The Nation Newspaper

Category: Wednesday

  • Prof Alele -Williams; Female and Solar power

    Prof Alele -Williams; Female and Solar power

    Analyse why coups are back in fashion especially in French West Africa? Mali, Chad, Guinea, Sudan, Burkina Faso x 2. ECOWAS and the AU sanctions are causing serious in-country citizen resentment making ECOWAS/AU toothless bulldogs. Politicians, in and out of power, must accept part-responsibility and practice non-partisan, selfless and nationalistic, inclusive, people-oriented politics, and implement Social Development Goals making life ‘Citizen Friendly’ better and safer.

    We are all students and products of history but in spite of that huge resource and sometimes burden, we ignore the past, or omit relevant history, even if it is provided as we are often found to be ‘economical with the truth’. We act as if nothing before happened and everything today is because of our own efforts and no one else’s effort in the past. Politicians and heads of institutions often proceed uninformed of history, or ignore that history if it is provided, and even erase the history and previous successes of their predecessors and pretend that life begins on Day 1 of appointment to office. Even a partner in a marriage find that a dead previous spouse is often not mentioned again by the partner as if life before never happened.

    Just last week, Nigeria lost another gem, largely unknown to those struggling for empowerment of women. During a distinguished career in academia, in particular in the field of mathematics, Professor Grace Alele-Williams, who died at 89 scored many firsts. Many NGOs rush around as if they invented women’s rights and females in science without any knowledge of the efforts and achievements of pioneers like the late Professor Alele-Williams who expanded the teaching and learning of mathematics and several other subjects during a distinguished career in several parts of the university system becoming the first female vice chancellor after being the first female PhD.

    Her story is the stuff of serious Nollywood documentaries and films and she should be poster picture for Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) promotion programmes and projects to help get more women into science. She was instrumental to improving career paths and course content not only in her chosen field but other fields as well. She was also a wife and mother and grandmother.

    As it is, we await a National Assembly, NASS pronouncement on its look at the gender laws it failed to pass recently causing nationwide umbrage and near-revolt. The following is repeated for emphasis.

    The women are 49-51% of the population and must make their political presence felt.

    We can support this struggle. Every woman, qualified morally, seeking election in 2023 should get elected.

    The task is unchanged and remains to strategise to ‘MAKE THE FEMALE VOTE COUNT’ in 2023.

    First: ‘GET ALL WOMEN TO VOTE’ with campaigns targeting those who will be 18 by 2023 with ‘Girl GO Vote’ songs and T shirts etc. included in Nollywood scripts, Music etc. by entertainment stars aimed at GETTING THE PVC.

    Second: GET WOMEN TO VOTE FOR WOMEN’

    Third: Get women TO VOTE FOR WOMEN ACROSS PARTY.

    Fourth: MAKE ANTI-WOMEN PARTIES AND PERSONS UNCOMFORTABLE by withdrawing female support and directing support towards parties and persons which field women.

    Fifth: GET YOUR PARTY TO ABOLISH ‘WOMEN’S WING’ UNLESS THERE IS ‘MEN’S WING’ IN THE PARTY

    Women: What cannot be won by legislation can be won by a ‘WOMAN-SLIDE ELECTION’.

    ‘WOMEN: WHAT CANNOT BE LEGISLATED CAN AND MUST BE ELECTED!!’

    This victory can mature into a new NASS with more moderate Salaries and Perks and more humility and humanity. The president could be on Grade Level 21, VP on GL 20, Senators on GL  19, Reps on GL 18 etc. or some similar ladder.  The struggle continues.

    When legislation says ‘NO’,

    Election 2023 should say ‘YES’!

    We must show NASS

    That the voters know Best!!!

    The huge forced increase in the use of poor naira value and Russian-Ukrainian war related horrendously priced diesel and petrol due to failure of the national grid and a resultant overdependence on generators will have catastrophic effects on Nigeria’s global warming contribution and air pollution indices. Many businesses have had to shut down as the price of power has shot up by 300-400% with no similar or even compensatory increase in income from fixed salary customers and business owners who cannot take such a huge power bill blow. Nigerian business is choking on the high price of power and Nigerian citizens are choking on the fumes from the million + generator nationwide. Please note also that most of the government lighting projects are generator-based and not solar-based as should have been expected for any 2021/2022 African lighting project. Now that diesel is scarce and hyper-expensive, the flaw in most government plans to shun solaristion of roads as the renewable solution to nocturnal insecurity and lighting up the night has become apparent. Now that most of those generators have been forced to fall silent due to lack of funds, it is time to rethink methodology and to spend time and energy on providing the appropriate infrastructure for solar public lighting to take off. It is a great pity that the succeeding governments uniformly fail to carry on the legacy of solar lighting sewn by preceding governments. Many roads are host to old now-dead solar lighting requiring just a cleaning of the solar panel, a new battery or a new bulb. It is sad we would rather pretend the project never existed, but just discarded by new administrations seeking to give out new contracts. The era of maintenance and supervision should return from the 1960s.

  • 2023 Presidency: Early predictions and scenarios

    2023 Presidency: Early predictions and scenarios

    Political parties go into conventions with clear objectives: to produce sellable candidates and project a united front going into elections. This is especially crucial for the opposition hoping to supplant incumbents.

    Last weekend, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) finally held its convention with leaders crowing in the aftermath about how united they were. Significantly, they defied doomsday predictions that looked like becoming reality days to the event, given the revolt of its governors against the Mai Mala Buni interim leadership.

    People may snigger at the shotgun-consensus that produced its new National Working Committee (NWC), but APC leaders would look on the bright side and say it was a case of the end justifying the means.

    Of course, a sterner test awaits when the party gathers again to pick the candidate who bears its banner at the 2023 presidential elections.

    The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for months enjoyed taunting APC over its inability to hold a gathering to elect its leaders. It could afford to do so having held its own show at the end of October last year.

    That convention which produced the Iyorchia Ayu leadership wasn’t without its birth pains. For months there was open war between then chairman Uche Secondus and his erstwhile benefactor, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike.

    Secondus was unceremoniously dumped and the process leading to his ouster is now the subject of litigation, the outcome of which might yet come to haunt PDP. Remove the disgruntlement of the former leader and you could say the party also emerged from its October 2021 convention projecting a cohesive front.

    But ousting a convenient fall guy may just be a tea party compared to managing the fissures opening up as the party prepares to choose its presidential candidate.

    Leaders of the two leading parties understand that unity is vital for victory. They keep hammering that message, conscious of the depth of division within their ranks over the process that will throw up their flagbearers.

    Things are more straightforward in APC where it is now clear that the candidate would come from one of the three Southern zones. The same cannot be said for PDP where a ferocious internal debate is raging over zoning – despite the fact that it has to make a decision against the backdrop of a Northerner having occupied the presidency for eight years.

    Aspirants like former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal, Bauchi State Governor, Bala Mohammed and former Senate President Bukola Saraki, all of them Northerners, have offered interesting arguments as to why zoning shouldn’t be an issue.

