The Nation Newspaper

Category: Commentaries

  • NAFDAC needs new strategy to fight fake drugs

    NAFDAC needs new strategy to fight fake drugs

    SIR: “Health is wealth”, so says a popular adage. No man stays healthy throughout his life- time without taking ill. As we are human beings, our bodies malfunction, sometimes. So, hospitals exist for people with ill-health. Sadly, in Nigeria, the health sector like other areas of our national life has been devastated by inept and corrupt political leadership.

    In the past, after taking a cocktail of drugs for their illnesses, some people’s health condition deteriorated instead of improving. Others suffered a worse fate: they died from taking drugs prescribed for them by doctors, which they bought from reputable pharmaceutical stores. Then, merchants of death (sellers and importers of fake drugs) without scruples would manufacture fake drugs and import substandard noxious drugs into the country.

    But, the issue of fake drugs became a thing of the past when Professor Dora Akunyili came on board as NAFDAC Director-General. Smarting from the pains of losing a relative to fake drugs, Akunyili waged a relentless war against makers of fake drugs.

    During her stay in office as NAFDAC Director General, Nigerians could enter a drug store and buy drugs without entertaining any apprehension and reservation about the genuineness of those drugs.

    Since her exit from NAFDAC as is its Director-General, Nigeria has been witnessing a reversal of Akunyili’s achievements as to the issue of safe drugs and health products in the country.

    Bisi Lawrence, veteran journalist, vividly captures the current unsavory condition of NAFDAC and Nigeria’s drug industry in his column in the Saturday Vanguard of October 6. He wrote: “the news of prohibited and unapproved medicines had subsided before Dr Akunyili withdrew, and nothing occurred to bring it up noticeably again. But, silently, surreptitiously, all sorts of queer medicinal products began to be imported into the country. Vigilance was visibly relaxed, especially at the ports where we only import, rather than export products any way… it is said that they seem to quote false NAFDAC registration numbers sometime ago, but they seldom bother about such subterfuge any longer, they just put the articles out, stark and plain, just like that without any inhibitions. The rest is left to the man who believes he has bought a malaria remedy and winds up with a massive sore, or something more serious”

    He asked these rhetorical questions: “How safe are we now? Dora, where are you?”

    His questions and lamentations call into question Orhii’s commitment to ridding our drug – markets of illicit and harmful health products. We want see the current leadership of NAFDAC evolve better strategies to eradicate the menace of drug –counterfeiting and importation of injurious drugs into Nigeria. We look forward to an invigorated fight against drug counterfeiting and importation of fake drugs into Nigeria.

     

    • Chiedu Uche Okoye

    Obosi, Anambra State

  • Ondo State is beyond Ukeh’s fantasy!

    Ondo State is beyond Ukeh’s fantasy!

    Our attention has been drawn to the vain and vacuous opinion essay, entitled: “Between reality and fantasy in Ondo guber” written by one Onuoha Ukeh on page 55 of Daily Sun of October 5. Reading through it, makes one to shudder at the lack of intellectual depth, thoroughness, balancing of unquestionable facts and figures and an unbiased perspective which should be the hallmark of the writings of a seasoned journalist. In fact, Ukeh’s lopsided essay, skewed in favour of the attention-and-sympathy-seeking governor Mimiko is a sad commentary on the quality of robust thinking expected of a public affairs analyst. One, who has failed, and woefully too, to substantiate his jaundiced opinion with credible empirical evidence. Even a paid piper should know which tunes to dish out at the village square of communal brain storming, meant for the good of all.

    For instance, he stated that: “I do not foresee an upset in the election. I do not foresee a change coming in Ondo state either. I only see a major opposition party talking tough, without making much effort to prove that it is a better alternative.” He added that: “In a free and fair election, it will be difficult to defeat a Mimiko in Ondo,” He went ahead to list the areas his Mimiko has achieved to include education sector, health, security and most laughable commerce!

