Category: Editorial

•It is dire index of poor economy

Given the intensive and rigorous training they undergo, as well as the enormous amounts of money expended in the acquisition of their specialised skills, it is disheartening that hundreds of Nigerian pilots are reportedly languishing in unemployment. To qualify as a pilot requires the accumulation of hundreds of hours of flying time. Achieving this goal could cost between six and eleven million Naira. Yet, with no opportunities to put their skills into practice, highly trained Nigerian pilots are forced to work as office assistants or estate agents, among other jobs, which amounts to a waste of their training and talent.

Of course, this unsavoury scenario is not limited to pilots. Other highly skilled Nigerian professionals, including doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, architects and even Ph.D holders in diverse fields are either unemployed or severely underemployed. We have had instances, for example, of Master’s and doctorate degree holders applying for menial jobs well below their level of education. This is a function of the grossly underperforming Nigerian economy that is unable to generate enough job opportunities for different categories of unemployed citizens.

Like other sectors of the economy, Nigeria’s aviation sector has been in continuous distress and decline over the last two decades. Not only has the country’s once thriving national carrier that employed hundreds of pilots and other aviation professionals, the Nigeria Airways, collapsed, there has been a drastic reduction in the number of private airlines. This has had grave implications for job opportunities.

The poor state of the aviation industry is in turn a reflection of the downturn in other sectors of the economy. For, when other areas of the economy such as agriculture, manufacturing, social services or tourism are booming, this will boost activity and productivity in all spheres of the transportation sector, including air travel. All of this underscores the need for the creation of a conducive atmosphere for the private sector to thrive and absorb Nigeria’s skilled manpower. This will include the provision of security, adequate power supply, an efficient banking structure supportive of investment and qualitative infrastructure.

It is ironic that while hundreds of Nigerian pilots have no jobs, most of the commercial airlines and the armada of private jets owned by Nigeria’s wealthy elite prefer to employ foreign pilots. One argument for this is that fresh Nigerian pilots just out of aviation school have between 250 and 500 flight hours experience while there is preference by employers for pilots with between 1,000 and 1,500 flight hours, for understandable safety reasons.

The unfortunate part of it all is that even when there are Nigerian pilots with the requisite flight hours and experience, the foreign pilots are still preferred to them. In any case, how can fresh pilots ever accumulate the requisite flight hours if they have no opportunity to work and practice their skills? After all, the foreign pilots deemed to have the required flight hours were given time and opportunity to do so. Why should it be different for Nigerian pilots?

The phenomenon of unemployed and underemployed highly skilled Nigerian professionals reflects the absence of an effective and functional national manpower planning policy. It is significant, for instance, that the requisite aviation regulatory agencies do not, reportedly, have the statistics of unemployed Nigerian pilots. Without such critical information, how can there be purposeful planning geared towards creating jobs for aviation professionals.

It is pertinent to ask if the Nigerian National Manpower Board is still functional and well equipped to effectively carry out its functions. The relevant agencies must be armed with statistics of different categories of unemployed Nigerians to guide informed manpower planning for national development.

Why would the United States decline to provide a serum that can cure Ebola to poor and desperate victims in several African nations where close to 1,000 people have died of the virus? Because it doesn’t have such a serum.

What the U.S. does have are a number of possible treatments for Ebola that are in the experimental stages. Most were developed with the help of federal financing after 9/11; drug companies previously had little financial incentive to develop drugs for an illness that affected relatively few people, all of them in developing countries. But after the 2001 attacks, the government became interested in staving off possible bioterrorism.

Some of the treatments look very promising after early trials on animals. But it is not yet known whether any of them will cure or prevent the illness in humans, or even whether they are safe for humans to take. Nor is it known which among them would prove the most helpful.

As it happens, the experimental treatment that two American aid workers were given after being stricken with Ebola in Liberia was ZMapp, a cocktail of three monoclonal antibodies. Both patients, who are being cared for at Emory University Hospital, are improving, an outcome that has governments in the affected African countries as well as three highly regarded Ebola experts clamoring to have the serum released to the hundreds of people who are infected.

That would be premature. It’s a big leap to assume that the two Americans were saved by the serum. About 45% of those afflicted in the West Africa epidemic have survived. The Americans may have been lucky, or they may have benefited from their access to far better medical care than most Africans get, or perhaps they can thank their own robust immune systems, a result of growing up with adequate food, clean water and other benefits of the developed world.

