Category: Editorial

•Again, another ex-leader sentenced. When will Nigeria punish its own corrupt leaders?

FOR desecrating a ‘holy land’, former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was on May 14 sentenced to six years in prison. The judge also fined him one million shekels ($289,000; £171,000) and ordered that 560,000 shekels in his assets be seized. Olmert was found guilty by the Tel-Aviv District Court of accepting a 500,000 shekel bribe from developers of a controversial apartment complex known as ‘Holyland’, after which planning and zoning laws were changed, and another 60,000 shekels for another project, and sentenced accordingly.

The 68-year-old former prime minister was convicted in March, interestingly not necessarily for a crime he allegedly committed as prime minister, but in connection with the real estate deal that took place while he was Mayor of Jerusalem.

The sentencing must have humbled the man who left power in 2009, following a gale of alleged corruption charges. That he is now going to prison for a bribe he took as mayor many years ago is pointer to the fact that there is nothing like just a little sin. It also tells us that no matter how long it takes to be discovered or decided, crimes should always be punished. More significantly, it is pointer to the fact that the law should be no respecter of persons.

Olmert’s regrets would have been that he did not have an opportunity of plea bargain or soft-landing, two major concepts that have been widely abused to shield influential Nigerians from punishment for stealing and other corrupt practices. As a matter of fact, President Goodluck Jonathan, as a judge, could have dismissed his crime as stealing and not corruption. How could accepting a mere 500,000 shekel ($145,000 or 86,000 pound sterling) have amounted to corruption?

Unfortunately for Olmert, Israel is not Nigeria. In Israel, there is no academic or legal gymnastic of trying to make any distinction between stealing and corruption; just as there are no safety nets for corrupt individuals, no matter how highly placed.

Indeed, Judge David Rozen who was disgusted by Olmert’s crime made profound statements while delivering the judgment; According to him, bribery offences “contaminate the public sector” and “cause the structure of government to collapse”. He added: “People who receive bribes give rise to a feeling of disgust and cause the public to despise the state’s institutions. The taker of bribes is like a traitor who betrays the public trust that was given to him – trust without which a proper public service cannot be maintained.”

Yes, the judge acknowledged that Olmert had made a “large contribution to the country”, he nonetheless had no choice than to sentence him because his offences were “noxious” and he was guilty of “moral turpitude”. Under Israeli law, this precludes Olmert from running for public office for seven years after finishing his jail term. His only hope is for his appeal to be upheld. The former prime minister’s comportment in the court was also instructive. He reportedly stood quietly in the courtroom, his head bowed.

Nigeria has many lessons to learn from almost everything about Olmert’s trial and conviction. Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who served as Olmert’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister said: “It is a difficult day when a former prime minister is sentenced” adding “I have complete trust in the court and law enforcement officials, and the public should as well.” Here, political, religious or ethnic undertones would have been read into the case and everyone else, excluding the criminal, would have been blamed for the crime.

Nigerians look forward to that ‘difficult day’ when one of their former leaders would be shown the way to prison; some of them deserve to be behind bars considering the mind-boggling corruption they perpetrated in office. That they walk about freely and even insult our sensibilities with their insensitive comments and actions make our hearts bleed.

•The state has proved that there is ‘ability’ in ‘disability’

THE last 40 months of Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s administration in Osun State have indisputably been the most eventful in its 19-year history – at least in terms of developmental strides. It is now crystal clear from the Osun example that the economic progress and development of any state are largely functions of the vision, will and ingenuity of the leadership. Osun State used to be rated among the backwaters of the Nigerian economy. The belief was that the state was inherently disadvantaged and thus incapable of making any major economic leap forward.

For one, Osun is 34th of the 36 states in terms of statutory allocation from the Federation Account. Again, the state’s poor economic profile limits the capacity to generate substantial revenue through taxes. Successive administrations had thus confined their vision and ambition within the limits of the paltry federal allocation and an internally generated revenue of approximately N300 million monthly. It is thus not surprising that the Aregbesola administration inherited a state characterised by rising unemployment, gross decay of public infrastructure and unsustainable debt.

