Category: Niyi Akinnaso

Niyi Akinnaso

 

I THANK readers for the numerous responses to my earlier articles on prostate cancer. Two recurrent questions raised by the readers are: (1) What are the risk factors for prostate cancer? (2) What can I do to lower the risks or avoid the disease? Both questions are answered below, but neither exhaustively.

Researchers agree, to varying degrees, that five key factors are associated with the onset or escalation of prostate cancer. While there is no agreed strategy for preventing prostate cancer, there are various ways of reducing the risks and slowing down its growth once it strikes.

There are two groups of factors. Group A factors consist of age and family medical history, while Group B factors are a composite of lifestyle choices. While there is universal agreement on Group A factors, because of their wide applicability, there is no such agreement on Group B factors, because they apply differently to different people.

Group A Factors

Age is the number one risk factor for the onset of prostate cancer. The disease usually shows up around age 50 and the likelihood of its occurrence or growth increases thereafter. By the time a man is 70, he will be lucky not to have one prostate issue or the other, cancer being one of them. Although everyone agrees that prostate cancer comes with age, not every old man dies of the disease as there are other competing diseases.

The second Group A risk factor for prostate cancer is family medical history. If your father or brother had prostate cancer, then you are at a greater risk than others, who lack such a family medical history. The problem here is that many Nigerians do not know their family medical history, especially as it relates to cancer.

There are several reasons for this lack of knowledge. One, some Nigerians are secretive about the nature of their illness, while others blame it on the evil machinations of an enemy. Two, many patients are misdiagnosed, due partly to inadequate information about their symptoms and medical history and partly to inadequate facilities for appropriate diagnosis. Yet others are not diagnosed at all, because poverty prevents them from seeking treatment. Third, many Nigerians are not curious enough to probe into their relatives’ illnesses. Yet, their future survival may depend on such knowledge.

Group B Factors

There are three related risk factors in Group B, all having to do with lifestyle choices. However, the factors do not affect everybody the same way owing to differences in DNA, environment, and immune quality. Besides, there are conflicting research findings on this group of risk factors.

One risk factor in this category is exposure to bacterial infection that may work its way up to the prostate. Urinary tract infection (UTI), which is more common with women than men, is a possible source of bacteria in the prostate. True, a variety of factors may lead to UTI, the most common causes are sexually transmitted diseases. Untreated bacterial infection can lead to kidney damage or cause inflammation of the prostate, leading to damage of some prostate cells.

When damaged cells fail to repair themselves, as they normally should, they often become cancerous and then grow abnormally. Most sexually active men have one form of UTI or the other in the course of their lives. Prompt treatment of such an infection could eliminate one major risk factor for prostate cancer or kidney damage.

However, rather than treat yourself with just any antibiotic, you should see a doctor, who will order an appropriate laboratory test. The result of the test will determine which antibiotic to use as each one is designed to kill or stop the growth of particular types of bacteria.

A second Group B risk factor for prostate cancer is dietary habit. Although there is no proven cancer prevention dietary strategy, research suggests that habitual consumption of a diet high in saturated fat, red meats, and dairy products (milk, cheese, and yogurt), increases the risk of prostate cancer or any other cancer for that matter. What is more, epidemiological studies show that such a diet also advances the growth of prostate cancer after its onset.

The third Group B factor is the duo of lack of exercise and obesity. Research shows that men who are overweight, especially with a body mass index of 30 or higher, may have an increased risk of prostate cancer than those who maintain a healthy weight.  At the same time, those who maintain a healthy weight but lack exercise also have an increased risk of prostate cancer.

If one or more of the Group B factors apply to you, then prostate cancer screening should begin at age 45. It may be expedient to begin at 40, if there is a history of prostate cancer in your family or if two or more of the Group B factors apply.

Lowering the risks

The question, then, is what should one do to lessen the risk of prostate cancer? Of the five major risk factors, age and family medical history are essentially beyond control. However, there are ways to lessen or delay the impact of the Group B risk factors. The most important requirements are awareness and lifestyle modifications.

One, avoid bacterial infections, especially through sexual activities without due protection. However, if urinary tract infection does occur, either through sex or some other means, you should seek prompt medical intervention.

Second, choose a healthy diet by avoiding or taking in moderation foods that are high in fats, such as meats, oils, and dairy products. Processed meats, such as sausages, bacon, hot dogs, and ham, are especially dangerous. The World Health Organization lumps them with smoking and asbestos as cancer risks.

Instead, skinless chicken or turkey, fish, eggs, beans, nuts, and legumes are considered healthy. They are also good sources of protein that help to reduce the risks of prostate cancer. Increase the consumption of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. They contain vitamins that are believed to reduce the risk of prostate cancer. However, vitamin supplements per se are not recommended.

In addition to dietary changes, you should develop an exercise regimen and work at it at least three times a week. Finally, whether or not you have any of the relevant symptoms, you should get screened for prostate cancer, if you are 50 or older.

 

 

By Niyi Akinnaso

Last week on this column, the key symptoms of prostate cancer were outlined and the basic steps to take in getting the prostate examined were described. As previously indicated, the most determinate step in the diagnosis of prostate cancer is a biopsy of the prostate to be examined by a pathologist.

Once cancer is detected, that is, if the biopsy presents a malignant tumour, the urologist will prescribe the course of treatment. There are now up to seven treatment options, depending on the stage and aggressiveness of the cancer.

For example, the treatment needed if the cancer is contained within the prostate gland will be different from the one needed if the cancer has metastasised, that is, if it has spread beyond the prostate gland. In some cases, a combination of treatment options may be necessary.

One, the Wait and See method can be employed, without any other cancer treatment, if the cancer is not aggressive. What this means is that treatment may be deferred while the condition is periodically checked. Wait and See, therefore, translates to a programme of active surveillance. This option may be appropriate for those who have other critical health issues or have attained advanced age, say over 80.

Two, radiation therapy can be used to kill cancer cells, especially if they have migrated beyond the prostate. In some cases, small radioactive pellets can be inserted into the prostate to kill cancer cells.

Three, hormone therapy drugs can be used to reduce the symptoms of prostate cancer and to shrink or slow the growth of the cancer cells. This method, however, only delays the ultimate treatment.

