The Nation Newspaper

Tag: urgent

  • Delta State needs urgent help

    IR: Tom Huddleston once opined that – ‘‘we all have two lives. The second one starts when we realize we only have one.’’

    Delta State was carved out of  the former Bendel State on August  27,  1991. The state was created following agitations for the  creation  of  separate  distinct  state  by  the Urhobos and Anioma regions.

    Delta State has had the privilege of having governors from Chief James Ibori in May 1999-2007; Emmanuel Ewetan Uduaghan  2007 – 2015,  to  the  present, Dr  Ifeanyi  Okowa  May  2015  till  date.

    Without  mincing  words,  we  the great people of Delta State  have  been  the  worse off,  as she  is grappling  a  huge  debt burden  of  over  N 600 billion  owing  to  the 18 years of PDP maladministration.

    The  lavish,  wasteful  spending  and  massive  borrowing  have  plunged  the  state  to  a  sorry  state  of  disrepair, backwardness  in spite  of  her  huge  resources  and  economic  diversity.

    When  it  comes  to  development,  three  main  factors  call  to  mind:  accumulation  of  capital,  productive  labour  input  and  technological  advancement.

    From  the  Federation  Account,  Delta  State  receives  about  N300  billion annually, hence can boast of available  funds. For  productive  manpower,  the  state  ranks  as the 12th  most  populated  state  with  a  population  of  above  four  million,  so  it is blessed with  the  requisite manpower  to  prosecute  a  great  economic  agenda.  And  as  for  technological  advancement,  it  is  generally  assumed  that technological  advancement  is  even  more  important  than  capital  formation  which  is  limited,  for  a  state  that  spends  more  on  science  and  research  will  tend  to  grow  faster than  those  in  pursuit  of  capital.

    A  week  ago,  militants  told  the  governor, Ifeanyi  Okowa  to  account  for  the  13%  derivation  fund  accrued  to  the  oil -producing areas  which  amounts  to  an  average  of  N4  billion  monthly  from  the  federal  government ,  totalling  N48 billion  in  12 calendar  months,  yet  Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) has been starved of funds, with no meaningful  projects  in  the  oil producing  areas;  meanwhile the state is  indebted  to  workers, pensioners  whom  have  given  their  productive  years  in  the  service of the  state are  being  left  out  in  the  cold.

    This isn’t the leadership we deserve. The state is in need of urgent transformation and help.

    It  is  in  times  like these that  the  words  of  Publilius  Syrus  becomes  apt  ‘’ from  the  errors  of  others,  a  wise  man corrects  his  own’’.

     

    • Wonder O. Akpeki,

    Sapele,  Delta  State.

  • Urgent intervention

    •This is what the outbreak of Lassa fever in Ogun calls for

    At a time that residents of Ogun State, like those of many states in the country, were close to having a sense of relief about the end of Lassa fever, Abeokuta, the state capital, suddenly woke up to losing an Assistant Chief Nursing Officer at the Federal Medical Centre to the disease. Sequel to the death of the nurse manager, the Ogun State Ministry of Health had placed 396 persons with known contact with the deceased on intensive monitoring, as required by the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) standards in respect of this deadly virus.

    We commend the state health commissioner and the Federal Minister of Health for quick response on this serious matter.”All the 396 contacts have not shown any abnormal symptoms or signs of Lassa fever; their temperature is under control and we have stationed our monitoring officer with each of the contacts to continue monitoring throughout a specific period in line with the World Health Organisation standard,” the state government said.

    Also reassuring is the quick intervention of the Federal Minister of Health: “Medical personnel are hereby directed to report cases of suspected Lassa fever immediately to the state epidemiologist, who has been provided with the commodities, by the National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, to respond to cases.” These interventions need to be intensified in view of the danger that Lassa fever poses, especially in areas of population density.