    They say given the country’s grave challenges competence is more important than splitting hairs over where an aspirant comes from. They also make the case that even if zoning were to be the parameter, the last PDP candidate, Goodluck Jonathan, is a Southerner – meaning the ticket should automatically rotate northwards.

    But there’s just a little problem with this last point. The next election won’t be an intra-party affair. Candidates would be selling themselves to a national electorate that’s all too conscious that a Northerner just completed eight years in office.

    In a sign of deep trouble for the party, all its governors down South back the demand of the Southern Governors Forum that the two major parties pick their candidates from the region. So far no one has broken ranks despite the high profile declarations of Northern aspirants. Interestingly, Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, who many assumed was posturing just to be compensated with a Vice Presidential nomination, has formally declared he’s running for the top job.

    Again, these things might be negotiating positions. But you sense there’s something going on in PDP that could defy the usual calculations. This has to do with how the electoral map was radically redefined by the outcomes of the 2015 and 2019 polls.

    In the North where the party used to count a majority of governorships, it now holds only Adamawa, Benue and Taraba – a measly three out of the region’s 19 states. Of its 13 state executives across the country, ten are from the South – making the region its fortress and strengthening their hands at the bargaining table.

    Of course, what is left unsaid when the likes of Tambuwal argue that PDP should be more concerned with regaining power than with zoning, is that with President Muhammadu Buhari out of the picture and the APC set to present a Southerner, a candidate from north of the River Niger would benefit from regional and ethnic solidarity.

    But this isn’t a given. Buhari as an electoral phenomenon is something that happens once in a generation. His charisma and connection with grassroots voters are things that none of the PDP aspirants who have shown interest can replicate.

    So, rather than dreaming that the Northern electorate would move in one direction come 2023, the likely outcome is a more even split based on the strength of the parties in different states and zones. Indeed, it would be overly optimistic for the opposition to think they would totally overhaul the lopsided electoral map in the region in one polling cycle.

    Their task has been made harder by the performance of the incumbent. Whatever may be his achievements in office thus far, there are many Northerners who would argue that his tenure hasn’t been heavenly for them. The spectre of insecurity rendered the largely agrarian economy prostrate for much of his time in office. So it would be tough to sell the notion that another Northerner is necessarily better for the region. Influential groups like the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) have made it clear that candidates seeking their backing solely on the basis of regional identity would be disappointed.

    But that’s unlikely to deter Northern aspirants who are clearly determined to run. The PDP leadership has also shown that is doesn’t have the stomach for a fight. So it won’t want to offend either side for fear that the polarisation would be so much that it would have lost the election even before the first vote is cast. The most likely outcome therefore would be a compromise that throws the contest open – appeasing the Northern wing but leaving its Southern strongholds disenchanted.

    Such a decision would clearly please the likes of Atiku. While the former VP would be hoping that his lifelong ambition to be president comes to pass 30 years after he first tried, his long cycle of trial and failure is now a turn off for some in the party. Indeed, many PDP members have come down with a bad case of Atiku fatigue. The worry for the opposition is that their numbers might not be enough to stop the old warhorse from picking the ticket again.

    As for the APC, it is in considerably better shape going into its nominating convention. You don’t need a soothsayer to predict the flagbearer would come from the Southwest. The logic is simple. The South-South is a PDP bastion. Even with the defection of Cross Rivers Governor, Ben Ayade, you get the sense the next presidential contest would be a toss-up in the state.

    The Southeast isn’t a serious contender for the ticket. David Umahi who has shown interest is unsure how much longer he would remain governor of Ebonyi State with the recent court judgment against him. But even if APC were to pick its candidate from here, the region will still vote PDP. There’s just something about APC that doesn’t agree with the Southeast.

    That leaves the ruling party having to reprise a formula that has worked for it in the last two electoral cycles. All it needs to win a third time in a row is to sweep its Southwest stronghold and garner a majority of votes cast in the North even if it doesn’t manage a landslide.

    This, for it, is still an attainable target despite the fact that it would be going into the elections to confront voters who are largely underwhelmed by its record on the three planks of security, economy and corruption.

    Ordinarily, these are the issues that should be engaging voters and national discourse as the polls draw nearer. Perhaps we are not having that discussion yet because the focus now is on winning the ticket. Hopefully, the hour would come to talk about the things that matter and the day would come when candidates and parties would be held accountable for promises made while seeking votes.

    However, I can safely predict that we are so far gone in our fixation with personalities and zoning such that key issues like economy and insecurity, prescriptions for addressing them or track record of candidates, would not determine who is elected president in 2023.

  • Appointment of VC: an ethical issue

    Appointment of VC: an ethical issue

    The crises engulfing the appointments of Vice Chancellors in Nigerian public universities (federal and state) reached fever pitch in the last two years. Even premier Federal universities are affected, including the University of Ibadan; the University of Lagos; and Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife as well as recently established universities, notably, Federal University at Oye-Ekiti. Similarly, notable state universities have experienced similar crises. They include Lagos State University; Rivers State University of Science and Technology; and Enugu State University of Science and Technology.

    The immediate causes of the crises are threefold. First and foremost is the overbearing influence of either the Chairman of the Governing Council or the Vice Chancellor or both. In most cases, these leaders throw ethics to the wind and insert themselves in the process in order to ensure the selection and subsequent appointment of their so-called “anointed” candidate. The suspicion is often rife that these leaders want a compliant candidate, who would do their bidding—the Chairman probably to have his way with funds and the Vice Chancellor to protect his inadequacies after leaving office and to keep drawing funds from the university, which only his anointed candidate could facilitate.

    Whether this is their true intention or not is immaterial. It is the appearance of guilt that matters. Even more importantly, interference with the process often spurs the University Senate and unions to cry foul, leading to internal crisis in which these bodies are thrown into conflict with the university Vice Chancellor on the one hand and the Council Chairman on the other. The result often is a stalemate as happened at UI and LASU, leading to repetitions of the process.

    The second issue, often in service of the one identified above, is the deliberate flouting of the University Act as well as the rules, regulations, and conventions governing the appointment of a Vice Chancellor. Again, in most cases, the advertisement often deviates from established rules, while the procedures, clearly set out in the regulations, are often flouted.

    The procedures are clearcut: The Registrar submits the advertisement to Council for vetting, following which it is published in at least two national newspapers. Manipulation often begins with the qualifications set out for prospective applicants and who receives the applications. Council thereafter sets up a Search Committee, comprised of members of Council and Senate. Its function is to monitor the inflow of applications and also reach out to exceptional candidates, who may not have applied.

    Once the application deadline is reached, the Registrar submits all received applications to the Search Committee, which passes them on to yet another Committee of Council, namely, the Joint Committee of Senate and Council. The Search and Joint Committees are chaired by members of Council. The two committees should not have overlapping membership. It is the duty of the Joint Committee to screen the applications in accordance with the application guidelines and make a shortlist for Council’s consideration. The Council, as a body, creates the scoring matrix, the criteria for ranking the candidates, and then ranks them according to their scores.