    Obviously, he is not from Ondo State, nor has he visited there for an objective assessment and therefore, does not know where the shoe pinches us. He needs to be enlightened on Mimiko’s far below-the-par performance as a governor with the bare facts on ground. We know him for who he truly is-a profligate and prodigal son, whose antics we can no longer tolerate, if we want the indigenes to join the fast-moving train of the ACN–led progressives in the South-West geo-political zone.

    For instance, is Ukeh aware that over the past three and a half years Mimiko has not commissioned a single road project, and not even one in his home town, Ondo? That is, in spite of the whopping sum of N660 billion that has accrued to the state from the Federation Account during his tenure? Doesn’t he know that Akure where he built a water fountain lacks drinking water for the residents of the state capital, despite the N38 billion, his predecessor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu left in the coffers? Isn’t that fantasy in the realm of impactful governance? Has Ukeh not heard that the rural communities of Ondo state are groaning over lack of potable water and the impassable roads compared to that of the neigbouring Osun and Ekiti states, even after the N20 billion so far released from the N50 billion borrowed from the capital market? Has Ukeh not learnt that in spite of the much-touted Abiye Mother and Care Hospital in Akure, which he promised but characteristically failed to replicate in other Senatorial Districts, several hospitals and clinics scattered all over the state lack qualified medical personnel and quality drugs?

    Ditto for public primary and secondary schools in the state, lacking in solid buildings, state-of-the art laboratories and libraries,as well as the requisite number of qualified teachers. Yet, billions of tax payers’ money has gone down the drain in the name of wasteful Mega School projects. Otherwise, useful industries on ceramics, glass and tomato-paste production which he promised and for which huge sums have been allegedly expended are all lying prostrate across the state and you talk about commerce and industry?

    Truth is, the ill-informed Ukeh has rubbed salt on our open wounds and must listen to our total rejection for a self-aggrandizing governor whose pride of achievement is the building of market stalls and sinking of bore holes, inexpensive projects meant for local government councils. Here again, Ukeh made a controversial statement by comparing the successful re-election of Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state based on the parameter of sterling performance to what to expect in Ondo state come October 20. Contrary to Ukeh’s assertion, ACN’s “talking tough” will translate to votes for Barrister Akeredolu. For him to have stated that:” I have not seen anything that should sway voters to the (ACN) party” and that “ACN’s desperation to capture Ondo State …is because somebody wants to extinguish the Mimiko light in the South West politics” is a complete disservice both to his conscience and his self esteem.It stands logic on the head. Facts do not lie.

    Indeed, nothing could be more insulting for any Nigerian journalist who knows his onions not to have seen the monumental transformation that the ACN-led administrations in Lagos , Ogun, Osun, Edo , Ekiti and Oyo states have brought to bear on the quality of life of their people in less than half a decade. And that covers virtually all sectors of the economy; including solid infrastructure as visible in the motorable roads, water supply, environmental protection, healthcare delivery, education and transportation.

    These are the praise-worthy indices of good governance which respected Barrister Oluwarotimi Akeredolu’s ACN –led leadership is about to replicate in Ondo, for it to reclaim its lost glory to become the true Sunshine State . These, he has encapsulated in his well-received CREED FOR ACTION, the in-depth and well thought out manifesto made public as far back as April 11,while throwing his hat in the ring for the gubernatorial campaign. So sad, that while many respected media practitioners have hailed the verdant vision with the acronym of AKETI, Ukeh is still lost in the dark. Again, he and his ilk need to be educated on this.

    Simply put, AKETI stands for his envisioned policy thrust on the cardinal administrative features of Agriculture, Knowlege, Entrepreneurship, Technology and Infrastructure. These are the noble capsules of life-changing governance which would percolate to the grassroots. Specifically in agriculture, he has promised to shift the current over dependence on oil revenue to the development of intermediate and finished products from abundant cash crops such as cocoa, coffee, cashew, kolanut, cassava, cowpea and yams. Others include timber, oil palm and rubber. With the plan to establish a modern sea port, most of these would be processed to international standards, to earn the state and the nation the much sought after foreign exchange from agriculture, as it was during the First Republic, under the memorable tenure of the late sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. It is for this reason that the ACN is clamouring for the full integration of the South-west geo-political zone, going by the increasing demand for true fiscal federalism.

