The Nation Newspaper

Category: Tony Marinho

  • ‘Our Girls’; Lessons from Ebola: Wanted- ‘A UN Declaration on Expanded Role Of Media In Ignorance Elimination?’

    ‘Our Girls’; Lessons from Ebola: Wanted- ‘A UN Declaration on Expanded Role Of Media In Ignorance Elimination?’

    Our Girls’ are still in captivity since April 15.

    Cholera has just killed 16 Nigerians, more than the ‘deadly’ Ebola. ‘Boko Haram, Typhoid and Delivery’, having a baby, each kill thousands annually. Fortunately, Cholera and Typhoid will be reduced by the hand washing and hygiene and reduced contact strategies against Ebola. As we look to ‘Life after Ebola’ as it winds down in Nigeria hopefully, we commemorate the dedicated and courageous Dr Ameyo Adadevoh and prayerfully remember all other professional victims.

    What is Nigeria’s ‘Post Ebola Preventive Medicine Policy/Strategy’ at government, ministry of information/health and media levels? Nigeria needs larger ‘Medical Research Council Funding’. Google South Africa’s Medical Research Council. If not, all will go quiet until the next crisis while the internationally donated money, $200m, disappears like the military budget. Language and Communication Arts and Social Science departments in universities must study the role of the media in the Ebola episode. The importance of the media has come to the fore. Nigerians swim in a sea of ‘IGNORANCE’ about things that will keep them alive while being overloaded with adverts ‘educating’ them about products they can survive without. Ebola taught us to share ‘Life Skill Information’.

    It has come to pass. What? The massive media participation in preventive medicine involving government and private sector corporate adverts along with the engagement of officials and celebrities. For me this is long awaited triumph and a vindication of the position of Educare Trust on the media! So much airtime is wasted daily. The media has been woken to its responsibility to ‘Educate and Inform’ and become unselfish, helping to keep Nigerians informed and alive through ‘Ebola Info’. Usually the media only ‘advertises’ prepaid products, not ‘unsponsored’ messages. The world needs a plan of action towards ‘Ignorance Elimination’ – a greater killer than Ebola!  What we have been preaching as a ‘Public And Private Media Policy And Strategy’ for 20 years has come to pass but it must not pass away with Ebola, only to be revived for ‘Alobe’. Education must be continuous to fight the contagious.

    Our people suffer from a disease ‘IGNORANCE’, ‘Ignorance About Life Skills’. Ignorance is not the preserve of the uneducated. The educated are also ignorant. These ‘Life Skills’ are not taught in schools or out of school. Only the media parts, the electronic, print and advertising, are equipped to ‘Eliminate Ignorance’ in our citizenry. Before Ebola, the media was negligent and selfish in executing that responsibility and ignorance has spread like Ebola. The media elements face a negligence charge for only doing things for money under the ‘increase internally generated revenue’ order. For example Cholera and Typhoid kills thousands more than Ebola but when last did you see or hear any message/ advert about preventing Cholera or Typhoid? We like the sensational or terrifying and ignore the routine. But dealing with the routine with strategies like hand washing and sanitation, should prevent the sensational, like Ebola.

    Just as for Ebola, so for the media. The media needs to be taught or ordered to use its power to eliminate the disease ignorance by allocating a specific quantity of airtime or page space for ‘free’  ‘LIFE SKILL MESSAGES’ to keep its customers alive to consume more. There is also a ‘secret message weapon’ that is little used but gets into every home and office, rich and poor. It is the $500 billion corporate advertising space on billions of items moved in packaging and adverts governed by advertising gurus. Criticise every empty space on a bottle, bag, and box as being wasted and can be used in the ‘Ignorance Elimination War’. That space can be offered by the corporate world to WHO, UNICEF for the top 100 life skill messages and to local advert needs, at no extra charge. Such messages can be on anything from bullying, sexual violence to healthy eating. This Ebola epidemic forces us to demand that the UN, WHO etcetera, partner with the corporate world for joint messaging through a ‘New World Order In The Media’. ‘Life Skill Messaging’ on corporate advertising on products and product packaging will prevent citizens dying from ignorance and keep them alive to buy products longer.

    We want A UNITED NATIONS DECLARATION ON THE EXPANDED ROLE OF THE MEDIA in the 21st Century as follows:

    ‘We the People of the World need

    A UN World Media Social Responsibility Law for every media outlet to ‘include in every 24 hours of broadcasting 15 minutes up to one FREE HOUR of 15-120  messages of 30-60 seconds each per day on chosen Social Life Skill Messages to bring about behavioural change in society’. The UN should recommend this LAW to the world

    A ‘PRINT MEDIA SOCIAL MESSAGE LAW’ mandating that every company should also ‘INCLUDE A SOCIAL/MEDICAL MESSAGE IN EVERY SINGLE ADVERT’ in the media –on air, in the press, posters and billboards, packaging.

    Competitive Awards For The Best Corporate/Media Social Life-skill Message Partnership under the slogan –‘Helping Keep Citizens Alive’ at all the different International and National Annual Media, Advertising and CSR Awards and film and TV and cartoon Awards worldwide.

    The UN should convene a Meeting of the Global Fund and include Corporate Giants and Advertising Agency Gurus to kick-start this new initiative that Ebola has exposed as necessary and present to the world the annual top 100 Life Saving Messages for the media and advertisers to use.

     

  • ‘Our Girls’; Tale of two Drs; Federal ‘Might is not Right’: Jonathanian Presidential Agenda

    ‘Our Girls’; Tale of two Drs; Federal ‘Might is not Right’: Jonathanian Presidential Agenda

    Our Girls’ are tragically still missing since April 15. No word, no comfort for the suffering families.  Imagine if your child or sister was missing for this long. May God grant our government the wisdom to take the correct actions.

    A tale of two doctors contrasts the meritorious and self-sacrificing efforts by the late great and gracious Dr Ameyo Adadevoh and dedicated nursing colleagues which prevented further spread of Ebola in Lagos, on the one hand, while another doctor in Port Harcourt, for finance or friendship, takes on an Ebola patient ‘privately’ and treats him successfully even though the doctor, not the patient, died.

