The Nation Newspaper

Category: Thursday

Covid-19 and old people

Jide Osuntokun

It is now generally known that old people are the most vulnerable group to this terrible viral pandemic.

We are daily told by the global media that anybody over 65 should isolate themselves and stay away even from their grandchildren who are said to be innocent carriers of the virus which however does nothing to them because of their strong immune system while affecting their grannies whose immune systems are compromised because of old age.

It is even being said that the hoped-for vaccines may prove to be too strong for the weakened immune system of the old people which means old people are in serious trouble if they will not benefit from the vaccines.

It was General Charles de Gaulle of France who in 1968, in retirement in his village, of Colombey-les Deux-Eglises, said old age was a plague which will eventually affect everyone.

Africans generally revere old age which is equated with wisdom. Both Christianity and Islam advice young people not to dispense with the advice of the old.

A wisecrack sent to my WhatsApp platform a statement that said the European Union has decreed that no one over 70 years shall participate in the government of any of its members.

This is of course fake news! He added that if this were to apply to Africa there would be no government since our presidents in Africa are mostly over 70.

In fact, most are in their 80s and 90s which made Mo. Ibrahim the Sudanese billionaire whose foundation awards $5 million prize to any voluntarily retiring African leader who has made serious impact on his country to deprecate the stay-put tendencies found among African rulers.

He jokingly said some African rulers in their 90s are still contesting elections and leading their countries. He asked where such elderly presidents are leading their countries to? To the grave? He asked.

I wrote in this column an article with caption of “This is not a time to hate” in reaction to what I saw on the internet when the late chief of staff to our president, Abba Kyari, was diagnosed as being infected by the Covid-19.

Some of his critics openly wished him the worst, which has now happened. Some even added that the old people in Nigeria have caused so much damage to the country that they will not be missed if they all died of the viral attack.

It is true that some of us old people may have wreaked havoc on the country by error of omission or commission but we are not all guilty and I believe some old Nigerians, if called, can still offer useful advice to those in government because of their accumulated wisdom garnered over the years and because of our education and life experience.

Wishing us dead is not the solution to the problem of Nigeria. I hope their wish will not come true because I am involved as an old man. I have always believed that many of our politicians have been around for too long. I mean there is a time to be born and a time to die.

Our leaders should harken to the demand of young people to be allowed to govern. It is better to do this than allow themselves to be pushed off their peacock thrones by youthful revolutionaries.

The USA with all its power has witnessed young people in their forties, people like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, William Jefferson Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama become presidents and provided excellent leadership in their country.

The decline of the USA under the 73-year old President Donald Trump may be due to his old age and the North Korean dictator Kim Jon Un may be right by calling him a “dotard “, that’s a confused old man! Unfortunately, the United States is doomed to endure for the next four years after January 2021, the presidency of either old man Trump or even older Joe Biden his Democratic Party opponent.

This is however not the best of times for elderly people. This is why when someone comes to me pleading that I take him or her to see a governor or minister for favours, I always refuse not out of arrogance, but because of possible humiliation by their assistants who would be discussing among themselves about the mission of the old man waiting in the lobby!

I turned 78 during my lockdown in April at the best place in Nigeria where one can be isolated at this time, the Redemption Camp of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).

I came to the camp on Wednesday, March 17 with the hope of returning to Ibadan around Friday, March 20, and to travel to Dublin on the 25th of the same month. Man proposes but God disposes. I have been marooned here since that time, almost two months ago.

I am grateful to God and to the RCCG and my late wife, Pastor Abiodun Osuntokun of blessed and unforgettable memory who without knowing it, left me in the safe hands of this church 17 years ago by building a prayer house in this religious camp.

When people call me to find out how I was doing or if I was still alive, they are always sorry for me when I tell them about my location and being alone in my house with no wife or somebody to cook for me. However, the wife of our General Overseer, Pastor (Mrs ) Folu Adeboye sometimes extends her well-known generosity by sending me food.

Of course, I always responded to my well-wishers making enquiry about my well-being, that I am doing well, taking long walks and eating twice daily by choice and that God is in control of my life and that there is no reason to be sorry for me. Life in isolation is of course intolerable.

Honestly speaking, I have gotten used to loneliness since my wife left me 17 years ago and because of the love we shared, the question of remarrying has never come to my mind, though it has been suggested many times by many good people.

This year of Covid-19 was perhaps very difficult because I celebrated my birthday on April 26 alone and I could not travel to Ibadan on May 3 to lay a wreath, as I normally do, at the grave of my wife because of the lockdown.

But I was touched by the kindness of my children and grandchildren, my extended family members and my former students who called on the anniversary of my wife’s demise and of course on my birthday, both days being uncomfortably close for me.

But I particularly want to say the reward of us teachers is not, and needs not be in heaven as we were made to believe before. Three of my former students made me happy in their own different ways. Biola Olusola, a Lagos lawyer, always takes me for luncheon at the Sheraton in Ikeja.

He also allows me to invite close friends, all expenses paid by him. On occasions when he couldn’t take me for lunch, he would send to my account some money for my celebration.

How nice of someone I taught almost four decades ago. I was born in Biola’s home town where my parents were “osomaalo” that’s traders. He has remained close to me forever. He did not forget to call me this time and to send some money for my birthday celebrations even from his own lockdown.

Tokesi, one of my young former students and a mother of two little ones credited my phone with two thousand naira. Opeyemi, an unemployed former student sent five hundred naira to my phone. I was really touched by this young ladies’ generosity.

I received calls from my former students scattered all over the world in Nigeria, the United States and Canada. By the end of the day, I was exhausted answering their phone calls.

I have been privileged to be supported generously by two of my former students before on different occasions, namely Pastor Tunde Bakare on two occasions, during my raising of funds for my Anglican diocese harvest in Ijero and marriage of my son some years ago.

Deji Adeyemi also once surprised me by his generosity. So, with these testimonies, who says the teachers’ reward is in heaven! Yes perhaps, they are there, but we can also get some rewards in the here and the now.

On the Coronavirus and old people, all I need to add is that we shall overcome. We are closely watched these days when we sneeze or cough in case we are manifesting signs of Covid-19. When I coughed recently, the way I was being asked if I was alright made me blurt out and ask if coughing was abnormal for old people.

I mean it comes with the territory. Sneezing too! This is why I will advice all old people who plan to travel abroad to stay put here.

A friend of mine who traveled to New York during the time of Ebola and merely sneezed on the second day of his arrival in New York found himself locked down and isolated for 14 days with no chance of his calling his son to tell him his whereabouts.

These days I am always self-conscious if I cough or sneeze and rather than do this in the public I always swallow the sneeze or cough. This is what coronavirus has done to us, old folks!

