eminent virologists like Professor Tam David-West were largely silent “leaving the solution to “lesser mortals and the less endowed”. The same question can be asked today on why all we can hear today on the coronavirus are voices of scientists and pharmaceutical companies from the advanced countries researching feverishly for vaccines and cures to save an endangered world.

    Thus, using Professor Tam David-West as symbolic of other virologists and scientists, Jimanze asserts, provocatively, that “Tam David-West, a professor and Harvard type, has no contributive ideas that we know of or which he has demonstrated. All he has done is consume ideas…You cannot possess in science and inquiry, save you innovate. Innovation is the hand with which you possess, not own other peoples’ ideas. To know other peoples’ ideas is to have consumed it as is: not to have your own ideas. It is the moral equivalent of plagiarism to consume other peoples’ ideas and claim you produced and owned them”.

    This column has nothing but the highest regard for the late Professor David-West’s academic brilliance and particularly his high degree of moral integrity in public office as well as patriotic commitment to the emergence of a better, stronger Nigeria. But Jimanze can hardly be faulted that the renowned professor is admired more for his contributions in the sphere of politics, and public discourse than in his explicit field of specialization. However, it may be asked if the author does not underestimate the extent to which poor leadership and the consequent bad governance inhibits the capacity of the Africa’s intellectual elite to actualize their potentials and help uplift their countries out of the morass of poverty and underdevelopment particularly in the areas of Science and Technology.

    Unfortunately, Jimanze, in my view, gives the impression that the African scientist is inherently incapacitated to make original contributions to knowledge and come up with practical solutions to the continent’s problems of underdevelopment. He does not take into account the fact that, in the words of late Professor Bade Onimode, “…perhaps the greatest single tragedy of Africa in the past has been the legacies of slavery and colonialism and the depredations of neo-colonialism, which denied Africa the autonomy and self-confidence to see itself and analyze itself objectively…Africa was thus reduced essentially to passive receivers of foreign ideas”.

    There are those who argue, perhaps with some justification, that after over a half a century of post-colonial governance, Africa has no excuse continuing to blame slavery, colonialism and neo-colonialism for the continent’s continued immersion in poverty and underdevelopment. Yet, unless there is a thoroughgoing decolonization of the African mind (apologies to Ngugi Wa Thiongo), including the decolonization of the content of African educational curricula, there will continue to be a wide gap between Africa’s rich resource endowment, including her abandoned indigenous knowledge systems, and her rate of development.

  • Coronavirus: Three pastors arrested for flouting LASG’s directive

    Coronavirus: Three pastors arrested for flouting LASG’s directive

    The Lagos State Police Command on Monday said that three pastors were arrested but later released on Sunday for allegedly conducting church services in deviance to the Lagos State Government {LASG}’s  order.

    Deputy Commissioner of Police Mohammed Ali in charge of Operations, Lagos Command, confirmed the arrest of the pastors to the News Agency of Nigeria {NAN}.

    Ali said that one of the pastors arrested is from one of the Pentecostal Churches.

    He said that the pastors were not detained but warned  to comply with the government’s directive to prevent further spread of coronavirus.

    He said, “We did not hold our weekly prayers in the mosque at the police headquarters because we had to comply with the directive of the Lagos State Government.

    READ ALSO: Coronavirus: Wuhan residents resume work as China eases restrictions

    “I also implore churches and other religious organisations to follow suit,” he said.

    Ali said that the operations to ensure the public complies with the state government’s directive would be a continuous one.

    He warned that any religious leaders caught disobeying the directive of the state government would face the consequences.

    NAN reports that LASG last week through a directive put a hold on social gatherings of people above 50 in number; including church services and mosque meetings.

    The government said that it was part of its efforts to curb the spread of COVID-19 in the state.

    (NAN)

  • Segun Oni damns the political consequences

    Segun Oni damns the political consequences

    Undertow

    Ekiti State, one of the country’s smallest in size and revenue allocation from the central government, is to the surprise of many Nigerians tremendously endowed in human and economic resources. It has produced colourful politicians like Ayo Fayose, Olusegun Oni, and Kayode Fayemi, but with all three so different in temperament, style and worldview. Mr Fayose has lived all his life in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at one time even cloaking himself as the godson of ex-president Olusegun Obasanjo, but has acted and spoken as if he was forever poised to defect to the camp of the progressives, whether Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) or the All Progressives Congress (APC). Dr Fayemi started out with a preference for the PDP, but was finally persuaded, or persuaded himself, to camp with the progressives in the ACN. And Mr Oni, an engineer, was essentially a pragmatist in the PDP who was never averse to the camp of the progressives, but in fact until a few days ago a leading but much mistreated member of that illustrious camp.

    But like Nigeria’s 35 other states, Ekiti’s politics and politicians are not quite cast in granite. They operate on very fluid tectonics, defecting and aligning with political parties as their emotions drive them. Mr Fayose had feigned defection, particularly during his fight against Mr Oni and in the closing months of his second term as governor, when, it was believed, he sought means of evading harassment by anti-graft agencies. At least he romanced the APC, even if he never really thought of concretising his disguised political flightiness. Since setting up camp with the progressives, and being a natural progressive himself, though of the grainy variety, Dr Fayemi has stayed put, determined to fight his way through or plot his way to the peak of the party. Mr Oni, on the other hand, though a pragmatic with an unmistakeable hue of progressivism, has shown himself more fleet-footed in defection, first moving from the PDP to the APC, and now from the APC back to the PDP. As always, there are reasons for defections. In the case of Mr Oni, it is on account of what he now describes as mistreatment.

    Mr Oni rose to an enviable peak in the APC, after defecting from the PDP due to Mr Fayose’s errant and capricious ways. A gentleman par excellence, the engineer could simply not stomach the atrocious and disrespectful manner Mr Fayose ran the PDP, riding roughshod over the legislature and the judiciary. No gentleman could accommodate such tactics and manners. And since he came with a lot of political capital, having ruled the state from 2007 to 2010, some three years and about six months, it was natural that if the APC wanted victory subsequently, they would have to reckon with Mr Oni, preferably with him on their side. They managed to entice him into their ranks, fought the governorship race together in 2014 but lost, and eventually retook it in 2018. But between 2014 and 2018, a bitter struggle had ensued between the troika of Mr Oni, Dr Fayemi and Opeyemi Bamidele, now a senator but previously a House of Representatives member. Mr Oni in fact rose to become the APC’s deputy national chairman (South), but was curiously and unfairly treated like a leader without a base and a pariah. The 2018 governorship poll merely finalised his disenchantment and hastened his exit from the party.