    As it was such Knowledge delivered in a qualitative and free platform that made the old Western Region the envy of others. Akeredolu, unknown to Ukeh, has convinced Ondo people that education will be free and compulsory at the primary and secondary school levels. That all tertiary institutions owned by the state government will attract greater funding. Emphasis will be for sound and sustained human capacity development. Unlike Mimiko who blatantly refused to employ one additional teacher or pay them the agreed minimum wage in three and half years, Akeredolu will not only employ more of them to equate with the UNO/UNESCO standard of teacher-to-student ratio, but get them trained frequently and pay them well to produce the best of brains as Ondo State was well known for since the sixties.

    On Entrepreneurship and job creation, Akeredolu has promised 30,000 jobs within the first 100 days in office. It would interest Ukeh that even now, over 10,000 Ondo youths have so far filled their forms in this regard. Unfortunately, Mimiko, who Ukeh is praising to the highest heavens promised 3,000 jobs within the same time frame but deliverance remains a pipe dream. Why is this difference? The truth is that those youths have seen what Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola and Dr.Kayode Fayemi,who reclaimed their rightful mandates from the PDP have done in their respective Osun and Ekiti states in term of job creation.

    Of course, these would go hand in hand with more empowerment in Technology, as Akeredolu wants Ondo State to toe the lines of India , Cuba and the United States to establish its own Silicon Valley . Products of these will eventually apply their knowledge to build solid Infrastructure that will take the take it to greater heights in solid mineral/oil and gas development, tourism and the aforementioned agriculture. With these, Akeredolu will not behave like Mimiko, whose stock-in-trade is to rush to Abuja, cap-in-hand every month end for huge monthly allocations which he cannot account for.

  • Symbolism of Malala’s shooting in Pakistan

    Symbolism of Malala’s shooting in Pakistan

    On October 9, Pakistani Taliban shot and wounded a 14-year-old girl, Malala Yousafzai, for campaigning for girls’ education in the formerly notorious Swat Valley in Northwest Pakistan. The shooting, according to reports, has outraged the world and incensed the normally indifferent but violent Pakistani society which has connived at extremism for so long and even yielded supinely to the disruptive and atavistic campaigns of non-secular groups. The Swat Valley, it will be recalled, was invaded and occupied by the Taliban for two years between 2007 and 2009. Under the Taliban, who operate in Pakistan and Afghanistan, girls’ education is violently detested, and girls must go to extreme and dangerous lengths to receive education, sometimes on pain of death. But in spite of being driven out from the region, the Taliban still muster a lot of power to cause the kind of harm to which Malala was subjected early last week.

    It is an irony that the education many societies, including Nigeria, take for granted, comes at a terrible price for many others like Malala. Ehsanullah Ehsan, spokesman of the Taliban, was quoted as saying the schoolgirl activist would be targeted again if she survives her current ordeal. There are probably millions like her in Pakistan and Afghanistan who would give an eye and an arm to receive the education that has become considerably cheapened in countries like Nigeria. They go to secret schools by day or by night depending on which option presents the least possible target for the Taliban enforcers. Consequently, they value the little education they receive, and agonise over an uncertain future in which the schisms in their society, which manifests in the struggle between modernism and traditionalism, portend grave danger for female education.

    If we recollect that the Taliban movement nearly took hold in Northern Nigeria through the efforts of the Islamic sect, Boko Haram (Western education is sin), it can best be imagined, given the Pakistani experience, how dangerously close we sailed near the wind some six to seven years ago. For Nigeria, the danger is by no means over. But beyond the danger constituted to education by various extremist groups, or the saddening fact that the low quality of Nigerian education has neither made democracy safe nor advanced the cause of tolerance, is the symbolic impact the Malala shooting is having on Pakistan itself. The Asian country has now seemed to wake up horrified to the dangers of continuing to indulge both cultural and religious extremism, and is cobbling together a preliminary consensus against the kind of violence meted out to Malala.