    Ideally, Vice Chancellors have no role whatsoever in the appointment of a successor. It is not their duty to groom a successor, as some erroneously suggest. Rather, they should mentor the academic community and, indeed, the entire university community, by displaying ethical, academic, and administrative leadership. To be sure, there are VCs who live by these standards. Unfortunately, however, a number of them flout necessary procedures, by using their office as a clearing house for applications, a role normally assigned to the Registrar, in his or her capacity as the Secretary to Council. Some overbearing Council Chairmen also often insert themselves into the process, some for the reasons stated above and others out of sheer ignorance.

    A third issue is the injection of primordial considerations—ethnicity and religion as well geopolitics, particularly, the demand for appointing a “son of the soil”, that is, someone from the locality in which the university is situated. This unfortunate requirement applies to both Federal and State universities and involves both the elite and ordinary folks, including thugs and other riffraffs. This problem recently underlined the protests against the choice of Vice Chancellors at the University of Ibadan, where the elite demanded a son of the soil, and Obafemi Awolowo University, where riffraffs, apparently without elite input, made a similar demand.

    Yet, from all indications, the process at Ife was rule-governed and rancour free. That’s why, as a first generation student on the Ile-Ife campus of OAU and a lecturer there for over a decade, I was so disturbed by the recent senseless protests, more so when they involved the barbaric display of charms and amulets, that I called on the Ooni of Ife, Oba Eniitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, twice to implore him to intervene, which he did but not as successfully as he had hoped. Negotiations are usually difficult with leaderless protesters, leading the Vice Chancellor, Professor Eyitope Ogunbodede, to request police reinforcement on campus.

    The implications of these issues for the place and functions of the university in society are far-reaching. In advanced democracies the university is where political leaders are trained in addition to its basic mission of teaching, research, and service to the community at large. Ideally, the university is a microcosm of the larger society. It is the bastion of liberal democracy, fairness, and justice. Unfortunately, however, the issues reviewed above indicate the poverty of leadership and democratic values in our universities, not to speak of the abandonment of meritocracy.

    Equally disturbing is the rate at which universities erode their own autonomy by inviting external arbiters. As if the interventions of JAMB and the NUC are not enough, university leaders invite external intervention, by throwing their institutions into needless crises. Thus, the Federal Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, had to intervene through the NUC, in the UI case, while Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu intervened twice in the LASU case. Perhaps in apprehension of possible crisis, the Ife Governing Council sold out their powers by needlessly inviting a representative of the Federal Character Commission to the interview process.

    What is even more disturbing is the extent to which the behaviours of many a university leader simulate or replicate the behaviours of political leaders. Thus, the difference between the recent crises of leadership in our universities and the chaos within the political parties in preparation for the forthcoming presidential election is a matter of detail. They both demonstrate the poverty of leadership and the disrespect for established rules, regulations, and conventions.

     

     

  • Anambra; Court slumping; Political fine- lessons

    Anambra; Court slumping; Political fine- lessons

    All governors are largely ‘kings within their kingdom’. However even kings must perform. We have a superbly qualified HRH Olubadan Balogun in Ibadan. The new governor in Anambra State is widely known with a value-added CV and his comprehensive inaugural day speech plans great things for the state. Of course, words in Nigeria seldom equal actions. This will not be the case with Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo, Amen, who takes over from a quite active Governor Willie Obiano. We await the outcome of Obiano’s interrogation. In fact, this routine post immunity interview for all political office holders may help sanitise the system. All governors and governors-to-be in 2023 should initiate study the methodology of the tech-driven progress coming to Anambra State 2022-2026.

    Many who elect persons from any political party who then change party midstream should go back to confirm that the electorate want to follow him or her into a new ideology and political track record. This was ‘cross-carpeting’ and the voters called ‘carpet-bagging’ i.e. following power and the money trail. People vote party and the party ideology. When an elected politician changes party he is forcing his voters to also change ideology. Can it be right that the voters also want to change ideology even though their party political actions differ little sometimes?

    The ‘slumping’ of family members of persons arraigned in court is Act 1 Scene 2 of a well-rehearsed political and financial crime trial. If it is genuine, my sympathy goes to the family but we have seen so many such tricks with the ‘slumper’ achieving the goal of accumulating sympathy from the gullible among the audience and also getting a further postponement of the day of judgement. Whatever the circumstances, we should soon expect other key players in the court drama to also take their turns to slump. Perhaps they should go to medical or art school to perfect the technique to be more convincing to the sometimes live social media press.

    It is pity that in none of these cases did friends and family slump when the crimes were active and ongoing. No one ever slumps at millions of naira in a beer carton, briefcase or in the wardrobe or $600,000 under the hat or on receipt of bag of cut diamonds-ABCD, or those stuffing their agbadas with enough cash to make them potbellied.

    Let us ask Nollywood-what next? Pretend suicide? That will need a lot more cooperation with doctors, although the spate of sicknesses requiring VIP hospitalisation, sick leave tenable most only abroad and usually arising only after being caught suggests some doctor collusion already. Of course stress of capture can cause hypertension and increase in pre-existing hypertension so perhaps some are actually medically correct.

    The very light sentence and even lighter option of an immorally low fine given to the minister who received and passed illegally obtained money on to the owner is being questioned as no deterrent at all and an encouragement to political criminals to carry on as normal. There should be no difference between a ‘financial crime in political circumstances and a financial crime in non-political circumstances’. In addition, it is seen as a poor return on investigating time and such a difficult crime to track. It could also be seen as something that will seriously demoralise the financial crime investigators. Maybe there were mitigating circumstances like maximum cooperation of the minister with the investigation team. Perhaps the prosecution had appealed for leniency because of this and unknown to us. Certainly the judgement itself empowers many other potential victims to stand up and say ‘no’ when such political financial crimes are being forced on them by their political superiors and pressure groups. Quoting this case, future political appointees can stand and refuse to deliver or even take themselves and not risk being sacked or roped into some conspiracy against the party stealing the money.

    I believe this is the essence of this judgement. It is one more stepping-stone to tightening the noose against politically motivated corruption. This ‘pass the corrupt parcel’ is sometimes used as a test requirement to demonstrate political loyalty by being roped in even as a mere unpaid conduit pipe for flow of corruption related funds is well known. This is a deliberate attempt to intimidate into silence some good persons among the bad ones because once they have been involved, they will be afraid of exposure and therefore keep quiet when even worse financial crimes are being committed for fear of someone bringing up their own case of ‘Did you also not take money to so and so on so-and-so date?’. It is called ‘I’ve got the goods on you’ in financial criminal parlance to make witnesses refuse to come forward and a guarantee of silence.

    The minister would have been thoroughly investigated by the authorities and has probably not been found wanting. This is good. In future, political appointees can face politicians and say ‘No, did you not hear what happened to so-and-so. Hopefully this will end the use of such conduits, by force or as a favour do such wrong and encourage them when they get a bag of money to ‘forward to so-and-so’, to stand up and refuse. Those who are involved in the appointment and many not involved sometimes pretend that they are key to the political appointee keeping the job and mount pressure on them to do wrong. Learn the lesson.

