Category: Letters

By Moses Ejiro Ediru

SIR: Although the pharmacist is a layman in matters of law, nonetheless, sections 38(5) and 39(2) of the new Pharmacy Act are egregious. The sections are the handiwork of ‘enemies within’. Their insistence in a Mandatory Continuing Professional Development (MCPD) for practising pharmacists is not for acquisition of any appropriate knowledge and skills but to take advantage of their rapid access to the income from the prgoramme.

At one of the programme’s section in Jos sometime in 2004, I remember telling the organisers that the programme was good but must not be tied to the right of a pharmacist to practice. I did attend some of the sections for years until it was made mandatory and a condition for renewal of licence to practice even as pharmacists were acquiring the requisite credits for renewal of the licence by merely paying the fees without actually attending the programme.

Aggrieved by the development, I went to court. The position of the law as declared by the Court of Appeal is that the MCPD is illegal and therefore null and void and that the sole requirement for renewal of the licence of a practicing pharmacist is the payment of the practicing fees for any year in question.

Now, the law is now purportedly repealed and re-enacted with the following provisions:

S. 39 (2) The Council may approve –

(a) any course of training intended for persons seeking to become or who are already pharmacists and which in the opinion of the Council is designed to confer appropriate knowledge and skills; and S. 38 (5)  A registered pharmacist who has paid his practicing fees in anywhere as prescribed in subsection (1) or who is exempted from payment of practicing fee under subsection (3) is entitled to a practicing licence for that year authorising him, subject to any enactment or regulation in force applicable to him

Even with the seeming ingenious drafting of Sections 38 (5) & 39 (2) & (5) in the new Act, it is my submission that on the day a pharmacist is registered his right to practice becomes vested and can only be tempered with if he engages in professional misconducts of which a failure to participate in MCPD is not one. It is further submitted that the Council cannot approve any course for already registered pharmacist and his right to practice pharmacy cannot be tempered with by any subsequent enactment or regulation from the date he was registered. This is the principle of law waxed as ‘vested right’.

This piece advises the pharmacy profession not to make the mistake of hindering the right of pharmacists already registered before the new Act on the basis of MCPD.

• Dr. Moses Ejiro Ediru, Lafia, Nasarawa State.

By Kene Obiezu

SIR: It would appear that there is no end in Nigeria to the obstacles children have to surmount as the youngest members of Nigeria’s population. Whether it is being picked off like cherries by deadly diseases like cholera, battered by malnutrition or tossed all over the place by conflict, it appears there is always something for children to contend with in Nigeria.

The many challenges children face in Nigeria accusingly point the finger at a country shockingly unprepared for a future, or at least a prosperous one.

It is telling enough that Nigeria’s out-of-school children are in their millions. It is also telling that schools which hitherto used to be safe spaces for children to thrive have recently become the stomping grounds of bandits who brush through the bushes of Nigeria seeking child captives.

For a country in which 70% of its 217 million people are children and youths, alarm bells recently rung when the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) disclosed that 75% of Nigerian children aged between seven and 14 years could neither read nor solve simple mathematics.

The chilling revelation was made by Ms. Christian Munduate, the UNICEF Country representative, to mark this year’s International Day of Education (IDE) on January 24.

Nigeria’s dereliction in education is well documented. All over the country, schools and their students have known many years of neglect. It is not uncommon to see many schools in the rural areas that have fallen into utter disrepair. Broken windows and doors wedged into decrepit buildings usually greet many Nigerian children on their very first day in school. Then there is the terrifying spectre of disgruntled teachers who despite their heroic efforts are still forced to come up short.

The toll the dysfunction so forcefully present in Nigeria has taken on education is one that cannot easily be ignored. Recently, the number of out-of-school children surged to 20 million. With insecurity having joined poverty as the chief factors grinding down families, many children have been forced to stop their education. The results are clear for all to see in the staggering number of children who cannot do what so many of their peers around the world can effortlessly do.

What does the future hold for Nigerian children? What kind of future if any can Nigeria children who grow up under this kind of dysfunction look forward to? With the basics so savagely denied Nigerian children very early on, are they not being deliberately set up to fail?