    The country-destroying immoral and morale-crushing huge, unrealistic and extortionist, ‘Salary and Perks’ SAP, of political people are very relevant to the recent demand by certain elements of that particularly odoriferous breed for the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to ‘apologise’ to the nation for the recent strike. It bears repeating that most of the demands of the NMA are for better circumstances of service which were glaringly absent at the beginning of the Ebola epidemic; better and more modern equipment, regular painting of stinking casualty and waiting and operating rooms, making cancer investigation equipment and cancer radiation therapy and chemotherapy available in 100 instead of just five hospitals or at least one in every state, introduction of an international yardstick for measuring hospitals and not just the dreaded official disease called the ‘Nigerian factor’ as an excuse for every deviation from the norm or every aberration.

    These dirty and disgraceful failures of the system are why senators and representatives, let us leave aside the dubious distinction or horrendous honour, are in office. Setting those goals aside for the ‘selfish goals of’ ‘better ‘conditions of service’ is unfair. Indeed let all Nigerians remind themselves of the ‘spoils of political war’ from ‘winning’ or ‘rigging’ the elections that enriched politicians so much above their station that they can now spit at and even vomit over us as a nation.

    Is it not amazing that that we are still struggling to see their stupendous salaries?  Mr NASS MAN AND WOMAN, BEFORE YOU ABUSE DOCTORS and equate them with other professionals with less qualifications and a shorter and easier learning curve, WHAT DO YOU TAKE HOME as SAP?

    Where is the equity? Who knows the multimillion naira and dollar salaries and perks paid to each of the Senators, Reps, Special Advisers, Assembly members, LGA members? I do not. They get, but rarely earn and even more rarely deserve, so much of that which forces them to remain silent when asked ‘how much exactly is your often unearned ‘take home pay’?

    Using the current media advertorial parlance, Obasanjo ‘did’ it and now Jonathan is, ‘doing it’, screwing Lagos State as of federal right by interfering in its internal affairs through ministers gone berserk. Obasanjo withheld N10 billion for years, the same amount Sanusi as CBN Governor dashed to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.  Jonathan’s government while ‘partnering’ on Ebola is very negative on devolution of powers in waterways management as it has sealed off, with soldiers, an MTN building site at the Falomo Bridge-head for several months. The overriding evil in wielding the fist of federal might that has destroyed development for 40 years can never justify taking away a state’s right to develop. The federal fist must be stopped, corrected and defeated in politics and in court. Instead of the needed friendly federal-state big brother- little brother relationship dedicated to every form of accelerated development Nigerians are confronted with and seem helpless, we have a jealousy thing going here and all the jealousy is on the federal side. Are we at war, Federal vs State? As soon as the state want to ease the suffering of its people on federal roads long abandoned to potholes, or along waterways ignored for 49 years, the federal evil knows no bounds in its efforts to curtail, prevent and decimate the efforts of the state and the needless suffering continues as development is stagnated and mediocrity perpetuated.

    No nation can grow or cope with modern life if there is a permanent or partial fight between state and federal or indeed state and LGAs. In contrast to today’s federal negative events, the late President  YarAdua ‘did it’ positively with the Lekki Bridge approvals including removal of obstructing federal houses on the water’s edge and Jonathan can ‘do it’ positively by holding off his goons in ‘Ministerial Uniforms’. I believe that the paradox in cooperation with some and not with others between federal government ministries and state is a sickening sign of petty politics gone dangerously wrong where common good is thrown away to punish citizens for not belonging to the federal party. Does Yar’Adua deserve state recognition for his heroic stance in the Lekki Bridge saga? Jonathan can also become a Jonathan ‘did it’ by taking seriously the points raised by the Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola about the neglect of the Apapa Railway terminal which should be carrying heavy goods and containers to other parts of Nigeria. Jonathan’s men may be more preoccupied with ‘partisan politics. However Jonathan is President of all Nigeria and should align his ‘Presidential Agenda’ with commitment to the development agendas of the states of which he is President. Even agriculture has often been sectionalised in favour of some states. How much of the new N50 billion tractor and farm equipment fund will get nationwide distribution?

  • ‘Our Girls’; Adadevoh and others; ‘WHO Medical Audit’; Typhoid resident Vs Ebola visitor

    ‘Our Girls’; Adadevoh and others; ‘WHO Medical Audit’; Typhoid resident Vs Ebola visitor

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. What are they going through? What are their families going through? When will they come home? The latest suspected video-supported atrocity of the Boko Haram in murdering Borno State citizens and setting up a Caliphate is a horrific mimicking of what the malignantly evil ISIS. The NEMA should stop the irresponsible castigating of independent authorities over the estimated number of displaced persons as 600,000. Government always emphasises the irrelevant. There are probably even more people displaced as parents flee for their lives and the lives of their children. Who is waiting there to die?

    We have lost four Nigerians to Ebola Virus Disease including from the medical and nursing profession doing exemplary work to contain the virus. Our hearts go out to their families who need emotional and financial support. I first met Ameyo Adadevoh with her siblings in the house of her parents Professor Kwaku and Mrs Deborah Adadevoh in the late 60s in University of Ibadan. Her father’s sister Aunty Stella married into the Marinho family. Ameyo had a successful fulfilled caring professional practice. Now she is dead. Only God can comfort her son, husband and other family members and especially her mother.  There is talk of national honours for the dead. Perhaps, but this cannot bring them back. From these needless deaths what lessons are to learnt and acted upon by government? What permanent preventive measures are to be made available? Ebola will surely go, but Dr Ameyo Adadevoh, the matron and the other health and ECOWAS support staff will remain dead.