The decision to provide the two aid workers with the serum, though well intentioned, of course, has raised serious ethical and political questions. To many Africans, it looks as though rules were bent on behalf of a couple of white Americans, while the hundreds of infected people in Africa are receiving no special treatment. Given the high mortality rate of the disease, they demand to know, shouldn’t the serum be available to all? Isn’t an experimental treatment better than nothing?

There is no easy answer to this emotionally wrenching question. The chief argument for holding off on ZMapp’s release — that it isn’t known whether the drug will help or even whether it might harm the very people it is intended to save, and that safety trials must be completed before it is widely distributed — sounds cold-hearted, as though it is about following bureaucratic drug approval protocols rather than helping the dying. Yet the argument is a powerful one.

Perhaps the answer would be different if this epidemic carried the 90% mortality rate that Ebola has sometimes inflicted in the past. If the prognosis were a virtually terminal one, it would make sense to conclude that even a drug that might harm people is better than near-certain death. But that’s not the case with this epidemic.

This is a decision that has to be made carefully and rationally, though without delay. Not because the world doesn’t care about the lives of the victims but because it also cares about the lives of the thousands who might be infected in the future.

There are other promising Ebola treatments that are in Phase I safety trials; ZMapp hasn’t reached that stage yet. It might make more sense, public health experts say, to make available the medications that are at least part of the way through safety testing.

One possible treatment, not yet in safety trials, is intended to prevent the disease in people who have been exposed to the virus; a version of it was given several years ago to a German researcher who had accidentally pricked herself with an Ebola-infected syringe. She did not become ill — though again, it’s not known for certain whether her good fortune had anything to do with the experimental treatment. Still, if it is effective, many more lives might be saved by providing medication to prevent the disease rather than to treat those who are infected. That would give health workers a chance to get ahead of the epidemic instead of reacting to each new case.

Some medications may be more effective than others, but without random, controlled clinical trials, scientists may never learn which are which. Without trials, the United States or the World Health Organization might commit too early to the widespread use of a less useful treatment, or one that is far more expensive and thus would not reach as many people.

At the same time, it is our moral responsibility to look for ways to speed reasonably safe medications to those who need them. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration should approve expedited safety trials that take a month or so, instead of the six months that full Phase I trials require. It would take at least that long anyway for pharmaceutical companies to ramp up production from tiny batches intended for trials to thousands of doses to cover affected populations. Then the FDA should allow its existing “animal rule” to apply to Ebola drugs. The rule allows efficacy trials on two different kinds of animals to substitute for human trials — as long as safety tests have been done on healthy human volunteers — when randomized, controlled efficacy tests on humans aren’t practical.

Even with pharmaceutical treatment, it would take a massive public health and education effort to bring the West Africa epidemic to a close any time soon, and at that point there will be time for fuller testing. But if anything, this epidemic teaches us that when it comes to developing lifesaving pharmaceuticals, we don’t always have as much time as we think.

– Los Angeles Times

•Nigerian dressmaker and artist makes history at Smithsonian Institute

Who would have thought that a dress could help in redefining Nigeria’s image internationally? Interestingly, this has been achieved by an attention-grabbing dress designed by Patience Torlowei, a dressmaker and an artist whose work has reportedly made history as the first piece of high fashion to be accepted as part of the permanent collection of the respected Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C., United States of America.

Without doubt, the spectacular silk ball gown, which was unveiled at a cocktail party held at the prestigious Metropolitan Club, Ikoyi, Lagos, ahead of its departure to America, is a stunning conflation of art and fashion design as well as a reflection of “the transcendent possibility of art”; and it is fitting that the story behind the creation is equally inspirational. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the narrative is the fact that the dress recommended itself by its sheer brilliance, and by logical extension, the designer’s coruscating creativity.

By Torlowei’s account, one of her patrons wore a dress she had made to an event in America, and this marked the turning point for her. She told the audience at the club: “She wore the dress to New York, it was to the Smithsonian Institute conference and everyone wanted to know where she got it from. Coincidentally, they were marking a fashion show for an ongoing exhibition and I was selected. I was given a date for this event in August shortly after my mum passed away in July.  Eventually the exhibition with the theme Earth Matters’ was held in February and there were eight exhibitors from Africa; I was the only one from Nigeria. The other designers had sponsorships from their countries, four were presidential sponsorships. I had no one to sponsor me. I had to go with my meager sum but I love what I was doing.”

