Tag: Ameyo Adadevoh

Our Girls’ are still missing since April 15. This is unbelievable as is what the families are going through! The spat between government and the Bringbackourgirls campaign should be terminated immediately. The suggestion that a political party is responsible for Boko Haram is ridiculous even though it had some of its origins in political thuggery. Now thugs are politicians themselves having overthrown the hand that fed and led them by cutting out the ‘middle man’.

Dr Ameyo Adadevoh has painfully been laid to rest and also her stance as a proud doctor of integrity has been reinforced by sympathisers at a Night of Tributes and a Funeral /Commendation service activities in Lagos, Nigeria and Accra, Ghana where the President of Ghana honoured her.  Of course we would all have preferred her to be with her husband, son, family, colleagues and Nigerians in general. However she has gone to face an interview to fill a vacancy in Heaven that we are sure she has already passed with flying colours and is her usually sparkling self even in Heaven. The Dr Ameyo Adadevoh Foundation set up to conduct research especially in viruses is a welcome contribution to research and a valuable way of perpetuating Ameyo’s good name.  We must also note that if six months ago, Ameyo or anyone in clinical or research medicine or veterinary medicine had applied for a research grant for ‘Awareness About Deadly Viruses’, ‘Availability Of Deadly Virus Preventive Clothing Kits’, ‘Viruses In Bush Meat Samples In Nigeria’,  or ‘Vaccination Status Against Deadly Viruses In Nigeria’ or applied for ‘More Media Outreach Education For Deadly Viruses’  we in medicine know that such a person, and even Adadevoh herself,  would have been sent packing as ‘dreaming’ or ‘unrealistic or planning to ‘waste scarce funds’.

Do you know how much brilliant research has been reduced to nothingness by a near absence of research grants for over 30 years?  Be truthful, how many politicians think research grants are of any value? There are hardly any research grants anyway in spite of the efforts of the National Universities Commission and the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) in this regard, for which we are grateful. All research in Nigeria, arts or science, relevant or utopian, is chronically and seriously under-funded by both government and the private sector. Anyone asking what the budget for ‘Medical Research’ in Nigeria should be, would do well to Google South Africa’s Medical Research Council Grants’ for 2013 and 2014.  There will be found the sums spent by South Africa, not USA or UK or the EU. Research is research. It can never be ‘Nigerian factor’ with short cuts and fictitious results. The reader must be informed of how difficult good research can be in Nigeria where absence of power, libraries, funds and honesty make the truthful researcher an endangered species.  If Nigeria equals South Africa’s volume of medical research funding, that would be something but still not enough. Why? With being the very boastful ‘Largest Economy In Africa’ comes responsibility to deliver deliverables including research fund levels at percentage of budgets just as other countries fund their own medical and other research . This funding must be delivered as a routine, independent of tampering by authorities and politicians.  Remember to google South Africa, Nigeria’s, UK’s, USA’s Medical Research Council or equivalent grants. The supreme price paid by Ameyo, the matron, and others in the line of dedicated and distinguished medical duty was unnecessary. Perhaps it will make the authorities take research seriously for a few minutes? Can we expect more in this knee-jerk, fire-brigade society which always lacks a plan even for seasonal market fires? Remember we still are ravaged by the multiple murdering typhoid, malaria and maternal mortality, (TMM), but who cares? The anti-Ebola strategies are creating massive awareness of queuing and hand washing and improved sanitation, toilet provision, water supply in hospitals, schools, markets and homes. These preventive measures, considered ‘normal signs of civilisation’, must be taken seriously in buildings, approvals for schools, review of government schools, budget allocations and maintenance. Remember the mathematics. One hundred million + will use the toilet, if available 400,000,000+ times. They must be made to last forever, if Dr Adadevoh and other medical professionals are not to have died in vain. Stubborn Nigerians were forced learn the art of queuing from draconic Buhari-Idiagbon military regime. Now ‘NO CONTACT, QUEUE WITH A CONSCIENCE’ to leave ‘ANTI-VIRUS SPACE’ between each person as the manifestation of the fact that ‘’The fear of Ebola is the beginning of ‘NON-CONTACT QUEUES’ wisdom’’. The spin-off is that it may bring the improvement in personal hygiene with reduction in all the biological warfare diseases, TMM.  EMERGENCY RELEASE OF SUCH FUNDS AND EXECUTION OF PROJECTS IS STRATEGIC NATIONAL IMPORANCE.

We salute another hero; a major war hero, untainted retired Brig- General Benjamin Adekunle, aka Black Scorpion, of the Third Marine Commando is dead. Long live his memory. He also cleared the port by dumping most of the unclaimed goods into the Apapa Marina.  The disrespect for soldiers past, especially in the south of Nigeria, laxity in payment of their pensions and refusal to recruit their experienced brains to fight the new security challenges, will be Nigeria’s downfall. We do not need Boko Haram to reach Ore or Ibadan before planning an exit or resistance strategy.

