The Nation Newspaper

Tag: american

  • Nigerian, American comedians thrill residents

    Nigerian, American comedians thrill residents

    It was a show like no other as Nigerian stand-up comedians and their American counterparts dug deep to outwit each other in order to impress the fun-loving Abuja residents with rib-cracking jokes at the prestigious Thisday Dome.

    The show, put together by telecommunications giants, Glo to appreciate the residents of the Federal Capital Territory soothed the parched desires of the residents who seemed to have been starved of fun as they turned out in their numbers.

    A proof of how successful the show was could be seen on the road leading to the Dome, as access to the dual-carriage way was nonexistent with cars parked everywhere, on the road, sidewalk and every available space around the Dome. Encouraged by the turnout, the organisers wasted no time as the show surprisingly commenced at about 6:30 p.m. Cool DJ Jimmy Jatt was blasting off with Basket Mouth anchoring. The entire space of the Dome was taken up; even the gallery was not spared.

    There was no dull moment till the first musical act. Omawunmi, in a tight-fitting jacket and bum shorts kicked off the show with her smartly-dressed dancers. With scintillating dance steps, Omawunmi and her live band reeled off hits after hits from her latest and past works to the delight of the crowd.

    The highlight of her performance was the coming on stage of a little angel who mesmerised the crowd with her own dance steps. She shared the brief spotlight with Omawunmi and was appreciated by the crowd and the organisers.

    Basket Mouth almost irritated the cosmopolitan Abuja crowd with his constant reminders that the American comedians should be encouraged with applause and faked laughter even if they don’t understand what the Americans were saying.

    “I wan make una shout well well when I call our Naija comedians. I wan make those oyinbo comedians fear. Make una no fall my hand o.

    Even if you no understand wetin them dey talk, just laugh and clap well well,” he would say prior to the entrance of any of the American comedians.

    He was hugely disappointed because the crowd understood the Americans and they were well appreciated for their efforts.

    Akpororo was the first to mount the stage with his weird dance. He gave a dose of what to expect for that night. Next was Gordons whose entrance was greeted with reverberating welcome of Haleluya.

    By the time the American actors came on, the crowd was restless. From Tony Roberts who was awed by his experience on Lagos okada where he was sandwiched between the rider and two other passengers to Donovan Jordan, Deray Davies, Robert Powell to South African Tomi John and Salvador from Uganda, it was a hilarious time for the residents.

    In between, rapper M. I. showed he was at home and brought down the roof and when Wande Coal came on stage, he turned the key upside down. The crowd went wild when he jumped into their midst.

    I Go Save, Buchi in his make-believe bomb bag as well as Funny Bone and Bovi left the crowd asking for more before the show was rounded off by the duo of P-Square about some minutes to midnight.

    “I have never had a show like this for a very, very long while. When I got the invite, I was a bit skeptical because of the last musical show put up by Glo; the crowd was also huge but nothing to compare with this.”

    Hausa Hassan expressed her delight about the show to Abuja Review saying: ”I can only appreciate this telecommunication company for giving us this wonderful time in Abuja. It’s like it should just not end. Though our Nigerian brothers are awesome, those foreign comedians are equally good; all of them, including the ones from Uganda and South Africa. We thoroughly enjoyed their jokes.”

    Basket Mouth was forced to appreciate the Abuja crowd, saying it was the first show he witnessed that the crowd stayed till the end and not passively too. The organisers also told Abuja Review that it was rewarding that the show was so appreciated by the residents.

  • Hubris among medical profesionals

    SIR: Have you noticed that American doctor’s append only MD as their titles? Indeed, to practice in the United States require that a doctor specialize in at least one of the many areas of medicine after the basic qualification. Therefore, as a specialist, the only insignia is the MD, though a description as a fellow may follow to show the specialty. Other appendages may include PhD, MPH and a few others. The reason is simple: A medical doctor (MD) is a medical doctor. The difference lies in the area of practice and expertise- psychiatry, surgery, obstetrics and gynecology etc.

    To become a specialist therefore is a necessity expected of every doctor. It is because of this that a national matching system for residential programme exists in the US. It is equally because of this that the emphasis is on the quality and standard of each residential programme and its director rather than examinations.

    Finally, it is basically because of this that the speciality board examinations at the end of the residency programme is optional, or voluntary, taken only to satisfy members of the public or, if the individual is desirous of practice across state lines(a different state from which he trained).