Her passion paid off, which may hold a lesson for others, particularly her compatriots. Torlowei said: “I chose to do something about Africa, with stories covering Sierra Leone, Liberia, Congo, South Africa and Nigeria. When I came on stage, there was silence in the hall, followed by uproar and a standing ovation. Others were bidden goodbye from the exhibition, I was asked to stay back. I started to get media interviews because of this dress; they wanted to know the value of the dress so they could buy it; but instead I offered to donate it to the museum. I named her Esther because of my mother. All this happened to me just after she died.”  

Truly, at the conceptual level, it may be relevant to explore the description of Esther as a “Nigerian dress”. However, there is no denying the fact that this celebrated gown, despite its western cultural provenance, was artistically Nigerianised by the designer. What this demonstrates in clear terms is that in the global village, with its tendency for internationalism, a strict definition of dresses in narrow geographical and cultural contexts may no longer be rigidly applicable.

It is instructive that Mr. Akintola Williams, the country’s doyen of Accountancy, who unveiled the dress at the send-off, made a profound observation about its positive promotional quality. He was quoted as saying: “In light of Nigeria’s current image on the world stage, it is clear to me that such high and unique achievement as Esther deserves our support and our acknowledgement of this feat by a Nigerian designer and artist, who has made a mark in a significant moment of our country’s history.”

Besides Torlowei’s ascent and the fact that the country is basking in her reflected glory, it is important to recognise the motivational value of her work and achievement for local designers, especially the possibility of encouraging the exportation of local skills in the dressmaking sector.

•Nasarawa lawmakers should go to court if they have issues with panel membership

The political brickbats between Governor Tanko Al-Makura and majority of the members of Nasarawa State House of Assembly have, to say the least, unduly overheated the polity. The 20 People’s Democratic Party (PDP) legislators seem hell bent on impeaching Al-Makura despite the governor’s exoneration by the impeachment panel instituted by Justice Umaru Dikko, chief judge of the state, upon the instruction of the House. The remaining minority four members of the House belong to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC).

The kernel of the verdict of the seven-man panel, comprising Usman as chairman, Mohammed Keana, Rev. Joel Galadima, Abdul Usman, Samuel Chaku, Mohammed Usman, and Daniel Chaga was the dismissal of all 16 allegations of gross misconduct against Al-Makura. The outcome of the panel’s report has been rejected by the PDP members of the House due to grievances against two members of the panel.

Keana was accused of being a registered member of the PDP from Keana Local Government while Rev. Galadima was also accused of being not just an appointed member of the government instituted Christian Pilgrims Welfare Board who allegedly collected his June, 2014 salary from the state but also a member of PDP from Keffi Local Government. Yet, the 1999 Constitution(as amended) in section 188(5) provides that ‘the Chief Judge of a state shall at the request of the Speaker of the House of Assembly appoint a panel of seven persons that in his own opinion are of ‘unquestionable integrity, not being members of any public service, legislative house or political party.’

In our view, this constitutional provision cannot be said to have been breached as the Nasarawa lawmakers are stridently trying to make us believe. Lawmakers are not interpreters of the law. This is why there is provision for the judicial arm of government – the other two being the executive and the legislative arms, with clear-cut separation of powers and right of checks and balances.

Baba Ibaku, Chairman, House Committee on Information and Security’s dismissive statement that: “…..there is no seven-man panel that is investigating Governor Al-Makura because we had earlier asked the state Chief Judge to disband the panel … We (the lawmakers) only appeared through our legal team to register our protest against the composition of the panel … We will go ahead with our moves to impeach Governor Al-Makura and nothing will stop us, no matter what it entails” is spurious.

We consider this kind of utterance as quite unbecoming and indecorous. From the bitter and malicious presentation of the position of the House, we could glean desperation and the fact that the motive behind the impeachment moves of the PDP legislators could not have been the desire to protect the interest of indigenes and inhabitants of Nasarawa State. We could smell dirty politics and inordinate desire to achieve parochial political end.

The legislators have no power over who gets appointed to an impeachment panel, even as this should not serve as an excuse for the chief judge to flout the law. But the legislators, in their desperate bid to be the judge in their own cause, are ridiculing the institution of the legislature, not minding the sanctity of the law.

For example, the same assembly members reportedly moved the House deliberations to obscure Karu Local Government of the state despite the fact that no rule or resolution of the assembly permitted that. This act is a flagrant disobedience of the Supreme Court’s decision in Balonwu Vs Obi (2007 NWLR PT1008/488) to the effect that the House of Assembly can only conduct its legislative functions in a legally designated place in the state capital.