May 14, 2020
Aluta continua: Battle against the COVID-19 continues

By Jide Osuntokun

No one knows when we will be out of this Covid-19 crisis. Your guess is as good as mine. Scientists all over the world are working on possible medical solutions ranging from administering a cocktail of drugs that were meant for other conditions but which may well take care of those struck down by the novel coronavirus, to treatment with blood plasma of those who were infected but had recovered on those suffering from the virus and the ultimate solution of development of vaccines. President Donald Trump carelessly sold the idea of an anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine being effective in the treatment of Covid-19 without any clinical trial. Immediately he said this there was a run on the drug mainly now produced cheaply in India to the point that India started hoarding it. Trump had to threaten India before this immoral action was stopped.

Even here in Nigeria, there was a run on the pharmaceutical shops that had them. At the end of the hullabaloos, the drug was found to be useless against coronavirus and in fact it was found to do more harm on those affected by the viral disease. Recently, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the United States federal government’s leading infectious diseases scientist, announced that Remdesivir, which previously tested unsuccessfully as an antiviral against Ebola, after clinical trial, showed that remdesivir may “ reduce the mortality rate of Covid-19 and can shorten the duration of the illness”. The Japanese in another trial had also found this drug somehow effective in the treatment of the coronavirus.

There are other trials of other drugs under the rubric of “drug repurposing” by which it is meant old drugs already approved for a range of disease from cancers, to H.I.V and others are being combined and tested for use against this new coronavirus. It is a case of necessity is the mother of invention. Development of vaccines are going on by over a hundred companies all over the world with prospects that one or more than one will be successfully tested and ready for use on humans by spring next year. That means we will be in this state of anxiety and animation for the next ten or so months. This is like waiting for eternity. Thankfully, the global efforts led by the European Union, organized a pledging conference to come up with $8 billion which will be made available to researchers working on vaccines for the coronavirus pandemic so as to ensure that when eventually developed, the vaccines will be sold at cost to all countries without profit so that no country will be excluded from benefiting from the solution on the grounds of poverty. The European Union has pledged $1 billion, Great Britain, Germany, France, Norway and Saudi Arabia have already each pledged to contribute about half a billion dollars.

As I write, the United States of President Donald Trump has not shown any interest in the global efforts apparently believing the United States can go on to develop a vaccine on its own without being handicapped by any global coalition against profit. China, where the virus broke on the world has also tactically refrained from joining the rest of the world to pledge any financial support. Most of the companies involved in the race to produce vaccines are private drugs and pharmaceutical companies sometimes aided by state grants. Ordinarily it takes more than 18 months to produce vaccines but in the case of this pandemic, the whole process is being shortened because the world cannot afford to be huddled down for almost two years while the economy remains prostrate and millions of people remain unemployed thus constituting social and security threat to national and international peace and security. The situation is so dire that rather than wait for the development of the vaccines to go through the normal animal testing, vaccines are already going through human testing. In fact people are already volunteering in Oxford, England to be used more like guinea pigs. My prayer is that these efforts will pay at the end so that we all can see some light at the end of this dark tunnel of the novel coronavirus.

Not much is known about what efforts are being made in China in terms of drugs or production of vaccines that may reduce the morbidity and mortality of the coronavirus. I will be most surprised if the Chinese do not have something up their sleeves. It stands to reason that a country where the problem first surfaced and which had overcome the problems and with very minimal mortality will surely have secrets about how to handle the problem. Unfortunately, the spat between China and the USA may be militating against full transparency and joint Sino-American partnership in finding solution to the coronavirus. The temporary stoppage of funding by the USA of the WHO on the grounds that the global organization is too pro-China is another stumbling block on multilateral approach to joint action. What is however clear is that whatever the case may be, the days of the coronavirus are numbered. One hopes that the world will be more prepared for whatever pandemic comes in future. This statement applies to all countries in the world, Africa and the United States inclusive. This is because the USA is the only major industrial global power which does not have universal health insurance cover and where most of the close to 78,000 dead have come from the ranks of the poor black and brown people. The post Covid-19 world would have to change for everyone. I hope it changes in Africa and in Nigeria in particular.

Here in Nigeria, it is quite clear that we as a country must change our approach to governance or events which we cannot control will change us. The coronavirus has exposed our medical unpreparedness for any medical emergency even of lesser severity than a viral pandemic. We muddled through Ebola and we are regularly having to cope with Lassa fever which is caused by our unhygienic way of life. Our filthy environment allows rats and other vermin to breed and affect our poorly kept food which we then consume with relish. I remember some years ago when China declared war on house rats and within a short time, the country unleashed its more than one billion people to wipe out rats from the country and it was done. When Jamaica was troubled by snakes, the British administration then in the country went to India to import mongoose which made mincemeat of all the snakes in the island. We can also do the same to the snakes and rats roaming around the northeast of Nigeria and the FCT in one burst of biological energy to solve a serious problem using simple natural environment-friendly solution. Now that the hydrocarbons-dependency of our country is proving to be near fatal, shouldn’t we begin to think out of the box about what to do? We cannot borrow our way out of the problem. No serious country would lend us money when they know we would not be able to pay. In any case, we should always try and cut our coat according to our cloth. The over-bloated bureaucracies of federal, state and local governments have to be trimmed. In this regard it is not just merging of parastatals and departments that we need to do; we must also rationalize the number of states and local governments. We do not need the hordes of people presently in our parliaments both at national and sub national levels. In short. we need a new groundnorm to spell out all the changes that we desire.

There is just no money to have the bevy of universities and colleges politically established without planning about staff and money. Instead of the over 40 federal universities and still growing, we can admit all the students in them in half of the number with expansion of the old ones and stopping the jamboree of military, police, customs, navy, immigration, petroleum and transport universities. Territorially and culturally contiguous states can be encouraged to pull their resources together to integrate the present state universities. The great universities of Ife and Ahmadu Bello and University of Nigeria were built on solid grounds because they had the foundational backing of large and reasonably viable states unlike what we have now where states that do not generate revenue internally are rushing to establish two or more universities with inadequate staff and infrastructure.

If the present states must exist, they have to demonstrate their ability to be financially self-sufficient. In any case, in a reconfigured federation, ability to stand on their own will be the primary requirement for statehood. For Nigeria itself to be viable, it must be reconfigured along proper federal lines in which the states must create the federal government and not the other way round. This was what happened in the first republic. If Ahmadu Bello and Awolowo had known that they were signing up to unitary system masquerading as a federal system, they would not have signed up to the independence constitution. We must go back to the past to realize a viable constitutional future. It is as simple as that. Once the constitutional architecture is agreed upon, then the rest of how to become a modern state will fall in line. It is a disgrace that the whole of Kano State did not have oxygen in its hospitals to assist people choking to death as a result of coronavirus. If we have a functioning political and constitutional system, only people who can run things will be put in charge of government departments. Appointments will not be sinecures and will not be based on political jobbery.