    Specialization in medicine therefore, must never be a privilege; for what is the aim of specialization? To break down medical knowledge into discrete and manageable entities and enable an increasing depth of learning and skill acquisition therein. A division of labor of sorts.

    In contrast, specialists in Nigeria readily flaunt their titles,FWACP, FWACS, FMCP etc. These are well earned /deserved titles no doubt. Problem, however is the attempt to make specialization an elitist enclave.

    Elitism seems to be native to Nigeria. It is almost a cultural thing. Everyone wants to show the other how much worthier he is above his fellow. There is a subtle but fierce battle to be the first always, primus inter pares! Competition, whilst not necessarily bad, but competition for her own sake, and in an unbridled manner is a death march! It breeds excessive rivalry and a penchant for ruthless despicable acts in order to suppress.It is therefore of little wonder that even within medical circles this culture festers.

    To specialize in an area of medicine has become an elitist venture. The process is brutal, dehumanizing and deliberately so. The specialists who are also meant to train others are the ones who make it so by not being responsible or accountable in any guise for the resident doctors under them; by the desire for elitism and exclusivity, and through the proliferation of multiple landmines called examinations at every corner and stage.

    The more vexatious of these issues is tying career advancement and promotions of the resident doctor to these centralized examinations without recourse to the sensitivities and peculiarities of the individual residential programmes! These exams are landmines designed to frustrate and eliminate anyone but the best of the best-hubris!

    Candidates are pitted against candidates and you have results like only seven out almost 300 hundred candidates passed and exam nationwide( family medicine)!

    Since knowledge in medicine is so deep and wide, there has to be, of necessity, specialization where a doctor further undergoes a residency programme. A residential programme affords the doctor the opportunity to focus on an area of medicine, work with specialists in their day to day care of patients, witness, participate and ultimately become a specialist himself. That is the concept of specialization and this should be our minimum requirement too. Some of our people are wont us to believe it is the preserve of some special of privileged few.

    Why is elitism and hubris so rife?

     

    Timi Babatunde MD

    Lagos

  • American firm to develop Nigeria’s health facilities

    American Hospital Management Company (AHMC) and Crystal Thorpe will develop and manage Nigerian hospitals and polyclinics.

    The agreement was signed at AHMC’s Global Headquarters in Washington D.C., United States, on two healthcare projects in Lagos and Abuja.

    AHMC President/CEO Randall Arlett; Executive Vice President Daniel Smigelski; Regional Vice President Greg Kuntz; the company’s Controller Shanita Goree and Managing Director of Crystal Thorpe, Ms. Ugonna Ogueri, attended the ceremony.

    AHMC said the centres were being developed because of the needs identified in the market for state-of-the-art facilities of international standards.

    “AHMC’s management model, based on American healthcare management practices and fundamentals, will be deployed and adapted to the unique environments in which the hospitals will operate to deliver enhanced operational capabilities, quality, safety and profitability,” the company said.

    Ogueri said: “Our partnership with AHMC will bring the best of global health care service to Nigerians. We are very excited at the opportunity to be partnering with AHMC in developing world-class health care facilities in Nigeria.

     

     

     

     

  • Aregbesola’s American visit

    Aregbesola’s American visit

    As someone who very well knows that exaggeration diminishes credibility, I give it a wide berth in claiming that the vocal governor of the State of Osun in South-west Nigeria, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, is doubtlessly a focused, clear-headed, and innovative political leader. It is doubtful whether I could so describe him prior to my encounter with him at Cambridge when he visited a few weeks back. To be sure, before that day, I had heard and read many things about him, particularly the avalanche of controversies which defined his person and administration since he became governor.

    When on Tuesday February 19, I heard that he was in Cambridge, close by Boston where I am resident, to attend the town hall meeting with Harvard African Caucus made up of black students, I did not hang fire – actually more out of curiosity – in getting myself there. The taste of the pudding is in the eating. And there he was in his charming unassuming disposition, beaming with the trademark smile I am accustomed to through still pictures. The centrepiece of his address to the august audience was the innovations he has brought to governance since he came into office as governor.

