Certificate of Survival

8^th July, 2021

By: Amir Abdulazeez

S

ome weeks ago, I was caught up in a debate involving some people who were trying to justify the Federal Government of Nigeria’s ban of Twitter and those who were opposed to it. To be fair to all, every side had some very good points strong enough to sway a neutral person to their side. However, one thing remains fundamental and clear even to the debaters; the twitter ban is not going to solve any of our short and long-term problems, including the very ones for which the Federal Government used to justify the ban.

For any critical observer, it will not be difficult to note that the Buhari Administration had not taken lightly any action that will or is capable of undermining official state authority or that of the President since its coming in 2015. This is perhaps why over 1000 Shiites were alleged to have been killed in the early days of the administration for blocking the way of the Chief of Army Staff among other things. It may be also the reason why IPOB and End SARS protesters were not treated with the kid gloves with which bandits and mass murderers of ordinary citizens are apparently treated with. Twitter had not offended ordinary Nigerians as much as it had offended the Presidency and hence the ban. Regardless, at least the ban is a strong message that not everything can be tolerated by Nigeria, especially the sort of highhanded arbitrariness on the part of the social media tech giant.  

Some few hours before the ban came into effect, I was surfing the platform to catchup with the day’s national and international news when I came across an interesting statement credited to ex-Senator Dino Melaye.  Melaye was reported to have said that any Nigerian that survived this APC’s administration to its end alive deserves a certificate of survival. I don’t know whether he actually said that or not, but the statement is typical of him. Besides, the truth is that ordinary Nigerians are currently receiving the suffering of their lives.

According to the Consumer Price Index report, recently released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria's inflation rate for May, 2021 stands at 17.93%, a slight drop from April, 2021 which was 18.12%. Food which is the most critical item recorded an inflation rate of 22.28% in May. This is the highest since April of 2017. Nigeria ranks 13^th in the global inflation table and 7^th in Africa, making it among the worst worldwide. At less than $80 per month, Nigeria’s minimum wage is one of the poorest in the world. A substantial percentage of the Nigerian population has been reduced to begging. The crime rate in almost every state of the federation is on the increase; income is static, expenditure is growing, no jobs and opportunities.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures the change over time in prices of 740 goods and services consumed by people for day-to-day living. The index weights are based on expenditures of both urban and rural households in the 36 states. How good a measure it is to quantify our real suffering from this hyperinflation is another question of its own.

Our real problem is that these figures are only giving us an idea but not the true picture of the cost of living in the country. We all know that these figures are mainly hypothetical; we have essential goods and services that have recorded 100% increase in prices within weeks. Another concern is that, other countries facing inflation are somehow doing well relatively. For example, the twelve countries worse than Nigeria in the global inflation ranking are better off in terms of peace and security (with the exception of may be Syria) and prosperity (with the exception of may be Sudan and South Sudan).

The country is faced with multiple, unprecedented and overwhelming security challenges from all fronts. With no clear end in sight, many people in some parts of the country live everyday in uncertainty while helplessly waiting for the worst. In places like parts of Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna and Niger States, people live to tell the daily stories of tragedy while hopelessly waiting to be consumed like their brethren. Survival has become a privilege these days.

The government is overwhelmed and had resorted to foreign debts to keep the collapsing economy working. Nigeria’s External Debt has reached $32.9 billion US Dollars as at March 2021. Roughly, each and every Nigerian is indebted to the tune of 65,000 to 70,000 Naira at official exchange rate of dollar to Naira. We have not stopped borrowing; a substantial amount of our current and future budgets still depends on external borrowing. We are not talking of internal debt.

Ordinary Nigerians are finding life unbearable. Are these sufferings temporary? What are we doing to stop this? Why is every previous year better?  How does the future look like for ourselves and children? How many of us will survive this? Is survival our emerging national culture and priority? People are employing any available means to survive thereby gradually turning the society into a jungle where everyone wants to thrive even at the expense of others.

What is the overall implication of all these? Now here comes the real danger. When a greater majority of a country’s citizens are preoccupied with how to survive, no one will be left to create and add the value that will take the country to the promised land. When most people spend 75% of their time trying to fetch for their families amidst rising costs and harsh conditions, they can only spend the remaining 25% to rest against the next struggle, leaving them with zero time to think and create anything. When almost everyone is living to attain Dino Melaye’s certificate of Survival, we will have no other aspirations other than food and shelter. The result will be a backward nation that will remain static for only God knows when.

We cannot say that the current government is doing nothing about all these challenges, but they are doing nothing revolutionary. Measures like N-power, Conditional Cash Transfer and the likes are cosmetic, inadequate and unsustainable. Even their effects on the short term are too minimal to reflect on the general quality of national life. First and foremost, the country must have a comprehensive and exhaustive national development plan with inputs from local, state and federal stakeholders. This plan must be well developed, implemented and not politicized. If needs be, it should be backed by legislation. Government appointees at any time must be people that understand and can implement that plan religiously irrespective of their demography and political affiliations.

The development plan should be able to strengthen sectors like manufacturing, power, infrastructure, security and justice because such sectors have the potential of automatically creating and consolidating direct and indirect development. For example, if there is adequate security and power supply, independent businesses would run for 24 hours. When some people who conduct businesses during the day are asleep, some others who were resting during the day will conduct businesses during the night. Nigerian businesses will work for 24 hours with no valuable time to waste thereby hugely increasing productivity. We should be able to produce most of the goods we import.