    Whether Pakistan can harness the present outrage against the shooting to defeat the cancer of intolerance that has eaten deep into their society is another thing, for extremism has already taken root in that beleaguered country. Abrogating girls’ education is merely a manifestation of the extremism which societies in the region have either gladly embraced or reluctantly succumbed to. Much more importantly, the shooting of Malala is a natural progression from the regimen of extremism enthroned by the Pakistani government. Extremists are insatiable. From one little concession, they have mastered the art of asking for a dozen more, until there are no more concessions to be solicited or given. In the final analysis, extremists always seek the overthrow of an existing order. Pakistan is today suffering the pangs of the abnormality its weak and compromised elite have allowed to fester. Nigeria should learn from Pakistan’s tragedy.

  • Nigerians should not lose hope

    SIR:Despite the current challenges Nigeria is facing, like threats to security, social injustice, youth unemployment, political killings, labour unrest, bombing among others, there is hope and Nigerians should not lose hope of divine solution.

    Nigerians-at-large should pray to God to redeem and deliver our country, for, only God can redeem the nation from the present fears of insecurity and poverty. Only God could heal our wounds, so that, there would be peace.

    Prophetically, I want to assure Nigerians, that, with the prayers of the saints, at the soonest, all-will-be-well, as, God is ready to intervene and heal our land, if we humble ourselves and fear God.

    With the potentials available in the country, if we repent our sins and do the will of God, from the leaders to the followers, there is hope for Nigeria and Nigerians in all spheres. There is also greater tomorrow for Nigeria, if we pray fervently and put all hands on deck, to move the nation forward.

    Nigeria had faced many difficult situations in the past, but, God had always proved to be faithful. As the problems facing Nigeria presently are big, God will come to our rescue once we keep relying on Him.

    The current security challenges in the nation could be attributed to high level of corruption and bad governance on the part of the leaders. Because the people have lost the trust of those holding offices in government, the situation has created the environment where killings, poverty, unemployment, insecurity among others reign.

    Nigeria now desire political leaders that will turn our bad situation to better, and whose primary concerns are to build institutions and empower the people.

    Prophet Oladipupo Funmilade-Joel (Sekunderin),

    Lagos.

  • Kudos to Uduaghan

    Kudos to Uduaghan

    SIR: Many thanks to the ‘Warri boy’ as I always refer to the Delta State Governor, Dr Emmanuel Uduaghan for establishing the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) which has in no shall way sped up development in communities long forgotten in the state.

    Though the law setting up the commission was passed by the former Governor Chief James Ibori, the commission did not take off till the present administration set up structures which enabled it to function properly.

    DESOPADEC is funded with 50 per cent of the derivation fund that comes to the state every month. With this money the commission develops the oil producing communities . The commissions get about two billion naira for its activities monthly. What that kind of money, they are able to touch the lives of more people in the oil producing communities and the people are able to have a feel of the proceeds of oil that comes from their communities.

    Communities like Uzere in Isoko South LGA, Tebu, Kolokolo, Ughelli South among others which hitherto lacked good roads, water canals, electricity in some places, good drinking water, schools and some other social infrastructure are now telling different stories. Thanks to DESOPADEC.

    To avoid suspicion and the feeling that some communities are being cheated or marginalized members of the commission are drawn from the oil producing communities and they identify and execute the projects they want to do in the community.

    It is heart warming to note that through the funding, water canals have been built in the creeks leading to the communities for easy accessibility.

    • James Osaro

    Warri, Delta.

  • Osun students’ show of shame

    SIR: I was travelling to Ibadan from Osogbo on Tuesday October 9, when I ran into a traffic gridlock in from of the Osun State Secretariat at Abere caused by students of Osun State in tertiary institutions allegedly protesting non-payment of their bursary by the state government.