    He spoke eloquently about the unprecedented reforms that his state’s educational, agricultural, and health sectors had successfully undergone under his watch. He zestfully primed his audience of how his administration through its carefully designed policies – he actually said Six-Point-Integral-Action Plan – has made a huge dent on the monster of youth unemployment, cured the state of its financial ailment, and impacted the lives of the citizens who are mostly farmers. All of these and more he said, exuding affecting confidence, coruscating brilliance, and unpretentious calmness. But his most impactful presentation was the computer tablet he called Opon Imo, which indeed is an innovation. According to him, the tablet which will be distributed to all the senior students in the state’s public secondary schools, contains all recommended textbooks, past questions on certificate and matriculation examinations and moral instructions. This I am sure is going to help parents who cannot afford to buy books for their wards and also help the students to focus on reading. More importantly, it will introduce them to computer at an early age. I must admit that even in the United States, this is a novel thinking. This idea has never occurred to anyone to the best of my knowledge.

    I was really impressed by his clinical deployment of non-convoluted details. By creditably giving a good report of himself in his smooth delivery, this springy politician unequivocally made it manifest that he is political leader of uncommon dedication, discipline and character.

    Deservedly, the attentive audience expressed their appreciation of his memorable delivery through thunderous ovation lasting for a while. Of course, I needed no prodding to attend the lecture he delivered the next day at the Weatherhead Center. He whetted my appetite for his depth and insights.

    As I listened to his lecture, it dawned on me that, as the Americans would say, I ain’t seen nothing yet. Governor Aregbesola’s lecture at the monthly seminar of the Weatherhead Centre for International Studies, Harvard University, centred on the multifarious and overwhelming development challenges assailing Nigeria. Though the challenges are ubiquitous and form the subject of public discourse, both at national and international forums, the governor’s analyses was thorough and seminal. I must admit that his analytical exposition added depth to my perspective on the socio-economic and political setbacks the most populous black nation is inured in. Nigeria’s development calamities are of Byzantine complexity, he enlightened. For him, blinding ethnicity, defective federalism, rapine military system, adulterated religious practices, clueless leadership, among many other horrifying human-inspired debacles, are the foxes pitilessly destroying the rich vineyard of the Nigerian state.

    A courageous leader, he warmed the cockles of my heart when he flintily noted that it would amount to weak reasoning to carp that “outsiders” are responsible for the present condition of the country. The wisdom in this is that when the nation continues to bellyache that the foundation of its underdevelopment can be located in its colonial experience, it will lose the sense to think of the way out of the woods. Yet, colonialism is not exclusive to Nigeria. Other peoples who were even more ruthlessly colonised have since pulled off the burden and are today havens of unexampled human and material developments. The right leadership that can champion this cause and make things happen, he reasoned knowledgeably, is what the country must inexorably find.

    Governor Aregbesola’s report on the achievements of his administration revealed to me a leader who knows what is amiss and works squarely to fix it. The kind of leadership he longs to see his country possess is exactly what he selflessly provides in Osun. Within two years, he has achieved notable reforms in the educational and agricultural sectors of his state. Government is closer, more than ever before, to the people. Youth employment is aggressively pursued and public infrastructure is springing up – all in a state that could barely breathe owing to the suffocating debt it was burdened with by past selfish administration. With the zeal of an empathic leader, he is effectively rescuing majority of the citizens who had been hitherto suspended on the scaffold of penury, hunger, joblessness and insecurity.

    Indeed, the “elephant” of Aregbesola merits more description than “I catch a glimpse of something”. When we see a performing and responsible political leader, we must be honest enough to admit that we have seen Governor Abdulrauf Adesoji Aregbesola! Much more, with that revealing lecture, Aregbesola has demonstrated the fact that, warts and all, the story of Nigeria is not all about a jinxed country, nay, a land held in the throes of avoidable misfortunes. It is a relief to know that Nigeria has some thinking and responsible political leaders. I encourage the governor and those in his circle to hold the fort; they must not give up until a Nigeria of our desire is founded.

    • Morgan lives in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America.

     

  • Still on the American elections

    Still on the American elections

    SIR: The American national elections might have come and gone with all the interest and anxiety generated, political permutations and projections, both within and outside the shores of the United States. The Winner had emerged and the loser accepted the faith, but what are the lessons inherent for African leaders and particularly Nigerian politicians, political parties, electorate, electoral umpire, security agencies, and indeed the media to learn from this world’s beacon of democracy?