May 7, 2020
In the valley of Coronavirus

Lawal Ogienagbon

ONE thing has held the world down in the past five months and that thing is Coronavirus otherwise known as COVID-19. They have been months of agony as countries of the world run from pillar to post in their desperate search for a cure for the highly contagious novel Coronavirus. For the past four months, the world has been on lockdown to avoid the spread of the deadly disease.

But the virus keeps spreading and killing people all over the world. The virus; the invisible virus, which leaders in some parts of the world have described as an unseen enemy has become so virulent that even powerful nations are stunned by its deadliness. Those of us in the third world have watched in awe as the virus tears the developed countries apart leaving them wondering what has befallen them.

Yet, it is a virus; a virus which strains were conquered in the past. Why is this different? What strain of it is COVID-19 that has made it so difficult to fight? Why have renowned scientists suddenly become incapable in the face of this virus? What chance do we stand against it in Africa going by the havoc it is wreaking in Europe and America? So far, Africa has been lucky as the virus has not been ravaging the continent the way it has done in Europe and America. But for how long will our luck last?

Soon, they will find a way round the problem, leaving the poor states of Africa to sort themselves out. In all of these, I fear for Nigeria, the most populous country on the continent. By virtue of our population, we tend to see Nigeria as the giant of Africa. No doubt, we have the human and capital resources to be the numero uno in Africa, but our inability to husband these resources remains our greatest challenge. We simply believe in throwing money at every problem without sitting down to look at the cost-benefit. Once, the national government goes that way, the states will without wasting time take a cue from that.

From what we have seen globally, it will cost money to combat Coronavirus, but the battle can still be won without spending a fortune, if our leaders get their acts right. After the government gave Lagos State N10billion and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) N5billion, other states began agitating for what they believe is their share of the national cake even when as at then, they had no cases of Coronavirus. Rivers State began the agitation when at every turn Governor Nyesom Wike kept on complaining about the money given to Lagos to the exclusion of other states. He conveniently forgot that the money was given to Lagos to augment the expenses it incurred in setting up isolation centres for the treatment of COVID-19 patients at a time the other states had no such cases.

Kano Governor Abdullahi Ganduje toed the same path shortly after his state recorded its Coronavirus case. Without putting any structure in place in case the virus lands in the state despite having all the time to do so, he went cap in hand to the government begging for money. To do what? You will ask. Lagos had spent N4billion of its own money before the government gave it N10billion. So, what the state got was N6billion. Rather than set to work to stop the virus from ravaging his state, Ganduje was interested in the money he would get from the government.

When people, including eminent personalties, started dropping dead in the state, he was quick to say that their deaths had nothing to do with COVID-19. According to him, the cause of death was unknown. How can it be known when the deceased were hurriedly buried without autopsy. Investigation has since shown that they died of Coronavirus. What does Ganduje have to say to this after his slip? “Kano is in trouble with the COVID-19 pandemic”. Ask him, who put the state in that trouble, he will not answer. But the public knows the answer. The governor got to know how big the problem is when it was too late. When many lives, including those of two emirs, had been lost.

To him, he did not see anything wrong in what he did. No remorse or whatsoever. He just explained it away casually, blaming what happened on the challenges faced by the state in testing for the disease. Whose fault? Is he not the governor? Is he not expected to provide the testing facilities? Unfortunately, the matter will end there without Ganduje paying for what he did. What a country!

The poor handling of COVID-19 cases in Kano is a source of worry. If there should be an explosion in cases there, we will be in trouble as a nation. It is good that the government is taking more interest in what is happening there. The Federal Ministry of Health and the NCDC should be mandated to take over the management of cases in order to stem the rising incidence of deaths. Ganduje has toyed with the matter for too long that he can no longer be trusted to be in charge as incident commander. Let him step aside and his place let another take until this Coronavirus storm blows over.

Adieu Dele Odebiyi

I knew Baba Dele Odebiyi some years before I joined Daily Times. I met him through my friend Tajudeen Folami, who was his student at Ebenezer Comprehensive High School, Ijaiye Ojokoro, Lagos. Taju had wanted to start a soft sell loose sheet paper sometime in 1989 and invited me to help out. Me? A cub reporter then in The Punch. I simply told him to look for a more senior person in the profession if he did not want to throw his money away. That was when he told me about Baba Odebiyi and I advised him to seek the erudite journalist out and he did.

Two years later when I joined Daily Times, Baba Odebiyi took me under his wings and encouraged me to contribute to other titles in the stable and not limit myself to writing for Daily Times. Odebiyi, a former chairman of Lagos State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) was a prolific writer, who wrote for all the Daily Times titles. He derived joy in writing and the teacher in him showed in his writings. Pa Odebiyi died on April 28 at the age of 78. He began his final journey home yesterday during a wake at his Lagos-Badagry Expressway residence. His remains will be interred there today at 11am. Go in peace, teacher, activist, journalist.

May 7, 2020
Institutionalising feudalism

Jide Oluwajuyitan

The northern political elite are the curse of the North and by extension curse of the country. Millions of northern youths in the name of religion and culture are condemned into life of misery and abject poverty. In recent years, rather than take advantage of the 2004 Universal Basic Education Act which made provision for a compulsory nine years of education covering six years of primary school and first three years in secondary school, many of their governors would rather sponsor youth corps members and underage girls to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage.

For them, the armies of poor homeless youths are good only for winning election. Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State recently celebrated them as the force behind the invincibility of north during election. A former governor of Borno State where less than 30% of youths go to school not too long ago located his strength at winning election in the inability of many of his youths to read newspapers and make sense out of negative things written about him.

Until the current COVID-19 pandemic which does not discriminate between feudal lords and serfs, northern leaders kept justifying the existence of Almajiris which by a 2014 UNICEF report account for 9.5 million of Nigeria’s estimated 13.2 million out-of-school children spread across the streets of major cities of the north on the basis of culture and religion which paradoxically did not stop them from sending their own children to the best schools in the world.

With the scourge of COVID-19 which makes no distinction between feudal lords and serfs, northern political leaders under aegis of Northern Governors Forum according to Simon Lalong, its chairman, last week agreed to take a cue from Kano, Kaduna and Nasarawa states that have started returning Almajiri children to their families and states of origin, while those who do not have parents are taken care of by the government, “to prevent the Almajiris from risk of coronavirus”.

But Nigerians are not deceived. The major inducements for governors who have for long lived in denial are the social challenges associated with continued ‘perpetuation of poverty, illiteracy, insecurity and social disorder in all the northern states.

It was not as if these challenges are new. They have always been necessary fall-outs of feudalism and social stratification that have for centuries defined socio- political culture of the north and its people. What was new before the banning of the Almajiri system in all the 19 states of the north last week was that unlike their selfless forbears, the level of greed among the newly educated political elite in the north did not allow them to understand that the wellbeing of the poor is the well-being of the rich.