    Out of curiosity and seeing that I was trapped anyway, I got out of the car and joined the students in order to have first hand information. I took one of the leaflets they were circulating and looked round the banners they were holding. I was horrified. The leaflet was disjointed, full of grammatical and spelling errors, the kind you won’t even expect from a primary school pupil. It got worse when I tried to engage some of them in discussion as I discovered to my chagrin that they were talking gibberish, they were incoherent and cannot stitch together a grammatically correct sentence, apart from the incomprehensibility of their statements.

    They looked unruly and unkempt, with many of them speaking with coarse voices, as if under the influence of marijuana. They certainly do not look like the leaders of tomorrow. If anything, the thuggish looking boys that laid siege to Osogbo are promising wreakers of tomorrow, unless they are put to check now.

    When the governor appeared, they swarmed round his vehicle in clear breach of security, and demanded that he address them. The governor said he would only address them in his office, seeing that their presence had blocked an expressway and would disturb the peace and disrupt travels and economic activities. They refused. They had laid siege to the secretariat and sacked the security personnel at the gate. They then left the secretariat to arrest traffic at Olaiya junction, the major arterial road that links other parts of the city, thereby disrupting traffic movement and economic activities.

    We must begin to address the students question now before they birth tragedy. We have revelled on false assumption that those riff-raff are student leaders fired by the idealism of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engel, Ola Oni and Eskor Toyo and Segun Okeowo and Segun Maiyegun. They are not. Their real grouse is the decision of the state government to pay the bursaries through the students’affairs department of their institutions and not through the students unions. It was the practice in the past for the meagre sum to be paid through Osun Students Association and this had become a gold mine of sort for their leaders. The money hardly gets to the intended beneficiaries. Why then should they hold the state to ransom because their corrupt source of freebies is being taken away? Student union leaders have become corrupt, if not more corrupt than politicians. We should see them as they are and not look at them with eye of idealism of the past.

    Secondly, we should define rules of engagement. The idea of misguided youths holding everybody to ransom must be checked. We must put in place a civilised protocol of protest. What happened in Libya recently when terrorists hijacked a protest and used that to murder the American ambassador and three others must be avoided. When Governor Aregbesola’s convoy was stopped, a terrorist could have slipped a bomb under his car (God forbid), killing many, including the students.

    Students are self accounting adults and cannot be above the law in any decent society. Constituting nuisance, disrupting public peace, molesting innocent people etc are not the hallmark of intellectuals.

    • Olayiwola Olawunmi,

    Osogbo, Osun State

  • Justice for the Uniport Four

    SIR: For anyone who has had watched the video of the barbaric and premeditated killing of the four students of Uniport, there certainly would be want of appropriate adjectives to describe the horror that took place in Aluu, the primitive community that so unfortunately hosts a few thousands students of the Eastern Nigeria university.

    When the news first broke out on October 7, many a Nigerian actually tended to treat it merely as one of those day-to-day instances of jungle justice that our pathetically insecure, unsecured nation has grown used to. As a journalist, I have covered bloody and gruelling events. But in my 22 years of active practice, I never witnessed such abhorrent savagery. Even Lucifer himself would be moved to tears!

    One can only wonder what type of unfettered evil took over the people who, in broad daylight, nay, in the presence of women and children, brutalised, dehumanised, denigrated and ‘destroyed’ four young, exuberant able bodied young men who had looked up to their community as a choice habitat, in the pursuit of their academic endeavour.

    Okay, the villagers’ allegation against the four boys was that they stole a laptop computer and three pieces of smart phone (which the has been largely pooh-poohed, anyway). But let’s go ahead to assume the allegation is true; did the students actually get the right punishment for their ‘crime’? These were ‘thieves’ who carried no single arm at the time of crime and arrest- not even a knife! These were ‘suspects’ who had been beaten, battered, stripped naked and made to walk round the community. And assuming they actually stole, were those actions taken not punitive enough? And this was a community that had a police post and with detention facility.