    Let us start from the emergence of candidates, particularly the Republican Party flag bearer Mitt Romney who emerged through rigorous and tedious party primaries. Immediately after he won the primary every other aspirant queued behind him and gave him the needed support. It is instructive that none of them defected to any other political party in a desperate bid to seek nomination or to vent anger on the party. Same was applicable to the Democratic Party flag bearer, Barrack Obama who emerged consensually without the power of incumbency playing any visible significant role.

    The electioneering campaign itself was so interesting and enlightening, as it was issue driven. Candidates focus majorly on how to revamp the economy, tackle growing unemployment rate, strengthen the middle class, and improve foreign policy direction among others. These are the fundamental and cardinal objectives on which the candidates canvassed to get Americans’ votes.

    This is contrary to what obtains in Nigeria where election campaign is far from being constructive. Contestants mount the podium to rain abuses on the oppositions and castigate one another relegating serious and fundamental issues to the background. It is difficult to recollect when elections and party politics in Nigeria were defined by ideology.

    Today, almost two years into the Jonathan presidency, the federal government is yet to grapple with the myriad of problems facing the country.

    It is also quite instructive that the election in America was violent free. Most often, the two leading candidates; President Barrack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney campaign simultaneously in the same State or even in the same county without any eruption of violence. What a disciplined party followership. This is the hallmark of civilised democracy. Unfortunately, violence has become an embodiment of electioneering campaigns in Nigeria, and indeed Africa. It is equally interesting to note that even with some of the challenges faced by the electoral body in some polling units in the American election; the electoral body was not castigated by the Politicians to undermine the outcome of the election. There were polling units where election did not start on schedule because of lack of electricity to power the voting machines owing to the stormy sandy that left many cities without electricity few days to the presidential elections. Voters waited patiently on a long queue to take their turns. Both the electorate and the Candidates believed in the impartiality of the electoral body. There was no snatching of ballot boxes or other election materials, no reported case of collusion between the electoral bodies with any politician for electoral advantage.

    Their Umpires conducted themselves impartially to win the confidence of the stakeholders.

    The question is: when will INEC gain the sort of credibility that would earn it the trust and respect of Nigerians as a truly independent body? The Media also has a role to play in this respect. First and foremost, the media has a sacred responsibility to inform, educate and enlighten the people, as guaranteed by the constitution. Hence, the media need to constantly remind political actors about the rules of the game and civilised ways of political conduct.

    Perhaps, the most amazing episode in the whole process of the American election was the manner the two principal Candidates accepted the popular will of Americans. Despite the fact that the result was still a forecast and projection from exit polls, the supposed looser had accepted defeat and winner accept victory.

    All these are pointers to the fact that we still have a long way to go for our democracy to be firmly rooted. But we will get there if all the stakeholders in the Nigerian project decide to abide by the simple dictate of democracy and do things right all the time.

    • Tope Ojo is of the PR Unit, Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development, Alausa, Ikeja.

  • US Presidential election: Women gave Obama second term, says American professor

    US Presidential election: Women gave Obama second term, says American professor

    professor of Political Science from the Loyola University Chicago, Richard Maitland, has disclosed that President Barack Obama would have lost his re-election to his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, if not for women.

    Obama defeated Romney in a keenly- contested race already described as the fiercest presidential battle in the history of US presidential elections.

    Maitland spoke in Abuja at a national multi-stakeholders dialogue on enhancing women’s political participation through constitutional and legal reforms in Nigeria organised by the Democratic Governance for Development (DGD) in collaboration with Federal Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development.

    He said women had majority votes that earned Obama the victory, a development he said was because the American President has addressed major issues affecting them.

    According to him: “It is very clear that the majority of the men in the United States of America (USA) voted for Romney during the Presidential election by very small margin but the majority of women voted for Obama by a large margin and when the votes of the two groups were colleted Obama ended up winning the election.

    “You can effectively say he (Obama) won because of the women’s vote and believe me the women’s groups are very happy for him to remain in office because they voted for him and they expect him to do things to support the issues, especially those ones that concern women.

    “Obama has been much more supportive of women groups and issues than Romney was in terms of health care, equal paper, equal works. We expect big changes in the area of immigration from President Barack Obama.”

    A fact sheet obtained by our correspondent showed a shortfall in the number of women elected at state and national levels after the 2011 general elections.