Four, immune therapy is another form of treatment used to slow the the progression of aggressive prostate cancer cells, especially those that have failed to respond to other treatments.

Five, chemotherapy is often used to kill fast-growing cancer cells, especially when prostate cancer cells outgrow the prostate into other sites. This kind of chemotherapy lasts several months.

Six, cryotherapy is a more recent form of treatment that kills cancer cells by freezing the cells, which them break apart when they are warmed up. However, the effectiveness of this treatment over time is still under study.

Seven, by far, perhaps the most effective treatment is radical prostatectomy, especially if the cancer has not spread beyond the prostate. This is the surgical removal of the entire prostate gland. Such surgery used to come with erectile dysfunction and damage to the urinary tract. Fortunately, new surgical techniques, including the use of precision robots, can to avoid nerve damage and lessen the impairment of urinary control.

Each of the various treatment options described above comes with its own side effects. For example, chemotherapy often leads to hair loss, mouth sores, nausea, and vomiting. Cryotherapy too has its own side effects. Erectile dysfunction is more common with this type of treatment than with radical prostatectomy, while a more common side effect with prostatectomy is incontinence. Although this may last for some time, it does not remain forever.

To be sure, some discomfort often follows radical prostate surgery. It is, however, only for a limited time. Besides, the advantages of radical prostatectomy far outweigh such discomfort.

Whatever treatment method applies, follow-up treatment is necessary. Even when the prostate gland is completely removed, it is still necessary to have additional tests, like the PSA test, additional treatments, or advice on appropriate lifestyle modifications, such as appropriate diet and exercise.

What men over 50 should bear in mind at all times is that they are likely candidates for prostate cancer, because the risk increases with age. An Additional determinate factor is heredity. If your father or brother had prostate cancer, your risk for prostate cancer is doubled. If you are about 50 and you have a relative who had prostate cancer, you should start getting your prostate examined immediately and periodically.

Yet another factor to bear in mind is the recent revelation that prostate cancer is not only the most prevalent cancer among Nigerian men, Nigeria has the highest rate of prostate cancer per population in the world! This revelation is particularly significant because most cases go unreported, especially in the rural areas.

This statistic may rise in view of the infusion of toxic agents in food as revealed in my column about three weeks ago (see The underbelly of soft deaths in Nigeria, The Nation, January 15, 2020). Furthermore, the lack of exercise and the ingestion of high fat foods, especially red meat, as well as minimal consumption of fruits and vegetables, are fingered as possible contributors to the prevalence of cancer in Nigeria.

Realising that this column may be read only by a tiny fraction of literate Nigerians, the vast majority will definitely miss this information. Yet, public education is necessary for the generality of the population to know about the danger of prostate cancer.

I, therefore, challenge urologists among us to take up this challenge alongside the Federal and State Ministries of Health and Information across the country. Public education in a variety of local languages is necessary in all 774 Local Government Areas in order to alert men in the rural areas to the danger their prostate may pose to their lives as they age.

 

 

Niyi Akinnaso

 

YOU may be in good health now, bubbling all over the place. You may be a minister, governor, commissioner, or legislator in the federal or state House. You may be a successful businessman or a professional at the top of your career-doctor, engineer, architect, accountant, lawyer, professor, surveyor, public relations or advertising guru, IT specialist, or what have you. You may be a newscaster, editor, reporter, or a columnist, like me. You may be a farmer, tailor, bricklayer, carpenter, electrician, welder, driver, or tailor. You may even have retired after many years of service. Whatever your vocation or stage in life, please go to a doctor today and ask him or her to examine your prostate. It could be a life saver for you.

I feel compelled to give this advice for three major reasons: First, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men. As a rule of thumb, it is often said that men over fifty often die of prostate cancer or die with it. Over 100,000 cases of prostate cancer are reported yearly in government hospitals in Nigeria, where most official statistics are collected. Many more cases go unreported, especially in remote clinics and rural areas. Some of such cases are even often misdiagnosed.

Second, I have lost far too many relatives, friends, and acquaintances to prostate cancer, many of whom should still be alive today, if only they knew or had a doctor intervene early enough. I still have not recovered from recent losses to prostate cancer, one a relative and the other a friend of over 40 years.

Third, educating the public through informative reports and columns like this one is one of the major functions of the press. This function has been unnecessarily displaced by undue focus on politics. Yet, many citizens could have been saved if only they knew what to do and at the appropriate time.

Although the symptoms or signs of prostate cancer may not be detected for a long time, there are minor changes that should not be ignored. They include frequent urination; finding it difficult to start or stop urination; slow, weak or interrupted urinary stream; pain or burning sensation when urinating or ejaculating during sexual intercourse; and blood in urine or in semen.

Other symptoms include pain in the low back, hips, or thighs. If the pain becomes intense, it is quite possible that the cancer has spread beyond the prostate.

To be sure, these symptoms do not automatically translate to prostate cancer. They could mean that either your prostate has grown larger (technically known as Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia) or it is inflamed (Prostatitis). Enlarged prostate often comes with old age, whereas inflamed prostate often results from bacterial infection. Such an infection often follows urinary tract infection, contracted during sexual intercourse with an infected person.

Both of these non-cancerous conditions can be treated with appropriate medication, although surgery may be needed for complete treatment of an enlarged prostate. Only a qualified doctor can tell you precisely which is which and which course of treatment to follow, and only after thorough medical and laboratory examinations.    It is important to emphasise that prostate cancer may also lead to the enlargement of the prostate. That’s why the best way to differentiate it from the other two conditions is by identifying cancer cells in a biopsy of the prostate itself.

However, ordering a biopsy is not going to be your doctor’s first line of action if your prostate has never been examined. First, a digital rectal exam, using a gloved and lubricated finger, will be performed to determine the size and texture of your prostate. The doctor will mover his or her finger around to feel the prostate wallIs it enlarged? Is it soft or very firm? Does it feel smooth or have bumps?

Second, depending on your doctor’s finding, you may be ordered to give a blood sample to determine the level of a particular protein produced by the prostate. This protein is known as Prostate-Specific Antigen. The PSA level, as it is called, will indicate whether or not you have a higher chance of having prostate cancer.