    Mr Oni’s exit was rumoured for months. He had been left holding the short end of the stick, principally because he questioned and litigated the victory of Dr Fayemi in the 2018 poll. What was not acknowledged before Mr Oni took the extreme measures attributed to him was that the APC crowd and leaders in Ekiti State made no substantial overtures to him worthy of his rank and standing, at least not to his estimation. But having lost all the cases he brought against Dr Fayemi, it was clear to the APC leaders in the state, and to himself as well, that a place could no longer be found for him. Hence his proposed exit, a measure he says will be finalised in a couple of months. He justifies his proposal, and pinpoints the reasons for the exit, thereby erasing any ambiguities about his political direction. However, his support within the state has remained solid and largely unaffected by his peregrinations and alienation. He will cause a nightmare for the APC in the months leading to the next governorship poll, and he will be heard from in a way that should trouble and consternate his enemies.

    Here is how he rationalises his impending exit: “It is true that I am leaving the APC for the PDP. I actually planned to address the Press on the issue later this week, but now you have made me touch on some of the issues that informed our decision. It is not about me, but about my political family, most of whom have their own lives to live and a political future they must protect. They are not been treated well in the APC in terms of appointments. Is that how to run a party? You leave out some people when you are giving out appointments all just because they belong to the Segun Oni political family? When I was the APC deputy national chairman, some of them said they suspended me from the party. Up till this moment, the issues surrounding the so-called suspension have not been attended to. We have to fight against the tyranny of the minority that is existing in the party.” And to erase all doubt as to what has led him to that avoidable pass, he continues: “How can some people, who are not even party excos at the ward level gather together to announce the suspension of a party leader? When I was the APC deputy national chairman, some people gathered and said they have suspended Clement Ebiri, a former governor, from the party. But I told them to apologise to Ebiri who became a governor when most of them were nobody. I can assure you that we are definitely pulling out of the APC. It is not about consulting to take a decision. We have decided on that and it is about the political future of my political group.”

    Mr Oni’s exit was not inevitable. Despite litigating Dr Fayemi’s 2018 poll victory, the party should still have made definite and substantial overtures to him. But neither the party nor Dr Fayemi is made in that accommodating, liberal and empathetic mould. Mr Oni’s complaints were genuine and indisputable. The ruling party in the state, which as Mr Bamidele can attest to is very often not inclusive, should have done its best to win Mr Oni over. They have not, partly because they made up their minds to call his bluff. They must hope for the sake of the next governorship election that they can fill the vacuum that will be left by Mr Oni. Dr Fayemi nearly did not win the last governorship election despite the atrocities and incompetence of Mr Fayose. It required an alliance with Dayo Adeyeye, a prince and until recently a senator, to clinch the poll. Had that alliance not been formulated, Mr Fayose’s foolish style would still have been rewarded. Sen Adeyeye, it is learnt, has regretted the alliance he entered into with the leaders of the APC, especially seeing how they have acted mala fide after their slim victory.

    The last has not been heard from Mr Oni. He is probably the steadiest hand and most even-tempered governor that has ruled Ekiti State since 1999. The state remembers him for his sense of moderation and openness, not to say his abjuration of any form of political grandiosity. They recall with fondness how he carried his party and the state along, and how he treated the council of chiefs deferentially. Should he attempt again to run for the governorship seat on the platform of his new party, he will complicate matters for the APC, and it will require herculean efforts to best him. But of course, Mr Oni himself has a herculean task ahead to overcome Mr Fayose who is still making trouble in the PDP, not to say neutralise the only senator whom the PDP controversially produced in the 2019 National Assembly polls, Abiodun Olujimi, a vocal and sometimes cantankerous woman and politician. Nothing is guaranteed for anyone or party in the coming years in Ekiti. It would indeed have been far better had APC leaders in the state not been as hotheaded as they postured, and irreconcilable as they seem determined to be.

  • Medicine after death

    Medicine after death

    Ade Ojeikere

     

    HONESTLY, I feel very sad that Nasarawa FC’s defender, Chineme Martins’ life was wasted due to a body’s refusal to do the right things at the appropriate time. My pain deepened with last weekend’s theatrics at league venues, where our league organisers and their superiors insulted our sensibilities with checks on the medical provisions at venues before games were played. It had taken the death of a player for us to implement a rule that wasn’t alien to us. Pity.

    The foolery by the league organisers around the league centres underscored the need for a complete overhaul of how the game is being administered here. Officials’ personal intervention on seeing functional ambulances tells the story of a society which acts only after a calamity. Our administrators attend and officiate in international matches, yet it took Martins’ death to remember what they were taught at FIFA and CAF. All the new craze to meet the medical needs of players looks like a smokescreen to cover up the failure of those officials in Nasarawa.

    I read of a stadium which had two ambulances for players. We have forgotten the fans. We would remember them when another one or two of them die from shock after an unexpected goal against his team. Nobody is asking how equipped our stadia are to handle large emergencies. Do our stadia have well equipped medical centres or sick bays for spectators? How many ambulances do we need to handle crisis arising from stampedes at match venues?

    It is one thing to have these ambulances at match venues. What is more important would be the quality of trained medical personnel who accompany the ambulances. Let’s have people with bigger vision run our football. Can we sustain this compliance which has been triggered by Martins’ death?

    Any stadium in Europe has medical equipment which could compete with what you have in first class hospitals, with staff of the same quality, not auxiliary medical attendants. The league organisers ought to have an official medical facility for those in the game, preferably one owned by the state or federal government.

    Simply put, our stadia lack the capacity to handle emergencies. The number of exits at these stadia are not enough and so narrow such that it takes close to 40 minutes to empty any stadium in the country. The way the exits are built gives room for stampede if an emergency occurs. The ease with which fans crowd the pitches after matches endanger the lives of players and referees. Need I waste space to recall all the cases where referees and assistants were beaten groggy across the nation?

    The Nasarawa State Governor captured the essence of having top quality medical facility for the club, albeit ironically. He releases his ambulance during matches, yet he was at the stadium where Martins slumped and died, with no report of the governor’s ambulance taking the dead to the hospital. Accounts talked about using the press corps bus to convey martins to hospital. Mr governor, what does it take to buy several ambulances fitted with gadgets found inside yours?

    Indeed, I have waited with bated breath, to read the insurance packages Martins’ kids, wife and relatives would benefit from after his death. No insurance firm has spoken about having any deal with the league organisers, where Martins’ benefits are made public, considering the manner in which he died. Organisers who cannot package life insurance schemes for people whose business demands physical contact and rigour, should resign honourably.