    They are dead because of their dedication to duty and personal heroism and because we did not adhere to normal ‘International Standard Individual Isolation Facilities Protocols’ and ‘Deadly Virus Management Protocols’, proper hose-down of patients, and access to the drugs used to save the lives of foreign patients flown abroad. Let them not die in vain. Medicine is not measured by Nigerian sub-standards. Medicine is of one standard -international. This tragedy has exposed the abysmal state of Nigeria’s medical services and sanitary conditions. Of course Jonathan cannot be held responsible for cleaning and monitoring bacteria in hospitals. These are the preserve of the supervisory effectiveness of the nursing staff and microbiology swab takers. But Jonathan can use emergency powers to triple the health budget, have an ‘Independent International WHO Supervised Medical Audit’ to see who is lying about the state of health- the doctors or the ministry. Above all, medicine needs a large dose of ‘truth’ and not more political mumbo jumbo and congratulatory backslapping while the numbers of Ebola patients continues to increase even as typhoid and infections contracted by patients already in hospital defy calculation. Medicine must step up and take its place as it did in the past.  You may think that the Indians and Chinese setting up hospitals and diagnostic centres in Nigeria are better than us and are here to save you from our medical failure. Yes and No. They have an undue advantage as they get government grants and bank loans from their home countries at 3-5% long term 3-5 year repayment schedules.  Nigerians in medicine are forced to get loans at 25% and 3-12 month repayment terms and that is if they can get a loan at all. The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) should have an NMA Bank with its funds and get grants from African Development Bank (AfDB) and World Bank to give equipment loans to doctors at 4-5% over five years. The health service requires a great ‘cleanliness hand’ as well as cutting-edge equipment. Recently the Nigerian Atomic Energy Commission or whatever paralysed the already nearly pathetically inadequate cancer care radiation capability in Nigeria by arbitrarily increasing the fees for radiation material when we should be offering such facilities in every single state.  Remember that even the ministry of health for 20 years refused to supply patients in Nigeria’s hospitals with pethidine and other morphine-based pain killers, essential for post-operative care and severe pain. No heads rolled as our patients died of cancer and died in pain. Nigeria was offering better care 30-40 years ago when I was a medical student and a young doctor than it does today. In those days, we had open heart surgery and renal transplants. We were not ashamed to have foreign professors and doctors visit us and operate and use our toilets. Today we are ashamed of the colour of our walls, unpainted and unclean for years. Our equipment is dated. We are ashamed of our level of commitment, paralysed by endless waiting for electricity or equipment to be sterilised or the staff to be assembled.

    We can trace our failure to a breakdown of morale in all professional life to the beginning of the end –the corrupt mega-salaries and perks. SAP paid the political class and SAPing the will of other Nigerians to work when politicians take N30 -45m per quarter for talking. The NMA strike may be suspended but the medical air remains polluted with criminal neglect by government and its officials in the accumulation of filth, real and management filth, in our chronically under-funded and demoralised medical services.  Ameyo and our valiant others must not die in vain. Nigeria, stop crocodile tears and at least clean up and provide 21st Century sanitation for our hospitals, schools and markets and wash your hands! Nigerian Typhoid is a permanent resident killer, not a visitor like Ebola!

  • ‘Our Girls’; toilets, running water, Ebola and typhoid

    ‘Our Girls’; toilets, running water, Ebola and typhoid

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. No word about apparently ‘secret’ local efforts but there is the reported release of 85 Nigerians by Chadian troops. Hurray!

    Yes, Ebola is the rage of the day. Bloody epidemics always take centre stage. Happily hand washing being touted as a preventive measure also helps in a myriad other infections, especially typhoid. No one, not one of you readers or politicians with all the billions in Nigeria cares to complain that the majority of Nigeria’s children still go to schools and universities with no running water and no toilets or unusable toilets. They are forced to urinate beside or behind their own classrooms just like the majority of their teachers, male and female. Most youths in schools throw their faecal matter in black plastic bags into the bush or even into neighbouring compounds – a New Nigerian Olympic Sport called ‘Shot-put’ after the original ‘shot-put’ of my good old 1960s school days when a grapefruit sized black metal heavy ball was thrown across a field –a sport at which the late murdered Funso Williams was a Grier Cup Champion in St Gregory’s College. May God rest his generous soul even as we pray that his murderers will have no rest until they are caught and confess.

    We in Africa accept massive numbers of mother and child deaths at delivery and other deaths from deadly deficient government services as ‘normal’ and ‘Acts of God’. They are not. They are a form of government sponsored medical murder just as Ebola is medical murder because wrong containment practices were initiated by government when the disease was first diagnosed properly. Indeed Ebola has highlighted the pathetic place of barrier, sanitation and other health facilities. Do the victims have first class medical treatment and Intensive Care Unit facilities?

    Does NEMA, National Emergency Management Agency, not have gloves, masks, preventive suits and boots in large quantities? Why do all government hospitals not have suits ready? Horrifyingly today, as for many years, in many government hospitals and clinics, the patient on arrival is expected to first ‘buy or bring’ gloves, mask, syringes and needles for the hospital to use. Shameful. When I was a doctor and consultant, our medical pockets bulged with these ‘immediate life-savers’ to bring immediate care to patients. Now a doctor must wait sometimes for hours for relations to purchase these items before intervening thus destroying morale and ‘Removing the Urgency from Emergency’. The patients too often die in the interval.

    Education and medical services including facilities are closely related in failure. Recall the pathetic situation in education especially in public schools. Only 31% pass rate of five credits including Maths and English in 1.8million WAEC students confirming a government failure of 69%. Many of the passes were probably in ‘private sector schools’ the same ones that governments in states and LGAs overtax and harass daily. The pass rate in government schools is probably nearer 20% with that of private schools being probably nearer 60-80%. Government has failed, not the students. Government should ‘thank God’ for private schools boosting its abysmal results. Should the education system nationwide not suspend or sack all its Ministry supervisory staff and all its ‘’16,000+’’ teachers for such an abysmal result which is getting worse in spite of whatever billions of naira boasts by states, UBE and other mega-education bodies and the federal ministry? If doctors had a successful diagnosis, treatment delivery or surgery recovery rate of 31%, they would have been burnt at the stake of public opinion. As treatment for the Government-Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) face off, I recommend a cooling down on both sides. This can best be achieved by a call off or suspension of the strike by the NMA to allow government use a Presidential suspension of the suspension of the Residency Training Programme and Presidential reinstatement of the l6,000 doctors of the National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD). Nobody wants to be or should be cheated by a government that chooses to pay its politicians salaries outlandish salaries and perks, SAPing the nation and insulting hardworking professionals. Residency is not classroom school lessons; it is hard work, heavy responsibility and years of on-the-job training. Residency was not invented in Nigeria. It is the standard way of training doctors. Anyone who has questions should come and train instead of sitting on the fence and criticising. SANS get SANed by doing their job in court, getting full pay, but sit no other examinations. Specialisation in the medical profession is tightly controlled by the number of vacancies and the pass rate for different examinations is as low as 10% and as high as 50% for a married man or woman 25-40years old. Disgracefully, even newly graduated medical doctors roam the streets for one or two years before being trained for full registration. Maybe Nigeria will next abolish House jobs? Are we not pariah enough in the world without disgracing further our post-graduate training programmes by suspensions which even if overturned tomorrow have already been noted worldwide by medical associations with consequent dismissal of Nigerian medical education and services as third rate? Meanwhile foreign medical tourism will increase.