  • When Bianca slapped Ebelechukwu

    When Bianca slapped Ebelechukwu

    It was the slap heard around the world. When former Nigerian ambassador to Spain and wife of the late Biafran leader, Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, smacked former Anambra State First Lady, Ebelechukwu Obiano’s face, she claimed to have reacted to provocation.

    But that reflex action born out of a moment of rage would immediately send shockwaves from one little corner of Awka to the ends of the earth.

    The clash was unscripted just as it was unedifying. It stole the thunder of Professor Chukwuma Soludo who had, no doubt, looked forward to a landmark in his life and a historical day for his state. Not even in his wildest dreams would he have imagined that two elegantly dressed VIPs would turn proceedings upside down with a catfight.

    Ojukwu has accused her nemesis of acting under the influence, delivering a blow by blow account of their wrestling match. She has talked of how the former governor’s wife called her unprintable names and nudged her delicately arranged headgear.

    Mrs. Obiano has been a bit slower in delivering her victim impact statement. She was the recipient of the slap and claims not to understand what could have driven a former diplomat to such depths of anger as to resort to physical combat.

    While they would like the world to sympathise with them, there’s no winner here. Both women came out of this encounter as losers.

    Their account of the event would understandably vary and the poorly-recorded videos are not a help in establishing the sequence of actions. Ojukwu does accept she hit Obiano. In some other environment the police would quickly open an assault investigation because the slapping incident took place under their very noses.

    But I doubt there would be legal consequences for her because of our very Nigerian way of handling these things. Elders would step in to “reconcile” the parties – and there’s really nothing wrong that. Blessed are the peacemakers.

    For Bianca, former beauty queen, lawyer and diplomat, wrestling in public places isn’t what you associate with the queen of the legendary Ikemba Nnewi. That elevated image has been muddied beyond recognition because she lost it in the Awka heat.

    Public sympathy has largely sided with her against the ex-First Lady which suggests that Mrs. Obiano was hardly flavour of the month whilst she and her husband were in power. This was a clear case of the political wife becoming a liability because most comments on social media revolved round the sentiment that she had the beating coming and truly deserved it.

    But what sins did she commit to generate such outpouring of scorn and hate? I am largely ignorant of her antecedents and have chosen to ignore the juicy gossip about her supposed antics. Suffice it to say on the basis of available evidence she was more feared than loved.

    You may argue that she bought it on herself by her actions, still, no one deserves to be humiliated in the way she was last weekend. She’ll forever remember how a day that was supposed to be a triumphant riposte to those who didn’t want her husband as governor, ended in spectacular disgrace because of her excesses.

    Spare a thought for former governor Obiano. What horror, what mortification, what utter embarrassment he must have felt as he scurried from the event with his humiliated missus.

    Spare a thought for Soludo who was supposed to be the centre piece but ended up the sideshow. No one remembers the soaring prose of his speech calling on the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) and their co-travellers to rethink the strategy of their struggle. Not many remember what he said about his plans for Anambra. What would permanently be etched on their minds would the chaotic scenes that followed after Bianca slapped Ebelechukwu.

    Beyond its crude entertainment value, the clash of the well-coiffed ladies is emblematic of the continuous decline of our decadent elite. There’s no depth they won’t plumb. They have lost their capacity to shock and lost every sense of shame.

    I have tried unsuccessfully to imagine such a disgraceful display occurring on the grounds of the White House, Downing Street, and Buckingham Palace or on lesser government facilities across the world on a day as grand and dignified as a governor’s inauguration. It’s just unimaginable and even Hollywood hasn’t conjured such a scenario yet.

    But in Nigeria all things are possible. Now, we have precedence. Don’t be surprised if in the near future a governor and his deputy ditch their agbadas and go toe-to-toe over some dispute, swiftly joined by their spouses in a gubernatorial free-for-all.

    It’s a measure of the plummeting stock of our political elite that while the ambassador and the First Lady were pulling wigs and scratching each other’s eyes out, some onlookers were gleefully recording videos on their cell phones for post-inaugural enjoyment at home.

    The Awka show of shame also speaks loudly about the hypocrisy and posturing of our leaders. A little over a week ago the media was awash with reports of a woman in Aguleri community of Anambra State who was stripped naked and publicly humiliated over accusations of adultery and complicity in the death of her husband.

    Reacting to the incident, Mrs Obiano released a statement saying: “My attention was drawn to a video clip containing graphic images of a woman subjected to ignominious treatment of the worst kind. She was not only publicly condemned over alleged adultery, but paraded stark naked on the streets. I must say that the conduct of the persons who took the law into their hands to debase the hapless woman was barbaric and disgusting.”

    Barely one week after, in the video of her clash with Mrs. Ojukwu, she could be heard clearly calling her foe “ashewo” – local vernacular meaning prostitute. This wasn’t just a direct attack on one woman’s character by another, it was a pejorative deployed to debase her in much the same way as those who did a similar thing in Aguleri.

    The disrupted inaugural ceremony is now history. Soludo has moved on with governance and so must the fighters and their families.

    The Obiano’s are adjusting to the brutal reality of life without the trappings of office. Just hours after shedding power he was cooling his heels in EFCC detention. Perhaps, that slap on his wife’s face was an unintended way of shaking the once powerful couple out of their reverie and bringing them down to earth with a bump.

    Everyone makes mistakes no matter their station. Life’s also about learning, even if most people don’t learn from experience. Hopefully, the ambassador and First Lady can reflect and consider what they could have done differently were circumstances to repeat themselves.

     

    Elumelu’s unusual tweets

    It’s not often that you hear one of Nigeria’s most prominent billionaire entrepreneurs firing off a tweet, venting about the dire state of affairs in the country. They are more given to speaking in diplomatic terms. They are not expected to vent frustration publicly, but to get their views to the powers-that-be through the “usual channels.”

    So imagine my shock waking up a few mornings ago to a series of tweets by Tony Elumelu, philanthropist, UBA chairman and founder of Tony Elumelu Foundation bemoaning the state of the nation.

    In a series of tweets he wrote: “This morning, I am listening to my colleagues at the office bemoan the very pressing issues that they face every day in this country, and how things have been getting worse and worse – no electricity for 5 days, hikes in the price of diesel, frightening food inflation, etc.

    “How can a country so rich in natural resources have 90% of its citizens living in hardship and poverty? I have often said that access to electricity is critical for our development, alleviation of poverty and hardship. And speaking of security, our people are afraid!

    “Businesses are suffering. How can we be losing over 95% of oil production to thieves?”

    “Look at the Bonny Terminal that should be receiving over 200k barrels of crude oil daily, instead it receives less than 3,000 barrels, leading the operator @Shell to declare force majeure.”