    Yet the villagers, (acting under the charge of their leader -the traditional leader inclusive- as we have heard on national news channels) were not satisfied. It was horrific to watch on video how characters bludgeoned the young, able-bodied persons with cudgels,heavy trunks and stones. The beasts would go on to collar them with tyres, douse them with petrol and set them ablaze.

    Nigerians have variously and severally reacted, condemning the Aluu murder in very strong terms. Nigerians must not allow those behind this dastardly act go unpunished. We cannot allow university students and our youths to be the sacrificial lambs in a state that continuously demonstrates a sickening incapacity to protect its citizens. For once, maybe opponents of State Police will now look at themselves in the face and have a rethink.

    We are waiting to see how our ‘so-called’ leaders will react to this incident: the presidency, the National Assembly, the hierarchy of our security agencies, the Civil Society organisations, religious leaders, the entire student body e.t.c.

    Our cry for justice will not be for Llyod Michael (a.k.a. Big L), Ugonna Ibuzor, Tekena Elkanah and Chidiaka Baringa alone, it will mean justice for thousands of innocent Nigerians killed by Boko Haram and armed robbers; for the Mubi massacre; for the Apo 6; for Dele Giwa, and for many other Nigerians who have lost their lives as a result of that monster Nigerian leaders seeming have no clues about how to conquer: INSECURITY!

    • Babs Daramola

    Ado Ekiti.

  • Tatalo on Ondo

    SIR: The Tatalo column in the Nation on Sunday is very educative. The problem is the writer’s sometimes dubious duplicity of principles and position. This contributor makes it a duty to read the column every Sunday and looks forward to meeting the masquerade behind the pieces to celebrate his brain and to caution his most times unpardonable non-definitive stand on major issues concerning the southwest Nigeria.

    Tatalo’s last week lead article on ‘Why we seek total integration-1’ reflects the ambivalent Tatalo in his typical fashion of trying to appease all power blocs and in the end not saying anything. Any avid reader of the column will agree that whoever he/she is a master of semantics. What is important is that Tatalo should not use the mastery of English language to befuddle the public on the Ondo State election.

    Tatalo in part 1 of that article (October 7) was ambivalent on the coming Ondo state election because he/she speaks from both sides of the mouth. Teaser includes the part he/she wrote that ‘A great political drama is unfolding in the oil and bitumen-rich and humanly endowed state of Ondo as presided over by the politically adroit Rahman Olusegun Mimiko…. This is why it would amount to a grave error of judgement and lack of political subtlety if the unfolding political drama in Ondo State were to be framed as a clash of will and wits between two titanic personalities or a duel unto death between a rampaging lion and a rampart Iroko. Yes, there is surely a bitter personality tussle somewhere. Yes, this is a power struggle between two of the most successful masters of political mobilisation thrown up by the post-military Yoruba nation. As a ringside observer and thwarted arbitrator, this writer can write a tome on a political romance gone very sour.

    As a matter of fact, why is Tatalo not bold to mention what makes the Lion rampaging and the dying Iroko rampart? Ruing over this Tatalo’s writing gloating, point is that no quality exists to make the Iroko one of the most successful masters of political mobilisation thrown up by the post-military Yoruba nation.

    • Engr. Wale Akinola

    Molipa Estate, Ijebu-Ode

    Ogun State.

  • Mimiko’s anti-Christ-tic

    Mimiko’s anti-Christ-tic

    Stiff-necked and rebellious! This is the Bible’s apt description of the collective obstinacy of the Israelites concerning God’s original plan to establish them as a divinely-chosen Model Community of God–for the instruction of man.

    Spiritual fable had it that after the fall of man at Eden, it was God’s primordial plan that an exemplary community of “believers and doers” in any one corner of the earth was sufficient to infect the world and thus pave the way for establishing God’s will on earth. Peoples of different nations, according to the fable, would simply come, from time to time, to the model city of Jerusalem, and in the practical life and ways of the”chosen dwellers” observe and imbibe righteous living.