In order to determine your PSA baseline, it is important to see a doctor now to order a PSA test, even if you have none of the symptoms listed above. Your urologist will compare your future PSA test results over time against this baseline.

As a rule of thumb, a PSA level less than 4 nanograms per mililiter (ng/mL) of blood is considered a normal level. However, a level greater than 10 ng/mL often suggests the possibility of cancer. Mind you, individuals vary greatly on this scale. Some may have prostate cancer even when their PSA level is below 10 or even less than 4! This is the more reason to start early on your own investigation. Don’t wait until cancer is actually present in the prostate.

A further complication with PSA levels is that they can be increased by BPH and Prostatitis, leading to a false positive test result. That is, while it is true that the PSA level is elevated, it does not follow that cancer is present. Moreover, some medications may also suppress your PSA level by giving a false negative test result.

The third and most determinative test for prostate cancer is a biopsy of the prostate. A piloted needle is inserted usually through the rectum to remove small samples of tissue from the prostate. The samples will be examined for cancer tissue under a microscope by a pathologist.

Once the result gets back to your doctor, he or she will determine the course of treatment. Fortunately, recent medical advances have made a variety of treatment options possible. I will examine those options in more detail next week.

In the meantime, I cannot emphasise enough how important it is to get started early, if not immediately, by visiting your doctor and getting examined. I know a number of people who had prostate cancer over twenty years ago and are still alive today, because the cancer was detected early and they quickly underwent surgery to remove the prostate. They may develop other cancers, but prostate cancer will never be one of them.

Niyi Akinnaso

 

THE obsessive attention given to kidnapping and robbery has led to a focus on violent deaths by physical killings to the neglect of non-violent or soft deaths happening daily across the country. Soft deaths are caused by various groups of profiteers, including (a) raw and cooked food sellers, who use poisonous chemicals to preserve or cook food; (b) marketers of fake or adulterated drugs and wines; and (c) those who exhume used syringes and other hospital wastes from dumpsites and sell them to middlemen, who in turn clean and repackage them and sell them to unknowing consumers.

These killers, operating largely outside public gaze, send their unknowing victims to the hospital, pastor, imam, or herbalist, seeking treatment for an illness that may escape diagnosis. The lucky ones may survive, while others wither away over time. Those who are seriously affected die within days, some even within hours. It all depends on the quantity and toxicity of the poison they have ingested.

Food vendors poison their customers in a variety of ways, some out of ignorance but all in a bid to maximize profit. Among them are fruit sellers, who use dangerous chemicals, particularly carbide, to force-ripen their fruits, especially plantain, banana and orange. Yet, carbide contains a number of harmful chemicals, including arsenic, lead, and phosphorous. When fruits are ripened with carbide, these chemicals are released into the fruits. Consuming such fruits may cause cancer and heart, kidney and liver failure. The end result may be death.

Another dangerous chemical used in cooking is Paracetamol or Panadol to tenderize meat, chicken or beans. Although ordinarily used as a painkiller, Paracetamol contains chemicals which become very toxic when they break down in cooked food. Like carbide-ripened fruits, food cooked with Paracetamol can damage internal organs and cause death.

Equally dangerous to health is the use by food vendors of detergent (yes, detergent used in washing clothes) to ferment fufu. The idea is to make the fufu blow up in size so they could make more profit!

There are other chemicals used by food sellers that are equally damaging to the body. They include the use of various insecticides in food preservation. These are chemicals ordinarily used in de-infesting homes, livestock, and tree crops of pests and insects. Some use them to preserve kola nut, while others use them to preserve beans and other pest-infested food products.

There are other ways by which food sellers seek profit, by knowingly selling unsafe products to the public. A good example is the importation from Turkey, Lebanon, and elsewhere of animal hides previously processed for industrial use, such as making shoes and upholstery leather, which is then sold to consumers in Nigeria as the delicacy known as ponmo.

Ordinarily, ponmo is made from fresh cow hide in Nigeria and cooked in stew after boiling it to a soft texture. It is served in homes, restaurants and parties along with meat, chicken or fish. However, the imported fake ponmo contains dangerous chemicals, which, again, could lead to organ failure and eventual death. Only recently, upon a tip, a syndicate was arrested in Lagos, where fake ponmo was found in large quantities.

Unfortunately, the use of Paracetamol in cooking and insecticides in food preservation is not limited to food vendors. Many housewives also indulge in the dangerous habit. This is particularly so among illiterate, poor, and poorly educated housewives, especially in the rural areas and urban slums.

Scavengers of medical waste dumpsites are also agents of soft death. They have been found to exhume used syringes, bottles, and other medical wastes from dump sites. They sell them to middlemen who clean them and recycle them back to the market. Unknowing patients or their caregivers buy them and take them back to the hospital for use. In a country where patients are required to purchase medical supplies, poor patients who want “cheap market” go for these recycled products because they are often priced less than new ones.

Other major sources of soft deaths in Nigeria are fake alcoholic drinks, especially wines, and fake drugs making their rounds on market shelves and drug stores throughout the country. winehousenigeria.com names at least six places in Lagos alone where fake wines and other drinks are produced and sold.

Some of these manufacturers have been arrested over the years. Only last week, one of them was arrested, manufacturing fake wines under the trade name “Stock”. Hear what he says: “Government is supposed to assist me because I can become an employer of labour. My product is not harmful! If it was, it would have killed me. I used to test it during production”. Yet, he was arrested by the police on a tipoff by concerned citizens, who found his products to be harmful to consumers, mainly street urchins, cultists, and a variety of artisans.

Manufacturers and sellers of fake drugs are also soft killers. According to the World Health Organization, at least ten percent of drugs sold in Africa is fake or substandard. This figure is much higher in Nigeria, otherwise known as the headquarters of fake products.

To be sure, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, especially under Professor Mojisola Adeyeye as Director General, has been working round the clock to nab various agents of soft deaths in the country, her effort could be too little too late unless it is seriously augmented with nation-wide public education. NAFDAC should partner with states and Local Government Areas in spreading the campaign. States and LGAs should in turn partner with their educational institutions in broadcasting the campaign.