However, through the determined and innovative implementation of its Integration Action Plan of banishing poverty, banishing hunger, banishing unemployment, restoring healthy living, promoting functional living and enhancing communal peace and progress, the Aregbesola administration has remarkably turned the Osun story around. For instance, the Osun Youth Employment Scheme (OYES) has created 40,000 jobs and injects N200 million into the local economy monthly. Farmers are being supported to boost food production and enhance food security. The massive road construction undertaken across the state has had a beneficial impact on economic productivity.

In the education sector, ingenious policies have led to the establishment of such enterprises as Omoluabi garments to produce school uniforms on a massive scale and O’meal to provide one meal per day for school children. These ventures generate jobs and stimulate economic activity. Consequently, not only has the state’s internally generated revenue risen to N1.6 billion monthly, Osun State has the lowest poverty index in Nigeria, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Against this background, the administration could easily have assumed it had reached the limits of its performance and thus rest on its oars. The organisation of the recent two-day Osun Economic Summit, however, indicates that the Aregbesola government is determined to raise the benchmark of performance even higher. Tagged ‘OrisunAje’, the theme of the summit was ‘Crux of Osun Economic Developmental Master Plan: Analysing Radical Paradigm Shift’. The summit provided a forum for critical stakeholders in the state – civil society organisations, trade unions, cottage industry owners, community-based organisations and key financial institutions – to appraise the performance of the Aregbesola administration, deliberate on ways of improving current gains as well as identify new potentials and opportunities that could be explored to further uplift the state.

It is noteworthy that the summit was initiated and driven by an Osogbo-based Non-Governmental Organisation, the Peoples Welfare League (PWL), thus giving it the requisite independence to objectively assess the performance of the administration as well as identify its strengths and weaknesses. Equally significant in this respect was Aregbesola’s charge to participants in his opening address not to be patronising of his government but to critically and dispassionately analyse its policies and programmes. It is of course obvious that this is the only way that the summit can be useful in adding value to governance in the state as well as justify the resources committed to it.

We urge the state government to borrow a leaf from Lagos and institutionalise the summit as a critical and objective partner in achieving purpose-driven and qualitative governance. Above all, it must ensure that the summit does not end as a talk shop; its recommendations must not gather dust in government shelves as most other summits, they must be utilised for the development of the state.

Federal health officials are urging hundreds of thousands of healthy people at high risk of contracting AIDS to take a pill every day to protect themselves from the virus that causes it. The recommendation could help reduce the stubbornly high number of infections, which has held steady at 50,000 new infections a year in the United States. But the pill carries risks that must be addressed as well.

The drug, made by Gilead Sciences and known as Truvada, contains two antiviral drugs that have been used for a decade in combination with other drugs to treat people already infected with H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. Two years ago the Food and Drug Administration approved it for a radically different purpose — to prevent disease in people who have not yet been infected. When taken every day, the pill can be extremely effective; it protected 99 percent of the gay men in one study.

In guidelines issued Wednesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the pill is recommended for high-risk groups like gay men who have sex with multiple partners, heterosexuals who have sex with high-risk partners such as intravenous drug users, people in sexual relationships with someone known to be infected, prostitutes and anyone who shares needles. The pill is supposed to be used along with condoms and other safe sex practices to provide added protection, but many men could shun condoms knowing that this option is available.

The dangers of that behavioral change are worrisome. Unprotected sex could lead to higher rates of syphilis, gonorrhea and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as unwanted pregnancies. If people fail to take their pill every day, as many will, they will increase the risk of developing and spreading a resistant strain of the virus.

Truvada is also expensive — about $13,000 a year — and usage could soar from fewer than 10,000 prescriptions a year to perhaps 500,000 a year. Most insurers and state Medicaid programs already cover the drug so patients should be able to afford it, but the cumulative cost could cause financial strains for public and private programs.

Even so, the potential benefits of preventing infections outweigh the risks, especially if steps are taken to minimize the risks. Before starting on Truvada, patients should have an H.I.V. test to make sure they are not already infected, in which case they should be taking three drugs. They should be retested every three months to determine whether they have become infected or have developed side effects or sexually transmitted diseases.

The new approach, if carried out with care, could be a big step forward in curbing the toll from AIDS.

