The Nation Newspaper

Tag: ruined

  • Ruined by pipeline vandals (2)

    Genesis of widows’ endless tears in Lagos, Ogun communities
    Residents still in trauma two years after oil thieves crisis

    The events that culminated in the travails of the widows, whose husbands were brutally murdered by oil thieves in Arepo, Elepete, Ibafo, Mowe and some other communities in Ogun and Lagos states, was believed to have begun with the decision of security agencies to confront the vandals after years of vandalizing and scooping fuel from the pipelines that crisscross the area. For many years before then, the bandits had swum in a pool of flowing income as they enjoyed uninterrupted access to the pipelines where they scooped unimaginable volumes of petrol.

    They had established for themselves two base stations, upincluding the creeks at Elepete, their abode, and a distribution port where they operated like a legitimate

    enterprise with booming patronage. The magnitude of their operation was such that even petrol stations sent their tankers in droves to a place known as Ogundele Phase 2 to source the commodity at incredibly cheap rates unobtainable elsewhere.

    Unfortunately, the vandals could not come to terms with the ill tide of dwindling revenue after the pipelines were shut and secured by security agents posted to the area by the Federal Government. They also believed that the inhabitants of the said communities were responsible for giving information to security agents about their operations.

    The secretary of Ogundele Community Development Area (CDA), Mr Oloruntoyin Alli, said: “I have lived in this community for close to 10 years. The military people settled here about five years ago. Before then, they (pipeline vandals) were in business and everyone, including some of the landlords, enjoyed doing business with them because their fuel was cheaper and more affordable. But the government shut down the pipelines and that brought an end of their business.

    “A conflict they had with one of their clients who refused to pay them for the fuel they had supplied him became the yoke that broke the camel’s back. They went to his filling station, vandalised it and also stole from it. The client alerted the state Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) which raided their camp at Elepete and killed two of the gang members. With that, the pipeline vandals, believed to be made up of militants from the Niger Delta region, began to terrorise Elepete community on the grounds that they sniffed on them and exposed them to the police. The raid left some people shot while properties were vandalized.

    “With their illegal oil business brought to a sudden end, they turned to stealing livestock reared by the people while some housewives were hijacked from their families. Unfortunately, it took about two weeks after the incident before the government intervened by bringing in a war jet to dislodge the militants. They have since deployed soldiers to maintain the peace.”

    According to the Secretary, Elepete CDA, Mr. Omodele Adebayo a.k.a. Eto, the community was yet to recover from the desertion that struck it after the incident. Many businesses relocated permanently with severe losses, while the courageous ones who stayed back found it difficult to revive their businesses.

    “Up until now, I can count more than 10 shops that people are no longer using. The hotel that was generating a lot of revenue has not bounced back till now because the place was totally ruined. The owner herself cannot come back for fear of the unknown,” he said.

    Corroborating his claims, Alli said: “Before the incident, dealers in building materials had a swell time because the area was just developing. The landlords who were benefiting from the vandalism were making enough to patronise sellers.”

    Elepete was not left out of the massacre as some unfortunate artisans and traders were also gunned down. Nasiru Kalid, a 26-year-old petty trader from Kebbi State, only narrowly escaped death when the militants stormed his shop with different kinds of ammunition. But his brother was not that lucky. He was shot dead as he left the mosque after the Ramadan prayers. It took Nasiru about two years and the reassuring presence of the Nigerian Army to return to his shop.

    ‘Our children now know war’

    “Don’t move! Don’t move! I’ll shoot your leg!” These are some of the lines commonly heard among playing group of children since the saga. The tender psyches of the kids have been testament to the sorts of oppression that could be done with the possession of dangerous ammunition.

    “When my children sleep at home and just peep through the window, they easily suspect that the militants are back. Their thinking is so impacted that once they see something, they tag it as a gun,” a parent said.

    Busari’s children, Islamiat, Jamiu and Bashiru, may never know what it means to grow with a fatherly figure. “On a particular day, my third born asked, ‘Mummy, don’t we have a daddy anymore?’ I only told him not to worry,” Mrs Busari recalled.

    The four-year-old twins of Mr. Lucky Udoh, Epkono and Eno, can hardly recall anything about him other than the biscuits he used to buy for them. Their eldest brother, Prince, wants to study Law or Political Science in the university but has had to pull through a N9,000 packaging job at a water factory to support his vegetable-trading mother.

    “Even if I excel in the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examination, there is no financial support to pursue my dream,” said 17-year-old Prince.

    The proprietor, Effectual Nursery and Primary School, Mrs Anyiayo, can no longer boast of the same success she had had running the school years after the incident. She had to shut down the school for more than six months because parents were withdrawing their wards and relocating. A class of 15 pupils, she said, shrunk to two.

    She said: “I closed down the school and travelled to my village. It was from the village that I was called that peace had returned. My premises were overgrown with grass. We restarted with coaching. From three, they increased to five and more. Very few pupils returned because most of their parents had relocated.”

    Mr Adebayo, a supervisor at a popular secondary in Igbo-Olomu, said students’⅞ performance dropped terribly as they missed parts of the syllabus to be covered for the period.

    “We had to jump and continue.  We are still appealing to the government for help, and those that have not returned to do so,” he said.

    Worries over government’s silence

    The question on the lips of many observers is why the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) endured the colossal breach of its facilities without prompt rectification; why the authorities watched on as Ogundele carved a niche as a renowned petroleum depot, and later on, a bloodletting theatre.

    There were suspicions that many of the bandits operated in connivance with some soldiers and policemen. There were claims in some quarters that the vandals paid ‘royalties’ to some security personnel who came on incessant patrols until the illegal business ended. This eroded the confidence of residents in the ability of the security agencies to rein in the bandits.

    Adebayo said: “Based on fear and panic, residents of Elepete could not go far to report the goings on to the authorities or government. We believed that the government itself knew that such things were going on in the area and people were smuggling fuel out. We were afraid. The weapons they were wielding at that time were quite intimidating.”

    Alli said: “During the heat of that invasion, there was nothing we could do. Those we ought to report to were practically their business partners. The security personnel who came to guard us then from Ishawo usually came here to collect money.  That clearly showed us we had no one to fight for us besides God.”

    The national oil firm, in its financial and operations report for 2017, said it recorded tremendous rise of 233 per cent in pipeline vandalism in January of the year under review compared to the preceding month, despite the interventions of the Federal Government and stakeholders.

    Noting that the activities of the vandals had complicated the smooth flow of petroleum and crude supply system, it said over N174.57 billion had been lost through product losses and repairs in the last 15 years.

    According to the corporation, the combined working capacity of all the 21 Pipelines and Product Marketing Company (PPMC) depots nationwide, excluding holding capacities at the refineries, could provide products sufficiency of up to 32 days for petrol, 65 days for kerosene and 42 days for diesel, but unfortunately, that had not been realised. The data further indicated that a total of 16,083 pipeline breaks were recorded within the last 12 years.