Public education is especially necessary in a country where values and ethical standards have been seriously eroded by corruption. Besides, high rates of poverty and illiteracy accentuate the need to carry the campaign to rural areas and urban slums, where dangerous cooking habits and patronage of fake products abound.

It is instructive to note that Ghana is nearly two decades ahead of Nigeria in its public education on food safety. For example, there was an outcry way back in 2002 against the use of Paracetamol in cooking (The Ghanaian Times, May 3, 2002). Thanks to NAFDAC for beginning the process in Nigeria. However, there is much more to do.

By Niyi Akinnaso

The “them” in the title refers primarily to three groups within the Nigerian political elite, namely, (a) the political parties; (b) the elected representatives and political appointees; and (c) pseudo-politicians, that is, those who hold no elective or appointive position but are nevertheless close to power as contractors, consultants, or friends of government.

However, four additional groups also have a role to play. These are (d) the elite, especially the professional class—doctors, engineers, architects, accountants, university professors, and so on; (e) traditional rulers; (f) religious leaders; and (g) the press.

True, the electorate and civil society have a role to play as well, but the life and death of our democracy is more in the hands of the above-named groups, more so in the hands of groups (a)-(c), because they operate within the political theatre. Groups (d)-(g) only have a supportive role, because their ability to influence political developments is often defined or at least influenced largely by the elected representatives. Even more importantly, as we have witnessed in this democracy, they are subject to manipulation by the political leaders, particularly the President and Governors. Moreover, for various reasons, many of them don’t even vote. Clearly, the stakes are now much too high for electoral indifference to prevail.

Also subject to manipulation is the Independent National Electoral Commission, which is in a class of its own, although it is answerable to the presidency. Its supervision of elections, in collaboration with security agencies, should guarantee free and fair elections. However, the Commission has hardly had a clean record of service due to corruption and collusion with particular candidates.

However, I focus here on the role of political parties in the light of Pastor Bakare’s call on President Muhammadu Buhari to work on a succession plan for the 2023 presidential election. True, as the leader of the All Progressives Congress, which brought him to power, Buhari has a major role to play in the election of his successor.

Nevertheless, the leading players in the succession game are the political parties. I shall return to this later.

But, first, it is necessary to clarify Bakare’s call to Buhari on succession. Contrary to insinuations on social media and even in the mainstream media, Bakare did not ask Buhari to choose, name, anoint, or impose a successor.

Nor did he require Buhari to have a particular candidate in mind. Rather, Bakare’s charge is for Buhari to build a strong legacy, facilitated by what he termed “accurate succession”. By this he means that Buhari should “institutionalize systems of accurate succession” in which “looters” will not highjack the nomination of the party and eventual election.

In this regard, Femi Adesina, Presidential Special Adviser on Media, got it right in his discussion on Channels TV Politics Today, hosted by Seun Okinbaloye on Monday, January 6, 2020. By suggesting that the President will not “manipulate” the system or “pick” a successor, Adesina provided an oblique commentary on a former President who did just that. It was President Olusegun Obasanjo, who inserted himself so prominently into the selection process in 2007 by imposing a successor in ailing Umar Yar’Adua on his political party. The danger in Adesina raising the issue of manipulation and picking a successor is the impression he inadvertently gave that Bakare wanted Buhari to do just that. Far from it.

However, Adesina was right in emphasizing that Buhari should be interested in his successor by ensuring that “there will be a free, fair and credible process and nobody will come to use money and resources to bamboozle his way to the leadership of the country”. This precisely is the import of Bakare’s charge on succession.

Specifically, he wants an electoral system that would filter out those he categorized as “looters”, to whom he devoted a substantial part of his State of the Nation sermon.

The fact of the matter is that the President’s hands in the election of a successor should be tied by the Constitution and democratic norms. The Nigerian Constitution and the Electoral Act make it clear that the power to nominate candidates for election rests with the political parties and “No association, other than a political party, shall canvass for votes for any candidate at any election” (Section 221 of the 1999 Constitution).

Presidents in virile democracies do not impose themselves on the electoral process. This is particularly so in a presidential system. Nevertheless, they should be interested in ensuring a fair process. Just recall President Barrack Obama’s role in the presidential primaries in the United States in 2016. True, it was highly speculated that he wanted Senator Hillary Clinton to succeed him, but he did not make it known.

However, he invited Hillary’s closest rival, Senator Bernie Sanders, only when it was clear that Hillary was close to victory. His goal was to prevent the bitterness of the rivalry from affecting the general election. Similarly, he remains aloof to the buildup to the 2020 presidential primaries with over 20 candidates vying for the Democratic ticket. He only came in briefly to implore the candidates to focus their campaign on President Donald Trump rather than engage in destroying one another.

Therefore, it was an aberration, if not a violation, of democracy for President Olusegun Obasanjo to have inserted himself so prominently in the process the way he did in 2007, and we blame him for it till today. That’s why Bakare’s charge should have been to the political parties and the party bosses.

It is at the level of party primaries that the role of political parties is paramount. Their duty is to screen the candidates to ensure that only those who are qualified and fit for office are presented to the electorate during the primaries. It is at this stage that political leaders seek to manipulate the process the most to the advantage of their chosen candidates.

President Buhari’s role as the leader of his party is to ensure that this process is free and fair. That’s why he should fulfill his promise of reforming the electoral process. He is also under the people’s watch as to his role regarding the direction in which the pendulum of nomination will swing in his party between the North and the South in 2023. His legacy as a leader may well hang as much on this issue as it does on his performance in office.

By Niyi Akinnaso

In its present form, Nigeria’s democracy is now in its twenty-first year. Translated to human life, this should be a year of special celebration just as many adolescent boys and girls pay special attention to their twenty-first birthday anniversary. The question is whether there is anything worthy of celebration in our democracy just yet. The answer is both Yes and No.

We have done well with the appearance of democracy. We have a constitution. There are three branches of government—executive, legislature, and judiciary. The democracy is renewed every four years through elections. We even have an electoral umpire that has the word “independent” in its name. Above all, we are represented on international fora as a democracy. In outward appearance, ours is a presidential democracy like the United State’s.