    Lassa fever virus is transmitted to humans through contamination of food or household items from urine or faeces of rodents. Though generally a deadly disease, the fever is treatable with prompt medical intervention. It is a disease that can also be prevented if proper conditions of private and public hygiene are met. Although it is premature to confirm what went wrong in Abeokuta a few months after Ogun State was declared a Lassa fever-free zone,it is crucial that the sudden outbreak of this disease be stopped in its tract in the same manner that Lagos State provided immediate leadership for stopping the Ebola virus a few years back. The decision of the Minister of Education to establish a Lassa Fever Eradication Committee to address the return of this virus to zones hitherto declared as safe from it deserves to be supported fully.

    In view of the new incidence of Lassa fever in Ogun State, three issues demand steadfastness on the part of the state and central governments. First is saving the lives of those with contact with the only victim of the disease; the second is stopping the spread of the virus within the state and to neighbouring states; and the third is strategy for proper private and public hygiene, the most assured way to prevent outbreak of Lassa fever.The recommendations by NCDC and Ogun State Ministry of Health that doctors conduct thorough tests on persons with malaria symptoms to ensure that they are not infected by Lassa virus need to be followed religiously. Medical staff in adjoining states also need to do the same, particularly in a season of increase in travel between states. It is salutary that related health agencies have taken the right steps in this direction.

    Equally important is the long-term problem of sustaining hygienic communities that discourage breeding of rodents, vectors of Lassa virus. Programmes of enforcing and enhancing hygiene through public enlightenment must include priming governments at all levels to fulfill their responsibility of providing water for the citizens. World-wide, water remains the most important ingredient in maintenance of hygiene. Governments’ obsession over boreholes all over the country is not the most cost-effective way to encourage over 170 million people, most of them on the poverty line, to sustain by themselves the high level of hygiene required to stop breeding of rodents in increasingly crowded and poorly planned urban sprawls across the country.

  • Urgent need to rebuild

    Sir: I was going on the road recently when some ‘boys’ repairing a fictitious pot-hole stopped the guy carrying me. They requested money from the innocent guy and when he couldn’t give them, I gave them N100. When they collected the money, come and see how they started hailing me. One of them even prostrated, and they continued like that till I left.

    I felt very sad. Is this what Nigerians have been reduced to? That moment, I felt a raw hatred for the Nigerian ruling class. In a nation of plenty, people of the same nation are living in abject poverty.

    It is sad that the same people that feel the effects of mismanagement and blue-black looting will still continue to harbour hope in this failed system.

    This nation has failed so many people. The growth of the economy happens in worlds they don’t belong to. The steady developmental rise is bookish and has no place in their own reality. Yet these same people continue to expect things to get better. These same people continue to hope that at 40 and earning N10, 000, the future is bright. These same people continue to believe the false hope sold to them by religion and its agents. These same people continue to ‘sow bountifully’ to maintain their preachers’ jets, while waiting endlessly for a bountiful harvest that will never come.

    The situation of this nation has never been clearer than it is now. Recycling leaders, changing party names and supervising mergers, perpetuating religious differences and championing regional sentiments will take us nowhere. Post-2015 polls will make it even clearer that the problems of this nation goes beyond individual failures and inabilities; you don’t patch up systemic failures this pronounced, neither do you repair it; you either overturn the system or you continue in the four-year national delusion that we have been practising for the past 16 years.

    Nigerians will have started on the journey to a genuine national liberation when they lose hope in this system and begin to organise to take the nation back from the thieving ruling class and inconsiderate ruling elites who are bent on not just looting the nation dry but also giving their children and friends the go-ahead to run the nation down.

    Our salvation lies solely in our hands; not in the hands of any party or any political aspirant. The day we discover that is the day we take the first step in the long and tedious road to a genuine peoples’ national liberation.

    James Ogunjimi

     

    Ago-Iwoye, Ogun State

  • Senate seeks urgent repairs of Third Mainland, Second Niger bridges

    Senate seeks urgent repairs of Third Mainland, Second Niger bridges

    The Senate yesterday adopted two motions on the need for the Federal Government to repair the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos and the Niger Bridge in Onitsha, Anambra State.

    On the Third Mainland Bridge, the Senate mandated its Committee on Works, in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Works, to carry out an in-depth investigation on the state of the bridge to enable experts repair it.