    Withdrawal of soldiers, return to status quo

    From Elepete to Ogundele, the earnest plea is that government should not withdraw the troops as any other attack would lead to another mass desertion. The Coordinator, Elepete Community Development Association (CDA), Akeem Yisau, told The Nation that the recovery effort by the community has only been feasible with the presence of soldiers.

    During the crisis, the infrastructural facilities such as the central transformer were shut down. The community had independently spent N500,000 on short bridge, graded its roads and is currently constructing a central linking bridge with Ogundele community. These investments, they fear, could stagnate if adequate security is not maintained to prevent a reoccurrence.

    Yisau said: “Our hope and prayer is that soldiers would not leave Elepete. If they leave today, you would not find a single soul in this community. We still have the feeling that the militants are still around but are calm because of the presence of soldiers. We appeal to the Federal Government that we still need more soldiers here because there are hidden places that the army cannot deploy their men to. The soldiers available are not enough to guard us.”

    Adejide Omiyale, the coordinator, God First CDA, also appealed to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to beef up security around its facilities against future occurrences of vandalisation, saying it would go a long way to sustain the relative peace in the area.

    Going forward

    The menace of pipeline vandalism was previously only associated with the Niger Delta region for which in response the Federal Government set up the Joint Task Force (JTF).  The question bothering many, therefore, is how the country measures the depth of corruption in a sector responsible for about 90 per cent of its foreign exchange earnings and 80 per cent of government revenue.

    From past indications, determining the impact of corruption in the oil and gas sector, usually, means economic analyses of depleting or accruing revenue base visà-vis production performance. Hence, the country stays economically sensitive to any threat capable of cracking its pot of gold, reacting with considerable level of concern. But hardly is attention paid to the invaluable cost that individual victims pay when brazen corruption is allowed to fester.

    When the Niger Delta militants resumed disruptive activities in pursuit of long-agitated benefits two years ago, for instance, their action was easily measured by decreased output of about 500 million barrels per day. The closure of Royal Dutch Shell Forcados export terminal, the following event, was economically explained as pared production of 250,000 barrels a day. Not long after, a Chevron shutting following a security breach at one of its facilities was also explained as an additional deficit of 90,000 barrels. The consequence, according to OECD data, is a landmark 20-year low in oil production.

    Of the 2.5 million barrels estimated daily capacity, theft independently accounted for a mind boggling loss of about one million barrels per day during the last administration, according to President Muhammadu Buhari whose administration rode in on anti-corruption mantra in 2015. Renewing the call for a halt to corruption last February when he spoke to local and foreign oil stakeholders at the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit (NIPS) in Abuja, he stressed that his government was tirelessly working to instill transparency at all levels of oil and gas transactions.

    “Corruption in this industry must not be allowed in any form. On our part, we will not stop the fight until a new image is created where transparency will be the watchword in all our transactions,” he said.

  • Ruined by lead Poisoning

    Ruined by lead Poisoning

    Pathetic tales of Niger, Zamfara children exposed to brain damage, death.

    “I lost three children in succession, the first died a day after birth, I had another and she died four days later, the third stayed for seven months and died, you can imagine my terror, when I gave birth to the fourth and a month later, realised he was headed on the same path as the others”

    This is one of many tales from Ngwan Magiro, one of two villages in Shikira community, of Kagara in Raffi Local Government Area of Niger state, where twenty eight children were reported dead in May 2015. Any many of the villagers insist that the seemingly high figure was grossly under- estimated

    Thrity-year-old mother of five, Amina Umaru explained that her worst nightmare began repeating itself for the fourth time when she noticed her month old son, Abdulrasheed Umaru foaming in the mouth, convulsing as his eyes turned back into his skull, while vomiting and purging at the same time.

    “I knew it was the same illness, because that was how the other three died.” she said.

    For 19 years old Aina’u Musa, from Ngwan Kawo, the story is a bit different, one minute, her one year old daughter Zapa’u was playing with other children, the next minute, the children ran back home to tell her that Zapa’u was convulsing and foaming in the mouth.

    “I was scared, I had no experience with it because none of my children before her had suffered from it before, I had only heard tales of the sickness.” She said.

    Before the outbreak of lead poisoning was officially confirmed in Shikira community, parents like Amina and Aina’u had thought that the illness was spiritual and could be healed by local herbalists who presented the parents of the sick children with herbs. They prepared for the troubled mothers a herb inhalation therapy to be administered on their children orally and as ointments. Unfortunately the children’s condition got worse and they died.

    Miles away from Shikira, in Abare, Anka Local Government Area of Zamfara State, Najib Muhammed was born healthy, he was fond of running around with his peers until his second birthday in 2010 when an illness his parents thought was a mere fever developed into something more severe.

    Like parents from villages in Dareta, Abare, Tungar Daji, Duza, Yargalma, Tungar Guru, Sumke and Bagega, in Anka and Bukkuyum Local Government Areas of Zamfara State where an outbreak of lead poisoning was reported in 2010, leading to the death of over 400 children (about 40 per cent of the children’s population in the said village), Najib’s parents thought he was possessed by a demons when the fever and convulsion worsened. The herbs and steam inhalation therapy failed to achieve the desired result.

    Just like the others, his parents took him to spiritual healers called mallams, who make incisions on such children’s bodies to let out the bad blood in their system, when it did not work, verses from the Quaran was written out for the parents to recite to chase out the evil bedevilling Najib but he condition continued to get worse even after a charm known as laya was tied around him to ward off the evil spirit his parents felt was tormenting him.

    The discovery

    In Zamfara and Niger states, cases of lead poisoning was reported in 2010 and 2015 respectively, after unusual deaths in the community made the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health to take samples and found dangerous levels of lead in the bloodstream of humans and animals, it was realised that the high level of lead in children under five was causing the unusual deaths with symptoms, including fever, abdominal pains, vomiting, convulsion, altered levels of consciousness, where blood lead levels of 100 mcg/dL put children at high risk of brain damage and death.

    Exposure to lead poisoning can occur through direct injection and inhalation. Children are at higher risk since they always pick things that might have been  contaminated from the ground to put into their mouths. While high level of the lead poisoning in children can be fatal, in adults can cause constipation, memory problems, infertility, risks of miscarriage, kidney failure. Lead is also passed through the placenta and children can be born with lead poisoning. Once present, the effect of lead poisoning can be life long.

    In states where the outbreak of lead has been reported in Nigeria, investigations show that the outbreaks were caused by artisanal mining activities due to wide spread gold ore dust suspected to be contaminated with lead. In the last decade, the international price of gold has increased, pushing more people into mining and as a quicker way of making money.

    After blood samples were collected in both states and it was confirmed that the children, adults and animals in these communities were found to have high level of lead poisoning. After the outbreak was reported in Zamfara in 2010, Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders or MSF) offered their assistance. In Niger, they where invited in 2015 following their work in Anka, where they had set up a clinic at the General hospital in Anka and other smaller clinics within the other communities.