The lack of interruption to 21 years of democracy, the longest in Nigeria’s post-independence history, would appear to seal this appearance of democracy. Of particular significance in this regard was the celebrated transition of power from one political party (the Peoples Democratic Party) to another (the All Progressives Congress) in 2015. As the first such transition without much rancour in history, this particular transition was set in sharp relief by the destructive protests which accompanied the immediately preceding presidential election of 2011.

Another veneer of democracy in Nigeria is the existence of various electronic and print media outlets for the publication of political information that are not under the control of the government or a single group. This is augmented by a Freedom of Information Act, which has the appearance of facilitating access to information, that is, information that the government is willing to release.

By contrast, however, we have failed woefully with the substance of democracy. The pillars on which successful democracies rest are shaky at best. The pillars include virile political parties; a credible system for democratic renewal through free and fair elections; informed citizen participation and control of the agenda; fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression and association; and a rule of law in which all citizens are guaranteed equality before the law.

What this means is that we have all the necessary institutions for democracy to thrive but our democracy has been wobbly. There are far too many reasons for this situation. Only a few of them could be reviewed here and in no particular order.

Our political parties are particularly weak. They focus mainly on gaining power by concocting a manifesto and a slogan along the way. True, Nigerian political parties have found ways of performing the primary role putting up candidates for election and selecting others for political offices, this role has never been performed without major hitches.

This is evident during party primaries, which are typified by thuggery, various types of disruptive behaviour, and “money bags”, that is, the purchase of the outcome by those who can afford it. Worse still, these practices are usually carried over into general elections, where the stakes are even hire.

To further complicate matters, the competition for position within and between political parties is often subject to geographical, ethnic, and religious considerations. The result is the clamour for zoning during every election cycle. The goal of ensuring power rotation through zoning obscures, if not eliminates, competence and leadership qualifications, especially for executive positions, such as President or Governor.

Given the relative correspondence between geographical location, on the one hand, and ethnicity, language, and religion, on the other hand, zoning and power rotation will continue to perpetuate the place of these cleavages in the selection of candidates for elective and appointive offices by political parties.

With all these cleavages in the background, the competition for power has become more and more competitive over the last 20 years. Besides, political corruption has turned politics into a money-making business. This explains why elections became a “do or die” affair in the land.

An unpleasant consequence of this cut-throat competition for power is the loss of mutual tolerance between competing political parties, which has turned friends and relatives into enemies. Yet, mutual tolerance between the party in power and the opposition is among the requirements for nurturing a democracy.

At the end of the day, politicians tend to prioritise self over the electorate, vested interest over national interest, and personal gain over common or public good. The result is endemic corruption, which leads to drastic shortages in the provision and distribution of political rewards, commonly regarded in Nigeria as the dividends of democracy. Whoever is interested in the relationship between democracy and development may be surprised at the negative outcome in Nigeria, given the nation’s oil resources, the high number of universities, and a highly developed professional class.

Another major drag on Nigerian democracy is the poverty in the land, which makes the electorate an easy target for bribery, leading to practices, such as vote buying, and recruitment into thuggery for a fee. Not even the assortment of security agencies, often drafted as electoral monitors are able to escape the lure of bribes. These practices further corrupt the electoral system and make efficient monitoring of the system extremely difficult for the electoral umpire.

Poverty is complicated by low or no literacy in the rural areas, which makes electoral manipulation even easier to accomplish. These problems will persist so long as poverty persists on the present large scale and so long as literacy education continues to be devalued by federal and many state governments.

In recent years, the focus has been on security, which is supposed to be one of the primary functions of government. People have been dying on the streets, on their farms, and in their homes in the hands of insurgents, herdsmen, kidnappers, robbers, policemen, and other unknown assailants. The present administration has been particularly criticized for acting too late, too slowly, or not at all.

At the same time, the administration has been roundly criticized for acting too fast, to suppress protests and groups calling for self actualisation on their own terms. The recent case of Omoyele Sowore drew international outcry over prolonged incarceration and shameful rearrest in open court hours after he was released. It was a face-saving act by the government to have released him on bail on Christmas eve. The government’s full redemption will follow Sowore’s unconditional release and the dismissal of charges against him.

The way forward will be charted next week, when recommendations will be suggested for improvement. Happy New Year everyone.

THE perception that Nigerian state governors are corrupt is so deep that doubts persist if there are exceptions among them. To be sure, some of them mean well and put in their best effort to improve the lives of their people within available means. Nevertheless, it is generally believed that if transparency, accountability, and the rule of law were truly observed, most Nigerian governors would end up in jail for one kind of fraudulent activity or the other.

Over the years, newspaper reports and various formal and informal conversations indicate that when governors are not lavishing state funds on themselves, their family members, their relatives, their friends, and their cronies, they are busy awarding contracts, often in violation of due process, to companies belonging to their close associates or selected party loyalists. At other times, they are busy transferring public funds into their own accounts, often opened in the name of a do-nothing company, relative, or trusted friend or they are taking physical cash from the state treasury, often in the name of security vote, which even the American President does not have.

This explains how a number of ex-governors came to own property in Nigeria and/or abroad, including luxury homes, porch hotels, and even schools. The more greedy ones among them even own luxury private jets.

It is not surprising, therefore, that at least seven former Governors have been jailed for corruption, namely, late Diepreye Alamieyesegha; James Ibori; Lucky Igbinedion; James Bala Ngilari; Jolly Nyame; Joshua Dariye; and, lately, Orji Uzor Kalu. Moreover, a recent disclosure by the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), indicates that “22 ex-governors are either under probe or on trial”.

Not done, some Governors go on to become Senators or Federal Ministers, which allows them to engage in double dipping: They enjoy all the entitlements of their new position, while continuing to earn state pension, loaded with fat cash, security aides, drivers, cook, and other staffers! Economists have rightly warned that if this trend persists, a substantial proportion of inadequate state funds will go to former governors and their deputies.