We call on the lawmakers to approach the court if they are in doubt of anything. To us, the judge has done his work just as the legislators did theirs without any unnecessary query. This case is, indeed, a test for constitutionalism and the collective resolve to sustain institutions in the country.

Alison-Madueke now working with the fourth NNPC boss

IF news reports about the reason for the sudden sack of the former Group Managing Director (GMD) of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Mr Andrew Yakubu, are anything to go by, something must be apparent by now.  And that is: whoever wants to last in the office must observe this first commandment — always be in the good books of the petroleum minister, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke.

Mrs. Alison-Madueke is like the proverbial cat with nine lives. As far as President Goodluck Jonathan is concerned, she is a super-minister in whom he is well pleased, notwithstanding the reservations many Nigerians have about her.

Not a few people were shocked by the sudden removal of the former NNPC boss on August 1, and his replacement with Dr Joseph Thlama Dawha. Yakubu was the third NNPC GMD to serve under Mrs Alison-Madueke; that is in four years. We have had Muhammad Sanusi Barkindo who was sacked the same day Mrs Alison-Madueke became minister, so we cannot say whether she had any hand in his exit. But Alhaji Shehu Ladan who succeeded him spent barely six weeks before he was removed. Then Austen Oniwon who was NNPC GMD from May 2010 to June 2012.

According to reports, Yakubu’s sack was caused by irreconcilable differences between him and the petroleum minister. These include incessant sack of highly-skilled professionals in the corporation; sharp differences on policies affecting oil and gas industry; alienation of International Oil Companies (IOCs); opposition to the minister’s court action against  the House of Representatives to stop the probe into alleged N10billion she allegedly spent on chartered jets; non-availability of the minister when crucial decisions are required; and pile-up of files on matters affecting the industry.

Mrs Alison-Madueke has characteristically not uttered a word since Yakubu’s exit. This should get us worried as a nation; if only for the huge investments the nation made on the affected personnel. Indeed, it should get President Jonathan worried: how come one minister has survived three group managing directors in a critical parastatal as the NNPC in just four years? Has it ever occurred to the president that the minister could be the problem, and therefore the one that should go?

We know that Nigeria’s oil sector stinks. But, if there is anyone who should lose his or her job in the petroleum ministry, it is the minister. This much had been canvassed since the January 2012 fuel subsidy protest.  Mrs Alison-Madueke presided (and still presides) over the huge racket that the subsidy represents. Under her very watch, Nigeria paid humongous sums to people who never imported fuel under the subsidy regime. Moreover, the minister has been accused of spending about N10billion on chartered jets in two years. This has been a subject of probe by the House of Representatives but, instead of going to the House to defend herself, she has been employing all kinds of subterfuge to prevent the inquisition. Now, we have on our hands a situation where someone who is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a symbol of corruption has now become the executioner.

It is sad that what should be a strategic sector is now being governed by the whims and caprices of politicians. It is sadder still because quick turnover of high profile personnel in any sector, not in the least the oil sector, makes accountability and transparency difficult, if not impossible. The nation cannot afford such job insecurity for highly skilled personnel in the sector.

If those being arbitrarily removed committed any infractions, these should be made public. It is not enough to just sack them without any reasons, and so intermittently, even if we agree that he who hires can also fire. Such undue interference in the operation of the corporation by politicians with all kinds of interests has not really helped the NNPC. It is part of the reasons we also feel the corporation has outlived its usefulness.

•What does Nigeria stand to gain from the USA-Africa Summit?

EVEN though it likes to call itself the “Giant of Africa,” Nigeria often gives the impression that it does not know how to utilise its comparative importance in ways that can properly benefit it. This appeared to be the case at the just-concluded USA-Africa Summit in which the leaders of 50 African countries held a joint summit with President Barack Obama of the United States.

On the face of it, the summit was eminently worthy of Nigeria’s attention. Focusing on “Investing in Africa’s Future,” “Peace and Regional Stability” and “Governing the Next Generation,” the meeting was clearly relevant to several of the nation’s most pressing needs. The United States announced a host of trade, aid and investment deals with the continent totalling about U.S. $33 billion. The opportunity to interact with national and business leaders of the world’s sole superpower was, in all probability, simply too important to pass up.

However, the question still arises as to the exact nature of the benefit to Nigeria of this kind of multi-nation summit. A major sticking-point is the overt inequality that is evident when one nation negotiates simultaneously with several others at a forum hosted by it.