A journey through memory shows that there were Almajiris schools modeled after madrasas in other parts of the Muslim world during the pre-colonial period. Such schools were located among the people to enable the poor children stay under their parents’ guidance for moral instruction while they combined their Islamic studies with learning a trade such as farming, fishing, masonry. The first set of colonial staff in Northern Nigeria, it was claimed were products of almajiri schools while those who went into farming were widely believed to be responsible for the famous Kano groundnut pyramids. Tsangaya, the equivalent of the almajiris schools in Kanem-Borno Empire was funded largely by the state.

All that changed with the emergence of newly educated political elite that falsely swear by the names of the masses just to secure power without corresponding responsibility. While the new southern inheritors of power in the run up to independence realized it was in their enlightened self-interest to create an egalitarian society which eventually allowed children of poor farmers to become doctors, lawyers and business men, the children of almajiri groundnut farmers in the north ended up begetting almajiris.

Awo and his group wanted to export the good things they wanted for themselves and their people to the rest of the country. But following the resistance from the core north which resulted in 1953 Kano riot and the death of over 40 Igbos, they shifted their attention to the minority which was then 45%of the population of the north.

To prevent social inequality and forestall social dislocations which today find expression in armed robbery, kidnapping for ransom, herdsmen-farmers conflict, religious fundamentalism, they advocated a federal arrangement which would not only allow all Nigerians attain their potential but also guarantees rights of minority and checkmates the tyranny of the majority.

In this regard, Awo as far back as 1945 advocated for a Nigerian federation based on ethnic nationalities and modelled after the Swiss constitution. He had also in his contribution to the Arthur Richards constitution, called for a ‘true federal constitution where each group no matter how small is entitled to the same treatment as any other group however large’. During the 1951 constitutional debate when the north wanted a confederal state and Zik and NCNC wanted a unitary state, Awo and Enahoro called “for a Nigerian federation made up of the ten dominant ethnic groups with smaller groups giving an option to choose where to belong through a referendum.”

And when out of mischief and political expediency, Zik and Ahmadu Bello were creating Midwest in 1962, they ignored Awo and Enahoro’s amendment that ‘nine additional states be created’ with Tafawa Balewa declaring ‘I would like to make absolutely clear my stand, the stand of the federal government and the NPC in this matter; we are always opposed to the creation of new states…but if a particular tribe is foolish enough…We shall always see to it that they are broken up into bits’.

It was Awo’s attempt to provide alternative to Ahmadu Bello and Nnamdi Azikiwe’s vision of society more than anything else that led to his house detention and eventual imprisonment in 1962.

The military and military baked ‘new breed’ politicians that carried on the battle for the enthronement of a feudal system on the country after ending violent uprising among the minority groups in the north started the battle by first ‘federalising’ virtually everything from private media concerns, mineral deposits and regional socio-economic and political institutions and even almajiris.

Under the current unitary system we fraudulently called federal, thousands of almajiris are periodically ferried to Lagos by northern governors trying to solve self-inflicted social problems. In Lagos, they find their equivalent in thousands of Igbo youths who cannot read and write but make a living struggling daily against all odds on the streets. In the west, almajiris take the form of thousands of youths popularly called ‘area boys’ who dropped out of school due to federal government policies of reverse discrimination through JAMB, quota system of admission into federal government secondary schools, and into universities set up with their parents’ taxes which government declared ‘federal’ by fiat.

There cannot be any other name for a system that allows the federal centre confiscate resources of federating states including oil wells and share same out to parasitic elites and indolent states and local government created without objective criteria than feudalism. It was only under a feudal system that powerful emir like Lamido Sanusi, former Emir of Kano would have encouraged Fulani herdsmen in Benue to disobey the laws of their host states. It is only a feudal system that will question the right of Lagos State to deport thousands of unemployable youths ferried to Lagos in trailers and thousands, in response to social dislocations and in breach of Lagos State laws.

May 7, 2020
COVID-19: Looking inwards for a cure (3)

By Olatunji Ololade

Modern Nigeria, drained of compassion, is mortally dead. As the Coronavirus aka COVID-19 spreads among the citizenry, the government’s cold-walled corridors remain evidently passionless.

Cold, spectral personae, spanning the various State Houses and government agencies, parade pitiless game faces, like itinerant gamblers, whose rule of time is enforced by immoderate lust, greed, Mammon and death.

Save the doctors, nurses, janitors, pharmacists, store-keepers, and other health workers, slugging it out every day, in a perilous fight, Nigeria may be worse off in its fight against COVID-19.

It was a given that the rate of infection would escalate and the figures would incite alarm among the citizenry. As you read, more people are getting infected, more are taking their last gasps in the vice-grip of COVID-19.

Raging at China over coronavirus would do us no good. After all, the federal government, moving against the tide of reason and protest by Nigerian doctors, brought in Chinese doctors, purportedly to help fight the coronavirus – even while the country suffered no severity in terms of the scourge. The jury is out on the wisdom of the government’s decision amid the toxicity of ineffectual leadership.

It’s about time we scrutinised our own government. How sincere is the Nigerian government in its ‘fight’ against COVID-19? If the federal government is truly sincere in its campaign against the virus, why did it rule out, until recently, the possibility of looking inwards for a cure?

Why did some state governments go through the trouble of purchasing fumigation tools and publicise intent to disinfect their domain’s public places only to desert the initiative shortly after?

Why did the government fail to seize the opportunity of the lockdown to repair the country’s bad road network, given that, bad roads cause vehicular traffic, and protracted hold-ups manifest dangerously as contamination points?

There are issues of compassion and efficiency. The government has so far, botched medical and social intervention programmes meant to alleviate the impact of the pandemic on vulnerable segments of the population.

Its scandalous lack of vision and cowardice in fighting the pandemic has so far, incited citizenry angst and conspiracy theories of government’s insincerity in fighting the virus.

In fighting the pandemic, I reiterate that the Nigerian government must look inwards and explore the innumerable opportunities offered by traditional, herbal medicine.

If they won’t, medical NGOs and civil societies must unite in finding affordable, alternative traditional therapy in treating COVID-19. The preventive and curative therapy generated thereby would serve the interest of millions of Nigerians, who stand the risk of untimely death by the disease, due to lack of a functional health system, lack of bed spaces, and a cruel government.

Madagascar’s COVID-Organics may yet be Africa’s major elixir in fighting COVID-19 and ridding the continent of its scourge. This is hardly the time for intellectual subterfuge and random bullying by the government of brilliant scientists and advocates of traditional herbal medicine. It is time to seek synergy between western medicine and traditional herbal medicine.

Last week, I mentioned how China evolved Artemisinin as a potent antimalarial drug. Known in Chinese as qinghaosu, and derived from the sweet wormwood (Artemisia annua L.), Artemisinin was only one of several hundred substances discovered by a young Chinese medical researcher, Tu Youyou.