While the payment of pension to governors and their deputies may look odd, there is nothing illegal about it, provided it is backed up by state law. What is really objectionable about it is threefold. One, the amount being paid is outrageous and has no bearing with their salary. In the American system that we copied, governors’ annual salaries are relatively low, ranging from $70,000 (Maine) to $201,680 (California); and their pension is only a percentage of their annual salary. It is also pro-rated for their years of service. Even the American President’s pension is fixed at about 50 percent of their annual salary, plus an office, a staff, and secret service protection.

Two, Nigerian states’ economies cannot sustain the amount of pension being paid. Recent data from the Debt Management Office indicate that the 26 states that have pension laws for their ex-governors and deputies owe nearly N4 trillion as of June 30, 2019. Moreover, the states paying the highest pensions are the most indebted.

Three, it is considered double jeopardy to pay huge pensions to governors on top of their perceived loot. Besides, don’t Nigerian governors live completely (food, clothing, shelter, transportation, etc.) on the state, while also celebrating their birthdays, marrying off their daughters, and burying their parents, mostly on the state?!

By contrast, American political executives get a bill every month for feeding themselves and their dependents. Accordingly, the celebrations of President Barack Obama’s birthday and his wife’s in the White House were regarded as private events and were paid for with the family’s personal funds.

The critical questions are: Why are Nigerian governors so corrupt or perceived to be so and how can the practice be curbed?

Governors are especially corrupt because they are corrupted by the system, which offers them irresistible temptation, including immunity from prosecution and security vote for which no accounting is required. On top of this twin temptation is a corruption-based political culture. The result is a corrupted democracy from party nomination through election to governance practices.

The substratum of the Nigerian political culture is a tripod of monarchical, emirate, and big-man traditions, which valorize deference to “Oga at the top”. Submission, subservience, and acquiescence are the hallmarks of these traditions. Accordingly, governors operate like absolute monarchs. Nothing could be done, and nothing gets done, without their approval. Workers can, therefore, relax when the Governor is “not around”.

The absolutism of the governor’s power is enhanced by the subservience of political appointees, civil servants, and state legislators. Viewing their position as an extension of grace by the governor, political appointees hardly resist the governor’ exercise of power for fear of being misconstrued as disrespectful, if not disloyal.

Similarly, with their eyes on promotion, civil servants curry the governor’s favour with “Yes, sir” responses, even when some financial crime is being committed. On their part, legislators often acquiesce to the governor’s requests, often after tweaking the budget to their favour and twisting Oga’s hands for their own cut on specific appropriations.

It remains a million Naira question as to how to curb corruption at the state level, while also preserving the states’ relative autonomy in a federation. At least three steps could be taken right now.

First, it is important to educate political office holders, civil servants, legislators, and the general public about the evil effects of corruption. Its endemic status has severely eroded the fundamental bases of social, political, economic, and moral practices in private and public institutions throughout the country.

Second, it is necessary to set up a joint branch office in each state for the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commissions. Both institutions should work together in investigating reported cases of corruption, take full advantage of the Whistle-blowing Policy, and ensure that funds recovered are returned to the state treasury.

Third, a change of attitude is necessary in order to reverse the present trend. Unfortunately, this is often the most difficult to achieve, because it can neither be legislated nor coerced. However, changes in regulations, official practices, and official posture can initiate gradual change. Otherwise, a revolution is coming that may be difficult to control.

Niyi Akinnaso

 

As the holiday season approaches, I decided to focus on this topic because I have observed widespread ignorance about tyres by most Nigerians, regardless of social class. Vulcanisers and drivers are the most ignorant. Before you know it, they will over-inflate your tyre. They tell you that the more the air pressure in the tyres, the easier it is for them to turn the steering.

A more specific reason for focusing on tyres derives from several tyre-related accidents that I have witnessed or read about in the last few years. Readers will recall, for example, the tyre accident involving former President Olusegun Obasanjo on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway in October 2015. Here is how it was described in a press statement issued about the incident: “The vehicle he was travelling in suffered a burst left tyre at the rear and swerved several times but did not hit any curb or any car in front or behind until it did an 180-degree turn and faced where it was coming from, and he had to change vehicles” (Sahara Reporters, October 25, 2016).

However, then Minister of State for Labour and Employment, James Ocholi, and his family were not that lucky, when they were involved in a similar accident, involving a rear tyre blowout. Rather, according to Francis Udoma, the Kaduna State Sector Commander of the Federal Road Safety Corps,  “The rear tyre burst and the vehicle somersaulted into the bush. The minister and his son died on the spot, the wife died in the government hospital at Doka, Kaduna” (Vanguard, March 7, 2016).

A similar fate would befall six doctors from Ekiti State and the bus driver on their way to Sokoto to attend a conference. Again, the cause was a rear tyre blowout. According to a report in The PUNCH (April 26, 2016), “The impact … set the vehicle on a ghastly somersault, killing the six medical doctors and the driver while others were injured”.

Eight students from two separate secondary schools in Kano shared the same fate with the doctors in a similar situation. Reporting the incident on May 5, 2016, Daily Trust put it this way: “Daily Trust gathered that one of the tyres of the bus that was carrying 12 students burst and the driver lost control, resulting in the death of nine persons, including the driver.”

One road accident that I witnessed, which gave me periodic nightmares for quite some time, also involved a tyre blowout. It occurred on the Ilesa-Akure Road and involved a commercial bus. The driver overtook us on the road; but moments later, the bus skidded off the road after running into a bump, which immediately took out the front tyre on the passenger side. It somersaulted several times before finally resting on its back. By the time we got there, many lifeless passengers had been mangled with the carcass of the bus.

It is against the above backgrounds that four features must be noted about tyres. First, note that tyres are like medication. They have a shelf life. That is, they expire at a given date. Unlike wine, tyres do not improve with age. Whether they are attached to a vehicle or kept in storage, tyres do degrade over time. Even if you buy a new tyre today, it may be just a few months to expiration, if the date of manufacture was like four or more years ago. The important point to bear in mind here is that tyres do age, whether used or not. This is the more reason you should never install any previously used tyre on your car.