    Questions about Ebola are being asked daily. Why were the initial contacts not isolated individually in separate rooms to protect them from each other and their families instead of this growing circle, a lethal circus of danger to themselves and fellow Nigerians? The idea of sending them home for monitoring was a huge breach of procedure

  • ‘Our Girls’; Lagos-Ibadan 9 hrs; ‘No Shaking’, Ebola & ‘Ebata’; Failed ‘Political Class’ of 1999-2014! Osun!

    ‘Our Girls’; Lagos-Ibadan 9 hrs; ‘No Shaking’, Ebola & ‘Ebata’; Failed ‘Political Class’ of 1999-2014! Osun!

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. And now we have girl-child bombers. Are they forced to act under threats to their families or school friends. Where is the world going?

    Lagos-Ibadan took five hours last Tuesday morning due to inability of the contractors in providing adequately wide two easily motorable lanes, not ‘one and a half’ during construction work. Simply pouring gravel on holes and over the major muddy areas will keep traffic moving. It took longer – nine hours – last Saturday which is 10 kilometres per hour courtesy of both Convention and Contractor failures. Why must Nigerians suffer extreme torture in order to ‘smile’ to a new expressway?

    Today we face Ebola and have ‘No Shaking’, hugging, sneezing or close contact with sick people until Ebola is excluded from the diagnosis. We must add ‘Ebata’ meaning careful with your shoes, especially in unhygienic markets where other people’s urine, faecal matter and other secretions are dispersed freely on the ground and all kinds of ‘water’ including gutter and rain puddle water is used to wash vegetables and keep them looking ‘fresh’. Have you seen the bread hawkers blowing and dusting bread with foam before inserting it into the cellophane bag, and who blows the husks off groundnuts before forcing them into groundnut bottles? How sick is the person in the backroom who sends the child or youth to the market or street?

    This is not alarmist but cautionary. The Ebola virus does not live long outside the body and transmission is prevented by simple hand-washing with detergents and antiseptic washes like bleach and soaking suspected clothing in bleach but if two highly trained Americans can get it so can we. ‘Caution, care, cleanliness, contact reduction & cellphone,’ are the watchwords with reduction in physical contacts by increased cellphone use. Gloves and masks are essential if one is in direct contact.

    It is now that Nigerians will understand the persistent clamour for adequate sanitation. Toilets are ‘conveniences’ because locked or absent toilets are a crime, not an inconvenience. Running water and toilets are huge factors in preventing Ebola but many more will die ‘unsung and silently’ of ‘common’ typhoid than will ever die of Ebola. Are we not mumu in Nigeria? We shout ‘Ebola’ even though we live and die with typhoid and unsanitary situations everywhere. Foreigners do not die of typhoid any more. Running water and sanitation in schools and offices are not ‘dividends of democracy’ but ‘Demands of Democracy and Civilisation’.

    The ‘Citizens/Politicians Charter Or Principle’ is not about good quality contract works, fine public buildings, more well equipped schools, water running everywhere, a clean attractive environments, more tax, better health facilities, better roads, more arrests for out-of-school hawkers or even more toilets. These are subtitles under the general International Political Science heading of ‘Civilisation or Development Agendas’. These ‘achievements’ are not nuclear physics but a United Nations Millennium Development Goals examination or test which Nigerian politicians have repeatedly failed. They have failed all the sloganized ‘For All’ yardsticks in the last 50 years: ‘Housing For All, Food For All, Education For All, Polio Plus For All, 10,000Mw For All’-now just ‘Little or Nothing For All’.

    The Citizens/Politicians Charter Or Principle’ is about non-violence and calculating how much is spent in terms of total funds expended on trailer-loads of rice, cooking oil, sewing machines, motorcycles, grinding machines, keke NAPEP, and even ‘free or nearly free’ medical services handed out by First Lady NGOs and politicians and foreign based Nigerian medical ‘Missions’. Except for some of the ‘Medical Mission Outreaches’, every kobo of these services, and equipment comes from the government purse and through contractors forced to ‘be grateful’ and ‘support politicians’. Much of the money used is actual political ‘legalised theft’ masquerading or hidden in the budget as hyper-inflated ‘Salaries and Perks’, SAPing Nigeria dry. The people have learnt to take ‘freebees’ from all parties against the rainy day of ‘democracy draught’.

    Calculate how much money is held back by politicians’ ‘Constituency Projects’. People have noticed this accounting anomaly and demand more ‘upfront’. The people have no voice except ‘the vote’, manipulated or not. The method of ‘belly infrastructure’ is not a new creation but merely the mega-manifestation of chronic hunger from political failure. Now ‘Rice is My Price’,’ ‘I Don’t Believe Any Of You’, ‘Hunger Management- Prevention Is Better Than Cure’ or ‘A Bag Of Rice Goes A Long Way’ the manifestation of ‘I-Am-Tired-Of-Waiting’, ‘What Is In It For Me Now, Today?’ The voter is a shareholder ‘selfishly’ or perhaps ‘wisely’ demanding something now as he sees politicians getting richer while he gets poorer.