    By and by, it was hoped, man would recreate lost Eden-on earth.

    And this divine plan although it necessitated an inequitable concentration of a line of prophet-hood in a chosen tribe, it should have –if it had succeeded- practically eliminated the necessity for God to come down in the flesh; let alone to suffer at Calvary. It was thus the collective and repeated failure of the Israelites to build Jerusalem for the Lord (in spite of the agency of a long line of prophetic instructors), that necessitated the advent of the Son of Man with an initial mission, the Bible says, to reassemble “the lost sheep of the house of Israel” and to give them one last shot at the divine project! But even with God right in their midst to help them push, the Israelites lost it!

    The electoral battle for the “lost sheep” of the house of the progressives in Nigeria is only a couple of days away in Ondo State. And the irony of it is that the case of the South-west has never been, like that of “the house of Israel”,one of a stiff-necked and rebellious people. South-westerners, collectively, have never been obstinate, self-harming bums!

    On the contrary the South-west has consistently been on the experimental Bunsen burner as the veritable model community of progressives –and one from whence good governance, in an oft-betrayed Nigeria, may finally take its centrifuge. But the region, ironically, has always been held back, not by the failure of a ‘collective’but each time by the heady, cantankerous, self-harming antics of one political renegade or the other. A case of lone-political-cooks always angling to spoil the broth, you might say. What with an Akintola in the First Republic throwing spanner in the works; or an Akinloye in the Second Republic rocking the boat; or yet an OBJ, of most ignoble memory, playing Judas! And what now with a visionless, tribe-hating Mimiko playing the political anti-Christ!

    Yes the anti-Christ of the Progressive South-west. Because anti-Christs have no better reason for swimming against the tide of the Will of God than their retrogressive passion to sustain a sinful status quo in the world and to pull humanity down to damnation! Else how can anyone rationalize Mimiko’s obstinate stand in the way of an only chance for the bastion of the progressives to properly seal the proportions of defense in their life-long efforts to create Nigeria’s only model community of righteous political action. All is on throttle to power the shuttle of the leading opposition party, the ACN, to infinity and beyond but Mimiko opts to have his black leg right on the decelerator.

    And although Mimiko is less than deft and astute, politically; he is nonetheless not altogether politically naïve. He knows the consequences of his action and it appears he is prepared to pay the price –for pulling a lonely furrow in the face of a renascent South-west ardent at self rediscovery and whose disciple-governors have at last brought alchemy to the political science of governance. Because the question is: what does Mimiko want? A second term! And which every first term governor covets. Often at all cost. But the irony of it all is that Mimiko could have had it all at no cost; simply by keeping his word to his progressive-benefactors: and then leaving his pot-holed, capsizing boat to hop on board the ACN Saviora. But that he has chosen not to tow even this electoral line of least resistance, speaks metaphors especially for his anti-Chris-tic disposition to the collective will of the South-west and the long-term good of the nation.

    The Anti-Christ

    Mimiko has, thus far, already earned himself the infamy of the political anti-Christ who rather risks losing a second term than act collectively to move society a notch. He is a political boil on a fatigued national buttock that is an enemy of ease; the obnoxious pregnancy on the knee that is a hindrance to spiritual genuflection. Hell, Mimiko has become the proverbial lizard on the mouth of the earthenware pot –pelted at grave danger to the pot and ignored soon to sully the precious, scarce drinking water.

    In fact Mimiko has become the “igi gangaran” in the Yoruba riddle that is bent on poking the eye of the progressives. All hands, especially of Ondolites, must be on deck come October 20 not only to dodge this self-harming reed, but in deed once and for all to break its stiff-necked rebellion! This is the Armageddon before the Armageddon. The ACN cannot afford to lose. This is the battle for‘the lost sheep’ of the house of the progressives that the Jagaban, Asiwaju Tinubu needs the prayers of all lovers of country and the action of true sons and daughters of Ondo to win!