    After testing the environment, people and livestock in these villages, environmental and safer mining practice education was embarked upon in the communities, where after characterisation, miners were educated on centralising the processing of ore in locations at least two kilometres away from villages and ensure working materials are not brought back home with them.

    Since it was realised through environmental assessment, which is called characterisation that the soil in these communities where highly contaminated, environmental soil remediation was embarked upon by the Federal Government, where all the soil in the villages and compounds where removed and replaced. Then MSF embarked on treatment of children below the ages of five, who are at higher risks of developing extreme health complications from the exposure than older individuals.

    Treatment

    The major treatment used in these communities is the Chelation therapy, the drug called Succimer,  which is manufactured by only one company globally, has to be booked six months in advance before it is made and it costs €3 (about N1,200) per tablet, which is provided for the children free. This expensive drug is unfortunately just a band-aid which helps decrease mass mortality in children.

    Research shows that when lead enters the blood stream, it goes and settles in the bone marrow. So, for the therapy, the affected children are given succimer for up to 19 days, depending on the concentration of lead in the in the body, which extracts the lead from their blood-stream. They rest for a couple of weeks, and in the process, the marrow releases more lead into the blood-stream and chelation is repeated again. This process can last for years before the lead level is reduced in such children.

    The Project Coordinator MSF Niger state, Benjamim Mwangombe explained that after environmental assessment was completed in Shikira communities, it was realised that lead contamination was up to 570,000 parts per million (ppm) in some areas, within the villages which exceeds the United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) hazard standard for bare soil where children play, which is 400 ppm of lead.

    According to him, In Ngwan Kawo and Ngwan Magiro, 210 children where screened, in August 2016, out of them 96 had high level of lead in their blood-stream. It meant they where above 45 mcg/dL, which is above the level required and means that children can develop worst health complications like brain damage, so they are eligible for Chelation therapy. He stated that all 210 children where exposed to lead but only 96 where at high risk of developing acute medical complications and have been put on treatment while the others are made to constantly return for follow-ups.

    Mwangombe adds, ” It is likely that many people have been exposed. We can only treat children with high risk. In Ngwan Kawo for instance, a child was having convulsion, after screening, we realised the child had 300 mcg/dL.”

    In Anka, Zamfara state Project Coordinator MSF, Zakaria Mwatia clarified that since the start of the project in June 2010, 6,177 patients have been screened, out of that 2,978 patients started chelation therapy. In 2016 alone, 325 new cases have been screen and of them, 95 will be undergoing the chelation.

    He also stated that since the inception of the program in Anka six years ago 4,536 patients have been treated successfully. This number has been discharged from the programme. And of the number, 341 patients where discharged from the program within 2016.

    Mwatia, who insist that mortality rate from lead in children under five in the communities in Zamfara has been wiped out to zero level, stated that 754 patients were currently in the program for treatment or follow-up. Of this number, he said, 18.0 per cent representing 133 children were undergoing chelation, 68.0 per cent  which represents about 512 children, had completed treatment but were still in the programme for follow-up in case their blood levels spikes again and 14 per cent, which is about 109 children are on follow-up, they have never received treatment because the lead level in their blood-stream seemed not to ever get to the scary level.

    Mwatia lamented that some children are being re-exposed to lead in Abare and Dareta communities after they were remidiated. The children, he said, were re-contaminated by people who still smuggle in gold dust and equipment into the villages. This he said, makes some children stay longer in treatment than others or cause children that have been treated and discharged, fall ill again. He also said, “325 new screening have been performed this year alone, 90 per cent of the number are new-born children.”

    Ignorant miners

    “We did not know that we where harming our children by returning home with gold dust.” said Leader of the Madaka Miners, Shuaibu Usman. “We where only trying to safeguard our hard work from prying eyes and thieves, not kill our children.”

    Usman explained that after MSF had educated them on the reason for the outbreak that befell their communities last year and ways to prevent it, they had been listening and willing to change some of the things they did that led to the outbreak in the first place. He added that they are willing to learn from the new things being taught them, to ensure safer mining activities in their villages and they support MSF per cent.

    The Sarkin Baura and Chairman Health Committee in Anka Local Government Area of Zamfara state, Zubairu Muhammed said the outbreak of lead Poisoning in the communities began during the period of polio immunisation which caused some villagers at the time to believe that their children where being killed off with the vaccine, not until the CDC and Ministry of health confirmed that the deaths was being caused by lead.

    Muhammed who praised the Federal Government for the money it had released for remidiation, therapy and safer mining measures in the community, did not forget to applaud the efforts of MSF, “MSF assisted us a lot, we are honestly grateful to them.” he said.

    He added that the emirate council forces the miners to take their uniforms with them to the site, as they have been provided with mining gears by the ministry of mines in Gusau, which provided them with rain boots and protective devices. The council also enforced a law that makes them bathe miles away from their communities before returning home after mining.

    Road so far

    Six years after his exposure to lead, Najib’s brain is damaged. The eight year old can no longer walk, talk, sit or do anything on his own. “They told us that the lead had gotten to his brain and that he might never get better but worse. I’m glad they told me the truth because we where able to prepare our minds for the worst.” said Najib’s father, 45 years old Labaran Muhammed and father of 12.

    Apart from Najib, 39 other children in the Anka program are suffering from various degrees of brain damage due to lead poisoning. Doctors say that all the nerves in his body have been damaged to the extent that he can no longer do anything, even swallow on his own. MSF, a few months ago sponsored an operation that enabled doctors pass a tube directly into his stomach so that his parents feed him.

    Aisha, Najib’s slight mother who carter’s for him and does all the heavy lifting, believes that God has a reason for everything in his life. “God takes care of us, I feed him pap through the tube and his father takes him to the hospital for the tube to be dressed often.”

    Eight months old Abdulrasheed and one and half year old Zapa’u are among the children presently undergoing chelation therapy at the program in Madaka, Zapa’u’s excited mother said that she has improved greatly, Aina’u who explained that Zapa’u was initially admitted for three weeks at the General Hospital in Kagara, said that she is improving. “Apart from constantly jerking in her sleep, she is much better, the doctors have asked us to return in two months for the next round of treatment.” she said.

    “Apart from his body temperature still being high, he has improved greatly.” says Amina who also revealed that her husbands second wife had equally lost two children to lead poisoning. “I probably would have lost him if not for them and their medicine.”

    On the issue of re-contamination of  two communities in Zamfara which had earlier on undergone remidiation, the Special Adviser to the Governor of Zamfara state on Public enlightenment and media communications, Ibrahim Dozara promised the government will look into the issue. He said the government, after remidiation, had instructed community leaders to report miners who still break the rules set aside to prevent re-contamination of such communities.

    “It will be looked into and necessary actions taken.” he said.