    It is very disturbing that it had taken this avoidable death for the league body and Martins’ club to commence talks on his life insurance. Is this how affairs are conducted elsewhere? How can both bodies be holding talks rather than ask  their insurance companies to defend their territory by telling us how much Martins’ death would fetch in benefits for his family. Martins’ autopsy though needed, would not be a reason for talks to commence or not.

    I almost had a seizure watching Channels television, where an official of the league organisers admitted flaws in the administration of dope tests for players. Yet, this fellow attends CAF and FIFA matches where such details are not toyed with. In fact, the first news after games are played is the announcement of the names of players taken for routine dope tests on both sides, even though the results are made public days after.

    According to him: “We have been having conversations around that (anti- doping),our rules and regulations are very clear concerning illicit drugs. there are some players we have had to deal with at the club level without coming public, but now, we are going to intensify checks.”

    “Part of what we are going to do is to introduce the spot check, like once in a while, we will send the doctors to clubs to test all the players, they will also pick any player at random at match venues and test the player.

    “Before the season starts, each player normally goes through drug test and if they use drugs, it will be detected. But we have not seen that in most of the medical records we have with us, because when they know that they are going for that pre-season medical check, if someone is on drugs, he might refrain from using the drugs until after the test. But the spot checks will put everybody on their toes because they don’t know when and how they would be brought out for the test, so, that could control it.’’

    My problem with our administrators is that they are hasty to make sweeping comparisons despite their exposure to what is right. A fellow who officiates at international matches does not have to offer reasons for not replicating what obtains at international level. Yet, he prides himself on managing the domestic game here.

    According to the fellow: “Drug problem is not just NPFL problem, it is a societal problem and anyone earning what the players earn can go into drugs. So, we will keep educating them to desist from it,’’ he added.

    Hmmm! Another one from a Nigerian administrator who blames everyone else but himself. What is the way forward sir? Not stated. So, it is business as usual. Sir, things cannot continue like this. Something must give.

    Perhaps, the panel to probe what transpired in the game where Martins died could include other flaws in the league such as how fans are evacuated from venues after big games. Match venues should be rid of all manner of weapons, bricks, stones etc around the premises, which become missiles during troubled times.

    The medical structures that should be put in place by all the clubs in the NPFL should stand the test of time and not the charade we all saw last weekend where the match commissioners appeared to be taking selfies inside some of the ambulances parked at match venues.

    Everything about the domestic league smacks of death traps beginning with the way fans are hounded into and out of the stadia across the country. The chaotic settings around the gates scare fans away from coming to watch games with their families. Rather than allow professionals man the gates such that they become revenue outlets to the clubs, their management choose to assign urchins to man them. These touts wreak havoc on visiting teams and those who they perceive as foes to their clubs. not many would tell you their experiences at match venues? I expect the probe panel to proffer solutions to stem the tide of this ungodly acts.

    Another aspect of the league which the panel should address, is the swiftness with which home fans pounce on ‘uncooperative’ match referees is disturbing. Sadly, no one has been sanctioned or jailed, making them look like spirits, which they are not.

    Dear probe panel members, could you please include in your report a rule which forbids clubs from endangering players’, officials’ and drivers’ lives travelling late at night? Are we waiting for another player and/or official to be shot dead by bandits before constituting another probe panel to investigate such mishap? No club should be on the road with its players and officials anything after 6pm. Those who flout these rules should be charged to court, if robbers strike  or kill anyone.

    No player, official or driver should be sacrificed on the altar of honouring matches.

  • State, market, coronavirus

    State, market, coronavirus

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    FROM the end of the Second World War in 1945 up to the end of the 1970s, the advanced, industrialized capitalist countries of the west had put in place extensive state-led, welfare systems that provided for the needs of the vast majority of their populations virtually from the cradle to the grave. This was informed partly by the lessons of the great economic depression that preceded the war, which demonstrated the volatility, unpredictability and unreliability of the capitalist system left to the mythical, invisible hands of the market as well as what was perceived then as a very real and potent communist threat.

    In his scathing book, ‘The Cancer stage of Capitalism’, the Canadian philosopher, Professor John McMurty, captures the gains of this extensive welfare state system thus, “… by a long process of democratic movement, elected governments in the developed world have introduced legislation to limit the hours of the working day and week; to establish safety standards and environmental regulations for factories and businesses; to permit employees to organize in workers’ unions; to provide unemployment insurance and income security for those without jobs; to institute programmes of health care available to all independent of ability to pay; to provide public education for everyone and university education to the qualified at a fraction of the cost; and to construct publicly accessible transit systems, parks and cultural centres free of cost or at below-cost prices”.

    From the early eighties starting with the Thatcherite and Reaganite years in the US and UK up till the present, there has been a fierce and relentless onslaught against the welfare state system in favour of the dominance of market forces and the subordination of the priority of providing for the needs of the majority, particularly the vulnerable, to the right of private corporations and their stockholders to accumulate ever increasing profit. Even the poor, underdeveloped states of Africa were forced to adopt Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs) that rolled back the developmental state, eliminated subsidies on essential commodities and services, massively devalued national currencies, privatized public corporations and downsized public services, liberalized trade in an inequitable world economy and thereby deepened these countries immersion in poverty and underdevelopment.

    The neoliberal war against what was derisively dismissed as inefficient and unaffordable ‘Big Government’ was given fillip by the collapse of state socialism in Eastern Europe as well as the near miraculous economic ascendancy of the Newly Industrializing Countries (NICs), the Asian Tigers. Yet, as Professor McMurty so perceptively and incisively notes, once again, the war against ‘big government’ or the state has been entirely ill defined and misguided. In his words, “Big Government was not what one might think. It was not the gargantually wasteful and destructive military-industrial complex which was to spend almost a billion dollars a day during the Reagan administration, attacking or threatening with massive force any alternative economic order on the horizon. Nor was it ever more police and prisons for non-white and impoverished US citizens”.

    Rather, he continues, “Big Government meant assistance to the poor, the sick and the old, and protection of the workers and the environment against corporate toxins and pollutants. It meant ‘binge spending on social programmes’ like pensions and medicare, ‘suffocating regulations’ on industrial effluents and harzardous working conditions, and the ‘culture of dependency’ of destitute families and children on ‘government handouts’”.

    Subordinating the life and welfare needs of the people of the world to the profit interests of corporations and the dictates of market forces has greatly multiplied the wealth of rich nations and individuals while also enormously accelerating the rate of poverty and inequality both within and between nations. The pressure of increased global poverty and inequality under the regime of neoliberalism has motivated the attempted mass migrations from the disadvantaged to the more prosperous regions of the world with frequently tragic consequences. This in turn has led to the rise of the rash of illiberal, extremist parties and governments in the West that are severely undermining the institutions and values of liberal democracy in those countries.