Second, numerous factors affect the condition and lifespan of tyres. When I visited a Michelin tyre dealership in the United States two weeks ago, I was given a long list of factors, divided into six categories, namely, (1) physical factors (age, wear, and damage) (2) road condition  (damaged roads, potholes, sharp objects, and speed bumps); (3) climate, (extreme temperatures, strong sunlight, and ozone); (4) driving habits (speeding, quick starts, and emergency braking); (5) neglecting basic tyre maintenance (air pressure, alignment, tyre rotation, wheel balancing, use of unapproved sealants for tyre puncture; and (6) improper usage (mixing tyre types, using tyres on damaged wheels, and re-inflating a tyre that has been run flat).

Third, proper and regular maintenance can increase the lifespan of your tyres and your own safety. Three maintenance tips are essential: One, you should know the correct tyre size and air pressure for your car. The pressure is measured in pounds per square inch (psi). You can find it on the driver’s door post, the glove compartment, or the owner’s manual. You should follow whatever you find in either of the three sources and not the maximum psi written on the tyre itself.

Notice that different manufacturers use the same tyre size for their vehicles. However, manufacturers know the best psi for tyres mounted on their vehicles. They know the weight of each vehicle and the expected maximum load. The pressure recommended by the manufacturer should be the maximum, because allowance has been given for the pressure to go up a notch or two when the tyres are hot, either as a result of long and fast driving or hot weather.

Two, when you install new tyres, make sure that the alignment and wheel balancing are properly done to avoid uneven or irregular tyres wear down the road. Once you notice uneven wear on your tyre, it is time to recheck the alignment. I recommend changing, not managing, it, especially if you have to drive over a relatively long distance.

Three, remember that your whole vehicle and its passengers ride on the tyres, which provide the only contact with the road. As a result, they get hot. This is worsened by speeding and high outside temperature.

What we have on Nigerian roads is often a toxic mix of badly managed tyres, bad roads, and speedy drivers. Bad tyres do not cause accidents by themselves. Speeding on a bad road is often the cause of fatal accidents involving tyre blowouts.

This is often complicated by the drivers’ lack of knowledge in managing tyre blowouts. There are at least four basic steps to take to lessen the impact of a tyre blowout. Step 1. The starting point is to maintain a safe driving speed that will enable you to take full control of the vehicle in case of an emergency. Step 2. Be calm, and leave the footbrake alone. Do not slam on it. If you do, it will worsen the car’s imbalance and throw it out of control. Step 3. Hold firmly to the steering and do your best to keep the car going straight. If the car is pulling to one side, only gently pull the steering in the opposite direction. This is important to avoid crashing into the road divider or drifting into the bush or the opposite lane. Step 4. Guide the vehicle to gradually coast to a stop, and then pull over safely off the road. Use the mildest steering inputs throughout the ordeal.

Overall, just don’t drive too fast.

Niyi Akinnaso

When Omoyele Sowore, career activist, publisher of Sahara Reporters, and presidential candidate in the 2019 general elections, was first arrested in July, 2019, I chastised him, not for leading a protest but for the provocative invocation that accompanied his call for a revolution.

Although he used a provocative word-revolution-in the call for protest, it was not the case that he had an army or anything of the sort to topple the government. The word was used only to add colourful emphasis to the need for the government to change its ways in order to make Nigeria work better and for everyone.

Nevertheless, I anticipated the unwarranted interpretation of his statements by English language-challenged security forces and by a government in crisis: It will be recalled that the government was facing court challenges on the election of the President, whose former role as a military dictator puts him on edge on hearing the word revolution. Besides, the government has been confronted with security challenges from various sources and its political party-the All Progressives Congress-was, and still is, in a crisis of its own.

I did not spare the government, either, for its draconian response to Sowore’s call for revolution. His initial arrest was unwarranted not to mention his prolonged detention, even beyond repeated court orders for his release.

Even more unwarranted and downright disgraceful was his re-arrest in open court a day after his release from detention. The exact location and timing of the re-arrest don’t even matter. Viewers of the video-taped recording, which will live in cyberspace forever, are free to make their own judgement. What matters is that the event happened at all and in such a disgraceful scuffle, apparently involving uniformed security agents, fully robed lawyers, and eyewitnesses from Sowore’s family and friends as well as civil society.

The controversy over the rearrest makes matters worse. The Department of State Security’s doublespeak on the matter is below the expected dignity of the Department. So is the claim that Sowore stage-managed his own arrest. If so, why then is he still in custody? And if, as it was claimed, the presidency knows nothing about it, then why not order his immediate release?

It is important to ask the question at this point: Why are the government and the DSS afraid of Sowore-led protest to the point that it was killed before it even took off? After all, no one has been tickled by a pin by Sowore and his followers since the mere announcement of his #Revolution Now protest. Most observers at home and abroad know that his was a peaceful protest, like the long-standing Bring Back Our Girls protest.

Comparisons cannot but be drawn with the violent sympathy protests which followed then Presidential candidate Muhammadu Buhari’s electoral loss in the presidential election of 2011.  Hundreds of people, including innocent members of the National Youth Service Corps, were killed in the protests and property worth billions of Naira was destroyed. Till today, no one has been held accountable for those protests, despite pre-election boasts by Buhari’s supporters that the country would be made “ungovernable”, were Buhari to lose.

The truth today is that there is a global spread of protests. Rather than continue to live in blissful ignorance of the global scale of protests, it is important to place Sowore’s aborted protest within a global context. This past decade, there have been protests on all continents.

In 2019 alone, protests have occurred in over 50 countries, including the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Australia, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Uruguay,  Haiti, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, Iraq, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Uganda, Guinea, Sudan, and so on. A common demand across all protests is the call for reform.

What is even more important is that virtually all the known causes of protests across the globe are present in Nigeria today. They include endemic corruption; election fraud; economic decline; growing inequality; tuition increases; climate change; obnoxious laws; infrastructural decay; and calls for political autonomy, personal freedom, and self-fulfillment.

In essence, that’s what Sowore was calling for in a country that has consistently ranked in the bottom pile on major international indices, including the Corruption Perception Index, the Failed States Index, the Human Development Index, and the World Poverty Index.

It is also important that youths, especially students, are in the forefront of most protests across the globe, because it is their future that is at stake. This is particularly so in Nigeria, where the national debt far outstrips the life of the present administration and many more to come, thereby eclipsing the future of Nigerian youths.