Our Girls’ are tragically still missing since April 15. No word, no comfort for the suffering families.  Imagine if your child or sister was missing for this long. May God grant our government the wisdom to take the correct actions.

A tale of two doctors contrasts the meritorious and self-sacrificing efforts by the late great and gracious Dr Ameyo Adadevoh and dedicated nursing colleagues which prevented further spread of Ebola in Lagos, on the one hand, while another doctor in Port Harcourt, for finance or friendship, takes on an Ebola patient ‘privately’ and treats him successfully even though the doctor, not the patient, died.

The country-destroying immoral and morale-crushing huge, unrealistic and extortionist, ‘Salary and Perks’ SAP, of political people are very relevant to the recent demand by certain elements of that particularly odoriferous breed for the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) to ‘apologise’ to the nation for the recent strike. It bears repeating that most of the demands of the NMA are for better circumstances of service which were glaringly absent at the beginning of the Ebola epidemic; better and more modern equipment, regular painting of stinking casualty and waiting and operating rooms, making cancer investigation equipment and cancer radiation therapy and chemotherapy available in 100 instead of just five hospitals or at least one in every state, introduction of an international yardstick for measuring hospitals and not just the dreaded official disease called the ‘Nigerian factor’ as an excuse for every deviation from the norm or every aberration.

These dirty and disgraceful failures of the system are why senators and representatives, let us leave aside the dubious distinction or horrendous honour, are in office. Setting those goals aside for the ‘selfish goals of’ ‘better ‘conditions of service’ is unfair. Indeed let all Nigerians remind themselves of the ‘spoils of political war’ from ‘winning’ or ‘rigging’ the elections that enriched politicians so much above their station that they can now spit at and even vomit over us as a nation.

Is it not amazing that that we are still struggling to see their stupendous salaries?  Mr NASS MAN AND WOMAN, BEFORE YOU ABUSE DOCTORS and equate them with other professionals with less qualifications and a shorter and easier learning curve, WHAT DO YOU TAKE HOME as SAP?

Where is the equity? Who knows the multimillion naira and dollar salaries and perks paid to each of the Senators, Reps, Special Advisers, Assembly members, LGA members? I do not. They get, but rarely earn and even more rarely deserve, so much of that which forces them to remain silent when asked ‘how much exactly is your often unearned ‘take home pay’?

Using the current media advertorial parlance, Obasanjo ‘did’ it and now Jonathan is, ‘doing it’, screwing Lagos State as of federal right by interfering in its internal affairs through ministers gone berserk. Obasanjo withheld N10 billion for years, the same amount Sanusi as CBN Governor dashed to the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria.  Jonathan’s government while ‘partnering’ on Ebola is very negative on devolution of powers in waterways management as it has sealed off, with soldiers, an MTN building site at the Falomo Bridge-head for several months. The overriding evil in wielding the fist of federal might that has destroyed development for 40 years can never justify taking away a state’s right to develop. The federal fist must be stopped, corrected and defeated in politics and in court. Instead of the needed friendly federal-state big brother- little brother relationship dedicated to every form of accelerated development Nigerians are confronted with and seem helpless, we have a jealousy thing going here and all the jealousy is on the federal side. Are we at war, Federal vs State? As soon as the state want to ease the suffering of its people on federal roads long abandoned to potholes, or along waterways ignored for 49 years, the federal evil knows no bounds in its efforts to curtail, prevent and decimate the efforts of the state and the needless suffering continues as development is stagnated and mediocrity perpetuated.

No nation can grow or cope with modern life if there is a permanent or partial fight between state and federal or indeed state and LGAs. In contrast to today’s federal negative events, the late President  YarAdua ‘did it’ positively with the Lekki Bridge approvals including removal of obstructing federal houses on the water’s edge and Jonathan can ‘do it’ positively by holding off his goons in ‘Ministerial Uniforms’. I believe that the paradox in cooperation with some and not with others between federal government ministries and state is a sickening sign of petty politics gone dangerously wrong where common good is thrown away to punish citizens for not belonging to the federal party. Does Yar’Adua deserve state recognition for his heroic stance in the Lekki Bridge saga? Jonathan can also become a Jonathan ‘did it’ by taking seriously the points raised by the Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola about the neglect of the Apapa Railway terminal which should be carrying heavy goods and containers to other parts of Nigeria. Jonathan’s men may be more preoccupied with ‘partisan politics. However Jonathan is President of all Nigeria and should align his ‘Presidential Agenda’ with commitment to the development agendas of the states of which he is President. Even agriculture has often been sectionalised in favour of some states. How much of the new N50 billion tractor and farm equipment fund will get nationwide distribution?