    Yet, despite all efforts to render the state redundant and assert the superiority and supremacy of market forces, countries across the globe, irrespective of ideological orientations or political inclinations, have to fall back again and again on the state for salvation in times of grave national and global crises. Thus, in the wake of the global economic depression of 2008, advanced economies had to rely on massive state fiscal interventions and direct bailouts to failed sectors and companies to stimulate their economies and respond to the glaring inadequacies of the reign of unregulated market forces.

    In the current climate of mindless quest for profit by private corporations even at the expense of the common good, various treaties under the aegis of the World Trade organization (WTO) or the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), for instance, private entities have been given the right to ravage the human environment for commercial purposes with scant regard for the safety of present or future generations. The consequences have been the widely reported damages to the ozone layer, climate warming, ocean surges and increased menace of flooding as well as rising incidences of uncontrollable wildfires in vulnerable countries.

    Again, combating these problems and containing their damages are not profitable ventures and thus cannot attract the attention of private corporations except in cases of superficial and minimally impactful gestures of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The market can never substitute for the state in human affairs. People and societies can only be subordinated to the irrational profit motive at grave risk to the very survival, ultimately, of the human species.

    Nothing illustrates better, once again, the utter unwisdom of neoliberalism’s disdain for and marginalization of the state than the danger that the rampaging coronavirus pandemic poses to humanity. Market forces cannot in this instance come to the needed immediate rescue of man from the ravages of an invisible virus that temporarily mocks human genius although the giant pharmaceutical companies will ultimately invest in and profit enormously from vaccines and cures for the disease, which will most certainly be found.

    It is instructive that the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedas Adhanom Ghebreyesus, was reported, at the outbreak of the disease, to have lauded China for taking unprecedented measures to control the deadly virus saying “I have never seen for myself this kind of mobilization” and that “China is actually setting a new standard for outbreak response”. Some of the measures taken by China include placing some 100 million citizens on lockdown, shutting down a public holiday, building sizable quarantine hospitals in days’ time and ramping up 24-hour manufacturing of medical equipment. This could certainly not have been possible without a strong, efficient and resilient state system.

    As a result of the neoliberal policies prevalent in the US on the other hand since the Reagan era, irrespective of whether Republicans or Democrats are in power, the state’s capacity to respond effectively to the coronavirus pandemic has been significantly enfeebled. In 2018, for instance, President Trump reportedly “fired the Federal Government’s pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure” partly to cut costs. According to a report, “Local Public Health agencies have lost almost a quarter of their overall workforce since 2008 – a cut of almost 60,000 workers, according to national associations of health officials. The agencies’ main source for federal funding – the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s emergency preparedness budget – has been cut by 30 percent since 2003. And the Trump administration has proposed cutting even deeper”.

    To show how bad the situation is, another report states that “In its 2020 budget the Trump administration proposed a further 10% cut in Centers for Disease Control funding equivalent to $750 million. It zeroed out funding for epidemiology and laboratory capacity at state and local levels. Funding will also dry up this year for a tiered epidemic response within the US…After this year’s cuts, 10 advanced treatment facilities will still receive funding, but not the 60 other treatment centres one tier below”. Despite man’s remarkable state of scientific and technological advancement, the coronoavirus once again demonstrates his vulnerability to incessant ravages of the unforeseen.

    Strong, efficient, effective and responsive state structures are, therefore, indispensable to human survival. This is particularly so in African countries, which have fragile post-colonial state structures when a sturdy, developmental state is so critical to overcoming the continent’s debilitating underdevelopment. It is time for African leaders to demand that external forces of domination and marginalization like the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) stop teaching them nonsense (apologies to Fela) and scale up their efforts to build viable, formidable, efficacious state structures, which must necessarily be democratic, accountable, responsible and transparent.

     

  • Odia Ofeimun’s house of 70 mansions

    Odia Ofeimun’s house of 70 mansions

    Segun Ayobolu

     

    WHEN exactly did the name, Odia Ofeimun, come into my consciousness? I guess it was as a young secondary school student at Ilorin, Kwara State, shortly after Nigeria hosted the Second World and African Festival of Arts and Culture (FESTAC) in 1977. On the literary terrain, at least, that surely was another country. The public library located at the Sabo Oke area of Ilorin was well stocked and efficiently run. Virtually all the titles published under the rubric of the famous African Writers Series (AWS) was available in the library. Of course, there were other books of diverse genres and subjects available to the reading the public in the modest two-storey building. Not only could we read, we were allowed to borrow books for periods of up to two weeks at a time if I recall correctly. To the best of my knowledge, hardly were the books ever defaced or stolen.

    It was at the library that I came across an anthology of writings from the FESTAC event comprising short stories, poems, drama and essays. I borrowed the book for extended periods and avidly read through the literary offerings. I remember in particular being fascinated by one or two short stories by Cyprian Ekwensi as well as poems by one Odia Ofeimun in the book. One of Odia’s poems I read over and over then was titled ‘Emotan’ although I cannot remember now what so struck me about the poem or even details of what it was about. But Odia Ofeimun’s poems were amongst those that stimulated my interest in poetry and even my attempts to try my hands at poetry.

    Years later as an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan, I actually joined ‘The Poetry Club’ established by the late Harry Garuba and even though I religiously attended meetings of the group at the Faculty of Arts, I always felt too timid to recite my poetry scribblings as they did not appear to me meet the standards of poetry set by Ofeimun and other poets I read. I was thus amazed when Professor Femi Osofisan actually published a number of the poems I had only half heartedly sent him in his literary journal, ‘Opon Ifa’. Even then, I was not encouraged enough to continue my adventures in poetry.

    At the commencement of the politics of the Second Republic with the formation of political parties in 1978, I found the welfarist policy platform of Chief Obafemi Awolowo compelling and was naturally attracted to his newly formed Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN). Even as a 15 year old teenager, I was a UPN polling agent in Ilorin in the series of elections that ushered in the Second Republic much to the discomfiture of my father. Although an ardent Awoist himself, my father was naturally concerned that I was too young to thrust myself into the ‘ebullition’ of Nigeria’s all too frequently violent politics. But I was passionate enough about Awo’s progressive policies to take the risk.

