The Nation Newspaper

Tag: indeed

  • A breakthrough indeed

    Discovery of vaccine for prevention of malaria among the young is a great relief, but a call to duty for African scientists and governments to adequately fund researches

    News that scientists have at last resolved the puzzle posed by malaria in the past centuries has been well received all over the world. The fact that Europe has endorsed the findings and a vaccine produced for the purpose by GlaxoSmithkline has been licensed by the European Medicine Agency (EMA) must have brought relief for many in Africa. By last year, not less than 20 researchers were said to be approaching a breakthrough in the quest to come up with a vaccine that could prevent the disease.

    Malaria has been a major source of worry for parents, especially in Africa, who usually have the unpleasant task of burying their children lost to malaria. The young ones are the most vulnerable as they are exposed to the fury of the Plasmodium parasite responsible for transmitting the deadly ailment that claims the lives of about 600,000 young ones in Africa every year because they are yet to come up with the immunity required. The high mortality rate made malaria the leading killer disease in the continent and thus a major challenge to all – governments, employers, workers, civil society groups, medical authorities, scientists, families, traditional authorities and the general public.

    In many of the least developed countries in the continent, treatment of the patients remains a huge challenge as the drugs are either unavailable or unaffordable. They are thus forced to rely on age-long herbs that have not benefited from advances made in science. While the efficacy of the herbs is not in doubt, there are genuine concerns about appropriate dosage, toxicity and side effects. There have been suggestions that multinational drug manufacturing companies in the West have blocked final endorsement of local researches, this might not fully explain the lethargy by the authorities and thus the slow pace of advances.

    Malaria is not ravaging only the young ones, adults have not been spared either. Although they largely survive, so many man-hours are lost by workers who come down with it. The continent loses so much of its inadequate resources to treating the sick, thus necessitating the quest for a vaccine.

    The endorsement by the European authorities is a critical step forward but it is not time to halt research. The adults, too, deserve a relief. Besides, the mosquitrix still calls for fine-tuning as it has to be regularly reinforced to be effective. Careless parents could forget to top it up, thus leading to failure.

    The region deserves to free resources for the challenge of development and the scientists must continue until they achieve a total breakthrough on an ailment that was once the nemesis of colonialists and missionaries from Europe. Many took ill and died before they could receive help. And, that was at a time that there was actually no potent cure.

    It is an irony that the theatre for waging the scientific war is mainly in Australia, Europe and North America; not much is being done, let alone achieved in this wise in Africa that is bearing the brunt. This attitude must change if we expect the world to respect us. African medical challenges deserve more serious attention by her scientists, backed by the governments. It is not enough to complain that research efforts were being frustrated by European authorities and the World Health Organisation. African leaders must take the lead in the crusade for relevant development. Local research efforts into other largely tropical diseases such as the sickle cell anaemia must be stepped up, while the spread of those ailments and diseases hitherto considered foreign, too, must receive adequate attention.

    While we welcome this cheering news, we note that the challenge is still enormous. It is not yet time to drop the guard.

  • Honourable members indeed!

    SIR: Thursday June 25 will go down the annals of Nigeria’s history as, yet, another day members of the House of Representatives showed how hallowed enough they deemed the “hallowed” Green Chamber of the National Assembly.

    It leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of patriotic Nigerians to see our “Honourable” members engage in fighting for leadership positions aimed at giving them the leverage to amass for themselves and cronies, the wealth of the nation rather than fighting for the entrenchment of true democratic practices or the unleashing of democratic dividends to the to bring them out of the current untoward economic challenges of poverty, unemployment, insecurity, corruption, etc.

    If one may ask, what is honourable about the members when they’re wont to engaging in physical combats for reasons that, in the long run, doesn’t have any positive impact on the citizenry, but instead, leaves them bewildered and dismayed as well as further dent the image of the country?

    It’s utterly appalling to see our supposedly honourable members throw their sense of honour to the winds and engage in physical combats at a time when they should be combating the humongous and burgeoning economic, social, political, cultural and other challenges facing the country.

    To recall that this awful incident is happening at a time when the dust raised by the controversies and intrigues surrounding the elections of NASS leadership had hardly settled down really leaves the citizenry wondering if the 8th Assembly, especially the House of Representatives, is really ready to drive the country’s legislative business to the next level.

    It’s really disheartening to also note that the legislators at the heart of this inglorious fight are members of the ruling APC that had promised Nigerians positive change and a departure from the hitherto, business-as-usual paradigm in the nation’s 16 years of uninterrupted democratic experience. And this has truly left Nigerians bitterly querying the nature and type of change the APC want to bring to them.