    Elumelu goes on to question why citizens and corporate organisations should be paying taxes if our security agencies can’t stop the theft. Truth is many who should be catching thieves are complicit in the thievery.

    I am surprised that the mogul’s tweets didn’t generate more of a flap given their hard-hitting candour. I am just as shocked that the symbolism was lost on many. We are used to the masses moaning about Nigeria, but when billionaires join the chorus, then there’s fire on the mountain!

     

     

  • Trafficking persons from a troubled nation

    Trafficking persons from a troubled nation

    These are truly hard times for Nigerian youths, and they are in the majority: According to available age distribution statistics, those aged 19 years and below constitute about 52 percent of the total population. When those between 20 and 35 are factored in, Nigerian youth bulge skyrockets to about 70 percent of the entire population. For quite some time now, demographers and other experts have been warning Nigerian leaders that this youth bulge is a ticking time bomb, more so now in the face of economic depression and high youth unemployment. The bomb has now begun to rupture, not with a one-time big bang but gradually and in a variety of forms, like an overinflated tyre leaking gradually from multiple punctures. Such a tyre may wreck the car and waste its passengers, if not mended in time.

    Years of neglect have led to multiple punctures in the lives and livelihoods of Nigerian youths: Schools, colleges, and universities are in deplorable shape, being underfunded, understaffed, and under-equipped. Exposed to a curriculum in dissonance with the job market, and hampered by incessant union strikes, they learn little or nothing to make them employable or self-employed. The job market is so small that only a small fraction, such as those who trained abroad, have a shot.

    Yet, graduates of polytechnics and technical colleges, who learned one trade or the other lack the start-off capital. Artisans lack necessary infrastructure to sustain their work. There is even a lack of patronage due to economic depression. As a result, many youths today cannot find food to eat. Some have nowhere to sleep. In major cities, you find them at bus stops, airports, supermarkets, street corners, and social gatherings (wedding, birthday, and funeral parties). Yet others are mere hangers-on, waiting to be recruited to any job or any crime like the second batch of youths, who converted an otherwise peaceful October 2020 #EndSARS protests into a violent looting spree.

    In the absence of interesting learning in school, some youths find engagement in nefarious groups, such as cults and gangs. Those among them who want to make quick money join fraudsters, popularly known as Yahoo Boys. A subset of this group, known as Yahoo Plus, engage in money rituals involving human sacrifice. Worse still, in the absence of gainful employment after graduation, many youths explore ways of escaping poverty by finding employment with the Devil: They professionalise the activities of their cults and gangs and engage in various crimes. Others become fraudsters, street urchins, area boys, or political thugs. Yet others join robbers, kidnappers, bandits, and terrorist groups.

    There are yet others, who seek an escape from Nigeria altogether, thereby falling prey to human traffickers, who falsely promise them gainful employment abroad, especially in Europe, the Middle East, and North America. The traffickers’ false social media adverts are echoed on radio and in newspapers across the country. In truth, however, the applicants are typically forced into labour or prostitution abroad. Worse still, some of them are sold into slavery. Unknown to them, the traffickers are engaged in the commodification of persons for profit.

    About five years ago, in the wake of the Nigerian government’s repatriation of hundreds of Nigerians trafficked to Libya, following CNN’s revelations of modern day slavery in that country, I reviewed the plight of a Nigerian, who fell prey to human trafficking (‘No Man’s Land’: Oladele’s Libya tales, The Punch, December 12, 2017). This was followed by an in-depth exploration of the causes and consequences of economic migration and how to curb it (Economic migration across the Sahara and the Mediterranean, The Punch, December 19, 2017).

    To be sure, Nigeria has policies and agencies in place for the control of human trafficking, such as the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, established way back in July 2003. There is also The Trafficking in Persons Law Enforcement and Administration Act, amended in 2015, which criminalizes labour and sex trafficking. However, much less success has been recorded than failures in curbing the scourge. Millions of Nigerians have been trafficked abroad since the agency was established.

    In 2020, Nigeria was in the news again  as she had to repatriate hundreds of Nigerians, mostly female, from Lebanon, following the outcry of a female victim trafficked into forced labour and repeatedly threatened with rape. As recently as last week, a national newspaper reported yet another case of human trafficking, involving at least 100 Nigerians from Ondo state, who were swindled up to N650,000 each over phony overseas jobs (Human Trafficking: 100 unemployed persons in Ondo swindled N65m over phoney (sic.) jobs abroad, Vanguard, March 10, 2022).

    I had previously heard firsthand accounts of four persons, who invested heavily with traffickers, who promised lucrative jobs abroad. One eventually made it to Libya and two to Dubai. All three returned safely within three years, but penniless and with harrowing tales of their experiences with forced labour. The fourth one was swindled nearly N500,000 before the swindler disappeared. I also heard about three others, who were trafficked abroad and died there.

    The truth really is that Nigeria remains a major source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. That’s why, while acknowledging Nigeria’s increasing efforts to curb the menace, a wide-ranging 2021 report by the US State Department Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons puts Nigeria in Tier 2 and concludes that the country “does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of (human) trafficking”.

    The report identifies Nigerian traffickers as highly organized “crime webs” in Europe, recruiting most victims from Edo state for prostitution and forced labour in Europe and the Middle East. Others come from Abia, Delta, Ebonyi, Imo, and Kogi states as well as IDP populations in the North. Some of the victims are also exported to other West African countries.

    Internal trafficking is also on the rise, with traffickers recruiting victims from rural areas and exploiting them in commercial sex or domestic work in the cities. Victims are also engaged in agriculture, artisanal mining, stone quarrying, textile manufacturing, street vending, begging, and baby factories.

    Against these backgrounds, the job of curbing human trafficking must go beyond occasional repatriation of trafficked victims stranded overseas. Attention must be paid to internal victims and, most especially, to plugging the root causes of the problem. It also must be acknowledged that leaving the country altogether is only one way in which the youths are responding to a troubled nation that has little or nothing in store for them.

     

     

     

     

  • 2023-Vote women: Cut NASS Salaries & Perks 75%

    2023-Vote women: Cut NASS Salaries & Perks 75%

    National Assembly, (NASS) has had an emergency rethink, not voluntarily but following the tsunami of female gender-driven public opinion complaints against its selfish gender bill decisions.

    Congratulations to the tsunami makers. Please keep this synergic momentum explosive as we insist on a political equal gender rights agenda. The battle is many years old. It is not yet won. Success has just begun.   

    Women have refused to be legislated against. They shouted and the difference was clear. The NASS was speaking for its greedy self and not for maligned constituency members. NASS owes us all an apology. Victory may be in sight but it still not Uhuru but a taste of the long-overdue ‘Gender Justice’ that can be achieved by a collective will.

    ‘Electoral Education Information’, (EEI) strategies must be put in place now so that the female vote in 2023 will install every qualified woman seeking office even by voting across party lines by favouring the party with the most women candidates. Women massively failed to support women before -a grave political miscalculation and ignorance-driven mistake.  It is time to redress the wrongs.