    Again, on the political terrain, I came across the name, Odia Ofeimun. He had been appointed as private secretary to Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Given Awo’s legendary self discipline, capacity for hard work, attention to detail, uncompromising commitment to punctuality, integrity and diligence, it was obvious that not just anybody could qualify to be employed as his personal staff. Even though Ofeimun was to leave the job in controversial circumstances and his personal integrity unjustly and wrongly impugned, the truth was later uncovered and his innocence established even though the great man reportedly never personally apologized for the error as Odia eminently deserved.

    Yet, it is a tribute to Odia’s moral integrity and ideological fidelity that, even though he parted ways with Awo on a personal note as his staff, he remained committed and faithful to the sage’s politics, ideas and programmatic agenda for Nigeria. As a student at the Department of Political Science, University of Ibadan, in the early to mid 1980s, the name Odia Ofeimun was again thrust into my consciousness. The poet and polyvalent intellectual had graduated with a Bachelors degree in political science from the Department years earlier.

    For my undergraduate research essay, I had chosen to write on ‘The Political Thought of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’. My supervisor and professor told me that Odia Ofeimun was at the time working on a doctoral thesis on the politics and ideas of Awolowo and that he was coming up with a very fascinating and original perspective. Even if he does not complete it as a doctoral thesis, I think Odia stills owe the world a definitive work on Awlolowo’s role in the political and socio-economic development of Nigeria. One of the essays in Odia’s book, ‘A House of many Mansions’ is titled ‘Obafemi Awolowo: Nigeria’s Man of the Century’.

    In the essay, he illustrates his uncanny ability to link personalities and issues that appear superficially distant when he reflects on the impacts of Lord Lugard and Obafemi Awolowo on Nigerian politics. In his words, “While Lugard, his ideas and legacy, dominated the first half of the century, Awolowo was, pre-eminently, the personage whose ideas and political struggles most positively defined the second half”. He continued, “Of course, the paradox needs to be emphasized that, antithetical as their different legacies appear, both Awolowo and Lugard put their stamp on time and events through a lusty commitment to intellectual labour, personal discipline, the pursuit of organizational rigour and administrative proficiency. What the historian M.I. Okonjo writes of Lugard in his ‘British Administration: A Nigerian view”, is also true of Awolowo: of having ‘more than unusual preoccupation with the business of documenting and justifying…a passion for detailed definition of principles and rules…’ and ‘an obsessional zeal’ induced in ‘activist loyal disciples’.

    The essays in ‘A House of Many Mansions’ illustrate the encyclopedic knowledge and catholic interests of Ofeimun, a man of character and intellect, a devotee of the life of the mind, a patriot who takes Nigeria seriously and has committed his life to contributing to her rapid development and socio-economic transformation. As his admirers celebrate the ‘House of 70 mansions’ that Odia Ofeimun’s life is at  70, this column wishes this great man a very happy birthday and even more fruitful and fulfilling years ahead.

  • Finding false virtue in the virus

    Finding false virtue in the virus

    IF one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, then one man’s curse could be another man’s cure. While much of humanity shudders with fear of the deadly coronavirus, not everyone is. That’s because a pandemic that slows civilization’s activities means less damage to the global climate. For some environmental extremists, events that visit tragedy upon human beings are viewed as propitious for the planet. It doesn’t take a doctor to conclude that looking for the bright side of suffering is itself a sickness.

    Radical climate-change doctrine that venerates the natural world above human life has drifted from the commune into the mainstream, taking root among some of humanity’s most respected institutions. Former United Nations climate chief Christiana Figueres, who now heads the climate-action organization Mission 2020, suggests that COVID-19 isn’t all bad. Asked by the United Kingdom’s Channel 4 whether economic slowdown caused by coronavirus is “actually good for the climate,” she replied: “Well, that is, ironically, of course, the other side of this, right? It may be good for climate because there is less trade, there’s less travel, there’s less commerce.”

    The climate is everyone’s best friend forever. And it’s self-evident that when people are prevented — by disease or otherwise — from engaging in the activities of modern life, the planet’s climate is spared some of the effects. The closer the climate comes to an original state of nature, though, the rougher things can get for Homo sapiens. Without the advances of the modern world, life would be, as English philosopher Thomas Hobbes put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”

    The “nasty, brutish and short” part must ring true to those unfortunate enough to catch a fatal dose of the coronavirus, despite the best preventative measures of modern medicine. Thus far, nearly 4,000 persons worldwide have lost their lives. If the World Health Organization’s death rate figure of 3.4 percent proves accurate, the virus could kill 15 million worldwide, according to the Australian National University. Human suffering on a massive scale has a numbing effect — Joseph Stalin’s point when he said: “A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”

    Ms. Figueres is not alone in looking for the sunny side of catastrophe. Prefacing his cutting remarks with the Band-Aid, “I do not wish sickness on anybody,” Climate activist Martin Lopez Corredoira wrote at the website Science 2.0: “As said by the proverb, ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’. Neither Greenpeace, nor Greta Thunberg, nor any other individual or collective organization have achieved so much in favor of the health of the planet in such a short time.”

    It’s unclear whether the venerable environmental organization or the young Swedish finger-wagger would prescribe pandemic as a remedy for what ails the planet. Mass death was a thing for the Nazis, though, during the 20th century. And for those grieving over the unfortunate victims of the spreading virus, the only “silver lining” they are likely to behold is the one inside the open casket containing the body of their loved one.

    Then there is writer Madhvi Ramani opining in The Week magazine: “Where scientists and popular movements have thus far failed to convince the world to act, it seems that Mother Earth may have succeeded, with the never-before-seen COVID-19 virus. The novel coronavirus is estimated to have curbed carbon-dioxide emissions in China by a quarter.”

    Pardon us if we don’t join in kissing the hem of the goddess’ flower-bedecked gown while she decimates the human family. There are better methods for reducing man-made greenhouse gases than Mother Nature smothering her own flesh and blood.

    The International Energy Agency reported last month that global emissions flatlined in 2019 even while economic activity rose 2.9 percent. The technologically advanced United States led the way, cutting its emissions by 140 million tons last year and nearly a billion tons since 2000. The 27 nations of the European Union chipped in a reduction of 165 million tons and Japan chopped another 45 million. U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette called the report “proof positive that innovation and technology are the solution to the world’s climate challenges.”

    There is no bright side of suffering. Ideologues who extol the environmental benefits of contagion have lost touch with their humanity. Hopefully, they’re not beyond cure.