    Head of Mission MSF, Philip Aruna clarified that the situation on lead was not yet over because the activities carried out by small scale and artisinal miners, looking for money in other parts of the country might further expose them to lead.

    “The way forward is for the government to embrace a workable safer mining program that will incorporate the artisinal and small scale miners.” he said.

     

     

  • If our world is ruined, we are to blame

    We speak in several pitiful tongues. And every tongue reels a different story of identical loss and misery. And so one comes to callousness, a savage ruthlessness and culture of protest that drives us to ruin our world; dateline Boko Haram, MEND, Ombatse and the complex bigotry, avarice and bloodlust characteristic of all. Yet this page will not contain the genocide, amorality and grotesque body count we have learnt to perpetrate not because they are too horrendous and unwieldy to keep tab of but because there is neither wisdom nor tact in rehashing the consequences of our towering silliness and bloodlust.

    We blame the older generation for everything. We claim they created a very difficult world for us to live in; a world that is rigged to booby-trap our efforts to survive and that is why many of us fail. We also accuse the ruling class of keeping us unemployed, prone to corruption, exploitation, crime and the devastation of our economy and social infrastructure. We accuse them of denying us access and right to the Nigerian dream.

    What have we done with such world that they have given us? What are we doing to make it better for you and me and the generation that will succeed us? Nothing. Rather than evolve in thought and attitude, we choose to rant impotently and wallow in self-pity. And when we choose to productively engage our faculties, our conscious quest is marred by our inclinations to self-destruct.

    If our world is ruined, we are to blame for it. This is because we are major actors in every tragedy and perpetrators of every calamity that accentuates our ruin. We are the hoodlums causing chaos at random, according to the whims of benevolent godfathers. We are the policemen mounting road blocks to fleece hardworking compatriots of the little money they manage to make, everyday. When they refuse to cooperate, we simply shoot them to death.

    We are the bankers pilfering the lifesavings of the poor. We are the bank chiefs stripping Peter to pay Paul and robbing the downtrodden to feed our wantonness and greed. We are wives to the thieving governor, and gigolo to the rogue bank chief. We are the journalists who sold out, the watchdog who became lapdogs and then, dung-dogs. We are armed robbers and thieves. We are the activists exploiting the downtrodden to perpetuate our grand schemes of greed.

    No matter the ills visited upon our generation, we lost the right to howl and cry ‘foul!’ the moment we agreed to do everything and anything to make money, including serving as instruments for the attainment of the perverse goals of the criminal ruling class.

    Shame that we have to look unto the same generation that we accuse of ruining our world to take measures necessary to save our world. The current ruling class won’t save us. They can’t. And that is because like you and me, they are held captive by greed, irrationality and base immoralities.

    Every generation considers itself uniquely challenged like we do and each generation truly is, in different ways. But I don’t buy into over-generalizations and self pity. Like we accuse older generations before us, successive generations will accuse us of ruining their world claiming we had better chances to resolve our crises and recreate the world that they would inherit from us.

    Our sense of entitlement goads us to believe that we are entitled to a good, fair life but for the ruling class and older generation that continually thwart our dreams of bliss. When the older generation claim that we are ill-educated and unemployable, we respond in kind, claiming that they render us so with visionless leadership and substandard education. Truth is, school is a bore to many of us. And artisanship doesn’t quite do it for us. We breeze through school and apprenticeship unenthusiastically, thinking that somewhere or somehow, something would give and we would chance on bliss. Ill bliss to be precise.

    Notwithstanding, some of us enter the labour market thinking it wouldn’t hurt to be exploited a little. Having being raised on the mantra that “Slow and steady wins the race and tiny drops make an ocean,” we subject our will to the grindstone and stoically tread the path of obedience and honest labour. But the path of industry and honesty hardly ever pay off in the long run.

    Eventually, we realize that the system is designed to thwart our dreams while enabling the dreams of the exploitative one per cent at the top, and we get mad. We get mad because our leaders do not see us as human beings with cosmic value and rights anymore. But despite our dissatisfaction, we keep them in power and keep asking them for handouts. Our rage and rant hardly ever articulates our towering need for realistic opportunities.

    We do not choose to be treated with dignity. That is why the government and our employers become entitled to take away our dignity. That is why we are entitled to expect nothing from our politicians anymore. We should be ashamed of our sense of entitlement. We should be embarrassed by our failure as a generation. We should be ashamed that we go through life thinking the world’s a sweepstake.

    We believe the world is for the taking by a lottery; this is understandable as a carrot on a stick that the top one per cent – comprising government and big business – perpetually dangle before us. Thus the Nigerian dream has evolved from a promise and belief that every Nigerian will get to have a good life, a job they enjoy, a generous paycheck, affordable housing, healthcare and transportation and a secure retirement, into some reality show fantasy and a pipedream.

    Today, the Nigerian dream comprises a tall fantasy that every Nigerian will get to live a charmed life. It offers attractive fantasies of palatial residences in exclusive neighbourhoods home and abroad, fancy cars, easy money, consequence-free indolence, sex, fraudulence and violence to mention a few. The Nigerian youth consider these perks their birthright and they heartily pursue them on the streets and now ubiquitous reality TV shows where parents and their children from relatively humble backgrounds engage in funfest of foolishness and inordinate lust for unearned riches. The tragedy of this development resonates in the number of ‘has-beens’ and reality show runners-up still loitering the red carpets for the barest chance to hug the limelight for no justifiable reason or attainment.

    Each generation has a responsibility to wisely develop itself and become indispensable to the world despite all odds. It is the only way we could equip ourselves to take over the country’s leadership and use the resources and power available to us to provide this generation and the next, a secure, sustainable country that will be stronger than the one inherited.

    We need to stop whining and begin to take action now to reverse the rapid decline of our country. If we wait until we are older, it will be too late. Life in the future will be worse.

    Our hubris and sense of entitlement is sickening and truly mind boggling. It’s about time we seek our Nigerian dream not because we are ‘special’ but because we truly deserve it.

  • Ruined from the cradle

    Ruined from the cradle

    • Pathetic tales of children whose dreams are shattered by cancer

    His voice quaked and despondency covered his face as he began the distressing story of his battle with a form of cancer known as Hoghkin Lymphoma. Six-year-old Tofunmi Adebayo became even more emotional as his eyes came in contact with those of his mother who was seated opposite him. The red rims of his misty eyes blinked and tears began to roll down his tender cheeks.

    “It is very sad that I am living with cancer at this tender stage of my life. It doesn’t make me feel happy at all. Some of my peers have died as a result of this, and each time they die in the hospital, we cry and beg God to spare our lives. I want to live; I don’t want to die,” he said.

    Tofunmi is not bothered only by the pains he suffers but also by the trouble his condition has put his parents through. “I really pity my parents and wish I could save them all the pains they are going through because of me,” he said. “But it is not my fault that this has happened to me. I have not done anything to warrant this kind of challenge.”