    With the terrible naira and security, Nigeria should say ‘NO’ to our stupidly expensive political machinery. Their self-inflicted ‘Salaries and Perks’ are a drain for inadequate return. Most of the NASS N125billion, spent through the budget would have done more than left with NASS membership ‘Salaries and Perks’ -among, or actually the highest world. All citizens must point out to NASS to also stop such humongous NASS emoluments as unjustifiable in a poor country with huge borrowing and fiscal challenges. We must stop ‘Political Palliative Parties’ in favour of parties that will in their manifesto and discussions legislate or get the appropriate organ to cut their NASS emoluments! Abroad where we are supposed to be taking democracy lessons from, the politicians’ work is ‘LEGISLATIVE NOT PALLIATIVE’. Why do we always put anti-people activities into everything we adapt from abroad?

    The next battle is to get Nigerian politicians’ Salaries and Perks cut by 75% because they are ‘SAPping’ Nigeria dry.

    If NASS members want to buy cars especially in a new parliament come 2023, they must be told now that Nigeria will not accept and they should not expect to burden the Nigerian masses with the bill for a ‘befitting jeep’ of N35-50m x 109 Senators +360Reps =469 NASS members =N16-20b. Let them, like their counterparts worldwide and the rest of us go to the bank to borrow. You will see that their car desire will quickly change like everyone to second hand and maybe even cancel jeep off their list. If they have to use the rail and the metro and the taxis and buses, Nigeria would have been a better place long ago.

    NASS has been forced to ‘reconsider’ but will NASS change its mind-set for the better? So when will we visibly follow most of the world and many African countries which allow womanhood to flourish politically and not just as a decoration? The bills are not mutually exclusive but stepping-stones to equality. Though welcome, the morality around funding of any 111 extra seats, rather that the men giving up at least 35% of seats to women costing nothing extra to the citizen for the same gender gain, is selfish on the part of the NASS men. It is also a huge dilemma with Nigeria’s poverty at 75%, naira exchange rate in the gutter and the high price of oil, $139/barrel, precipitating a wartime scenario even on the food situation, with famine threatened, compounded by ‘Lost Generation’ -the loss and displacement of five+ million honest civilians and our gallant soldiers fighting Boko Haram, ISIS West Africa and murderous ‘independent’ terrorist/bandits. The 111 extra seats offer comes like a Greek Gift, a Trojan horse bringing more punishment than salvation. This conclusion is especially based on the local terrorism and poverty and loss of humanity, the unrest in West Africa and world warmongers. This new formula of ‘supernumerary but equal’ exposes NASS’s selfishness. The women are 49-51% of the population and must make their political presence felt.

    We can support this struggle. Every woman, qualified morally, seeking election in 2023 should get elected.

    The task is unchanged and remains to strategise to ‘MAKE THE FEMALE VOTE COUNT’ in 2023.

    First: ‘GET ALL WOMEN TO VOTE’ with campaigns targeting those who will be 18 by 2023 with ‘Girl GO Vote’ songs and T shirts etc. included in Nollywood scripts, Music etc. by entertainment stars aimed at GETTING THE PVC.

    Second: GET WOMEN TO VOTE FOR WOMEN’

    Third: Get women TO VOTE FOR WOMEN ACROSS PARTY.

    Fourth: MAKE ANTI-WOMEN PARTIES AND PERSONS UNCOMFORTABLE by withdrawing female support and directing support towards parties and persons which field women.

    Fifth: GET YOUR PARTY TO ABOLISH ‘WOMEN’S WING’ UNLESS THERE IS ‘MEN’S WING’ IN THE PARTY

    Women: What cannot be won by legislation can be won by a ‘WOMAN-SLIDE ELECTION’.

    ‘WOMEN: WHAT CANNOT BE LEGISLATED CAN AND MUST BE ELECTED!!’

    This victory can mature into a new NASS with more moderate Salaries and Perks and more humility and humanity. The president could be on Grade Level 21, VP on GL 20, Senators on GL19, Reps on GL 18 etc. or some similar ladder.  The struggle continues.

    When legislation says ‘NO’,

    Election 2023 should say ‘YES’!

    We must show NASS

    That the voters know Best!!!

  • Wike versus Obaseki: Battle of the bruisers

    Wike versus Obaseki: Battle of the bruisers

    Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, is a past master at the art of the political insult. He has no use for the elegant putdown; his words are often bruising, brutal, guaranteed to leave a mark. His latest verbal bomb lobbed at his Edo State counterpart, Godwin Obaseki, ticks the usual boxes.

    Reacting to his colleague calling him a “bully” for rebuking Deputy Governor, Phillip Shaibu, Wike said: “You came to beg a bully for you to have a ticket. A bully was your DG Campaign and a bully bullied you into Government House. What a shame. You came back with your wife to thank the bully saying that after God, the bully made it possible for you to be there”.

    He went on to call Obaseki a “serial betrayer,” apologising to former All Progressives Party (APC) National Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, who had predicted that his erstwhile political godson would soon turn on his new-found benefactors.

    The two governors have been feuding over the power struggle in the Edo chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which has pitched Obaseki against old warhorses like Chief Dan Orbih and others who controlled the party before the local APC crisis gifted them a governor.

    A convention adopted by Nigeria’s two leading political parties makes the governor defacto ‘leader’ in his domain. In that capacity he has the power to impose and depose. His word becomes law and heaven help the dissidents who would not bow before the emperor.

    In some states, governors have made the pragmatic choice to cohabit and share power with powerful individuals, while casting envious glances at neighbours ruling like lords of the manor. For some, that adjustment became a bridge too far – leading to nerve-wracking battles with those who helped them climb up the ladder.

    This was case with Obaseki who chafed at attempts by Oshiomhole to exert political control over a successor he personally chose and imposed.

    Rather than suffer the indignity of an Akinwumi Ambode who was denied the ticket for a second term in office as Lagos State governor and took it with equanimity, he leapt into the “enemy’s” embrace, cutting whatever deal guaranteed him the platform to run again.

    He took it for granted that the old ‘governor as leader’ formula would subsist, not knowing he had landed in shark-infested waters. His attempts at imposing his will have been robustly resisted not just because those who called the shots formerly were powerful; they were also age-old allies of Wike – whose influence is far-reaching within the South-South PDP and across the party nationwide.

    The frustration reached a peak triggering suggestions that Obaseki might just have another attack of Sokugo – that famous wandering disease – referenced by Cyprian Ekwensi in his classic ‘Burning Grass.’ His deputy Shaibu openly declared that if those resisting them would not bend, there were other options to the PDP.

    Obaseki had clearly not reached that point, warning the resistance at one point to either accept him as leader or leave the party. These were not the words of a politician who understood compromise, but those of a conqueror fresh from vanquishing an acclaimed godfather. They spoke of the giddy power of governors who can determine everything from who becomes local government councillor to who gets elected president.

    What Obaseki and Shaibu haven’t considered is that the conditions and dramatis personae that enabled them prevail over Oshiomhole are different from those of their latest battle in PDP. Equally, their direct opponent is made of sterner stuff.