Jia-Chen Fu, Assistant Professor of Chinese, Emory University states in a piece for Conversation Africa, that, Tu and her team were recruited as part of Project 523, by the Chinese government. Project 523 was a covert operation launched to fight chloroquine-resistant malaria, and Tu and her team culled from Chinese drugs and folk remedies to evolve one of the most powerful and effective antimalarial drug therapy to date.

The original three-year plan produced by the People’s Liberation Army Research Institute aimed to integrate Chinese and Western medicines while taking Chinese drugs as its priority.

Highlighting the significance of the Project 523, Jia-Chen Fu notes that it had three goals: the identification of new drug treatments for fighting chloroquine-resistant malaria, the development of long-term preventative measures against chloroquine-resistant malaria, and the development of mosquito repellents.

To achieve these ends, research on Chinese drugs and acupuncture was integral. The decision to investigate Chinese drugs was not without precedent, however. Back in 1926, Chen Kehui and Carl Schmidt of the Peking Union Medical College published their original paper on ephedrine, derived from Chinese herb mahuang. It inspired more than 500 scientific papers on ephedrine (for asthma relief) around the world by 1929.

In the 1940s, the interest in the Chinese drug changshan and its antimalarial properties led to the establishment of a state-funded research institute and experimental farm in Sichuan province. Project 523’s embrace of Chinese materia medica – the traditional body of knowledge about substances’ healing properties – is a more recent example of the efforts to “scientize” Chinese medicine through selective appropriation and detailed investigation.

This ensured that qinghao research proceeded within a climate in which scientists, “who themselves had learnt the ways of appreciating traditional knowledge, worked side by side with historians of traditional medicine, who had textual learning.”

Nigeria may emulate the Chinese model exploring the benefits of synergy between western and traditional herbal medicine. So doing, appropriate processing and dose regulation must be sought to improve drug efficacy and reduce drug toxicity.

Considerable amounts of data can be acquired through clinical experiments, but is Nigeria fully equipped for such a venture, given its significance in the development of modern drugs?

Through its use of natural products, traditional medicine, according to health experts, offers merits over other forms of medicine in the discovery of lead compounds and drug candidates, examination of drug-like activity, and toxicological characteristics among others.

In recent years, traditional medicine has gradually gained considerable approval as complementary or alternative medicine in Western countries. Chinese herbal medicine, for instance, is currently used in the health care of an estimated 1.5 billion people worldwide.

It should be noted that in traditional medicine, several herbs and ingredients are combined according to strict rules to form prescriptions, which are referred to as formulas (fang ji in Chinese). Commonly, a classic formula is composed of four elements—the “monarch”, “minister”, “assistant”, and “servant”—according to their different roles in the formula, each of which consists of one to several drugs. Ideally, these drugs constitute an organic group to produce the desired therapeutic effect and reduce adverse reactions.

At its foray into the country, COVID-19 capitalised on Nigeria’s underlying conditions and exploited them ruthlessly. A corrupt political class, a dysfunctional health system, and a disillusioned citizenry.

It took the scale and intimacy of the pandemic, as Nesrine Malik, would say, to expose the severity of our shortcomings and shock us with the recognition that we are in the high-risk category.

The crisis demanded a swift, lucid, response but the government reacted with institutionalised lethargy and pitilessness; cruelly leaving the borders open as a leadership deadened to the finer aspects of tact, reason, and responsibilities of a visionary government.

The unfolding dystopia calls for urgent intervention by well-meaning Nigerians and civil societies in the interest of the collective. The presiding oligarchs lack the maturity, native intelligence, and wisdom to curtail the spread of COVID-19.

They lack the tact required to drive Nigeria up the path of rebirth and progress.

May 7, 2020
A Nigerian press tragedy (1)

By Olatunji Ololade

Malice, peculiar to the individual, is a genre of private experience. But when co-opted for leverage and wielded by a journalist’s employer, family, or friend in the mathematic of social enterprise, it becomes a weapon.

The wielder becomes venomous, armed to the teeth. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many a journalist have been chewed upon and spat out, like putrid, primeval dessert, by employers, family, and friends.

The joke persists in press circuits that, these days, when you place a call to a friend outside your field of calling, the first thought that crosses his mind is: “What does this one want again? I don’t have any money to borrow him.”

The friend could say: “This pompous prick has called to ask for a loan again.” Just as a News Editor overheard his “childhood friend,” and a bank’s publicist, saying recently, unaware that the journalist had gotten to his door.

“The most painful thing was that he was discussing me with one of my reporters, who is his lover. He showed her my number, dialling his’ lamenting that I always disturbed him for money. This was a guy I practically fed and clothed through school. He was shocked to see me. He couldn’t look me in the eye,” said the editor.

Many a journalist has become the butt of rancid jest and roast, even among family. “Na to blow grammar you sabi. Cheddar (Money), you no get,” a colleague’s younger sister told her recently.

The staff of a southern newspaper lamented how she was ridiculed by her siblings. Afterward, her mother made her younger sister replace her at the head of the table during a family dinner because her sister, who is wife to an internet fraudster (Yahoo Boy), single-handedly financed their late dad’s funeral. They showed the journalist, that, honour is earned and best given to the child whose goatskin feeds the family.

The latter’s husband got laid off in July 2018. Their marriage broke up five months later. Realising that she was two months pregnant, she terminated the pregnancy stressing that she couldn’t birth “an innocent child into poverty.” Yea, it gets so bad for the female journalist.

For the male journalist, it gets grislier. His wife and children totally lose respect for him at home, especially as he grows older and his means of income fades out. Many who got laid off in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic have lost face at home.

Another male colleague lamented that since his wife assumed the role of breadwinner, the power equation has tilted against him at the homefront. Neither religious nor cultural homilies has stemmed his reduction before wife and child. I would say that his descent the totem pole was gradual but steady over the cause of his grievous career, before the bad news of his sack, he simply failed to see the signs.

Some journalists, who smartly pitched tents with politicians and corporate organisations have it better but this lot eventually mutate from society’s watchdogs to high society’s lapdogs, to Nigeria’s detriment.

Kudos to the persevering, incorruptible editors and media managers. Kudos too, to the diligent mid-career, young upwardly mobile journalists – for they are journalism’s finest breed, and Nigeria’s hope. While some do earn well by their sweat, others are simply keeping the faith.

Faith is all they have to live for, in a calling that has impoverished too many professionals and their families. Few months ago, an Editor-in-Chief had his salary slashed to N150, 000 at a newspaper owned by a prominent politician and deep-pocket.

No one expected the latter to fund operations from his own pocket but until COVID-19 devastated media economies, Mr. Deep-pocket politician persistently looted his newspaper’s coffers, forcing his editors to divert revenue from the publication’s corporate account to his personal account – thus stifling growth and expansion of his media enterprise.

Even so, the newspaper made immense profit and acquired properties to the chagrin of its publisher. The curious character, driven by a frantic desire to impoverish his editorial staff, imposed paltry salaries upon them.