    This apparent greed by the citizens is consequent upon the vicious assault on them by malicious ‘manner-less’ arrogant seizures of wares and motorcycle and vehicle, shop closures, bulldozing of houses, disappearing good and wares -officially confiscated but actually stolen by government officials – and Internally Generated Revenue drives. Add to these maliciously high government charges, four year backdated high rates, for everything exemplified by retired citizens being forced by circumstances to take on tenants to help pay ever-increasing rates and taxes often without a pension paid as and when due.

    Congratulations to the State of Osun for the ‘relatively non-violent’ return of Governor Rauf Aregbesola. How ‘pure’ and non-violent were the elections in Ekiti and Osun? Progress at last, perhaps! But should democracy cost so much money, and how much was spent in Osun?

  • Victims Support Fund –Spend ‘’For, By and With the Victims’ Families, not chop chop’’; NNPC sack

    Victims Support Fund –Spend ‘’For, By and With the Victims’ Families, not chop chop’’; NNPC sack

    Be advised that the now well-funded N58.7billion Danjuma-led Terror Victim Support Fund will best be served by targeting for employment in management, administrative and outreach qualified victims only from the areas concerned who have been affected and are naturally desperately looking for jobs. This is not a job for the boys. This is not a time for the usual greedy suspects, vultures feeding fat on the victims’ funds. The Nigerian extended family is the best NGO in Nigeria and should be quickly identified as the unit of recovery, not the individual. Make the recovery a family matter. The VSF must be spent ‘For the Victims, By the Victims and With the Victims!’

    This is not the time for mega-contractors – one contractor delivering 5000 mattresses or 10,000 blankets or whatever and making billions for his family. Nigeria does not need more billionaires. It needs many thousands of half-a-millionaires. This fund will do better with multiple micro-finance contracts similar to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and touching millions. Every contractor, business or local professional or consultant empowered with a N1million or N5million or N10million contract or job for drugs, beddings, roofing sheets, cooking gas or physical and psychological caring will empower the recipients’ families with honest income. But more than money, it will bring morale and morals to the contractor, shop or merchant and instil the pride of the dignity of labour and a return from ruin to human respectability.

    There is no point in paying non-local consultants, accountants, drivers, purchasers, contractors, workers, companies and even NGOs from outside the area while the capable affected citizens, experienced in local business, transportation, administration, management are sitting in long separate rows of men, women and children to receive the ‘largess’ of the TVSF. All these must be registered by age, experience, qualification from paper to professional skills like food preparation to driving licence owner to plumber to farmer, jobs done, jobs desired, computer literacy-very important. Students studying should also be registered for assistance, holiday jobs and educational support. Ask for citizens from the area but residing elsewhere to offer themselves for technical service. Ultimately it is not about the money but integrity, not only of the leadership but of the funded care system.

    I suspect the sack of Mr Andrew Yakubu of the NNPC demonstrates little more than the absolute arrogance of political power refusing to accept good advice and professionalism. Could it be that government only wants ‘yes-men and yes-women’ willing to carry out wrong decisions as ‘orders from above’? Why are there such high attrition rates among the chosen leadership? In the armed forces, how many Generals have been retired prematurely in the last 15 years? Nigeria forgets that each prematurely retired high official has been trained at government expense and will receive full gratuity and pension for the remaining 30+ years of their life. So every premature retirement case is a blow to the finances of Nigeria because premature retirement means that Nigeria is paying for the person to live until the actual retirement day when the pensions should start. If government retires a GMD or a General at 55 instead of 65, Nigeria will lose years of usefulness. Whatever the real reason, one has doubts that Mr Yakubu, now suddenly ‘former GMD’, was sacked for something serious or treasonable like having links to Boko Haram funding or bombers or massive fraud and corruption at NNPC. Can the Presidency tell the nation if his crime was corruption, theft, contract inflation, mal-administration or a lack of ‘Yes Ma, Yes sir’? Government is powerful enough to tar anyone with a ‘criminal’ brush. In July, I watched part of the well-established Annual NNPC Youth Quiz Competition on TV and I wonder if that was why he was sacked. Perhaps for being ‘larger than life’ and offering to ‘increase the Quiz Prize money’? Perhaps for doing too much good in the public domain and standing too firmly against non-professionalism? Of course, perhaps we will never know the real ‘political’ reason for Diezani and Jonathan agreeing to the termination of such a senior government official. The NNPC has a track record of rapid turn-over of leadership. Are these ‘too quick changes of the guard at the oily palace’ for the good of Nigeria or for the good and preservation of the evil retrogressive status quo and the interests of the few? Some suggestions include that many importers are unhappy at the progress of the GMD in getting Nigeria’s refineries ready to replace the ridiculous dependence on imported fuel.

    But the most important announcement from the Minister of Petroleum is the devastating news that Nigeria will not see even 10,000Mw in the lifetime of many and certainly not before 2015 as the new goal by end 2014 is now revised down to –yes, you guessed right -5,000Mw. The same political authorities have been in total charge of petroleum and gas supplies since 1999. Yet they blame poor gas supplies in turn blamed on a refusal of contractors to supply gas because of non-payment of gas contractors. These contractors are strangely owed N25billion for previous gas supplies. What type of country do we live in that the government does not pay its own contractors for years and years while the nation groans in preventable darkness? And then Customs release 230+ containers containing electricity power equipment needed long ago. Is there no synergy between power, policies and agencies?

  • ‘Our Girls’; WS in Ibadan; FG/CBN/Bank fraud: All Nigerians are SMEs needing decreased interest rates

    ‘Our Girls’; WS in Ibadan; FG/CBN/Bank fraud: All Nigerians are SMEs needing decreased interest rates

    Our Girls’ are missing since April 15, and no sign of saving them except an unsavoury and unnecessary altercation between citizens’ groups and government. Government cannot throw every bomb, every kidnapping, and every complaint into the camp of other political parties and citizens’ groups. Every citizen, politician and non-politician, has a right and responsibility to use a non-political brain section to cry out for the return of ‘Our Girls’. The ‘Heroines of Chibok’ are already identified in ‘Our Girls’. There can be no new ones- Nigerians are raising a legitimate, non-political  ‘Clamour and Cacophony for Chibok Heroines’ lest we are silent until they become Chibok Martyrs, God Forbid!