–  New York Times

•The Kachia incident should never be allowed anywhere again

INTER-FAITH conflict, a regrettably recurrent challenge facing the country and which has arrested its progress, is in the news again following a violent clash between Christian and Muslim youths in Kachia town, Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State.  Reports said the destructive youths set fire to churches and mosques in the community, resulting in a 24-hour curfew imposed by the state government. The fighting was sparked by damage to the fence of an Islamic prayer-ground allegedly by unknown persons suspected to be Christians, which prompted retaliatory action by Muslims who attacked churches in the area and counter-moves by Christians against mosques.

Fortunately, the condemnable destruction was limited to physical structures and did not claim lives.   The police public relations officer in the state, Aminu Lawal, was quoted as saying, “The situation is under control as our men are fully on ground. No life was lost, but we don’t have the number of worship places that were burnt. We will let you know in due course as we don’t want to give wrong figures.”

Be that as it may, this official statement is disturbing by its suggestion that the scale of burning was high enough to make assessment difficult.  Furthermore, the state government’s response by way of a 24-hour curfew is a worrying indication of the degree of social insecurity on account of the incident. It goes without saying that the effect of the seemingly extreme curfew would include paralysis of not only social life but economic activities as well, for it amounts to a shutdown of society.

It is a pathetic reflection of just how far the country has gone on the undesirable path of religious disharmony that incidents such as this one continue to happen even in the context of the religion-inspired terror campaign of the Islamist militia Boko Haram and the consequent social upheaval that has attracted unfavourable international focus.

It must be emphasised that religious intolerance, which may not be unconnected with poverty, ignorance, indolence, indoctrination and brainwashing, cannot be the way to societal development. On the contrary, it is a manifestation of narrow-mindedness that leads nowhere other than underdevelopment.

Indeed, the problem of faith-based prejudice, which is an underlying factor in the Kachia conflict, deserves greater attention, particularly given the country’s combustible multi-religious status. The secular authorities must not only demonstrate deeper appreciation of the situation; more critically, they must conceive and design enduring programmes of citizen enlightenment to spread awareness of the imperative of peaceful cohabitation, irrespective of religious differences.

Equally important is the nurturing of a culture of citizen confidence in the law, with the implication of discouragement of resort to self-help in disputes.  Evidently, the situation would most likely not have escalated to the point of multiple burnings if the aggrieved had initially sought the intervention of the police, rather than embark on a revenge mission that resulted in further complications. The truth is that there is no excuse for such self-imposing conduct, especially because of the grave possibility that it might promote disorder just as it happened in Kachia on May 11.

As things stand, it is certainly in the best interest of the community that the combatants should let peace reign and ensure a return to normalcy for the people. It is noteworthy that the disturbances were occasioned by sections of the populace that have no right whatsoever to inflict hardship on the larger society by their religious association. So, the authorities must investigate the incident and penalise those found culpable with a view to preventing a recurrence.

• Citizens are taking laws into their hands in lynching and other barbarities

It remains to be seen whether the stern warning issued by the police in connection with the latest wave of lynching in the society will be heeded, which is unfortunate because the development is a strong pointer to public loss of confidence in the law, and a clear invitation to unwelcome anarchy. It is disturbing that in recent weeks there have been shocking reports of lynchings in Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Osun and Ekiti states, most of them involving suspected kidnappers who were set ablaze by irate mobs.

Expectedly, in an official reaction to such revolting incidents, the Police Public Relations Officer, Lagos Command, Ms. Ngozi Braide, declared, “Members of the public should not take the law into their own hands by lynching or burning suspected kidnappers. The police would not condone such. Anybody caught doing that will face the wrath of the law.” However, it will evidently take more than the threat of sanctions to ensure compliance, mainly because the resort to “jungle justice” is, perhaps understandably, the effect of perceived crime as well as supposed police incapacity.

Instructively, in one instance in Abule-Egba, Lagos, where a woman was burnt to death by a mob, one of the enforcers of barbarity was quoted as saying, “We don’t want to give her the opportunity to secure freedom from police custody if she is arrested.” The truth, although regrettable, is that when people are not sure of the law, they take the law into their own hands. Fundamentally, therefore, it is of paramount importance to get the policing right.