He subscribes to the predatory logic that recommends impoverishment of journalists by their employers, to prevent them from getting “too comfortable,” “too objective,” and “too ethical” – a starving, underpaid journalist is forever subservient and desperate to play dumb, many a predatory publisher would say.

While the newspaper proprietor is notable for doling out millions of naira and dollars to girlfriends, commercial sex hawkers, and political associates, he impoverishes his newspaper staff in extreme delight. Well, he never established his press to improve journalists’ living standards, or make heroes of them; he established it to fight his political battles, like too many of his ilk.

Amid the squalor, bankers and investment analysts insist that media management should never be left to journalists. This drivel was echoed at an academic forum by the PR manager of a Nigerian bank.

I argued that with adequate experience, fiscal, and management training, a journalist could run any business.

But he scoffed, and spewed the ugliest gibberish, detailing how he funds journalists’ child-christening ceremonies, marriages, transport fares, and kitchen needs.

His tirade, I told him, further establishes him as a quack dealing with kindred spirits masquerading as journalists. His subsequent tantrum was a sad reflection of his persona and exposure as his bank’s publicity goon.

Yet he clownishly insisted that journalists aren’t good managers thus making me highlight the pitiful mediocrity, theft of customers’ savings, corporate prostitution and staff whoredom, maladministration, and other massive corruption pervasive of Nigeria’s banking sector.

As the scandal unfolds about one of Nigeria’s foremost banks, I reiterate that bankers aren’t the astute fund managers and administrators that they are mistaken for. Many of them are crooks in suits. About 52 Nigerian banks have been bankrupted by incompetent, corrupt managers. But nobody has said banking mustn’t be left to bankers.

Despite the fraud and bankruptcies fostered by Ivy League-trained financial and management gurus, they are often “bailed out” and pardoned by their cohorts in government and regulatory agencies.

Of course, he took exception to my truth, taking things personally. We aren’t so chummy anymore. Good riddance!

This brings us to the nub of this discourse: journalists deserve better. Where you treat them shabbily, only a paltry few would tow the ethical path – it’s a Nigerian malady and it is systemic.

Society should quit berating journalism for its stench: the stink you smell is from the excrement you pass.

No publisher wants his child to work as a newspaper reporter. No politician or magnate wants his wife or child to grovel for a pittance as a writer or correspondent.

But they frantically deploy journalists as beasts of burden, forgetting that every journalist is some parents’ ward, some community’s hero, some spouse’s beloved, and some child’s father.

The most egregious lie Nigerians may cuddle is that our collective fate as a nation is independent of the press. If journalism dies, Nigeria dies. Good journalism to be precise.

This series is republished in commemoration of the World Press Freedom Day

May 6, 2020
From lockdown to curfew

By Lawal Ogienagbon

Left to many Nigerians, they would not have voted for a lockdown of some states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in the war against COVID-19.

They would have preferred that life continued as usual, with people moving up and down. Going to work, worshipping in their churches and mosques and attending parties and other social gathering. With COVID-19 came a big challenge which government cannot ignore.

The milling of people aids the spread of Coronavirus. To avert that, President Muhammadu Buhari on March 29 ordered a lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and FCT for 14 days in the first instance. He extended the lockdown on April 13 for another 14 days.

Read Also: FCT residents hail Buhari’s decision to ease lockdown

The extension ended on Monday and mercifully, the President relaxed the lockdown from May 4. But there will be a dusk-to-dawn (8pm-6am) curfew nationwide until the COVID-19 curve is flattened.

Many wanted the lockdown lifted in the economic interest of the downtrodden who live from hand to mouth daily.

In whatever we do, let us consider the health risk involved because viruses like COVID-19 strike in waves. We have seen the first wave with low casualty figures so far.

Will people be cautious enough to follow the guidelines for avoiding catching and spreading the disease following the lifting of the lockdown to prevent an explosion in casualties? This is where the government must be firm and decisive before people start dying on the streets.

April 30, 2020
COVID-19: Looking inwards for a cure (2)

Olatunji Ololade

NIGERIA’s lockdown symphony is a dirge of intricate threat and appeal: government warns ‘hungry’ citizenry to stay at home, claiming the imperative of fighting COVID-19 trumps every other consideration. The intent could hardly be faulted.

Then, President Muhammadu Buhari, in his Monday address, extended the two-week confinement by a week and declared a curfew from 8 pm to 6 am from May 4. Nothing in his speech hints at a solution, purposive steps at finding a cure or collaboration with a more visionary partner to create one. That’s flawed leadership. And worthy of rebuke.

As the pandemic persists, the fabric of life is spun and torn by the talons of Nigeria’s raptorial leadership. Somewhere between their pretensions at curtailing the pandemic, a tragic lyre amplifies the horror of our rising funeral pyre. Their pleas and threats are crafty and fickle thus re-establishing their roles as misery merchants, malefic dealers, and undertakers.

To alleviate hardships imposed on impoverished and most vulnerable segments of the citizenry, federal and state governments make a comic show of distributing food and money. But who gets to choose the most vulnerable? How did they identify segments of the citizenry deserving of support?

In determining the vulnerable, they resort to ill-informed and arbitrary categorizations thus rendering large segments of the citizenry disgruntled and hopeless.

The over-hyped palliatives resound the parable of the sower in the sewer. In performing the roles for which they were elected and for which they claim outrageous compensations, public officers demand a ceremony of appreciation and re-investiture, come 2023. It’s a classic tale of leaders as dealers: steamrollers masquerading as hope-runners.

The greatest virus is Nigeria’s leadership, many of whom have learned to feign compassion that they do not feel. It is an open secret that the reigning oligarchs are committed to the anti-COVID-19 campaign because the storms stirred by the virus tears at their gated paradise.

In the race for solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic, Senegal has developed a test kit that costs $1. Even more amazing is the fact that these test kits could have results ready within 10 minutes, in an easily readable format; probably something like the line that appears in a pregnancy test kit.

At the backdrop of Senegal’s initiative, Madagascar flaunts a herbal cure named COVID-Organics. Despite condemnations and disclaimers of the country’s traditional cure, the United States (US) government recently awarded a grant of $2.5 million to strengthen the country’s health response to the COVID-19 outbreak, according to the US ambassador to Madagascar, Michael Pelletier.

Nigeria, however, obsesses about rising figures of the infected, the deceased, and cured. The country’s leadership has so far, re-established its perverse fetish for control, and refinements of domination – there are fears that public officers may be exploiting the pandemic to steal public fund even as they cement their authoritarian rule.

While Nigeria’s leadership plays servile and flummoxed in its campaign against COVID-19 to western donors, Madagascar’s leadership has attracted a handsome donation to boost an ambitious home-grown remedy, its COVID-Organics herbal tea. It would be recalled that Madagascan President, Andry Rajoelina, officially launched COVID-Organics , a herbal remedy developed by the Malagasy Institute of Applied Research and branded COVID Organics and believed to prevent and cure patients suffering from COVID-19.