    For while the former APC chairman was known as a pugnacious fighter right from his days as president of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), he also has a softer, philosophical side – realising when to fold his tent and go home following his political humiliation.

    The same cannot be said of Wike who has clearly not heard of the saying that he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. He embraces every new clash with gusto and plunges into fresh conflicts headlong.

    I think of the Rivers governor and I am reminded of the boxing style of such iconic heavyweight champions as Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson. It doesn’t matter what you throw at them, they keep coming back at you – grinding you down slowly, relentlessly.

    Wike is not an elegant boxer; he’s not averse to throwing the odd below-the-belt punch. In his latest broadside against Obaseki he managed to drag some allegations about the Edo governor’s face-off with the Oba of Benin over returned Benin artefacts, into a matter that was purely about internal party intrigues.

    Check his never-ending war with his erstwhile boss and current Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi or his bitter break-up with former PDP chairman, Uche Secondus, a man he helped install in office and you find the same pattern – relentless counter attack with no quarter given.

    In some ways the two governors are alike: both love a good scrap and don’t like to back down. They love to have the last word, but the Rivers governor is in a special class when it comes to this. So Shaibu hurling threats at the PDP was akin to waving a red flag in the face of the bull in a bullfight.

    Obaseki, couldn’t understand why Wike was so enraged, telling him the PDP wasn’t his personal property. How wrong he is! Maybe it wasn’t eight years ago. After the loss of federal power and patronage there was need for someone to step up and sustain the party. There were not too many takers – leaving the Rivers governor to pay the bills and call the shots.

    Post-2015 his influence over the party has been well-nigh suffocating. Some governors have fled the opposition ranks citing his supposed overbearing ways. Wike has a vice grip on the party. If the Edo governor doesn’t get that, then he doesn’t understand APC is not PDP!

    As things stand Obaseki may no longer enjoy his stay in his new home unless he’s willing to crawl to Port Harcourt with his tail between his legs to beg the king. That’s not a viable option for a guy who boasts about putting godfathers out of business.

    But with his newly-minted foe, who doesn’t look like the forgiving sort, threatening: “Let me tell you Obaseki, I know your cohorts and I will smoke all of you out,” he’d better watch out.

    One theme Wike kept harping on in his statement was ‘betrayal.’ But what did he expect? In the amoral defection politics that has prevailed in Nigeria through the years, people change parties to get elected into office. They don’t make the switch because of deep ideological convictions or anything so elevated.

    When Obaseki was negotiating with the PDP many speculated his heart wasn’t really in it; he only wanted to use the platform to secure re-election and return to APC. Since achieving his objective he has often stated his desire to remain in his new home. But at the first sign of trouble talk of defection has been revived. It’s all about control and hanging on to power.

    That said, Wike’s sense of moral outrage does seem a bit overdone. He bemoans Obaseki’s “betrayal” and swears he’s never done anything similar to anyone. It would be interesting to know what his former boss Amaechi thinks and what words he would use to describe their parting of ways. Betrayal, perhaps? Politics is a bitch.

    This isn’t just a clash of two individuals with outsize egos. It is all so revelatory of the depth of the internal crises raging within Nigeria’s two largest political parties. Both are bitterly riven with factions. The APC is staggering under a cloud of confusion towards a national convention with no clue whether it would come out whole or in bits.

    The PDP is no better as the politics of zoning threatens to rip it apart.

    Unfortunately for the country, there are no other options to take advantage of these parties going into elections divided. Those who claim to be offering a third way are reverting to the old formula of gathering names. No one is making any effort to capture the imagination of the country with the power of their ideas.

    That’s why, in the end, one of the jaded big two parties that is better able to manage the fallout from ongoing clash of egos, would find itself in power, leaving us all with that sense of déjà vu.

     

  • Why Africans have survived the coronavirus scourge

    Why Africans have survived the coronavirus scourge

    As I was closing out on this column, it was announced that the coronavirus, code-named COVID-19, had hit the grim milestone of 6 million deaths worldwide. So far, however, against all predictions and expectations, the toll of the coronavirus pandemic on Africa has remained very low, compared to other regions of the world. This is especially true of Nigeria, which houses one in every five Africans.

    After two full years of the pandemic, here’s how Africa stacks against other major continents (in parenthesis, infections and deaths, respectively): Europe (160m, 1.7m); Asia (121m, 1.3m); North America (95m, 1.4m); South America (54m, 1.2m), Africa (11m, 250,118; that is, just over a quarter million deaths). With a population of over 200 million, Nigeria has only recorded 254,657 infections and 3,142 deaths, whereas Brazil, with comparable population and climate, has recorded over 29 million infections and 652,207 deaths!

    However, much less is known about the factors behind the relatively low infection and death rates in Africa than about the predictions of possible devastation of the continent by the virus. Those predictions were based on four key factors, namely, weak health infrastructure; lack of social safety nets; crowded spaces, especially in the urban centres and local markets; poor leadership, leading to weak or weakened institutions and governance failure.

    Aware of these weaknesses, African leaders quickly took measures to address them, while politicians in Europe and the Americas were busy politicizing the pandemic or developing uneven measures based on contrived severity matrices for a virus that defies boundaries. Accordingly, as early as February 4, 2020, the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention quickly established the Africa Task Force to combat the novel coronavirus. That was 10 days before the first case of the virus was detected in Egypt.

    Within a week of the detection, health experts from the African Union’s 55 member states convened at the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa to jointly develop a plan, based on the recommendations of the World Health Organisation. The plan included several mitigation measures—wearing face masks; keeping at least 2-meter distance; avoiding crowds and indoor gatherings; and washing or sanitizing hands regularly.

    In addition, African leaders quickly established molecular testing labs, adopted early lockdowns, and provided economic palliatives to the poor and the elderly in partnership with private donors. In Nigeria, for example, isolation wards were rapidly established across the country and the list of molecular testing labs increased exponentially from just a few at the outbreak of the pandemic to well over seventy within six months.

    Although these mitigation measures assisted in curbing the spread of the pandemic in its early days, they could not explain the failure of the negative predictions, especially as the measures were relaxed, due partly to the governments’ inability to sustain them and partly to noncompliance as the economic effects of the pandemic began to take its toll on the restive populations.

    Besides, Northern countries with much better health facilities and stronger institutions succumbed to the pandemic at a much higher rate than African countries, despite the adoption of the same mitigation measures. Even after vaccinating well over half of their populations against the virus, infections and deaths still soared among Northern populations in response to the Omicron variant, which incidentally originated on the African continent, specifically in South Africa.

    These variable statistics have rekindled the search for explanations for the relatively low COVID-19 infection and death rates in Africa. Two major factors were quickly identified, namely, (a) Africa’s demography, typified by a very large young population, and (b) cross-protective immunity.