On the other hand, the shortcomings of the police do not, and should not, provide any excuse for violent self-help, especially taking human life. Beyond the failings of the force, which are bad enough, it is much worse that people in human society, operating outside the law, not only conceive the idea of punishing others for alleged wrongdoing but also inflict punishment with mindless ruthlessness, even resulting in death. It is a striking and sobering paradox, the notion and practice of making someone pay for a suspected crime by committing a crime.

It goes without saying that “jungle justice” is basically flawed on account of the reality that it is perhaps more likely to be based on error and injustice than penalty meted out after a proper trial. This significant downside, which is not to imply that there is an upside, was highlighted in a particular case in Oyo where members of the family of a lynched man, Lateef Gbadegesin, reportedly protested to the police, insisting on his innocence. “He does not keep late nights and has never been involved in undesirable acts,” they argued. A positive dimension is worth mentioning, which is that, in specific instances, the police reportedly rescued two alleged kidnappers from mobs in Akure, the Ondo State capital.

Tragically, kidnaps appear to be on the rise in the society, which seems to have triggered social defence mechanism that, ironically, suggests a disintegration of communal values just as the horrifying practice of abduction. It is worrying that the latest cases involved young ones. Specifically, to mention a few, in Oyo, the alleged attempt to kidnap a seven-year-old girl, Anike Mufutau, resulted in the lynching of two men; in Lagos, a lynched woman was accused of trying to abduct three children; in Ekiti, a victim was said to have been found with a child’s body; and in Ondo, a suspected kidnapper was set ablaze in connection with a teenage boy.

These happenings, whether considered in relation to the alleged kidnappers or the lynch mobs, not only provoke deep outrage; they also prompt immense wonder.  The question is: Just what is happening?

SAUDI ARABIA crossed a grim threshold Wednesday, announcing that the number of cases of Middle East respiratory syndrome, caused by a novel coronavirus, has exceeded 500 in the kingdom, with 157 deaths among them. The global number of MERS cases is now more than 570, with two of them recently reported in the United States.

At the same time, the World Health Organization declared that the disease has not yet reached the point of a “public health emergency of international concern.” The reason is that experts have not yet detected “evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission” of the kind that could lead to a pandemic. Clearly, there has been some transmission involving people in close contact with victims, such as relatives and health-care workers, but not rapidly and broadly.

The WHO decision should not lead to a sense of complacency; the announcement was studded with warnings.

Far too much is still unknown about this virus and how it works. For example, it appears that one reason for the escalating number of cases in Saudi Arabia in recent weeks was a breakdown in infection control. A visiting WHO team found lapses in such basics as hand washing, gloves and masks. Hospital conditions were “suboptimal.” How did the virus spread? Does it survive in the environment? That’s an important factor in infection control for any hospital — whether in Jiddah or Orlando — that hasn’t been answered.

Yet another big information gap has been the lack of a case-control study, which would compare those infected with a similar group of people that is not. Such a study could go a long way toward helping explain how the virus behaves and the risks of transmission and infection.

Comparing older genetic blueprints with recent ones has led experts to conclude there have not been modifications in the genome of the virus that would allow it to be transmitted from human to human more efficiently than before. That’s reassuring, but the key will be a steady stream of genetic sequencing information to keep watch on the unpredictable evolutionary process.

The WHO emphasized that its concern has significantly increased in part because of “critical gaps in information.” That is putting it politely. A large share of the responsibility for this black hole must fall on Saudi Arabia, a closed society where the disease was not met with sufficient urgency for more than a year. While there are now signs of more openness, the world’s toolkit for fighting MERS remains rather bare. There is no vaccine or effective antiviral. The WHO called for speeding up critical investigations, including case-control, serological, environmental and animal studies. The kingdom must do everything it can to expedite this vital research.

Right now, MERS seems like a nightmare far away from the United States. But it is not. Both infections arrived here being carried by air passengers who passed by hundreds of other people on their journey. The best defense today is a deeper understanding of the virus and its behavior — and the sooner, the better.

– Washington Post