In Nigeria, there have been flashes of enterprise by daring individuals, like Prof. Maurice Iwu, whose claim of a cure to the virus, was promptly dismissed by the Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonanya Onu. Onu stressed that the United States is conducting tests on a ‘chemical compound’ isolated by Iwu, as a possible cure for coronavirus.

Why couldn’t the NIMR work with institutes and labs across Africa to investigate Iwu’s claims and explore veritable means of finding a cure for the virus? Onu may argue that its practical and appropriate, perhaps, to send Iwu’s ‘cure’ to a western lab with better facilities. But how come Nigeria lacks modern lab technology on his watch?

It would be recalled that Prof. Augustine Njoku-Obi, who discovered a potent cholera vaccine in the 70s faced inexplicable hostilities from government and peers even though his invention was verified in the US and adopted for use. Lest we forget Dr. Jeremiah Abalaka in 2000, whose claim to have found a cure to HIV was also roundly discredited by government and peers.

Its about time the government and scientific community become less spiteful of initiative and encouraged daring exploits of Nigerian researchers.

While asserting that there is no known cure yet for the COVID-19, the Centre Director of the African Centre of Excellence for Drug Research, Herbal Medicine Development and Regulatory Science (ACEDHARS), University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Olukemi Odukoya, recently stated that scientific investigations were ongoing on some herbs that had been identified to possess antiviral activities and might be potential candidates for the management of COVID-19. What is the quality of support given ACEDHARS by the government?

Notwithstanding Odukoya’s claim, doctors know-it-all and western medicine enthusiasts, severely hobbled by hybris, bare their fangs against the possibilities of breakthrough via renaissance medicine, at finding a cure for the coronavirus.

They chant the perceived dangers of traditional medicine, often quoting an increasingly confused and suspect World Health Organisation (WHO). They allege undue pagan influence on the empirical process of medical orthodoxy. They forget that orthodox medicine itself is pagan to the roots and very ‘ungodly’ in its invasive science and empiricism fetish. Traditional medicine practitioners equally view western medicine as a product of man’s bloated ego, striving against God and nature.

There is no basis for contest. Orthodox medicine must seek synergy with its traditional counterpart for the benefit of mankind. For instance, a number of chemical compounds with remarkable antioxidant and chemopreventive properties have been isolated from the Bitter Leaf (Vernonia amygdalina) and the Bitter Kola (Garcinia kola). Their mechanisms play pivotal role in chemoprevention which appears to be a more pragmatic and rational approach to the prevention of cancer, argues Farombi and Owoeye in their 2012 study.

Of course, they recommended further studies and long-term clinical trials to showcase the potential benefits of Bitter Leaf and Bitter Kola-derived constituents as cancer-fighting agents.

It is notable that a lot of plant-originated drugs in clinical medicine today were derived from traditional medicine. Artemisinin, known as qinghaosu in Chinese, was borne of traditional medicine in 1972 after North Vietnam requested China to help tackle its malaria problem. Eventually, artemisinin was derived from Artemisia annua L. in 1972. Compared with previous antimalarial drugs, artemisinin has the merit of high efficiency, quick effect, and low toxicity, according to health experts. Thus its global acceptance and prevalence even in Nigeria.

Nigeria’s leadership remains disconcertingly oblivious of this fact owing to its lack of vision and native intelligence, and incurable servility to colonial powers.

In respect of COVID-19, Onu said he and peers will inform the president with the facts by which the latter would make an informed decision. The quality of facts presented to the president, apparently, birthed the ‘informed decision’ of an elongated lockdown and curfew. These are, at best, knee-jerk reactions to the pandemic.

The Buhari leadership must commit resources to the research and development of a possible cure to COVID-19. If not, it’s best he scraps the Ministry of Science and Technology and NIMR, and contract their presumed functions to China or the United States.

April 30, 2020
Covid-19 and crisis of the health sector

Jide Oluwajuyitan

President Buhari on Monday said he was approving a phased and gradual easing of lockdown in FCT, Lagos and Ogun states effective May 4 in line with the recommendations of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, the various government committees that have reviewed socio-economic matters and the Nigeria Governors Forum.

The president however did not forget to add that the move will be followed by strict enforcement of testing and contact tracing measures.

The president was no doubt trying to find a balance between locked-up, starving Nigerians who made a living through daily struggle on the streets, the increasing security risk they pose to their more affluent compatriots, and, the concern for the economy especially now the oil sells for as low as $12 a barrel.

The president’s other worry probably has to do with our total absence of preparedness for emergencies. The government palliative measures were mired in controversies with customs seized rice sent to some states found to be unfit for human consumption.

It was only on Sunday, just a day before the president’s latest move that Chikwe Ihekweazu, the Director of Nigeria Centre for Disease Control admitted the country is in desperate need of testing materials.

Less than 1,500 daily tests as against a target 4000 were achieved throughout the lockdown. This is not likely going to change very soon. It is of little relief that of every 10 Nigerians tested so far, one was positive.

With New York with a population of 20million and a budget of $175b overwhelmed by testing crisis, and Dr. Deborah Birx, Trump’s White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator at the White House admitting they were only able to test 40,000 of estimated 200,000 that needed to be tested, and Spain with the best medical facilities in Europe recording unprecedented number of deaths largely due to lack of testing kits, it is not that anyone could have adequately prepared for the outbreak of COVID-19.

But our own problem is that our leaders who are only interested in acquisition of power have paid lip service to our health sector in the last 20 years.

Abuja was dysfunctional. What was needed was devolution of power. Local dispensaries spread across the old Western Nigeria performed creditably and served the needs of the people before the federal government with too much money decided to replace them with federal medical centres, a source of corruption for federal officials.

UCH Ibadan used to be one of the best teaching hospitals in the Commonwealth of Nations. The military regime under Obasanjo took control of all the teaching hospitals and local council health centres.

As an elected president, the contracts for refurbishing the teaching hospitals the misguided soldiers turned to consulting clinics, was awarded to PDP party stalwarts who supplied what they wanted to supply and not what were needed by the teaching hospitals.

President Jonathan had an opportunity to implement the report of Confab he set up, but he was more interested in second term. President Buhari promised restructuring and devolution while seeking power but in office he forgot what devolution of power meant.

The president’s wife and his daughter at different times publicly complained the State House clinic which had no x-ray machine in spite of billions allocated to it every year was not more than a consulting clinic.

The president and his officials who had alternative paid little attention. President Buhari allowed Abba Kyari, the man he described as a loyal gatekeeper, to take over control of ministry of health.

Following his political differences with Professor Adewole, the former health minister, he was alleged to have authorized ministry of agriculture to handle all procurements for ministry of health.