    There’s no doubt that our legislative system is a very crucial segment of our current system of government. There’s also no doubt that our legislative arm of government is meant to be populated by individuals who are deemed honourable and respectable due to the fact that they are saddled with the task of making laws that will bring about  the unity, peace and progress of our country.

    However, a situation where these “personalities have decided make fighting and worthless altercations their stocks in trade truly leaves much to be desired. It puts a question mark on the extent to which our legislators, especially those at the House of Representatives, are honourable enough to legislate and produce for the nation, worthwhile laws needed for her holistic development.

    It’s extremely important that while our representatives in the legislative arm of government go about parading themselves as honourable members, they should also realise that true honour isn’t just gotten, but earned; that it doesn’t just come on the basis of desire, but on the basis of the recipient deserving it.

    Our legislators must get off this beaten track of senseless melee in the execution of legislative business, and embark on the true act of legislation, especially in this time and season where the nation’s economy is performing at one of its lowest ebbs.

     

    • Daniel Ndukwe Ekea,

    Umuahia, Abia state.

  • Indeed, there was a country

    The occasional twists and turns of what has come to be known as presidential grandstanding notwithstanding, the crying impotence in governance is deafening. Truth is: our collective wellbeing as a nation is hanging on a knife’s edge even if we have chosen to live in self-denial. The bond that once held us tightly together as a whole is no longer that strong. We mouth indivisibility and oneness as if we have not, at one moment or the other, have cause to question the meaning of those words, especially with the recent outbreak of violence across the land. We swagger on with plastic laughter etched on our faces, conscious of the putrid smell of mutual suspicion that pervades our land. Daily, lives are being needlessly hacked down in hundreds at different communities but even that has not stopped us from having reasons to party and do the macabre dance on the graves of the dead. It is not just the way we shut our hearts to the callous killings that hurts but also the excuses we manufacture to justify our do-nothing posture. And we say we are here for the long haul, in and out of seasons? Are we for real in this country? There was a time that we could truly boast that we lived that mantra—‘…though tribe and tongue may differ, in brotherhood we stand.” That was a time when a university graduate looked forward to serving his fatherland and humanity in any remote village in Borno, Gombe or Yobe. There was a period when mind, body and soul were in accord. Culture, ethnicity and religion had a synergy that could not be broken by the marked differences. It was a period when tolerance was humbled by harmonious conviviality. There were inter-tribal marriages that broke all barriers. The things that should ordinarily tear us apart became the strong pillars that held us together. Businesses were consummated across boundaries and there was that mutual trust that never wavered even in tough times. Not that there were no glitches here and there but it was a generally a healthy competition among citizens of the same nation. It was the time of the ten ‘percenters’ when the public treasury was not yet exposed to the callous rape by modern day looters! Today, the story has turned 180 degrees. Almost all the potential youth corps members in the country are willing to influence their posting to ‘friendly or safe states.’ In fact, parents are becoming apprehensive each time the postings are scheduled for release by the Directorate of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC). And instead of being considerate, the yamheads at the national headquarters of the NYSC are busy posting students to states that are either under threats of insurgent attacks or potentially open to such mindless and violent attacks at any time. It is even more disheartening that those struggling to keep their jobs would rather call on parents to counsel their wards on the need to be patriotic by accepting such questionable posting with equanimity instead of pushing for redeployment. How silly? If I may ask, how many of these ‘patriots’ have willingly looked the other way while their wards and close relations were being posted to these dangerous states to serve the fatherland? Or do they think the monetary compensation paid relatives of the 10 youth corps members that were murdered in cold blood in Bauchi State was good enough compensation for the lifelong trauma of losing a loved one in his or her prime? You may think this is just about the NYSC and its fixation on sending promising youths to murderous grounds. No, it is not. It is more of an elegy about how emotionally-drained and unfeeling we have become as a people. You don’t have to slit the throats of innocent souls or lead a gang of heartless criminals to bomb a worship place to be called a cold-blooded murderer. Traces of criminality can be gleaned from the little things we do to impoverish the other person. I’m not even talking about the high net worth thieves in high places who continue to gobble more and more from the national till. I speak not of the bootlickers around them who evidently have long stopped wearing their thinking caps for a bite of the crumbs. I speak more of the wolves in sheep’s clothing among us – our ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ who inflict the deepest cut on us while, at the same time, patting us on the back. Of course, the kleptocrats