Every day presents fresh challenges for education in Nigeria from top to bottom. It was only in 2022 that Nigerian university undergraduates saw eight months shaved off their academic calendar as disgruntled lectures downed tools while self-serving politicians flitted from place to place like killer wasps.

It is not uncommon too for primary and secondary school teachers to down tools in protest against dire conditions of work from time to time. All these compound the complications education already faces in Nigeria.

The last few years have been especially turbulent for education in Nigeria. The mess education is currently mired in indicts all those who have been in positions to transform education in Nigeria but chose to do nothing. It also spells in very bold letters just how bleak the future is for children in Nigeria many of whom can neither read their names nor read the  handwriting on the wall.

• Kene Obiezu, Twitter: @kenobiezu

By Ibrahim Mustapha

SIR: The governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, shortly after the monetary policy committee meeting on Tuesday January 24 insisted that the January 31 deadline for the collection of old naira notes remained sacrosanct. Emefiele’s statement came even after the National Assembly deliberated on the need for the apex bank to extend the collection of the old naira to June in view of the rush with which the policy is being implemented and how the rural and unbanked communities would suffer the consequences.

It would be recalled that last year, CBN announced its decision to redesign N200, N500 and N1000 naira as part of moves to transit the country to cashless economy. Though, the policy has continued to generate mixed reactions from Nigerians, it nonetheless has the blessing of Mr President.

There is no gainsaying the facts that the policy is a big blow to money launderers, kidnappers and though alleged to indulge in vote buying. However, it has come at wrong time. Majority of Nigerians do not have bank accounts and 80% of transactions in the country are still largely cash backed. Besides, lack of good telecommunications network coupled with erratic power supply have made electronic banking difficult and challenging for Nigerians.

The CBN’s January deadline is like putting a cart before the horse. While the grace period granted to Nigerians to deposit their old money was 90 days, there was no matching enlightenment and sensitization campaign by the CBN as well as other government agencies. The blame game between the CBN and Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) has merely compounded or worsened the scarcity of the new notes. Whereas the CBN has insisted that it has released the new notes to banks in sufficient quantities to load into their respective Automated Teller Machines (ATM), the banks on their part continue to dispense the old notes to the chagrin of exasperated Nigerians. Now, Nigerians eager to obtain the new notes can’t get them.

Yes, the CBN’s swap policy in which mobile money agents are allowed to swap the new notes to the tune of N10,000 directly to the rural Nigerians is good and may hasten quick circulation of new notes, the few days remaining however are not enough to penetrate the remote communities and other riverine areas.

The decision by the merchants and marketers to stop collecting old notes before the deadline amidst scarcity of the new ones has also compounded the crises. The POS operators that are supposed to ease the difficulties have been making brisk businesses. They have increased charges ranging from N500 to N1000 per N10,000 deposit. With the deadline fast approaching and many Nigerians yet to deposit or access the new note, CBN should as a matter of urgency extend the period as demanded by Nigerians.

• Ibrahim Mustapha, Pambegua, Kaduna State

By Kene Obiezu

SIR: Data used to put Nigeria’s out-of-school children at 10.5 million. This was before it climbed to 15 million before recently surging to about 20 million.  The figures whatever they might be poke fun at the fate of a stumbling and bumbling giant that is yet to put forward its case for realizing the prodigious potentials it first showed at independence  in 1960.

But these figures, whatever they may be, hint at something darker. They hint at the hinterlands where in heinous hives, heaving with death and destruction, terrorism hisses with fury.

It is all manner of men and even monsters that are being moulded out of children that should be in school listening to their teachers, writing and taking notes and interacting with their peers as their intellect takes shapes.

There are hawkers, mechanics, menial labourers, child prostitutes and street children splayed to the human snakes that freely roam Nigeria today.

Children who should know the wonders and consolations of books and education are instead forced to descend into darkness from so early in their lives.

For many of them, because they are so young and so innocent, they hardly realize what is happening to them or just what is being stolen from them until the tyranny of time ruthlessly takes its trophies.