    It said the Senate and the House of Representatives have 6.4% and 6.7% female representatives respectively and in the State Houses of Assembly only 6.9% of the 990 legislators are women.

    However, none of the state executive councils, the document said, meets the minimum 35% gender representation recommended by the National Gender Policy.

    Some of the factors identified for this include: “money politics, patriarchy, indigene-ship issues and lack of access to education and other socio-economic opportunities.”

     

  • Free speech and its expanding list of subtle enemies

    These are not the best of times for free speech. The killing of four American diplomats in Benghazi, Libya, on September 11 by an al-Qaeda affiliate, the al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has brought to the fore in all its ugly ramifications the difficult, if not impossible, relationship between humanity and freedom of expression.

    The killings, if AQAP’s claims are believable, were ostensibly to avenge the killing by US drones in June of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a top ranking al-Qaeda militant of Libyan descent. Libyan authorities seem to think that much more than any other reason, AQAP’s explanation is closer to the truth of what happened in Benghazi last week.

    The Americans are still piecing clues together, but they seem to believe that the killings were connected with the protests by Muslims in many parts of North Africa and the Middle East against the film, Innocence of Muslims, produced and posted on the Internet by an American citizen, Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. YouTube hosts a 14-minute clip of the film that is considered by most people to have excessively denigrated Prophet Muhammad.

    Protests against the film have spread like wild fire in Arabia and some countries even in Europe. While many African countries south of the Sahara have been largely equanimous about the film, public officials in the US and Europe have struggled on one hand with genuine outrage and veiled contrition, and on the other hand with a steely determination to sustain the constitutional freedoms, especially that of speech, that have become integral to their civilisations.

    It is unlikely they will be able to easily resolve the quandary the hated film has put them. In 1988 when Europe was confronted with The Last Temptation of Christ, an award-winning film by Martin Scorsese, state officials were more successful in resisting any temptation to meddle either in restraining the film’s producers or in censoring its availability to cinema houses. Perhaps, too, because of Europe’s sophistication, protests against the film were not too successful. In fact, when a cinema house showing the film in Paris was fire-bombed, a French Minister of Culture at the time remarked that: “Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts.”

    However, the controversy over Scorsese’s audacious film pre-dated 9/11 and the al-Qaeda phenomenon. Since 2001, when al-Qaeda bombed targets in the US, the issue of free speech has assumed more alarming dimensions. In September 2005, a Danish medium, the Jyllands-Posten, published 12 editorial cartoons that depicted Muhammad contrary to Islamic injunctions. The newspaper said at the time that the publication was its own contribution to the debate regarding criticism of Islam and self-censorship. The ensuing riots that greeted the publication and its reprint in more than 50 other countries led to the death of about 100 people and the burning of many Western embassies.
    After the current gale of protests subside, the world, especially Western societies, will have to grapple with the volatile issues relating to freedom of speech. They will once again begin an examination of the difficult question of where free speech ends and intolerance begins, and how to disaggregate blasphemy in a world of shifting mores, values, interpretations and reassessment of religious principles and practices.

    The world will also have to examine whether the reactions to the Basseley film are just one more landmark in the so-called clash of civilisations between Western culture, or perhaps Christianity, on one hand, and Islamic values on the other hand; or whether the conflicts between the two civilisations merely mask geopolitical struggles in which Israel is at the core.

    What cannot be denied is that the West is finding it difficult to react with the same equanimity with which they often tackle problematic issues relating to the freedoms that underpin their societies. Like the deliberately provocative Danish cartoons, and now the Basseley film, there will be yet more provocations, some fairly harmless, and others quite lurid, to test the frontiers of free speech.

    Western societies do not think free speech must be circumscribed by borders when it comes to religion. Arabia and many Muslim societies think there is a red line that must not be crossed. The current furore will, therefore, not be the last in a world that seems to be growing increasingly and overtly less tolerant. Countries like Nigeria may be unable to contribute meaningfully to the debate, given its peculiar religious tapestry, but advocates of free speech must feel relieved to know that there are still parts of the world that allow or enable challenges to the orthodoxies of the day, whether those orthodoxies are religious, political or cultural.

    For in the end, it must be obvious to all that the world did not start out as either Christian or Muslim, or as any other religion for that matter. What religious texture the world will wear at the end of history, if indeed history will end, remains to be seen.