    The senators also urged the Federal Government to inspect all its bridges over water to save them from further deterioration and collapse.

    The Senate urged the Federal Ministry of Works to reinforce, repairs and rehabilitate the Niger Bridge to forestall the tragic consequences of its likely collapse.

    It also urged the Federal Ministry of Works to take work on the second Niger Bridge before the end of this quarter.

    The motion on Third Mainland Bridge, entitled: Urgent need to investigate the imminent collapsed of Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos, was sponsored by Senator Gbenga Ashafa (Lagos East) and 55 others; Niger Bridge, entitled: Immediate action on the second Niger Bridge Project, was sponsored by Senator Hope Uzodinma (Imo West) and 39 others.

    In his lead debate, Ashafa said there have been complaints of shifting and vibrations on the Third Mainland Bridge.

    The senator noted that a report by a company, which has experiences in underwater survey, indicated that the underwater metal casing, housing the concrete piles on which the bridge stands, have rusted.

    He said the surveyors explained that the rust accounts for the vibration experienced in some portions of the bridge which also led to the closure of the bridge for repairs between July 7 and October 30, last year, by the Federal Ministry of Works.

    Ashafa noted that Prof. J. H. T. Kim, head of the Concrete Structural Engineering Laboratory, Yousei University, Seoul Korea, was on a research last December and conducted an underwater examination of the structures holding the bridge.

    The Korean was said to have reported that the damage to the structure were worse than what he had been briefed on.

    He said there were indications that the stretch of the Third Mainland Bridge between Adeniji Adele, Adekunle and Oworonshoki could collapse.

    Senator Oluremi Tinubu (Lagos Central) said the seventh Senate cannot afford to be indifferent to the fears of Nigerians and the potential loss of lives.

    She said the Third Mainland Bridge, which is about 11.8 kilometres and inaugurated in 1990, serves hundreds of Nigerians from various parts of the country.

    The senator said besides the concerns expressed by many Nigerians Dr. Kim’s warning should also not be dismissed.

    Senator Tinubu said: “If we truly value citizens’ lives, the prevailing concerns about a critical infrastructure, such as the Third Mainland Bridge, cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand.”

  • Nigeria needs urgent revival for rebirth

    Nigeria needs urgent revival for rebirth

    SIR: Consequent upon the challenges Nigeria is passing through in terms of unrighteousness among the rank and file of its citizens, widespread corruption from the leaders to the followers, insecurity, immorality, organized mass killings motivated by religious, economic, political and ethnic hatred, bombing, mass poverty, electoral fraud, violent crimes, kidnapping, financial fraud, human/ drug trafficking, cultism, greediness, and lack of fear of God, I want to state prophetically that Nigeria needs revival courtesy of the religious leaders in the country especially in a time like this when everything seems to be fighting against the peace and progress of the nation.

    The revival in Nigeria will put to shame the devil and his agents that have united more than ever to wage war against Nigerians and break up the country (God forbids) hence, the revival will liberate and revive Nigerians from the shackles of the wicked and make Nigerians submit to God (Isaiah 66:3).

    God has heard the cry of His people in Nigeria and the revival will make the enemies of Nigeria and Nigerians submit by freeing them from all sins and unrighteousness. As this is also a time for Nigerians to seek the face of God for Him to restore peace and bless the country.

    Through the revival and by the greatness of God’s power, all the enemies troubling the nation will submit – Isaiah 59: 19. Nigerians need to tow the path to genuine repentance, trust and fear of God so that with our collective prayers, Nigeria shall overcome her problems and rise again, as God will deal with the Pharaohs and Egyptians of our nation.

    Most Nigerians do not know or understand the efficacy of God’s power, such that, there is lack of Knowledge, as recorded in Hosea 4:6. Most people exalt the power of Satan and his agents more than God’s because they are ignorant of God’s power. They cherish human beings, worship lesser gods and disobey God.

    • Prophet OIadipupo Funmilade-Joel (Sekunderin)

    General Overseer, The Way of Reconciliation Evangelistic Ministries (TWOREM) Int’l.