It indicts a country. It indicts Nigeria, the Giant of Africa that these numbers of its children are out of school and are being denied the indescribable treasure that education is.

The shocking number of out-of-school children in Nigeria would also appear to spell doom and disaster for the country, but especially defeat. A defeat that particularly stings.

It was in 2009 that the rampaging terrorist group Boko Haram decided that it was finally done with lurking in the shadows. Its decision to go for the jugular of Nigeria had one overarching theme: the sinfulness of western education.

The group’s distaste for Western education was not just whispered or wistful. Its weight was soon tested under the heavy artillery of the terrorists who soon gleefully saw schools reduced to rubble and teachers and students slaughtered. If Boko Haram’s objective was the disruption of western  education, it has been a stunning success.

As no child deserves to learn in an atmosphere of conflict and uncertainty, very young children have especially felt the pinch. Many of them have seen their dreams of quality education dashed.

Because insecurity has rocked many of their families which used to provide what little stability they had in the storm-tossed sea that life is, many children have had to put survival before education.

With Boko Haram’s activities leading to the disintegration of Nigeria’s security architecture, banditry has also thrived.

A favourite pastime of the bandits who bare their jagged teeth in the bushes of Northern Nigeria has been to attack schools and abduct students for extortionate sums in ransom.

When children otherwise cocooned in blissful innocence and ignorance suddenly become aware of the danger of doing something as basic as going to school, their wellbeing is gravely jeopardized.

But what has Nigeria been doing about it? More directly, what should it be doing about it?

There is no doubt that combating insecurity is key. Education cannot thrive in an atmosphere of insecurity. No one in their right senses would choose death or grievous bodily harm because of education.

If Nigeria ever hopes to force a steep decline in the number of out-of-school children especially in the North, it must combat the insecurity which drives it.

Nigeria must especially break the sinister symbiosis that exists between the out-of-school syndrome and terrorism in the country. The two monsters voraciously feed off each other.

Terrorism in Nigeria certainly finds an abundance of conscripts from the pool of out-of-school children. Other crimes mop up benefits as well.

Nigeria’s work is cut out for it. It can choose to drain this pool or it can choose to leave it undisturbed for those who in fishing in its waters, dish death to Nigeria and her children.

There is also the little matter of the gruelling poverty that sees children taken off school and forced into the streets to support hassled and harassed families.

So much has been made about Nigeria’s combat with poverty. So much has been written. Those who have been in good positions to do something say that so much has been done even if that is not so obvious.

What is so obvious is that a society steeped in poverty and inequality is not a society where the four walls of the classroom hold much allure for children and their families. In such a society, survival is proritised and who will blame them?

Nigeria knows what it ought to do. But it delays and while it delays, the coals that should provide light and warmth for its future are going cold and out.

• Kene Obiezu, keneobiezu@gmail.com

By Olubunmi Olowu-Adekoya

SIR: If the last congress of one of the major political parties in Nigeria held recently is anything to go by, women still have a long way to go. Their fight for actualization of gender equality is still farfetched and stifled. How do you explain the fact that the only lady that purchased the presidential form and scaled through the primaries in her party to contest in the 2023 election stepped down at the last minute, thus shattering the confidence reposed in her by her fellow women?  This action, without casting any aspersion, leaves one wondering about her sincerity of purpose in the first instance.

It is baffling to note that most women do not vote for their fellow women during election and one wonders why. Women are good at what they do and they are proud of it. During electioneering, it is mostly women that take the front row and ensure a successful election campaign, but is that all they are useful for? Do women truly know their worth?

It is interesting to ask why those privileged, super-rich, aristocratic women, especially here in Nigeria, rather than profiling and showcasing themselves have not thought of coming together to demonstrate leadership by establishing a political academy that will serve the interest of women and nurture them to compete favorably with men. An academy that will be fully funded by them to raise, groom, mentor and tutor young women adults and women generally, who are genuinely interested in participating and becoming successful politicians, that will bring about the much deserved changes and succor for both the present and the future, but do not know how to begin. There must be no strings attached and no ‘godmotherism’.