in power may not have relented in pummeling the majority into the most demeaning state of poverty ever witnessed in any country that is so blessed as Nigeria. We can’t use that as a basis to justify the madness going in our society. It is, to say the least, mind-chilling to come to terms with the fact these evils are being perpetrated by ordinary citizens against common folks. Sometimes, you can’t but wonder if the hands behind the killings and criminalities were truly Nigerians or some persons from outer space as we often see in the movies. Let’s face it: The unfathomable monstrosities being perpetuated under our noses today are simply unconscionable by any stretch of imagination. So young boys and girls could no longer be assumed to be safe in their dormitories in some parts of the country again? So, villages which once served as havens of fecund interactions with their innocent, agrarian ambience have now become ‘soft targets’ for insurgents who kill, maim and destroy in a senseless battle that has continue to tear this nation apart? So, soldiers now run away from battlefields while poor villagers were left to bite the enemy’s bullets? Is this the country of our dreams or the shattering ejaculations of a 100-year contraption threatening to burst? Is this the country the founding fathers – those fiery nationalists whipping up patriotic fervour during the preindependence days – dreamed of? When, if I may ask, did we turn into monsters that now kill our future as we party on in the pretext that all will be well someday? How can it be okay when our children are being slaughtered, our girls are being abducted and forced into early marriage and school gates are being shut against them? How can it be well when parents now live in fear each time their wards leave for schools, hoping and praying that the eyes of those who denounce western education would not see them? How can anyone sleep with two eyes closed when confirmed and shameless kleptocrats are either being chased with presidential pardon or their families are being wooed with posthumous national honours? In a country where poverty walks on all fours, is it not strange that a man who died some 16 years back and who was posthumously honoured during the centennial celebrations still has billions of dollars of very questionable money stashed in foreign lands? Now, even the children of the dark-goggled one, who actively participated in the record-breaking heist, crave our applause for their shameless effort at pulling down those who sacrificed their lives in order to restore sanity to a land that had become a pariah under the watch of General Sani Abacha! Strange, very queer. Anyway, that’s what democracy offers—the opportunity for mad men and specialists to rant. How much, if we are permitted to ask, has been recovered from the mind-boggling stolen billions by the late General Sani Abacha? $500m which was recently announced by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo- Iweala? More than $2bn as compiled by respected columnist and polemicist, Sonala Olumhense and former boss of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu? Or should we just restrict our findings to the $458m Abacha loot recently ordered to be frozen by the United States Government? Yet, we ask: If Abacha could be so brazen in stealing the country blind at a time when oil revenue was not flowing billions in dollars; I shiver to imagine how much is being stashed away today by all manners of characters in government houses. If the United States’ Acting Assistant Attorney General and Head of the US Justice Department of Criminal Division, Mythili Raman, could describe General Abacha as “one of the most notorious kleptocrats in memory, who embezzled billions from the people of Nigeria while millions lived in poverty,” we can only hazard a guess as to what the US would say about the current leadership which appears to have warmly cuddled corruption and corrupt persons with both arms! Unfortunately, the rot is deeper than what we read on the pages of newspapers. There are too many heart-wrenching stories that remain untold. I speak of the untold tales of families who daily gobble the grief-stricken water that fate dropped on their doorsteps…in silence. Ordinary folks who daily battle to measure up with the thieves in high places have become more deadly in their sickening quest to be rich by all means and at all cost. Today, while millions of parents eke out a living, our children are no longer safe in their homes, in schools or even in worship places. Parents are becoming not just apprehensive but agitated by the fear of the unknown. Just the other day, a 10-year-old was kidnapped right inside a church compound in my area. He regained freedom a week after but not before his parents were made to pay an undisclosed sum of money in addition to the anguish they went through whilst the boy was with his abductors for eight harrowing days. Then, my good friend, Aminu Muhammad, relayed the tragic story of his neighbour’s four-year-old son who was kidnapped on his way from a Quoranic school in the evening and killed 24 hours after his abduction. His sins? Well, the kidnappers were said to have discovered that his parents contacted the police even as they made arrangement to pay the N5m ransom. Question is: who informed the kidnappers that the police had been contacted? An uncle, a niece, a friend to the family or a business partner? These are the kind of stories that kill the spirit. Even youth corps members had been abducted, dehumanised and brutalised without anyone being brought to book! And yet, we carry on as if all is well! How much longer can we continue to sit on our hands and watch as things drift from bad to worse? Where is our humanity? What happened to the brotherhood we all profess? Wither Nigeria?