Then, no one-on-one meetings took place between President Obama and any individual African leader; that duty was apparently left to Secretary of State John Kerry, a senior government official, but not a head of state. Kerry was therefore severely limited in his ability to make policy pronouncements.

There is the vexed question of the country’s preparedness for foreign direct investment. In spite of Nigeria’s attractively large market and growing middle class, the state of insecurity remains an obstacle to diversifying investment away from the traditional area of oil and gas. All the trade summits in the world cannot make up for the damage caused by unresolved security challenges and the manifest inability of the Federal Government to deal with them decisively. The less-than-stellar handling of the abduction of the Chibok girls casts doubt on Nigeria’s credibility as a worthy partner: a nation that cannot secure its own citizens is hardly likely be able to guarantee the investments of foreigners. We should not forget that power supply has remained intractable as well.

Nor has Nigeria demonstrated its capacity to fully utilise the opportunities provided by similar trade agreements. The African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) is a particularly relevant example. Under the Act, African nations were offered duty-free access to the American market for over 6,000 products. Nigeria’s inability to develop its non-oil exports, overhaul its decrepit infrastructure and enhance its small and medium-scale enterprises is largely to blame for this shortcoming, and it could scuttle any new arrangements such as those proposed at the USA-Africa Summit.

If Nigeria is to properly leverage its relative size, wealth and strategic significance, it will have to do much more than it is doing at present. It is not enough to simper at trade summits like the proverbial beautiful bride; such is the competitive nature of the global economy that no nation can profitably afford to present itself in such a manner.

The country must also adopt much more pragmatic negotiating strategies. No nation will offer others something for nothing; enlightened self-interest is the abiding motivation of any trade negotiation, no matter what the high-minded speeches and statements claim. Nigeria should be more prepared to adopt a hard-headed approach to such issues, and that includes refusing to be lumped together with countries that have far less to offer than it does.

As the country takes measures to build upon its newly-acquired status as Africa’s largest economy, it must begin to take itself much more seriously, and enact policies and programmes which adequately reflect that self-perception.

THE HYSTERIA and hype over the return to the United States of aid workers Kent Brantly and Nancy Writebol, both infected with the Ebola virus in Africa, has been way over the top. News and social media portrayed them as some kind of pathogenic juggernauts who might carry a horrible condition to our shores. This unthinking reaction is the opposite of what is called for. These workers should be given a heartfelt salute for having the courage to serve on the front lines of a battle as fierce as any in the world today. Fortunately, both are said to be improving after treatment with an experimental drug.

Another 50 workers are being sent to the Ebola hot zone in Africa by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They, too, deserve our respect, but even this reinforcement cadre will not be able to extinguish the virus. More manpower and contributions from around the world are urgently needed.

The Ebola virus, while deadly, is most likely not coming to the United States. The outbreak that began earlier this year has spread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with a few cases in Nigeria. Overall, it has infected more than 1,600 people and led to 887 deaths. But it grabbed headlines in the United States only when the relief organization Samaritan’s Purse decided to bring its workers to Atlanta for treatment. Although Ebola has a high mortality rate, transmission requires close contact and exchange of bodily fluids such as blood, sweat or saliva between people. With a well-developed public health infrastructure, the virus is not likely to become a contagion in the United States. Tom Frieden, director of the CDC , noted over the weekend that the single most important thing that can be done to protect Americans is to stop Ebola at its source in Africa. That’s where the attention is needed.

The outbreak in West Africa is severe, the largest recorded to date and the first in that part of the continent, and it is important to examine the reasons for it. Two researchers, Daniel G. Bausch and Lara Schwarz, writing in the journal PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, point out that large outbreaks like this “almost invariabl[y] occur in areas in which the economy and public health system have been decimated from years of civil conflict or failed development.” While biological and ecological factors may force the virus from the forest, it is also a result of decisions by man. Economic deprivation drives people deeper into the forests to survive, enhancing their risk of exposure, they report. Then, when they get infected, poorly resourced health systems cannot cope with proper equipment and protective gear. The virus spreads from hospitals back into villages and cities. Fear and mistrust often greet relief workers trying to control it. An outbreak is sparked.

The World Health Organization is attempting to organize a $100 million response plan, and troops were deployed in Sierra Leone and Liberia to help fight the outbreak with quarantines. The Ebola virus can be stopped, but instead of hysteria, it needs a serious commitment of people and resources.

Washington Post