    This is the time to regionalize South-west; and to rid the zone of self-harming, mainstreaming bums-like Mimiko!

    • Akerele, a media consultant wrote from Abuja

  • An unusual Nobel Prize

    An unusual Nobel Prize

    This year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been won by Sir John Gurdon, 79. He shares the prize with the Japanese scientist, Professor Shinya Yamanaka. The Nobel Prize Committee praised Gurdon for “…revolutionising (the world’s) understanding of how cells and organisms develop.” Yamanaka, it was noted, built on Gurdon’s work. But the two, said the Committee, “discovered that mature, specialised cells can be reprogrammed to become immature cells capable of developing into all tissues of the body.” As revolutionary as this discovery was, the unusualness in the prize comes from the fact that Gurdon was very nearly not a scientist but for his perseverance. He may have shown the world a deeper understanding of cell genetics, and is properly considered the godfather of cloning and stem-cell therapy, but much more importantly, he has shown the world the virtues of fortitude and belief in self.

    Back to Eton College in the 1940s, where Gurdon schooled. After having consistently failed to impress in his academic work, his science teacher described him unflatteringly as follows: “It has been a disastrous half (that is, midterm). His work has been far from satisfactory. His prepared stuff has been badly learnt, and several of his test pieces have been torn over; one of such pieces of prepared work scored 2 marks out of a possible 50. His other work has been equally bad, and several times he has been in trouble, because he will not listen, but will insist on doing his work in his own way. I believe he has ideas about becoming a scientist; on his present showing this is quite ridiculous, if he can’t learn simple Biological facts he would have no chance of doing the work of a Specialist, and it would be share waste of time, both on his part, and of those who have to teach him.”

    Perhaps you think such dismissiveness is too brutal to be repeated elsewhere. However, consider former US President Richard Nixon’s account of his discussions with a Chinese educator during a trip to China. The subject of the discussion was Britain’s one-time Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. Wrote Nixon in his book, Leaders: “It is well known that Churchill, like Einstein, was a mediocre student in his early years. One of his tutors observed, ‘That lad couldn’t have gone through Harrow School, he must have gone under it.’ In China or the Soviet Union he would not have been selected as one of the elite who are sent on for higher education and given an important position in government or industry. On one of my trips to Beijing a Chinese educator told me with pride that all children in China are guaranteed a free elementary education. When they finish grammar school, he went on, they are given a comprehensive examination, and only those who pass are allowed to go on to higher grades. Those who fail are sent to work in the factories or on the farms. He then added wistfully, ‘Under our system we provide better education for the masses, but we lose our Churchills.’”

    Gurdon, Churchill and Einstein remind parents of the sleepless nights they sometimes have to endure, and the frustrating battles they often must wage to get their children up to par in their studies. What parent does not dread the day a son would give up in frustration and opt for either music, with all the uncertainties of success, or football, with all the broken bones and shattered dreams, or simply embrace hooliganism, often with the certainty of ending in prison? How many parents do not fear the day a teenage daughter would come home with pregnancy or ask for early marriage instead of facing the drudgery of hard study? Gurdon’s and Churchill’s teachers, like many frustrated parents, were quite sure their two students would not amount to much in life, and they said so with harsh unambiguity. Often such views became self-fulfilling prophecies; except the students themselves, like Gurdon and Churchill, exercised irrepressible belief in self. And like the Chinese educator asked rhetorically, how many of such children had been inadvertently sent to the garbage heap, assured that they were irreparably damaged goods?

    Confronted with underperforming children, parents should encourage themselves in the life stories of Gurdon, Churchill and Einstein. There are hundreds of thousands of laggards turned geniuses out there whose stories never made it to the front pages of newspapers, but whose lives have become an inspiration to youths everywhere, neighbours and contemporaries. It is for such unsung heroes and their longsuffering parents that Gurdon’s unusual Nobel Prize must be dedicated.