    Why should the federal government create yet another corner-corner way to circumvent its own punishing interest rates by creating a N222 billion Small and Medium Enterprises – SME Development Fund? This is how the federal government gave preferential exchange rates to those who sold rice and cement and sugar eventually making enough money to become among the top richest Nigerians and men in the world. All Nigerian families are forced to be SMEs, NGOs and LGAs, lending to family members at zero interest. All Nigerians deserve an overall reduction in interest rate from 22-25% to a single tier 5-8% for all Nigeria citizens. Today preferential interest rates are for SMEs, yesterday it was Aviation, Textiles, Nollywood and Transporters. Meanwhile banks are suffering from an embarrassment of riches squeezed out of Nigerians as high interest rates. Enough is enough. Tomorrow federal government and Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) should begin to reduce inter-bank interest rates for all transactions. This is syndicated corporate bankers crime, an organised bankers’ fraud manipulating the market and perpetrated on the citizens of Nigeria- pure and simple. NAME ONE COUNTRY WHERE THE INTERBANK RATE IS ‘12% AND BANKS CAN CHARGE 6-12% AS ‘HIDDEN ADMIN FEES’ ONE EVEN SME LOANS. In another country Nigeria’s banks would be fined billions of dollars for such fraud and our CBN would be blacklisted for anti-people activities. INSTEAD THEY MANAGE TO GET AWARDS WHILE THE PEOPLE GET POORER AND CANNOT BORROW KOBO! Shame.

    In Ibadan, Professor Wole Soyinka was celebrated and hosted at an evening of readings@80 led by Professor Ayo Banjo, 80 himself, performance of a Playlet around the songs of WS and the great Tunji Oyelana including the immortal lines ‘I love my Country, I no go Lie, Na inside Um I go Live and Die’ under the direction of Dr Tunde Awosanmi. This was followed by an interview/ interactive session between WS and interviewers Yomi Layinka and Ronke Giwa and members of the audience all under the superlative supervision as Chairperson of Lady SAN herself, Chief Folake Solanke, SAN who at 82 was a fantabulous role model for the entire distinguished audience ably put together by Niyi Ige and Bankole and Femi Olayebi of Bookkraft which was reissuing several of WS’s autobiographical book titles Ake, Isara, Ibadan, The Man Died. Time was against us as my own planned and rehearsed reading and those of Prof Akinwunmi Ishola and Dr Pat Oyelola had to be forfeited. However the readings by Governor Ajimobi and the Representative of Governor Aregbesola were well delivered as was their contribution. The message –everyone should own and read at least one Noble laureate WS book.

    The political parties have underserved Nigeria by using their political power to ram development through or subjecting it to ethnic and political domination. Even federal ‘might’ too often prevents the states’ right to develop. These are retrogressive political practices turned into festering federal-state and intrastate problems. Tell young Nigerians about the destruction of Jakande rail, with payment of $184million as penalty for a cancelled contract, and 50 year ‘ethnic economy’ driven murder of the rail countrywide to ensure the supremacy of trailer transport epitomised by the trailer lobby of ‘what will happen to us’ when Ogbemudia wanted to upgrade them. This federal ‘Stop Railways Agenda’ mischief destroyed us nationwide and especially at the Tin Can Island Port where gridlock backs up to Apapa and denies Lagos Port of international recognition as a ‘Container Port’ which demand a ’railway evacuation of containers’ and thus paralysing development in Lagos State.

    It is obvious that the voter has declared war of the species ‘politician’, and now demands ‘stomach infrastructure’ upfront as down-payment for voting. First note that the Nigeria has survived through the ‘survival strategies in the urban jungle’ of millions working hard to live ‘for daily bread’ and coping with one to two years rent in advance, daily harassment by uniforms with the tax often stolen. And now here come the ‘wole wole’ sanitary inspector. Do not trivialise ‘seizure of goods’. The ‘seizure of goods’ is to a petty trader is as the seizure of a taxi and okada or computer to other workers. Petty products to a trader are a day’s earnings lost, guaranteeing hunger. Is it not strange that after the 7am to 6pm ‘no petty trading’ curfew at Mokolas, Obalendes and Sabos across Nigeria there is mass movement of petty traders to the road-side causing more traffic? And they are patronised even by the same ‘wole wole’ on their way home. Millions of Fellow Nigerians wrongly think the empty schools are fine and have never used and do not desire to ever use a toilet or borrow a book from a library. Civilisation and intellectual development are not part of their self-development agenda because their school background was rubbish. [To be continued]

     

  • Victims’ Support Fund; Happiness Factor; RSVP: ‘Let them eat rice’ 

    Victims’ Support Fund; Happiness Factor; RSVP: ‘Let them eat rice’ 

    At last a Victims’/ Survivors Fund is a reality more two years late and as repeatedly recommended in this column. Too late for too many. The Red Cross and Blue Crescent must be made integral parts of the boardroom of this Danjuma- headed solution. The Red Cross, Blue Crescent and Victims’ Support Fund must recruit and employ only victims and survivors to help in quick restoration of the dignity of loss of limbs and loved ones and home and land-everything.  Remember the debacle of the Police Fund? Do not use smart people removed from the war. Register the first victims by work experience and place and use them to fully register all victims by job and use them for everything from record taking, evaluation,  purchase of products, transportation, distribution, storage, fuelling. Empower them, not pity them. They all had jobs before –just give them back those jobs and respectability through the Victims Support Fund.

    The political die is cast and the numbers do not add up to any good. True federalism is still the main bone of contention in the national plate at what unwittingly could easily become the last supper of Nigeria- the last Non Sovereign National Conference. I repeat that the northern delegates should all visit the wastelands of the oil-vomiting states and the southern delegates should visit the deserts and both Hausa and Fulani and the 100 other tribes including the teeming Christians of the North. There is a lot to blame greedy individuals for diverting the huge amounts of money actually allocates to both sides of the River Niger and the even larger sums stolen outright.