     

    • Source: ashingtontimes.com
  • A world on its knees, and at ‘ war ‘

    A world on its knees, and at ‘ war ‘

    Dayo Sobowale

     

    WHEN US  President  Donald  Trump this week suggested that he could be described as a ‘war  president’  given the  gravity of the Coronavirus which has locked down both the global  economy as well as that of the US, nobody  for once doubted that he was telling the truth. In Iran it was reported that an  Iranian  was dying every 10  minutes from the coronavirus while in New York  Governor Cuomo  was warning passionately that Misinformation and Panic on the virus are  as dangerous as the virus  itself. In Nigeria the South West  Governors took  the lead in closing schools and religious worship and banning gathering of over 50  people and that gave Nigerians  a lot of hope that we are not sitting on a  keg of gun powder in terms of complacency and benign   neglect  of a  pandemic  that has literally brought  the world  to its knees in  terms of the speed of its impact  on global  trade, communications and   sheer  human survival.

    These events  then provide  a prism to  look at the viral  ravages of this deadly  virus as it spirals around the world and creates  fear and panic at the speed of light in a world we once proudly  called a global  village . This was  then because  of the fast spread of  useful  information and knowledge  arising from the advent of the internet   and information   technology . However the    misinformation  and panic that have accompanied the dissemination of news and spread  of the virus globally in recent days, show  clearly   that  too  much information can be as deadly  as too little, and that in terms of quality  of  information with our present level  of  technology,  not all  that glitters  is  gold.  Simply   put, Fake news and misinformation have  made it very  difficult for  the global authorities  to  know how to contain the coronavirus  and its spread. Which  is a  terrifying  tragedy  indeed for  the entire world.

    Let  us  now  look at the topic of today  to illustrate how  the world  has  been brought  to  its  knees   and can  be described  as being at war .We  shall  look at the reality  of evolving situations as well as their  back ground  and  antecedents  and reach  our conclusions there from. We  shall  use the US President and the British PM to illustrate the irony of the war  situation . With Nigeria we shall see  how the exposure  of governors that were  once derided as’ foreign imports ‘to our politics have helped in grasping the enormity of the health crisis locally in Nigeria . In  the EU we  shall  examine  how closed  borders arising from the virus is  swiftly   eroding the empire building goal  of the EU just  as the Justinian plague  ages   ago  destroyed  the Ancient  Roman Empire  and  brought in the Dark Ages in Europe .

    On  a lighter note , if that is possible with this killer virus,  if  someone  had told the US  President  that  he will  be called a war  president he would have thought  that  the war would be with Iran, China, or  Russia,  nations with  which the  US  is contending to lead  the world .Now  Donald  Trump  is invoking war acts to protect his people  and   the economy, the apple of his political  eye  for reelection and the prospects  are not  that  lively  and that is making  the usually  boisterous deal maker quite  tired and looking morose  nowadays.  In   the same manner UK PM Boris Johnson  was  reported as wanting to be seen as a war Minister  in the mould of Winston Churchill,  Britain’s  legendary leader in WW2, with  regard to  Brexit . Now Johnson  has won his Brexit but  faces and unexpected war in the Coronavirus and it s not difficult  from his countenance and speeches on the virus  that  this is not the type of war  Prime  Minister he wanted to be. Unfortunately  unlike one of his  predecessors he cannot invent   weapons  of mass  destruction in a foreign land  with an American  president  because   both  of them  are in the same  boat nowadays ,   fighting for their political  survival in the way  they  fight  a virus  rather than the  much   expected  military  foe.

    Without  mentioning names or even states,  many  Nigerians are relieved  by the speed  with which the SW governors  have moved positively  to contain the virus in our environment. I commend them for their proactivity, foresight  and care. Of course some have called them American and foreign products at the advent of primaries that eventually put them in power. With their foreign exposure  and experience   however, they  have read  the handwriting on the wall   in the way the virus is making the governments of the west and the US prostrate, and have not allowed procrastination to be the thief of time in moving against  the virus  here at  home. They  have overnight  to me  metamorphosed from foreign  products to good  Nigerian  leaders  and again I commend them and wish them and all of us luck  in grinding this virus to  a speedy  end     for good,  and in good time.

    Let  us  now use  a mix of modernity and history  to illustrate further the effect of this coronavirus on the world. I read of the  Justinian Plague  during the  reign of Roman  Emperor Justinian who united the Western Roman Empire with East whose  capital  was Constantinople. The plague historically killed half the population of Constantinople, now Istanbul,  and weakened the army  and people of the Empire such that they  were overrun and defeated by smaller but  stronger armies and that led to the  collapse of the Roman Empire and ushered in the Dark Ages. Compare that with the openborders and free movement of  people in the EU  which  was a thorny  point  in the Brexit Deal  or  No Deal talks.  Now  look  at    the borders being erected by EU member nations against   one another to prevent cross border spread  of coronavirus and  you  cannot  but see that unless  the virus is contained  speedily the EU  will  disintegrate just  like the Byzantine or Roman Empire on which it was modeled ;  several centuries ago .

    Lastly one  can   see  that it is possible  for some good  to come out of the coronavirus even   from  the hostile ,   rancorous  and partisan US politics .   This  was  revealed in the way that New York  Governor  Andrew Cuomo spoke in glowing terms of how President Trump  is prepared to  offer Federal   help  to the city and state of  New York . Cuomo  said Trump was  ready  and sincere  and has a good  and  competent team in place to help New York  tackle the virus . He cautioned against panic and fake news on the virus  but he never doubted the sincerity of the US president to help. Both  Trump and Cuomo are strange bedfellows on  the unity they  have  brought out to fight a common enemy  which is the virus because Cuomo is a Democrat and Trump is   Republican  who  just  survived Impeachment  by the Democrats. Indeed Trump recently  fled New York  to live elsewhere  because of the hostile Democrats administration of both the Mayor and Governor  of New York. Obviously the fear of Coronavirus  is the beginning of wisdom in tackling the common foe that this virus  has become not only in New York  but indeed our entire world. Once  again long live the Federal  Republic of Nigeria.

  • Beyond distracting Oshiomhole

    Beyond distracting Oshiomhole

    By Segun Ayobolu

    For many of those, particularly state governors, who have adopted a scorched earth policy to ensure the removal from office of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, at all costs and by all means, they do not seem to have pondered the incalculable harm  they are inflicting on a party that remains fragile despite its superlative showing in the 2015 elections that saw the dislodgement from power at the centre of a party, The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that had exercised suzerainty over the polity for over a decade and half since 1999.