  • There was, indeed, a country

    There was, indeed, a country

    I have just finished reading Prof. Chinua Achebe’s There was a Country: A personal history of Biafra. Since the publication of the memoir last year to a welter of controversy over what the writer wrote or failed to write, I have declined to enter the fray because I didn’t want to fall into the same line of thought that I always accuse people of – that is judging a book only by its cover or blurb.

    Although I got the book almost as soon as it was off the press in Nigeria, but I never got to read it until recently because I already had some books lined up for reading before its publication. However, I read the excerpt published in The Guardian of London which led to the hail of controversy that subsequently made the book become such a hot cake that it instantly became the first book in Nigeria, at least to my knowledge, which though not a recommended text was pirated in the first few weeks of its publication. In Lagos traffic today the pirated copy is the most hawked and available book apart from the ubiquitous ‘pure water’.

    Although many reviews of the book have been written both in local and international newspapers, I feel that as a reader and as someone who grew up reading the respected writer and regarding him as a role model and no doubt one of the early influences that made me chose my line of career, the book under consideration falls short of what he has, for me, stood for in all his other books, most especially The Problem with Nigeria.

    There is no doubt that Nigeria is a country in search of heroes and role models and intellectuals such as Achebe and the rest of them should at the twilight of their lives look for things that would unite rather than further divide their country of birth.

    In reading There was a Country, I came away with the impression that despite the fact that the civil war ended over four decades ago, people like the much-respected Achebe still, feel the war against his people was still on. This siege mentality must stop and those in a better position to stop it are the Achebes of this world. But if people like him still feel the way he wrote about it in the book, then we have a long way to go.

    I was barely five or so when the war started and I was living in the north then, and though it was not the centre of the war I can, however, attest to it that the pogrom was real and those not killed there died while running back to the East just as it has been happening of recent with the incessant ethno-religious crises that have gripped the North in recent past.

    However, as the Yoruba say, “if you don’t forget yesterday’s shortcomings you will never get one to play with.” It is high time we put the war behind us and think more of how to move beyond our present challenges. The unfortunate civil war has become a sort of industry for many who use it as an excuse to be aggressive and ride roughshod over others and feel sidelined (the siege mentality).

    I was born in the North and lived and schooled there for over three decades, I have also lived in the East and now live in the West. so if anything, I can claim to know Nigeria and Nigerians as much as I know the back of my hand, if you permit the cliché.

    There are so many claims and assertions in There was a Country, which should not have come from a writer with the standing of Achebe. Take for instance this, “There are many international observers who believe that Gowon’s action after the war were magnanimous and laudable. There are tons of treatise that talk about how the Igbo were wonderfully integrated into Nigeria. Well, I have news for them: The Igbo were not and continue not to be integrated into Nigeria, one of the reasons for the country’s continued backwardness, in my estimation.”

    I beg to differ. What I can deduce from this claim by this respected writer is that only the Igbo hold the key to the development of this country! I am afraid; it is this kind of thinking and frame of mind that is holding our country down and responsible for our predicament. This is ethnic supremacy and nonsensical dismissal of other ethnic groups as backward and only meant to be gatemen, gardeners and cooks.

    That is not all; the respected writer believes the decision by the federal government to ban the importation of stockfish and second hand clothes, “two trade items that they knew the burgeoning market towns of Onitsha, Aba and Nnewi needed to re-emerge. Their fear was that these communities, fully reconstituted, would then serve as the economic engines for the reconstruction of the entire Eastern Region.” How can the use of second hand clothes and consumption of stockfish achieve this? Come on we must grow up.

    By my own reading, one of the major pitfalls of the book is that the writer with the role he played as an envoy for the late Chukwuemeka Ojukwu to the former President of Senegal who himself was a distinguished poet and writer, shows that he (Achebe) was a close ally of the late Ojukwu, and based on this premise, a reader like me expected that he should give us a more accurate and detailed portrait of the late Biafran leader.

    But what do we have? Just passing comments that in no way pointed to the mind of the chief planner and executioner of the plan to take his part of Nigeria out of the federation.

    In this memoir at least, we know where the writer stands where the issue of the war, the federation known as Nigeria, General Yakubu Gowon and most especially the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo are concerned, and to some extent, the late Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe. But what does he think of the late Ojukwu? He was dodgy and unclear where the late Biafran leader was concerned. This is not the Achebe I grew up to know and admire. Many things were left unsaid while some of those things said were done with a forked tongue.

    There was, indeed, a country and a war memoir.