    Added to his anguish is the fact that doctors have asked him to stay away from school for fear that he could contract infections that would compound his condition.

    “The fact that I have been asked to stay away from school makes me even sadder,” he said. “I love going to school and I am worried because I don’t know how long this will last.

    “I feel sad when I see my colleagues going to school and I wish I could join them.”

    Explaining why he was asked to stay away from school, Tofunmi’s mother, Mrs Omolara Adebayo, said: “He stopped going to school in February because doctors said he is prone to infections. They said that chemotherapy usually weakens their immune system and if he catches any little infection, it can worsen his health condition and that could lead to anything.

    “They gave us a number of examples. And if you have been to that department in LUTH (Lagos University Teaching Hospital), you will see children dying every day.

    “When we went there last week, three children died. I keep giving God all the glory because the same kind of treatment that my son went through without me by his bedside, they did it for two children after him and they died.”

    Narrating how Tofunmi’s predicament started, she said: “When it started, I didn’t know it was cancer. The right side of his neck was swollen when he came back from school one afternoon. I also discovered that his temperature was very high, but I took it for malaria. We treated him and both the swelling and the temperature subsided. That was in 2013.

    “After some time, the swelling came up again and we gave him the same treatment. Then in the afternoon of January 15, 2014, he came back from school and a woman, who is a nurse, saw him and shouted, ‘What is wrong with you?’ I took him to the school clinic where the doctor prescribed a drug called Augmentine for him.

    “Five days after, the swelling didn’t go down. With the help of the nurse, I took him to the medical centre where she worked. We did series of tests and scans. They suspected tuberculosis or lymphoma.

    “There was a test we were supposed to do at the medical centre but they couldn’t do it because of his age. We therefore took him to LUTH where the test was done. We took the result to the laboratory where it was confirmed that he is suffering from Hogkins Lymphoma.”

    Three-year-old Ebuka Agwu’s condition is even more heart-rending. He was barely four months old when he was found to be suffering from cancer of the eye. He has since lost both eyes to the sickness. While Ebuka’s age mates are being conveyed  to school, his parents have to take him to the hospital.

    His distraught father, Christopher, explains the genesis of his problem thus: “My son was barely four months old when his eyes started shinning like those of a cat. Suspecting that it could be a medical condition, we took him to LUTH where they asked us to go and do a scan. The cost of the scan was very high and we couldn’t afford it.

    “We waited for a while and travelled to the Federal Medical Centre in Owerri where a test was done and the two eyes were found to be having some challenges. They referred us to Enugu.

    “When we got to Enugu, they wanted to do a surgery but because he was underage, they couldn’t do it. He developed high temperature each time they took him to the theatre. I eventually asked them to refer us back to LUTH, where the operation was done 11 months after he had lost one of the eyes. After that, they said he would go through chemotherapy, which they said would cost N1.8 million. I couldn’t afford it, so I asked them to discharge us. They did and we went home.

    “One and a half years later, the growth in the other eye burst. I was away from the house when my other children called to say that the growth had burst. When we got back to the hospital, the doctors were shocked and could no longer recognise him. Thereafter, we started the chemotherapy.

    “He is on the seventh stage of the nine stages now. This is a very terrible sickness. It kills children on a regular basis. No fewer than 10 children that I know have died since I started taking my son to the hospital.”

    The innocent boy, according to the father, has been psychologically traumatised by the hurting treatment he gets each time he visits the hospital. He runs away from everybody apart from his mother, believing that they could be doctors.

    The experience played itself out when our correspondent visited their house. All the efforts made to convince him that the visitor was a teacher and not a doctor proved abortive. He cried uncontrollably until he was left to move away from the visitor’s sight.

    “He runs away from everybody including me,” his father said, “because I have been the one taking him to the hospital. It is only the mother that he allows to carry him. If I go close to him, he will run away because he would think that I want to take him to the hospital again.”

    His mother added: “I am moved to tears each time I see Ebuka and other children of his age. A lot of his peers have died in the hospital ward since we started his treatment. I know that God has a purpose for keeping him alive till today.”

    A mother’s agony

    Reliving the circumstances in which his son, Abayomi, died of stomach cancer, a bereaved mother, said: “He was 11 years old when the problem started. He came back from school one day having high temperature. I took him to the hospital and treated him for malaria and typhoid. After some time, the problem started all over, to the extent that he couldn’t sleep at night.

    “When we took him to Federal Medical Centre, we were asked to do some tests. The tests showed that he was having cancer of the stomach. We then took him to LUTH.

    “After some time, the sickness affected his eyes, made the head to be swollen and the stomach to shoot out. I am a widow. I did all I could to save his life, but he passed away after two years.

    A survivor’s story

    Chidera, a 13-year-old junior secondary school student, is one of the few survivors of the lethal sickness. Recalling her ordeal while the sickness lasted, she said: “I was scared when the doctor said I had cancer. I kept praying that God should save my life. My harrowing experience has kindled my interest in becoming a medical doctor. I also want to save the life of other people just the way my life has been saved.”

    Her lucky mother recalled how she became victim of leg cancer, saying: “It happened while she was having her bath. She slipped on the tiles and injured her leg. We took her to local bone setters for treatment but the problem didn’t abate. We later took her to Igbobi (orthopaedic hospital) and she was diagnosed with cancer of the leg.

    “We later took her to LUTH for proper medical attention. I thank God she is better today, although we still visit the hospital for treatment and tests.

    “It has really been a challenging period for me because I lost my husband in the heat of the problem and have nothing to fall back on again because we have lavished everything on her treatment.”

    Distraught parents narrate ordeal

    Owing to the huge cost of attending to the health conditions of their children, the parents lamented that they have literally become beggars as they have spent all they have on the treatment of their children. Mrs Adebayo said: “His (her son’s) predicament has affected everybody in the family. I have not been feeling well for some time now. It has not been easy in terms of finance. We have become gravely indebted taking care of his health condition.

    “It is an understatement that I earn nothing at the end of every month even though I am working and getting paid. To go out, I often ask my colleagues to assist me with N200, N100 and so on. My son would be going for chemotherapy next Thursday, before that, he would have to do some blood tests and other things like that. I don’t know where we would get the money for all that but I am trusting God for help.

    “We need help. It is not an easy task to take care of a cancer patient. It is not an easy challenge to manage. My husband and I take turns to stay with him in the hospital. I often sleep there with him in the hospital.”

    Mr Agwu also noted: “Ebuka’s condition has affected the upkeep of his siblings, as I have withdrawn them from private schools and enrolled them in public schools. The costs of managing his health condition are killing. What you encounter today is not what you will encounter tomorrow. That is how it has been all along.

    “For instance, his red blood cells dropped drastically recently and we rushed him to the hospital. We were asked to buy five bottles of a particular medication that would boost it. Each bottle of the medication, which is not more than four inches long, costs N27, 500. At the end of the day, they used only four. When I tried to return the last one with the hope of having the money refunded to buy food for the other children who had been without food for some time, the pharmacy refused to take it.