    Put simply, it is argued that Africa has demographic protection against COVID-19 due to its young population: Youths (35 years old and below), constitute over 60 percent of the population. Indeed, the average age in Africa is 20, compared to 39 in the United States and 43 in Europe. The age logic is based on the low infection and death rates among youths across the globe. The youth-led #EndSARS protests in the midst of the pandemic in October 2020 attests to this logic.

    A second explanatory factor, cross-protective immunity, is based on the assumption that Africans have developed strong immunity as a result of repeated exposures to various kinds of pathogens. Compared to Northern populations, it is true that Africans in general have been exposed to more parasitic diseases—from measles and smallpox to malaria, polio, and Ebola, not to speak of the endemic common cold caused by human coronaviruses. Nevertheless, as I pointed out earlier on this column, the explanatory power of this factor awaited scientific proof.

    It would now appear that evidence is emerging that past infections with parasitic diseases might provide some level of immunity against COVID-19. Late last year, researchers in Uganda found that COVID-19 patients highly exposed to malaria were less likely to suffer severe disease or death than people with little or no exposure to the parasite.

    Similarly, several studies have shown that preexisting immune responses against endemic human coronaviruses that cause the seasonal common cold can mitigate the manifestation of disease from exposure to COVID-19.  Along this line, a recent study, carried out by scientists at Imperial College London, found that high levels of pre-existing T cells (a type of cell in the immune system), created by the body as a result of infection with other human coronaviruses, such as the common cold, are effective in preventing infection from COVID-19. The study, therefore, suggests that there are so-called “never Covid” people, that is, those who never become sick of COVID-19, even after exposure to the virus. This study is the more significant, given the high levels of exposure to parasitic diseases in Africa.

    There is yet another research indicating that, when compared to COVID-19 patients of European heritage, a whopping 80 percent of COVID-19 patients of African ancestry had the protective gene variant (rs10774671-G) that is effective in breaking down the virus that causes COVID-19. This is not surprising since the most primitive (that is basic, original, or oldest) genes are to be found on the African continent. This means that there is no gene variant found elsewhere on the globe that could not be traced to Africa.

    Yes, there would be unreported cases of COVID-19 infections and deaths, but that is not peculiar to Africa. All considered, Africa has held its own against COVID-19. It is not yet time, however, to let down the guard.

     

  • ‘NASS-No: Election ‘VOTE-WOMEN-2023’ Yes’

    ‘NASS-No: Election ‘VOTE-WOMEN-2023’ Yes’

    When legislation says ‘NO’, 

    Election 2023 should say ‘YES’! 

    We must show NASS

    That the voters know Best!!!

    Women must refuse to be legislated against. Their combined vote in 2023 can install most of the women seeking office even if it requires voting across party lines. Favour the party with women candidates. Even women failed to support women before. There was once a woman presidential candidate. At the primaries she had one vote.  It is time to redress the wrongs.

    Apology: My article last week entitled ‘Evans; 25% female politicians inadequate in 2022’ assumed that the new bill for 111 Special seats for Nigerian women in National Assembly, (NASS) was a certainty. Sadly, my hopes and those of millions of females, 17yrs old+,[18 by 2023] and gender-equality males were dashed NASS. Indeed, NASS did some good legislative work devolving travel to states and empowering LGAs but it also legislated against women. It is the NASS male population which fears losing out and is fighting back, even though no NASS member would have lost his seat.

    Feeble excuses of a lack of lobbying are pathetic mistruths and bad excuses for perpetuating a wrong. Someone even said the politicians had to vote according to the dictates of their constituencies as if they ever actually consult back home. They merely throw some palliative party sharing food bags, keke, generators, grinders, motorcycles and sewing machines in huge numbers. Nigeria has the only legislature worldwide so well-self-paid that its members can privately do such things costing multiples of millions and still have enough to live like kings and queens. Meanwhile the tax man chases us around. As if Obama, Trump, Johnson or Merkel even had access to such huge salaries for such ‘Political Palliative Parties’! There politicians’ work is ‘LEGISLATIVE NOT PALLIATIVE’; making laws easing the plight of the people not just providing for party hangers-on.

    Cut Nigerian politicians’ ‘Salaries and Perks’ by 75% because they are ‘SAPping’ Nigeria dry before politicians also start distributing half-full four litres petrol as party palliative as someone disgracefully and dangerously did at a party.

    So when will we follow most of the world and many African countries which allow womanhood to flourish politically and not just as a decoration? They did not change the constitution or increase the cost of governance to elevate women to political authority.

    The bills seek a minimum of 35% for executive members for each party executive to be women, 10 women ministers per executive council and 111 extra seats in NASS. They are not mutually exclusive but stepping-stones to equality. The morality around funding of the 111 extra seats is a huge moral dilemma with poverty at 75%. This new formula of ‘supernumerary but equal’ actually exposes NASS to accusations of selfishness. The men won but no congratulations. They should go home shamefaced to their families for losing a monumental opportunity.

    The women are 49-51% of the population. They must make their political presence felt. The world around realises how valuable good women are in governance. Nigeria is sadly wrong stepping! If the NASS had approved the 35% female number, we would be praising its members for achieving the results at zero monetary cost.

    Let us not be sentimentally misguided about the proneness to law-breaking by one sex over the other when given the responsibility and opportunity to serve. Both sexes can be brilliant or brutal, helpful or harmful and have historically often chosen to serve themselves rather than serve. Nigeria has witnessed ruthless and mindless acquisition of bank, pension, customer, private sector and government public funds and unexplainable shocking decisions and judgements by both men and women trusted to hold the reins of private, public civil service, judicial, police or legislative power. On the domestic front, hired help, married partners and now even children of both sexes demonstrated the complete spectrum of devotion and deviation from goodness and honesty to lying, bullying, theft, abuse both verbal and physical and even murder.  However, for every criminal man or woman there are numerous good Nigerians willing and able to serve– hopefully? They are often left out because they will not permit illegality, play bad ball politically or turn a blind eye to illegality. The political and sometimes private sector moral problem is how to get the non-criminally minded, males and especially many more females who are untainted by corruption or a huge favour-laden burden hindering their potential competence. Sadly ‘Assistance’ must be paid back in cash and kind, always detrimentally to ‘Project Nigeria’.

    We can support this struggle. Every woman, qualified morally, seeking election in 2023 should get elected.

    The task is to strategise to ‘MAKE THE FEMALE VOTE COUNT’ in 2023.

    First: ‘Get All Women To Vote’ with campaigns targeting those who will be 18 by 2023 with ‘Girl GO Vote’ songs and T shirts etc. included in Nollywood scripts, Music etc. by entertainment stars aimed at getting the PVC.

    Second: ‘Get Most Women to Vote for Women’ even across party. Make any party which does not field some women uncomfortable by withdrawing female support and directing support towards parties which field women. Encourage women in one party to vote for a woman in another party to fight the greater battle for a greater Nigerian female political footprint.

    Women: What cannot be won by legislation and selection can be won by a ‘woman-slide election’.

    ‘WOMEN: WHAT CANNOT BE LEGISLATED CAN AND MUST BE ELECTED!!’