    There is enough for every Nigerians need but not for anyone’s greed. The warped federal structure has truncated many opportunities, mainly due to electoral malpractices and federal feudal money and might stamping on state rights. For the correct record, Nigeria needs a Conference of Federal Fault, Failures and Fraud to document fraudulent federalism at every level historically to prevent a future of state servitude to federal fraud.

    Bhutan is a country with under one million citizens bordered by giants India and China, and the Himalayas. Bhutan has given the world a gargantuan gift by measuring governance by the Gross National Happiness Index, GNHI, replacing the cold economic GDP, Gross National Product, which worships money and banking indices over the people’s joie de vive joy of life, the ultimate goal of selfless politics. Following the recommendation of Bhutan, March 20, is the Annual UN International Day of Happiness. Many countries have ‘Happiness Indices’ in their statistics. Happiness combats bullying, suicide and violence including cults and murder in curricula in many schools and universities. As part of a serious ‘Happiness Course’ there are ‘Happiness Classes’, ‘Positive classes’, ‘warm showers’ where students face away from classmates who say nice things about them, meditation, sharing respect for environment and interdependence. Check ‘UN International Day of Happiness’, Happiness Classes on the web and introduce them in Nigeria.  Bullying is a human rights crime against children. You may just save a life and make a bullied child happy. Nowadays youth even kill their parents ‘out of annoyance’. Meanwhile politicians play murder games for money and power.

    What does this tornado of impeachments add to our happiness? None. Nigeria’s citizens can also scheme, recall and initiate clear impeachment threats to assembly members. He who impeaches can also be impeached. The voter must assert the same right! In the light of the ‘loss of Ekiti, the citizens of the surviving APC states are ‘happy’ at the ‘side effect’ -an upsurge of democratic practices, not extraordinary ‘dividends of democracy’. Traditionally, all budgets and ‘emergency contract’ revenues are legally ‘disappeared’ and ‘diverted’ to ‘pre-election political electioneering’. This plunges Nigeria into a pre-election development abyss with unpaid salaries and pensions and looting all to create a political war-chest of up to N10billion to wage war in the forthcoming state elections or an illegal retirement fund. But after the shock stomach-politics of Ekiti, the political ‘hills are alive with the sound’ of money music and ‘re-strategising’ with roads being tarred, potholes filled, and rice trailer-loads reaching political party-friend and party-foe. The result has been ‘True UN Happiness’ for the masses –food for belly and brain. Even abandoned Bodija potholes are filled, one year late. The masses are rice-happy. Any stew for RSVP- Rice and Stew Very Plenty? Most non-progressive governments, with an exception of a Peter Obi or two, used the politics of destruction ignoring development. This involves relying on ‘the politics of the stomach, rice, rice, rice everywhere’ to ignore or quench ‘the thirst for development’. In the tiny mind of this political section, the ‘masses’ do not need development and they echo the ill-fated Queen of France, Marie-Antoinette, who is probably wrongly accused of recommending to the poor ‘let them [citizens] eat cake’ fuelling the French Revolution.  Now it is ‘Let them eat rice’ while politicians and civil servants steal their inheritance, though a Chinese Emperor said to peasants who did not even have rice ‘let them eat meat, according to Wikipedia.

    So-called ‘Progressive’ governments have quickly learnt this ‘stomach politics’ of the suspected ‘fingerprint disappearing and scientifically rigged’ Ekiti election. He who has not rigged, step forward. In fact these surviving progressive states can claim both developmental and stomach politics.

    • To be continued

     

    • PS: Nigerians must protest if the federal government delays revenue allocations to the non-ruling party states.

  • ‘Our Girls’; WSoyinka@80; NSNC: Urgent increase life of driving licence to 5-10 years pls

    ‘Our Girls’; WSoyinka@80; NSNC: Urgent increase life of driving licence to 5-10 years pls

     

    Where are ‘Our Girls’, missing since April 15, when they were wickedly kidnapped, destroying hopes and dreams and instilling terror. The kidnapping destroyed the laughter of their families and most Nigerians.

    On Sunday  July 13,, we celebrated Nobel Laureate, theatre guru and passionate road safety maestro Professor Wole Soyinka’s 80th Birthday in the Theatre Arts Department in the University of Ibadan with a reading from Ake-The Years Of Childhood page 25, Soyinka’s first day at school at nearly three years old, which I had the honour to read-and which should be in every home as Soyinka is NOT difficult. The short extract was followed by the entertaining performance of the Wole Soyinka play Alapata Apata with Yemi Akintokundirecting the Oracles Repertory Theatre Company and with film and literary guru Professor Akinunmi Ishola, Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA) president Professor Remi Raji-Oyelade and Oyo State ANA chairman Dr Solomon Iguanre, Professor Nelson Fashina in close support with an approximately 200 plus keen audience. And a fine time was had by all.  In this event we joined similar nationwide events and thousands of theatre arts professionals, students, literary giants, gurus and aficionados and many millions of Nigerians just happy that our human rights and democracy champion has defied the military and political odds and reached this 80th milestone in one democratic piece.

    As we congratulate him we must encourage all parents and youth to fight to get Soyinka books available in every home and booklist. Has Nigeria monetised books, recommending on the booklist only those for which money has changed hands, ‘book corruption’? Is it possible that corruption disrespects even a Noble Prize sufficiently to allow governors and commissioners to strike a Nobel Prize winner from every booklist unless money has changed hands? There is no excuse for Soyinka not to be permanent number one to be on every Nigerian and African book list. Shame. And congratulations to Akin Bello, former chairman of ANA, Oyo State for winning the 2014 International Soyinka Prize for Literature. Google him and buy the book. Will it make booklists nationwide?

    Stop Press: Even at this closing stage, can the Non-Sovereign National Conference (NSNC) or the Senate or Reps recommend that driving licences be issued for five and probably ten years. This is especially important because of the managerial stress experienced in obtaining the new licence needing renewal in three years. Shame.  Nigerians must value their time and fight anything which can be streamlined by extending the life of any government instrument like a passport or a driving licence. I am sure the ‘ayes’ will have it and save millions of Nigerians billions of hours in queues.