    “Hair does not grow on his head anymore because of the strong antibiotics he is taking. I was trading at Alaba before but have shut down my business since my son’s problem started, because I have used all my capital and savings to pay his bills. It is people of goodwill that have been helping me and the family all this while.”

    The late Abayomi’s mother bemoaned the painful and untimely death of her son, saying: “His death has affected me badly. I have not recovered from the shock I suffered after his death.

    “How he came about the sickness is still a mystery to me because we all ate the same food. It also caused me untold financial crisis that affected the well being of his siblings. They couldn’t go to school all through the period he was sick. I am still struggling to repay the money I borrowed to pay his bills.”

    Dr. Nneka Nwobi, the Executive Director of Children Living With Cancer Foundation, said: “It is very, very expensive to treat childhood cancer. The chemotherapy is expensive, the drugs are extremely expensive, the support systems are expensive, the blood transfusion, the radiation and even the investigations are expensive. CT scan is expensive. There is no way you can have it done for less than N20, 000 to N30, 000.

    “Not many parents can afford that. Screening a pint of blood costs N5, 000. Everything about childhood cancer is expensive. From the investigation to the treatment and maintenance, it is really very expensive.

    “Children who have cancer of the bone often have their legs cut off. To get the artificial leg is very expensive. These children that we care for come from poor homes, and they need whatever assistance they can get.”

    Recounting her experiences working with the victims, she said: “I have happy and sad stories working with these children. The happy story comes when a child is cured and I get to see the child after two to three years.

    “There was a child I met when he was two and a half years old. He was suffering from cancer of the kidney then. We did everything possible for him, up to the point of radiotherapy. He is seven years now and very much alive.

    “There was a nurse there at LUTH whose son had leukemia. We did everything we could but the child passed on. Before he passed on, he called the mother and blessed her and also called me and did the same.

    “He said to me, ‘Come, I want to see your face. You are a good woman.’ He said the mother should not cry for him because he knew that she had done a lot to save his life and that if it was possible for her to give up her life for him to live, she would have done so.

    “He said that he was going to a happy place and pleaded with the mother not to cry. When you hear such, it brings tears and joy. The joy is that he is going to a better place while the tears are that he is leaving too soon.”

    She added: “Some of these children are very spiritual. They know when they are dying. Some of them curse their fathers because the fathers are always not there for them. One of them said for the fact that her father had to abandon her in her moment of crisis and need, he would not find anything good. Shortly after that, the man was deported from America.

    “When we meet some of the parents for the first time, they are always in tears because they could hardly provide for their children let alone have the resources to take care of their health problem that suddenly crops up.

    “I guess this is why some fathers don’t stay, because they can’t watch their children go through the pains. But the mothers always stay to see them through. At the end of the day, when the children are passing on, they are calmer and would even begin to talk about their passing away.

    “There was a child, the parents, knowing that she was going to pass away, asked what she would like them to do for her. She said she wanted to have a party with her friends. They organised a big party for her and she felt very happy. Shortly after that, she passed on. They did this to give her a painless exit.”

    She lamented that the government is not doing anything to help the victims, adding:“This time around, I am hoping that in this year’s cancer week, childhood cancer will be given the attention it deserves and therefore make the government to sit up and do something urgent about it.”

    Prof Adebola Akinsulie, the Head of Department of Pediatrics\ Head of Hematology and Oncology Unit at Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), said: “Cancer actually occurs in children and there is no age group that is exempted. There are different types for different age groups and we have to detect it very early because these little children may not complain about it. Cancer is an abnormal growth that can occur in any part of the body. If you have a small bump that is growing abnormally, it is cancer. The cells inside the blood can grow and when you have such abnormal growth inside the blood, it is also cancer.

    “Cancer can be in form of solid which we call solid tumours or solid cancer. It can also affect blood and we call that leukemia. Some children can have leukemia while some may have solid tumours. They all occur in children.

    “The type of leukemia that we commonly have in children is called acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The good thing about some of these cancers is that they are curable if they are detected on time. When I say it is curable, I mean, after we have done five -year survival rate and have followed many of these children for a long time, we discover that they are free of the disease. Five-year survival rate means that the possibility of that thing coming back after five years is very small.

    “But once the abnormal growth spreads and establishes itself in distant areas, then it becomes incurable. When you notice the eye of a child shinning like that of a cat, or a swelling in the stomach, or abnormal growth anywhere in the body, quickly contact your doctor. It is very expensive to treat and practically incurable if presented late.”

    Asked if it is possible to prevent it in children, he said: “It is difficult to answer yes or no because we don’t know the cause of some of them and when you don’t know how some came about, it is very difficult to say how it can be prevented. Some of them we say are associated with certain things. Just like we associate smoking with the cancer of the lungs in adults, we associate some infection with solid cancer in children.

    “In an area like ours where malaria has affected our ability to fight certain infections, certain viruses can cause certain cancers. So it is difficult to say this is the way to prevent it.

    “Exposure of everybody including adults to excessive rays (not the usual x- rays we have occasionally), like the kind of radiation that occurs where nuclear plant is damaged in a place like Japan when they had the tsunami, such radiation can easily cause cancer.

    “Another thing that we know as a cause is excessive smoking in mothers. It can cause some abnormality, especially cancer in children. We have certain kinds of drug usage in mothers while they are pregnant. This is also associated with cancer. Such causes could be prevented. But like I said, we don’t know about 70 to 80 per cent of the causes.”

    He continued: “We can say that some of the causes are genetic and others hereditary because some children have genetic problems. For example, children suffering from the Down syndrome may have the tendencies to develop certain kinds of cancer like leukemia. Few cases like that have been associated with genetic problem. It is not like you can transmit it from mother to child. It is a genetic make-up, but it is not everybody that has that. They only have the tendency to have cancer in future if you have certain abnormalities of the genetic make-up we call chromosomes, like a breakage in what constitutes gene.”

    He noted that good nutrition does not prevent cancer, stressing that it is only generally good for the body.

    “Good nutrition is good for the general well being of the body against illnesses, but people who take good nutrition may also develop certain cancers. It is not the case of if I take this kind of food, I will not have cancer.”

    The victims, he said, have the chance of attaining old age in spite of the terminal nature of the sickness.

    “Like I said, if the cancer is detected early and treated…in the case of a person suffering from cancer of the kidney, an affected kidney may be removed because we need only one to live. If it is done early, the victim can be actually cured. Many of them can be cured when they are detected early, even the ones that have gone round the body, like leukemia, can still be cured with certain drugs and radiotherapy, provided it is detected very early.”

    Asked if the sickness is more endemic in the country than it is abroad, he said: “It is difficult to say categorically that we have more or they have more. There are some kinds of cancer that we have more, for example, if we mention some cancers that tend to be more around the blast and among the people with low social economic power. But they tend to have cancers like leukemia than we do.