It is against these local and global contexts that Sowore’s planned protest must be viewed. Repressing dissent and protests is the beginning of autocracy. It may well be the beginning of the death of democracy.

Sowore may be in detention today, and his protest may have been aborted. The DSS may crack down on any protest as they want. Nevertheless, if Nigeria continues along the present path, protests will happen and they will be leaderless as they will involve everybody: Jobless youths, the elderly without social security, the hungry, the sick, the homeless, and others will fill the streets.

The political class and others cocooned in their wealth may be blind to the plight of the masses. The image of a roadside hawker and his experience comes to mind. As he was rushing to brandish his wares, an SUV drove past mine, overtaking everyone in lane, splashing mud water on the hawker and others by the roadside as the SUV galloped from one pothole to another.

The hawker put down his wares, squeezed water from his shirt, and cursed the owner of the SUV and the driver. Others by the roadside chorused him. Another person railed at the government for not taking care of the roads. These are people who may not hesitate to join future protests to reclaim the future of their country, their future.

For some politicians, stepping into new shoes, such as assuming the governorship of a state, is like going to a foreign country for the first time. They have to learn new ropes in order to function effectively in the new environment. That is not the case, however, for Gboyega Oyetola, the ninth Governor of the State of Osun (and fourth since 1999), because he had witnessed the functioning of the office of the Governor for eight years as the Chief of Staff to his predecessor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, now the Federal Minister of Interior.

Oyetola brought other relevant qualifications to the office. Armed with a Masters degree in Business Administration, he was a successful private sector guru, managing his own company and chairing, or serving on, various corporate boards. No wonder, when he joined the government as Chief of Staff, no government vehicle matched his own in comfort and luxury.

More importantly, he brought to the office of governor an enviable mien. He is deliberative. He seeks advice. He listens. He carefully sifts through options. And he prioritises the people in his programmes and projects, always asking, what do the people want? He works through the party and opinion leaders, even in setting up his cabinet. The end product of these enviable prerequisites is a business-minded Governor, who is determined to run the state effectively and deliver profitable dividends to the people of Osun.

Rather than rush through his first year in office, he deliberately took measured steps. First, he worked through supervisors and committees, drawing on existing cabinet members and other administrators with whom he served in the preceding administration. Then he teased out his Development Plan, distilling ideas from the Thank You tour on assumption of office, the various Town Hall meetings, and a Citizens Needs Assessment by the UK’s Department for International Development, whose goal is “to promote sustainable development and eliminate world poverty”.

After prioritising programmes and projects in various sectors, he then set up an all-inclusive participatory process of selecting cabinet members from across the state. Once selected, they were subjected to a rigorous dose of governance and administrative chores in a three-day retreat (October 15-18, 2019), while also being briefed about the administration’s Development Agenda. On inauguration, they were given performance charters, detailing the functions of their ministries and their precise mandate.

With the cabinet in place, Oyetola launched a three-day Economic Summit (November 19-21, 2019), widely praised as one of the best in the country so far. After nine robust plenaries; the contributions of 58 panelists and rigorous discussions; and about 30 Business to Government and Business to Business meetings, 25 or so high-stake commitments were given by investors across various sectors, including agriculture; infrastructural development; mining; trade and industry; light manufacturing; Information and Communication Technology; economic growth and potential; and tourism, arts and culture.

Since the planning for the economic and investment summit began at the inception of the administration, Oyetola had been working toward providing the necessary enabling environment for investors, by deploying resources to security; road construction; environmental sanitation; agriculture; culture and tourism; water resources; education; and public health.

For example, about 150 of the state’s over 300 Public Health Centres have been renovated and equipped within one year. Moreover, free medical services were recently provided to Osun citizens in various locations across the state. Over 7,000 patients have so far benefited from the project being provided by various organizations at the invitation of the state government.

Moreover, various projects have been completed across the state under the Community and Social Development Programmes. So far, every Local Government Area in the state has felt the presence of government one way or the other.

The above strides notwithstanding, Oyetola decided to establish the Osun Investment and Promotion Agency immediately after the Economic Summit to focus solely on facilitating investments and enabling a most favourable investment climate. He also decided to appoint Investment Ambassadors for the state. These are excellent developments, the more so when many investors have already given firm commitments to engage with the state. What is more, some investors have already started calling and visiting the state, just days after the Economic and Investment Summit.

From inception, Oyetola never took his eyes off the state’s relatively low Internally Generated Revenue. In order to beef it up, he quickly hired a seasoned professional to take charge. The result has been more than encouraging, leading the state occasionally to cross the N1 billion Naira monthly IGR threshold.

Perhaps, by far, the government’s stellar achievement to date has been the regular payment of salaries from inception. He also has paid off arrears owed to workers and pensioners. Today, workers and pensioners are happy. And critics ignorant of the full details of the state’s payment agreement during the past administration have been silenced.

Already, Oyetola has presented the state’s 2020 budget, titled “budget of restoration”. It is a lean budget of N119.5 billion, reflecting the realities of the state’s actual revenue and expenditure expectations and the need for the state to do more about its IGR profile.

Three factors are paying off for Oyetola. As indicated at the beginning, his business orientation, administrative acumen developed in business and government circles, and painstaking attention to detail have been judiciously deployed to the advantage of the state.

second, Oyetola should be credited for his choice of core functionaries, including Dr. Charles Diji Akinola as the Chief of Staff; Mr. Oluwole Oyebamiji, Secretary to Government; Mr. Olowogboyega Oyebade, Head of Service; and Professor Olalekan Yinusa, Commissioner for Budget and Planning. The quartet, led by Dr. Akinola, with unparalleled mastery of agriculture, policy, and development issues, has been in the forefront of the state’s development agenda, working along with the Governor, whose focus is on governance and service delivery to the people.

Third, Oyetola has signalled clearly that states can no longer continue with business as usual. With the Federal Government heavily in debt and still borrowing, states can no longer pin their hopes on federal allocation alone. Rather, they must engage in careful planning, improve on their IGR, and invite investors to partner with them. This is the surest path to employment generation and wealth creation as the government, per se, does not create wealth as such. And there is a limit to the employment it can generate.