    Seeming to drink from the same stupefying brew that had misled some chieftains of the erstwhile ruling party to dream and loudly proclaim its capability to wield power continuously at the centre for an unbroken period of six decades, the fractious, endlessly quarrelsome and bickering APC leadership appear to suffer from an inexplicable and ultimately self-destructive hubris. In striving with murderous intensity and perpetual surreptitious treachery and back-biting to undo and back-stab one another, arrow heads of these ruling party factions and fractions apparently do not realize that they are nibbling, chipping away slowly but surely at the clay feet of a giant statute with which they seek to achieve their higher future political ambitions.

    In their wild and unbridled calculations and maneuvering towards 2023, these APC party top shots act as if the country runs a one-party or one party-dominant system and that victory in the next general elections is theirs for the picking on a platter of gold. Nothing could be more self-deceptive. The outcome of the vote in 2015 was as much a vote for the change espoused by the emergent APC as it was a vote of no confidence in the venality and industrial-scale non-performance of the bumbling Dr Goodluck Jonathan administration. Many of those who enthusiastically supported the APC’s assumption of office in 2015 had become thoroughly disenchanted and lukewarm in their affection for the party just four years after.

    This is why, despite the grave moral baggage carried by the PDP as a result of the revelation of the relentless corruption of its top shots by an unsparing ruling party, the vicious psychological blows inflicted on the party by an often self-righteous APC and the ferocious damage done to the party’ image, the PDP still had every reason to be happy with its performance in the 2019 polls. Anyone who thinks the PDP is dead and buried is living in a fool’s paradise. Given the requisite visionary leadership and strategic re-branding, the PDP still has what it takes to bounce back meaningfully in Nigeria’s unpredictable political terrain.

    It is thus important for the ambitious APC chieftains not to exaggerate either their moral superiority or more proficient performance ability compared to their colleagues in the PDP. A more sober self-assessment would certainly engender a more cautious disposition on the part of APC leaders in handling the various intra-party crises in which they are embroiled including the ongoing desperate attempts by factions within the party to do its National Chairman in before the next general elections all for selfish, partisan and pecuniary considerations.

    Those who are today seemingly firmly united in their onslaught against Oshiomhole will be grossly mistaken to assume that the driving personal ambitions that motivate their actions today will not still further tear them further apart even if they succeed in their schemes and machinations to remove the National Chairman. They are lucky that they have a common foe in Oshiomhole today, which gives them the semblance of unity as a cohesive and impregnable front. Remove that common target and the same raw and naked passion driving their actions now with scant regard for the party or the overall polity will get further inflamed and uncontrollable.  They will be horribly scorched by the flames of unbridled ambition and their party also severely damaged in the process.

    It is all too easy for the party membership and leadership opposed to Oshiomhole to forget what the state of the APC was before the former labour leader’s emergence as National Chairman. The somnolent, indolent and indulgent leadership of the party under the watch of the Chief Odigie-John Oyegun-led National Working Committee (NWC), was about to profit from its own incompetence and lethargy. Contending that the 2015 elections were too close at hand for intra-party primaries to be held for party and elective offices, the Oyegun leadership was pursuing the path of all incumbent party and elective office holders to continue in office without what it perceived as being incommoded by distracting and largely self-defeating intra-party elections.

    This position no doubt suited the whims and caprices of many governors seeking automatic tickets for a second term or those who had completed their two terms but sought to impose their surrogates to succeed them in office. It goes without saying that the Oyegun-led NWC had virtually surrendered control of the party to the all powerful and financially munificent state governors. Luckily, President Muhammadu Buhari would not be persuaded by such self-serving logic and insisted that intra-party elections must hold for all positions – party or elective. Each chapter of the party was given the option of adopting open direct primaries involving all duly elected registered members voting, emergence of candidates through delegates’ election or the adoption of candidates through consensus arrangement involving all party stakeholder at all levels. PMB himself chose to go through the direct primaries system, which is the most democratic and least prone to financial manipulations, through which he emerged as the presidential candidate of the APC for the 2019 elections.

    Given the new wave of judicial activism by the courts in pronouncing on election petitions, the APC would have suffered most likely more of the kind of reverses it experienced in Rivers, Zamfara and Bayelsa states had the president not agreed with Oshiomhole and stood steadfastly for transparent and credible intra-party primaries in accordance with the party’s constitutional stipulations. There is no doubt that Oshiomhole had stepped on the toes of formerly all powerful party potentates particularly the governors. Even those governors perceived to have close personal relationships with PMB could not get Oshiomhole to accede to their machinations to impose their surrogates as successors. He was perceived in these circles as stubborn, petulant, intransigent and lacking in capacity for pragmatic leadership. What, however, emerged was a ruling party with greater organizational verve, institutional discipline and focus than hitherto obtained before Oshiomhole’s emergence as its chief helmsman.

    Unfortunately, the frequent diversions and disruptive distractions by rebellious elements within the APC have made it impossible for Oshiomhole to proceed in any tangible way with the requisite ideological rebranding, philosophical reorientation and organizational re-tooling of the APC to transform it into a real and viable political party in every sense of the word. Matters have not been helped by the fact that right in his own home state, he faces the most vicious and vehement opposition from a governor, Godwin Obaseki that he did everything to install in office as his successor after two terms in office. But it appears to me that the major issue in Edo now is not the so-called ingratitude of the incumbent to his supposed political benefactor; it is the virtual legislative coup carried out by the governor through which he rules the state with a minority of House of Assembly members with 14 legislators forcefully emasculated and their constituencies disenfranchised. Surely, no governor who is a thoroughbred democrat, committed to the rule of law and due process would so enthusiastically preside over such brazen impunity.

    I have heard it argued in some quarters that Oshiomhole has brought the temperament and supposedly intolerant disposition of a trade union leader to the performance of his functions as National Chairman of the APC. That, it is said, is responsible for his alleged inflexibility, stubbornness and lack of diplomacy or tact in handling problems within a political party. Those who reason this way betray a terrible ignorance of the nature and character of trade unions and particularly of the labour movement in Nigeria with its rich tradition of democratic, organizational practice except during some of the aberrant years of military rule.

    The truth is that nothing prepares anybody better to lead a democratic, mass based organization like a political party than training in trade union leadership and management. Nigeria’s labour unions are better and more democratically organized than many of our political parties. Their organs are alive and functioning and no one can sit at the apex of the organization and take solitary decisions without following due process. It can only be hoped that the APC would not have cast aside the pearl it has in Oshiomhole before appreciating its true value. This is, of course, not to suggest that the APC National Chairman does not have to work hard on refining his modus operandi and alleged character flaws where such is warranted in the interest of the party and the polity. But then will a flawless National Chairman of the ruling party emerge from outer space?