    “Cancer is a worldwide phenomenon. Just as it happens among black people, it also happens among the white people. The only difference is that they are able to cure more of their cancer cases because they detect them early.

    “Then our advocacy is that parents should be educated that cancers can occur in children. When you notice abnormal behaviour, swelling, limping and growth, see your doctor immediately and avoid the temptation of using self medication. “

    Appeal to government

    Worried by the enormity of the cost of treating the victims, Akinsulie said: “The assistance I will appeal to the government for is to make the treatment of cancer in children free. Such would definitely encourage the parents to present their children early to the hospital.

    The World Health Organisation is interested in all ailments, but they like to concentrate on those that affect large number of people. The percentage of children affected by cancer is less than one, but any home where it occurs, because of the cost of management, it usually ruins that home. By the time they spend N1 million or N2 million, they must have sold their television sets and other properties. That is why individual government, rather than WHO should come into the matter. We should do more public awareness about it and get the public to assist these unfortunate children.

    “The death rate may be as high as 100 per cent if they are presented late, and that is the kind of presentation we have in Nigeria. When people have kidney problem, it is when the whole thing has been destroyed and part of the tummy has been destroyed that victims are brought to the hospital. The death rate is very high in Nigeria, like I said, because of late presentation.”

    Describing the psychological impact of the sickness on victims, Lateefat Odunuga, a psychologist, said: “The physical symptoms of cancer and the treatment of it can have serious social and emotional consequences for the child. Research indicates that the negative perception of self-appearance often found in children with cancer is associated with academic, social, and psychological impairment, low self-esteem and symptoms of depression. The traumatic experience of having cancer places children at significant risk for a range of short- and long-term social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties.

    “The chronic strains of childhood cancer, such as treatment-related pain, visible side effects such as hair loss, weight gain or loss, physical disfigurement and repeated absence from school negatively impact children’s social and psychological adjustment.

    “Children with cancer and survivors of childhood cancer may experience: severe anxiety, inhibited and withdrawn behaviour, behaviour problems, excessive somatic complaints, intense stress, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), academic difficulties and surrounding frustration, peer relationship difficulties, and worries about the future in relation to career and relationships.

    “Research indicates that childhood cancer survivors also experience academic difficulties that contribute to social and emotional maladjustment. Contributing to the learning problems which many students with cancer face is the high rate of absenteeism that may result from hospitalizations, treatments, and treatment of side effects.

    “Children with leukemia miss between 10 to 20 weeks of school in one year, and as a result, many of them repeat grades. Furthermore, when a child is out of school for a long period of time, he or she may experience reactions such as depression, apathy and poor self-concept.”

    Explaining the psychological impact on the family/care givers, she said: “Family members of a child with cancer often suffer various forms of distress with regards to the child’s illness. Parents report feelings of anxiety, depression, symptoms of PTSD and distress related not only to the child with cancer but also to the adjustment of the child’s siblings. Some parents may resort to substance abuse while some others may be tempted to consider euthanasia for the victims.

    “The siblings could also be feeling anxious, stressed, overwhelmed, neglected, and guilty. Some could end up becoming deviants in society as a result of the parents’ inability to provide their basic needs caused by the huge money they are spending on the victims.”

    In spite of the daunting challenge faced by the victims and their family members, she noted that there are psychosocial interventions that can give promising results to the victims.

    She said: “There are numerous factors and interventions which seem to predict better psychological adjustment for children with cancer. For example, having high levels of support from the family, classmates, the school, and the hospital predicts better adjustment.

    “Research has also shown promises in the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral interventions for children, parents, siblings and the family as a whole, which include teaching effective coping strategies for children, targeting social skills development, group therapies alleviating siblings’ emotional and behavioral problems, and improving overall and long-term family functioning via family therapy.”

  • Buhari: Jonathan’s govt has ruined economy

    Buhari: Jonathan’s govt has ruined economy

    Nigeria is broke, All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate Gen. Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday.

    “Many states could not pay their workers’ salary in December,” he said as he tongue lashed the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration for neglecting corruption and misgovernance  to focus on his health.

    The rumour of his ill-health, he said, is a desperate attempt to take the mind of Nigerians off the basic issues of corruption and misgovernance by the Dr. Goodluck Jonathan administration.

    Addressing a news conference in Abuja, Gen. Buhari also said he had no problem with his certificates with which he contested elections under the guidelines provided by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on three occasions.

    He argued that rather than address the problem facing the nation, which led to non-payment of workers’ salaries in December, the government was talking about the health of an individual.

    Gen. Buhari said:  “Vanguard reported that I was to jet out for medical check-up yesterday (Saturday) but here I am. I was in Nasarawa and Benue states yesterday (Saturday); tomorrow, I am going to be in two states. The day after tomorrow in two more states. I am doing two states per day.

    “How they got the impression that I was sick, I do not know. Although I got cold, that did not stop me from going on with my schedule.

    “I don’t know of this desperation. The issue we are telling Nigerians is that of corruption in this country and that in the last 16 years, PDP has literally destroyed this country.

    “This is the issue and I don’t understand what my health has got to do with that one. I have been sick on daily basis? And documents have been put on paper, on tweeter that I am sick and ABUTH has said they are forged documents. This desperation is beyond my understanding.”

    Asked to make a categorical statement on his health, Gen. Buhari jokingly asked the reporter: “How old are you? 50 years? I am telling you that if we go to the field, you would not last the time I will last in the field.”

    On the controversy surrounding his certificate, Gen. Buhari said: “Why didn’t Nigerians ask before? I have contested elections three times under the same rules set by INEC where there is a basic education qualification you must have. I was allowed to contest all these elections because my certificate? were in order.

    “There were individuals that wrote to the United States War College and the college answered them and it was published by some of your papers. Really, this desperation of misinformation that is being passed around will do nobody any good because our minds are being taken away from the serious issues of corruption and incompetence by the PDP.”

    The APC candidate spoke also on the alleged fraud in the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) where he was chairman during the Abacha regime, “That one has been cleared. There is no fraud in PTF,” Gen. Buhari said, adding:

    “There was an investigation and General Obasanjo has answered that question. He confirmed that there was an investigation and the report was brought to him and there was nothing on ground as far as my management and chairmanship of the PTF was concerned. So, what else can I say when the person who did the investigation because he was the Head of State has cleared me. What else can I say?”

    Lamenting the state of the economy, he said: “Well, the country is broke. Many states could not pay their workers’ salaries. Even in December most families were hungry during Christmas because government could not pay their salary and yet, they are talking about an individual’s health instead of paying the people.”

    Also yesterday, the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation (APCPCO) accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of circulating a scam medical report on Gen. Buhari.

    A statement from the Directorate of Media and Publicity of the organization, signed by Mallam Garba Shehu, said it was ludicrous for the PDP to throw caution to the wind in its “shameless” effort to pull wool over the eyes of Nigerians because of their rising desire for change of guards at the federal level.