The situation according to insiders, has not changed even with the current minister who not too long ago was too scared to mention Abba Kyari’s by name while giving an update on coronavirus pandemic.

Read Also: Firms’ N11b life cover for health workers

Unfortunately, with the outbreak of COVID-19 which forced developed nations to temporarily put an end to medical tourism, President Buhari’s loyal gatekeeper who supervised the health sector until his death two weeks ago died in small private clinic in Ikoyi, Lagos.

The problem with our health sector is therefore not just money. It is absence of governance because our elected leaders since the beginning of the fourth republic were in the habit of delegating real governance to loyal gatekeepers.

As indicated above, under Obasanjo, PDP stalwarts awarded medical procurement to loyal party members who had no knowledge of the medical sector. The result was the claim by medical experts that all the refurbishment of the teaching hospitals that Obasanjo boasted of carrying out was a fraud.

Under Jonathan, the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Authority (PPPRA) set up under Obasanjo as minister of petroleum became a vehicle for stealing N1.7 trillion according to House of Reps probe of fuel subsidy regime.

As further evidence of absence of governance, fire brigade approach is often adopted in circumstances where sense of orderliness and through planning is needed.

Many of the governors under the APC-controlled government did nothing when the first index case of coronavirus was first identified in Lagos despite a general alarm raised by the NCDC director who in fact said ‘every state will get its share’.

Kano State which lost close to two dozen of its prominent indigenes to unknown causes in the last few days carried on as usual. Its governor, Abdullahi Ganduje who in an interview with BBC Hausa Service on Monday complained about shortage of sample collection equipment that “We are in a serious problem.

I can tell you the situation is really bad and scary.” is now blaming the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 for the tragedy that the state could have averted.

And perhaps there is no greater evidence of absence of governance than the fact that what is allocated to the health sector by the APC government is nothing to write home about, despite controlling the two houses of the parliament, more state houses of assembly and of course the majority of the current elected governors. They have no excuse not to change the narrative.

Tragically, what we see instead are the party’s elected lawmakers in the two houses and in the majority of the state house of assemblies, shamelessly cruising around N50m state-of-the art SUV Landcruisers with some APC governors terrorizing those who elected them in convoys of over half a dozen of the same N50m toys.

April 30, 2020
The next Villa Chief

Lawal Ogienagbon

THERE are so many things weighing on President Muhammadu Buhari’s mind at the moment. As the leader of the most populous nation in Africa, he carries an enormous task on his lean shoulders.

Two things are of immediate concern to him and these are the war against the Coronavirus pandemic and the appointment of a new Chief of Staff (CoS) following the death of Mallam Abba Kyari on April 17.

Kyari died of complications from Coronavirus aka COVID-19 after over three weeks battle with the disease.

To the President and others in government close to Kyari, the COVID-19 battle may have become a personal thing following the death of a friend and an associate.

If not for any other thing, they will like to be seen doing all in their power to curtail the COVID-19 threat for the sake of ‘a good man’ as one eulogist put it. Whether Kyari was a ‘good man’ or not, posterity will say, no matter what anybody writes today.

Who wears the shoes he left behind? If not for COVID-19, this ordinarily should be the President’s main focus now. But, no matter how important the COVID-19 battle is, he cannot afford to lose concentration on the CoS matter too.

Through the making of our leaders, the CoS has become central to the running of government that it seems they cannot do without having such an appointee around.

The CoS has his job cut out for him; he is to manage the President, his office and affairs. In the light of what the nation experienced with Kyari, how should the next CoS run that office?

The CoS, by my own little understanding, is the agent of the President, who is his principal. He acts in that behalf and performs duties assigned to him by his principal.

It is expected that in delegating authority to the CoS, the President will not abdicate his own constitutional responsibilities. The President should not under the guise of delegation, allow his CoS to become the lord of the manor at the Villa.

There is only one captain at the Villa and that person is the President who steers the ship of the nation and does not share his power with anyone not even the CoS.

The President must reflect deeply before choosing Kyari’s successor. He must be careful not to pick an overly ambitious person. He needs a CoS who is firm, friendly and frugal; not a CoS who will contest for power with other members of the cabinet.

The CoS should at best be a sit-in member of the cabinet since he has no constitutional recognition like the appointed ministers.

Since by convention, the CoS is deemed a member of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), he should not see that as an opportunity to become an overlord to the ministers.

How powerful the CoS becomes lies with the President. If the President takes his job the way he should, the CoS will not overstep his bounds, but where he is allowed a free rein, he will run riot over the whole place. The point must be made that the CoS is not an alternate president.

He is not a substitute for the President at whose pleasure he holds office. So, he can easily be fired by the President who hired him in the first place. The CoS should know his limits within Aso Villa.

He should not allow being the President’s aide to get to his head. We are told that the Presidency is one. That being the case, he should give the Vice President the respect that office deserves.

In the President’s absence, the Vice President is the next in line and not the CoS, who may want to see himself as the alternate president. Section 145 of the Constitution is clear on this.

No matter how power-hungry a CoS may be, he cannot usurp the constitutional role of the Vice President and the President should not give him the impression that he can do that in his absence.

What happened under Kyari should not be allowed to rear its head in the new dispensation that is able to unfold at the Presidency.

Read Also: Kingibe, wrong choice to replace Abba Kyari

The nation does not want a CoS who will become a monster that cannot be tamed. A lot has been written about how Kyari ran the Presidency.

He was said to have left no one in doubt that he was in charge of Aso Villa. That is how it should be because among Villa staff he is primus interpares (first among equals). But he must remember that the Vice President does not fall into that category; so, he cannnot be bigger than the Vice President who also has an office in the Villa.

He may have control over the Vice President’s staff since the Presidency is one but that does not put the Vice President under him. The CoS should learn to live with the fact that the Vice President is his boss.

If we do not want another power tussle at the Villa, the CoS should be mindful of the circumstances of his appointment and learn to live within the dictates of his office.

He should not dabble into extraneous matters which may call to question his integrity. We saw things like these happen in the immediate past in the pension chief Abdulrashid Maina’s case, the MTN $5.2billion fine, and the usurpation of the functions of some ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).

In the Maina case, the nation watched the altercation between Kyari and former Head of Service (HoS) Mrs Winifred Oyo-Ita on national television.

Oyo-Ita accused Kyari of bringing Maina, a sacked and wanted top civil servant, back into Service without her knowledge, claiming that she warned against the consequences of such action.

Should a CoS be involved in such matters? Your guess is as good as mine. Shortly after the television drama, Oyo-Ita was accused of corruption and removed as HoS. I wonder what she would write if asked to say something about the Kyari she knew.

Some names are being mentioned for the CoS’ job. By now, there will be lobbying in high places for the plum job. The President holds the joker in picking who he prefers. He needs divine guidance in making his choice. May he choose right.

April 30, 2020