    You will recall that I suggested in this column at the beginning of this NSNC that the delegates should visit a day and a night across the Niger and Benue rivers to see first-hand one another’s territory? Such an exchange visit, had it been carried out, would perhaps have given opposing sides in the resource control debate a deeper understanding of decay, destruction and denial of the use of the land for livelihood, water, food or rest caused by oil and gas flaring on one hand and the severe effects of desertification caused by the sun, sand and Sahara empathy for the other. One should add first-hand look at erosion troubles also. Whatever figure is agreed we all know that the reason why Nigeria is 50 years behind in development in most areas has nothing to do with revenue allocation formulas and everything to do with massive political and civil service corruption.

    Every state, every local government has had more than enough to provide and equip all the hospitals, clinics, schools, roads and running water needed to be first class. Our national, state and LGA primary problem remains corruption at every level from politics to civil service to contractor corruption taking up to 50% and sometimes even 100% of allocated funds. This is clearly shown by the huge sums involved in corruption cases across Nigeria. Just imagine where the amenities and social services would be with such sums properly utilised.

    Unless the NSNC can offer severe quick penalties for political, civil service and contractor corruption, no revenue allocation formula will translate to an improves standard of living for the masses of people living near and in the poverty range in Nigeria. The politicians, the powerful and contractors will continue to steal in the name under the evil cloak of politics. The NSNC can recommend a corruption-proof funding strategy for all political parties. If not  we may as well invite the political class to continue to rape and rob us through excessive salaries and perks, (SAP) and constitutional projects from which only 1/3 to ½ of the funds are estimated to actually reach the citizens. NSNC should have studied international practice and related political salaries to other jobs to reduce hyper-salaries. It has recommended part-time sitting. Hurray! Did it recommend one house- Senorep or Reposen House – the house of survivors?

    O yes, the World Cup is over and it goes to Germany and shamefully still no footballs in Nigerian schools to train Generation Next! Is it not diversionary ‘foolball’ as politicians, civil servants and contractors collude to steal our inheritance? What gain, what pain, what cost? What corruption and incompetence in the NFF? Not all work is play! Now we can get back to work.

     

  • ‘Our Girls’; World Cup fall- stronger FIFA laws against pitch attacks; Will godfatherism die?

    ‘Our Girls’; World Cup fall- stronger FIFA laws against pitch attacks; Will godfatherism die?

    Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15 with no word, no sigh, no signal of discovery or release or return. And still others are captured in the same area.  As we pray and worry, we ask, is it possible that nothing can be done? We know our Army and other security services are losing their lives unsung in this war against Boko Haram, and we join the armed Forces in their prayers on Army Day for a swifter closure process than we have had so far. Prayer is powerful but prayer and work are even more powerful. Whether dialogue with such a vengeful and vicious enemy will work is questionable especially as there is nothing to bring them to the table with any humility. They will be there in a position of strength and dictatorial. The angry and energetic soldiers in Lagos who burnt buses costing tens of millions of naira damage may want to choose to be redeployed to North-east Nigeria to face Boko Haram to help work off their anger at their unfortunate colleague being killed or dying from a crash with a BRT bus in Lagos. Was he actually riding his motorcycle in the forbidden BRT lane? Whatever the cause the culprits must be apprehended and prosecuted. We all suffer the death of friends from other people’s misadventures but we do not go overboard.

    The World Cup ends this week. There will be only one winning team but may heroes of the moment and some serious casualties. Football can be a dangerous adventure. There have been winners and losers and injuries, some deliberate and one cannot understand injuring another human being, with a family, in the heat of the sporting moment, whether by biting or by kneeing in the back from a great height. FIFA should consider a clean-up of the sport by legislating that in future when such injuries occur, it should be automatic that the perpetrator of the attack as also removed from the pitch for the same length of time as the victim. In addition to that, between the perpetrating person and his club, they should be forced to pay all related medical investigation and treatment charges and also the victim’s salary and allowances for the duration of the victim being off work and unable to train. FIFA should know that with these draconian but long overdue laws, football pitch violence and player-on- player Grievous Bodily Harm (GBH), will come to skidding halt. Just because it is a sport does not allow anyone to attack with intent to cause GBH. GBH is a serious criminal offence which is punishable with several years in prison. Indeed the perpetrating football player should be handed over to the police if it is proved from the multi-video replay that the attack was sufficiently violent and deliberate.

    Still on the subject of the World Cup; is it not tragic that there are more footballs on advertising billboards that at the feet of young ones particularly Nigerian and African youth who paradoxically are the greatest fans of football following every footfall and turn and applauding every goal and even getting haircuts after the style of their idols? That football fools them into a 90 minute sense of security and pleasurable agony with some experiencing the triumph of victory.  After each Wold Cup match, the youth return to their football-less existence. Instead of training to become the next great player, they must content themselves with kicking a plastic substitute for FIFA rated ball as corporate Nigeria ignores the need for footballs and would rather make billboards unplayable balls on them.

    Did you see a World Cup referee spraying some white paint on the pitch to mark the line for the defence to stand behind during a free kick? The commentator informed us that we should not be alarmed as the paint would disappear in two minutes.  This reminded me of the suggestion that disappearing and heat-appearing ink was allegedly used in the Ekiti State election. What is good for football may cause a foul in elections.

    While blaming the past for our myriad woes, we must not let the future escape us or we are doomed as a nation. The outcome of the Ekiti elections has sent a jolt through all other governments because there was an undeniable misreading of the politics. For years we have been warning against ‘Godfatherism’ and were happy when the godfathers began to fall. Unfortunately the last godfather refused to read the writing on the wall and ignored the fate of his archenemy, a military Godfather of Godfathers and merely exploded in negative godfather activity getting relatives elected to every available post and anointing the favoured for every post far and near. Godfatherism may steamroll and win one election. This can and has backfired four years later for the obvious reason that a distant godfather dispatches agents to the distant conquered hinterland to take up all available political offices and presiding over other people’s commissioner posts, contracts and even executing those contracts to the exclusion of most locals. This will cause a backlash at the next election unless the people are spineless. Even giving the elderly an allowance can be misinterpreted by detractors as taking away the responsibility of the children for parents. Is this the end of the Godfather era?