    The statement, which was given to The Nation in Abuja, directed the attention of Nigerians to the glaring errors on the letterhead of the paper on which the purported medical report was written, wrongly identify the institution as Ahmadu Bello Teaching Hospital instead of Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH), as the Zaria-based teaching hospital is known.

    The statement reads: “The attention of the APC Presidential Campaign Organisation has been brought to the circulation of a fake medical record of General Muhammadu Buhari.

    “We are able to track the circulation of the post on a social media platform and we know that the information emanated from the Facebook handle of one of Governor Ayo Fayose’s aides.

    “It is noteworthy that the authorities at the Ahmad Bello University Teaching Hospital (ABUTH) has given a clean bill on General Buhari’s health status. It is also noteworthy for Nigerians to understand that the PDP will stop at nothing to cast aspersion on the person of General Buhari.

    “We knew that the PDP would become unbridled at a point in its desperation to avert the defeat coming its way in the countdown to the February 14 presidential election, but to anticipate that the PDP would go as dirty as spreading falsehood on an individual’s state of health could not have been imaginable.

    “What is important is that Nigerians know today that our country is not healthy. They know that the PDP has driven the country to a near state of comatose. Our national security is very unhealthy and our national economy is right now gasping for breath from the stranglehold of the PDP.

    “It is almost as if official corruption and impunity are matters of state policy in the management of our national economy under the President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

    “That is why a great number of Nigerians yearn for change. Nigerians want a change from the clueless and directionless management of our security and our economy. Nigerians made a call on General Buhari to come on this rescue mission. They called on him because they know he is as fit as a fiddle to fix our unhealthy economy and the insecurity that has consumed a large region of our land.”

    In another statement, Shehu, said the seemingly “exhausted and frustrated” ruling PDP cannot hoodwink the public in its “sickening” attempt to tarnish the towering moral stature of its presidential candidate by dredging up a discredited report.

    The statement said: “President Obasanjo, who set up this panel to probe Buhari’s tenure at PTF, discovered something shocking from the work of the panel”.

    He recalled that after reviewing the PTF report, former President Obasanjo directed the relevant authority to go after those indicted by the report, giving Buhari a clean bill.

    Shehu explained that it was common knowledge to Nigerians that the Interim Management Committee was sacked by former President Obasanjo in March 2000 for alleged incompetence, amidst charges of serious abuse of public trust. Several members of that committee were indicted and made to refund hundreds of millions of naira of public funds, which they illegally took from the PTF.

    He said anyone under the illusion that it could use “a rotten report to smear Gen. Buhari must be living in fantasy”, adding that these “desperate tactics” would only amount to disservice to President Jonathan and his party, the PDP.

    He advised the Jonathan administration to focus its energy and attention on how to help give the country a new lease of life in the face of grim prospects on the economic front instead of wasting time on the futile efforts to smear the APC candidate.

    Shehu reiterated that the PDP administration lacked the credibility to throw stones at Gen. Buhari, who is “by all accounts more credible and trusted” in the eyes of Nigerians.

  • I’m ruined, says ex-convict

    I’m ruined, says ex-convict

    His head dropped pitiably in agony as he fought back tears. He shook his head in self-pity. His purple shirt, worn-out trousers and a pair of patched sandals spoke volumes for one fact: life had been too unfair to him.

    Ex-convict Sunday Oladapo, 52, told The Nation at his Odogunyan, Ikorodu, Lagos home, yesterday. “Life has been so bitter for me since I came out of prison. I have been unable to make ends meet. I learnt carpentry before I was arrested and that is the only trade I can return to, but I am hampered by lack of equipment and finances,” he said.

    His life came crashing in 1982 when he was arrested for alleged armed robbery. Though he denied never committing the crime, he was sentenced to death in 1984.

    “I didn’t commit the crime; I was never a robber, but I used to sell Marijuana. Members of a vigilance group killed a suspect and I was roped in as a robber. I maintained my innocence throughout the court trial, but I was sentenced to death eventually,” Oladapo said.

    He added: “I was selling drugs. That night, a customer came to my house. I didn’t know he was a robber and that members of the vigilance group was after him. He stayed in my house and the vigilance people caught him there. They took him out and executed him. Then, some people were saying they had better dealt with me or I would implicate them. That was how they accused me of armed robbery and arrested me.”

    He spent 19 years on death row after which his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with the intervention of former Governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In 2009, Governor Babatunde Fashola granted him pardon and he was released from prison. In total, he spent 27 productive years of his life behind bars for a crime he claimed innocence of.

    But the ordeal has shattered his life. His wife absconded with his three-year-old son and three-month pregnancy, while his father’s properties were looted and stolen.

    “Till now, I have not been able to locate my family. I don’t know if my wife was delivered of the pregnancy or not,” he said, adding: “I thank Governor Fashola for releasing me, but since I came out, I have experienced untold hardship. People don’t want to help you immediately they hear that you are an ex-convict. I am living in the house of Bishop Kayode Williams who has been kind to me; but for how long will I go on like this?”

    Since his release, Oladapo has been on menial jobs. “In a very good month, I make about N10,000, but on the average, I make N5,000. You see; that is not enough to sustain me,” he lamented.

    He expressed his willingness to work if he has equipment. He currently needs N45, 000 to rent a room and some money to re-establish his carpentry work. “I am ready if kind-hearted people can help me establish my business. I have lost the productive years of my life, but I can still do something useful. I am appealing to Nigerians to help me restore the years I have lost,” Oladapo said.

  • Igiebor ruined our game plan — Betis coach

    Igiebor ruined our game plan — Betis coach

    Nosa Igiebor has come under fire from his manager at Real Betis, Pepe Mel, after the team lost to Real Madrid 3-1 in a La Liga game on Saturday, with the coach blaming the midfielder for the loss.

    The coach had boasted that his Betis, who won the first meeting 1-0 in Sevilla, have a master plan they will deploy to get a result in Madrid, but it all fell apart at the Santiago Bernabeu, with Mesut Ozil scoring a brace.

    “I believe that we could have made Madrid run, Jorge understood that better than Nosa in the first half, said Mel, who pulled Igiebor off after the first half, and replaced him with Jorge Molina. When you run vertical, you make your opponent run. There must always be a culprit when you concede goals, but if we’d had more success in front of goal, the result would have been a draw.

    “A team that has Cristiano, Ozil, Benzema and Modric is a very good team. But, in the first half we stole the ball and we weren’t quick enough on the counter, we played it more so as not to lose the ball. That was a mistake. In the second half, we ran faster and we made them run back. In the second half, we put them in danger.

    Igiebor only recently became a starter in the Betis team, after he graduated from a spell of not playing at all, to starting the game.

    He was a hero just eight days ago, when he scored a late equaliser in the Sevilla derby.