Let the rich and privileged women, NGOs and women organisations and other well-meaning Nigerian women come together, sponsor and register a “Women Political Training Institute” and give it their all. It may not be possible now because it will require a lot of logistics, planning, funding and coordination but now will be an ideal time to start grooming these lot. It is only then that all these advocacy groups can be trusted and taken seriously by proving that they are genuinely after the interest and development of this country and not after their own interest.

Who says women are the weaker sex? On the contrary, they are stronger, courageous, ebullient and benevolent. They have been instrumental to so many positive changes in the polity but alas, most times, due to lack of foresight or self-esteem, they cower and allow their struggles to be hijacked or truncated by selfish political bigots who pretend to identify with their cause. Such egocentric opportunists stylishly take over the struggle and either make or thwart the purpose for which it is intended.

This must end now and women must defend themselves. There are too many advocacy groups and that in itself constitutes a lot of distractions and confusion. Women must therefore look inward, organize themselves and be courageous enough to save themselves from these shylock detractors and let there be an indivisible cohesion amongst themselves.

Women advocacy and pressure groups must rise up to the challenge and face reality rather than this cacophony of boycotting election if the contending aspirants do not reveal their plans for women and youths before any election. It has become a rhetoric, a cockeyed idea. Here we are still struggling, begging, fighting and agitating for 35 percent slot for women in the polity when they can have it all.

Little wonder then why Roseanne Barr opined that “the thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it”. This is a challenge to the integrity of women activists and an admonition as in the words of Oprah Winfrey, to “think like a queen. A queen is not afraid to fail. Failure is another stepping stone to greatness”.  It is time to float a Political Academy that will be strictly for women so the grooming can commence. Which way Nigerian women?

• Olubunmi Olowu-Adekoya, Lekki, Lagos State.

SIR: Nigerians have for the past few months endured a most excruciating pain from the latest cycle of fuel scarcity. As usual, fingers are being pointed in different directions with no respite in sight even as the pump price of fuel has since hit the roof in most parts of the country. From the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria (MOMAN) to the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC) and then of course the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN), every single player is supposed to be guilty as charged – never mind that the federal government has thus far, failed to address the fundamentals crippling the fuel supply chain.

Of course, while the blame game goes on, anot enough attention is unfortunately focused on the role of a key player like the Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) in fostering the chaos under which the national economy currently reels.

Nigerians of course know how powerful NUPENG is; in fact, the body only needs to sneeze only for the entire nation to catch cold. What they are yet to fathom is how a body that is registered under the Nigerian statute can be allowed to become a law unto itself!

Early in the week, fuel marketers woke up to discover that the powerful NUPENG has slammed a hefty levy two naira on every litre of fuel taken out of the depots. Of course, no questions are asked about how they arrived at this levy. Suffice that NUPENG simply decreed it and so it came into being! The implication is that for every 30,000 litres of petrol taken out of the depots, the marketer had to cough out an extra N60,000 in this illegal levy! And to imagine that this is coming at this difficult time.

NUPENG’s argument of course was that the marketers were after all, at liberty to sell at whatever price that suited them!

Before this time, the union was content to charge one naira on every litre of fuel loaded – and this paid (grudgingly by marketers) into an account neither recognised in the fuel-pricing template nor agreed by the operators. And this is aside sundry charges which includes the N25,000 paid into the union’s accounts by the marketers. As anyone familiar with the industry will imagine – the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) Union, are usually on hand to ensure that no product got out of the depots without this illegal levy being fully paid.

As it is, the marketers are not only helpless, they have no one to run to state their case. As for the industry regulator – the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) – it remains at best ineffectual, just as the security agencies are only too quick to look the other way thus allowing the reign of outlawry to persist.

If only because our country remains one of laws, the federal government as indeed the federal government must not only insist that NUPENG stop this regime of extortion forthwith, but call those behind it in for questioning. The situation in the country is bad enough without a group of outlaws being allowed to run rampage. Here is calling on the relevant security agencies – including the Department of State Security, to urgently step in to stop the menace.

•Gilbert Imasuen,

Lagos.