  • Avoidable deaths at league venues

    Avoidable deaths at league venues

    By Ade Ojeikere

    We are doomed as a nation. In the 21st Century, we are reviving a distressed person by forcing spoon into his mouth. He eventually dies and those who partook in this sacrilegious act are surprised. Will you blame them? Where were the doctors? Are we saying that the two teams have no medical doctor in their delegation? Who brought that weather-beaten ambulance which had battery problems? Why didn’t the state FA go to the government hospital to book for ambulance? Somebody should be made to face the consequences of this sad death.

    If the league organisers were diligent, they would have conducted the pre-season medicals among clubs professionally. The organisers ought to have a designated hospital whose duty would be to ensure that any player registered to play for the season is medically fit. It is the norm everywhere and it is celebrated each season. Need I remind readers of pictures of newly recruited players, those they met and those recruited to be transferred again, who undergo such medical routine? The essence of such periodic or should I say seasonal medical check is to avoid sudden deaths at match venues.

    To corroborate these facts is the view by a medical practitioner Dr. Adebisi John who told New Telegraph Friday that if the Pre-Competition Assessment (PCMA) had been conducted on the player as stipulated by the world football governing body FIFA, the death would have been averted.

    According to Dr John: ‘’This is why clubs overseas ensure that medics are carried out on players during the transfer period to ascertain the state of health and fitness of a particular player. It is either the report says a player is not fit and eligible to play or the player is not fit to play until further examination is carried out.’’

    The video recording of how they tried to revive the dead is not only painful but archaic. It also shows how we value human beings. I wish the league organisers could place their kids or relations in the dead player’s precarious position and see if they would accept that level of incompetence by them. In the video, an ignorant person knelt on the distressed player’s chest with some others fanning him with all manner of jersey tops which were mostly sweaty and possibly stinking. You could see someone forcing the player’s mouth open with a spoon, with some bewildered as the player died slowly.

    The whole exercise of reviving the player was comical. The pain is that those who tried to revive him have never practiced what they were doing in such emergencies? If such ignorant few were allowed to handle the distressed, what happened to the two teams’ medical crew? Where was the Nasarawa State FA’s back-up medical team? How come the match commissioner allowed the game to kick off without checking on the quality of the medical personnel on the ground? Who hired the ambulance that failed to function on such critical occasion?

    In fact, those who functioned as the logistics staff for the game should never be allowed into any football stadium. They should be banned for life and appropriate sanctions placed on them. Perhaps, this is the best chance to get clubs to show all the mechanisms they have for players’, coaches’ and ancillary staff’s medical, albeit insurance policies. No team should be registered if its management can’t submit documents to show that they value the human life.

    The sports ministry should immediately ask the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) to advertise the position of official hospital for the Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL). The NFF should also throw open bids to hospitals in the states to bid as official medical unit to each of the 20 teams in the elite class.  The sports ministry could partner with its Federal Ministry of Health to conduct the processes of getting qualified doctors, nurses, hospitals surgeons for the league. The sports ministry in conjunction with the NFF could talk to sponsors to bankroll this critical aspect of the league to avoid a recurrence.

    Yes, I’m not a seer. Neither am I a harbinger of bad news. But I warned in this column penultimate Saturday that there was urgent need for us to improve on the medical facilities at match venues, lest we lose a soul.

    In the article I stated that most of the ambulances at venues were more or less statues, non functional. I talked about these ambulances either being pushed to start or having to go over six kilometres to find the driver in cases of emergencies. I talk about the rusty cylinder belonging to the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia from which the chairman of Enyimba FC of Aba Felix Anyansi-Agwu was given oxygen while having his broken head stitched.

    Anyansi’s head was broken and till date the culprit of that dastardly act has not been arrested and prosecuted like it’s done in saner climes. It has been swept under the carpet as a none event, making the criminal’s action legitimate. Nobody is anticipating reprisal attacks anytime the return leg is played. It doesn’t matter if it is played next year.

    Writing in this column under the headline ‘’Wanted! medical lifeline at stadia’’  I warned that the rusty cylinder through which oxygen was given to Felix Anyansi-Agwu at the Federal Medical Centre in Umuahia, Abia State, leaves much to be desired. I stated categorically that in other climes, Anyansi-Agwu should have been taken to the hospital fitted with oxygen right on the scene of occurrence.

    I highlighted the fact that the way Anyansi Agwu was taken to the medical centres showed the absence of a medical system in the league. It showed also that Anyansi-Agwu didn’t receive any proper care on the pitch. Thank God it wasn’t an emergency. We have seen emergencies handled professionally in European leagues. We marvel at the dispatch in which medics in the stadium rally round the distressed players, officials or referees were taken out of the pitch after doing the required first aid treatments, essentially to stabilise the patient, before heading for the hospital. The first thing fitted on such distressed person is oxygen. Modern science makes such means of passing oxygen less cumbersome and not a health hazard like the rusty cylinder used to treat Anyansi Agwu.

    The player named Chineme Martins reportedly collapsed on the pitch in the 3-0 win over Katsina United last week Sunday. Although he was rushed to the hospital, he gave up the ghost on arrival. However, according to an eye witness, things could have been different if the Peugeot 406 Ambulance stationed for emergency had started on time.

    According to reports made available to Soccernet, the car failed to start and had to be pushed as Martins battled for his life on the pitch. The press crew bus was eventually used to convey the player to the hospital, but by that time, it was too late as he ran out of breath at the hospital.

    If the car didn’t start, what happened to the oxygen facilities inside the ambulance? Where was the medical team which accompanied the faulty ambulance? That is if there was an ambulance?

    This incident shouldn’t be swept under the carpet. A probe panel must be constituted to look at the remote and immediate causes of the poor handling of the player’s distressed moments which led to his death. The findings would help future organisers of the league. It would also produce an official template on how players’ coaches and ancillary staff’s health matters should be handled.

    I’ve read the sanction meted out on the match commissioner Christian Mbah. Mbah from Enugu State Football Association, has been withdrawn permanently from further participation in NPFL matches, for failing to perform his statutorily duty on match day. Mbah was to ensure all requirements including Medical personnel and equipment were in place before allowing the match to kickoff. Mbah didn’t. He also failed to submit his match report within the stipulated time frame despite the aggravated incident from the match.

    The big question to ask the organisers is if they have disclosed what happened in the local derby game between Abia Warriors and Enyimba, where an NFF board member Felix Anyansi-Agwu’s head was broken by an irate fan, who is roaming free in Umuahia. If this report has been disclosed, having being played weeks back, what offence has Mbah committed? Truth is that nothing works in the league. Mbah is being made the fall guy in this matter, forgetting that no club ought to be registered without all the requirements in place.