When power is available, thousands of jobs would be created both directly and indirectly. Therefore, advisably, rather than invest in providing direct jobs which cannot satisfy all, let the government strengthen security and power.  We have seen what the telecommunication and entertainment industries have done to our economy through direct and indirect jobs creation with ripple effects and I think that success can be replicated in many other sectors. When this is done, governments will rely on its happy and self-employed citizens for taxes rather than the other way round.

It is unfortunate that we are being unable to implement basic solutions offered every now and then because politics has been our number one national priority since 1999. This has made many people to lose interest in providing any meaningful input to the Nigerian development discourse. I have received countless messages over the last eight months, including from some newspaper editors over my long break from analytical writing with some enquiring on what must be responsible. I usually didn’t have any consistent answer, sometimes I’ll just compose any reply that comes to mind.

Whatever will be said, has been said many times before, we just lack the will as a nation to take the bull by the horn. Just some days ago, a reader reminded me that it has being a year since I wrote an opinion piece asking why. I doubted and quickly went to my personal online blog only to confirm what he said was indeed true. I was surprised myself, but what the reader didn’t know is that I am currently battling to obtain my own certificate of survival.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

The Return of Electoral Robbery

6^th July, 2020

 

By: Amir Abdulazeez

D

uring this lockdown period, I managed to read significant parts of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s book, ‘My Transition Hours’. I have been trying to avoid the book like others similar to it, simply because I don’t believe in the sincerity of politicians telling their own stories. But, what other ways can you cope under a three-month lockdown? One conclusion I reached was that the former President’s memoir was a tactical expression of his self-convincing feeling that he never lost freely and fairly to General Muhammadu Buhari in the 2015 presidential elections. All other things in the book were in my opinion more or less secondary to this. The more pages I read in that book, the more I found it difficult to disconnect President Jonathan and his henchmen with the Orubebe incident that largely placed huge question marks over his subsequent democratic heroics. 

There was one thing I however liked in the book and it was the provision of more insight on Jonathan’s commitment towards electoral reform. I don’t know what was his motivation, but what I understand, he badly wanted his government and the Ruling Party under him to represent a stark contrast from the garrison and cruel electoral style of the Obasanjo era. Jonathan apparently wanted to win the 2015 elections at all costs, but he wanted it to look clean and the inability to combine the two was what probably led to his downfall. But whatever his shortcomings were, the former Bayelsa State Governor must be given the credit of single-handedly ushering us into a new era from which free and fair elections should become a standard.

Most Nigerians have been wondering whether the credibility of our elections is improving, static or declining. One critical debate that will give an insight into this is finding out which election is better between 2015 and 2019, our two most recent national elections. In terms of the actual elections, 2019 appeared to be a bit better, except for those being carried away by the fact that an incumbent lost is the highest mark of credibility in elections. This is because, we are quite not used to such things in Africa, but that notwithstanding, an incumbent losing is not a global benchmark for credible elections.

In 2015, at least five state governors sat on clearly illegal mandates as compared to just one in 2019. Form the huge volumes of electoral reports and analyses I studied; I can comfortably hypothesize that about 25% of National Assembly members across all parties in 2015 were illegally elected as against about 5 to 10% in 2019. For the presidential elections, the results of about ten states can be said to be truly questionable in varying degrees against the five for 2019. These are not facts. However, on the preliminary and postliminary activities that constitute the electoral process, 2019 is by far the worse; the primary elections that produced candidates were one of the worst in history. The judicial proceedings that decided electoral cases were also one of the most unfortunate in Nigeria’s history.

All of these is by the way. Our concern now should be about how the current APC government is handling the electoral system and how it intends to continue handling it. There have been many allegations of electoral fraud during the 2019 elections, but what was witnessed in the Kano so-called re-run elections has been a subject of discussion. The brutally fraudulent and violent nature with which Kano was taken was not only a sad reminder of the peak Obasanjo days, it was an indication of how APC’s new winning formula. The National Assembly by-elections in the same Kano as well as the Kogi State governorship elections that followed is a practical testimony to this. The mistrust and misgivings of the electoral process by the electorates is back, the 2015 confidence have been destroyed and Nigerians now have serious doubts over the 2023 electoral process.

Though political parties in Nigeria are mere alphabets and acronyms, but the main elements that call the shots within the APC have been the major victims of electoral fraud from 2003 to 2011 and ironically the main beneficiaries of fairly acceptable elections between 2015 to 2019. They are the ones most expected to further reform the electoral process and make it better. No one expects what we witnessed in Kano and Kogi states to have happened under this president who was rigged out several times. Before that, we have seen what happened in Osun State in 2018. The return of full-fledged electoral fraud is imminent.

One will think certain things are beyond the control of the president and the APC. But, how do you explain the party appointing the Kano State governor as leader of its campaign council in Edo state?  The party is well aware that since the infamous dollar saga, Ganduje is gradually becoming the new reference point of corruption in Nigeria after collecting the baton from former Delta State Governor, James Ibori. Furthermore, the fiasco that returned Ganduje to Kano State Government House on March 2019 is the new national reference point for electoral mandate robbery in the country. With APC appearing not to care about all these, we can only conclude that it’s new message to Nigerians, that it no longer pretends, it no longer cares about free and fair elections.

Out of all these, none is the most dangerous. What represent our most critical danger is the attitude of the judiciary towards the electoral process. The courts especially at the highest level have become the new graveyards of electoral mandates. We are yet to recover from how the judiciary stamped its approval on the anomalies of the 2015 elections especially with regards to gubernatorial elections. It takes one of the most morally bankrupt consciences to rig an election, but it takes even a more morally bankrupt one to legitimize and affirm it.

Irrespective of the technical judicial processes, the various verdicts particularly from the Supreme Court were greatly detrimental to the well-being of the electoral process. With this development, everybody will now try to win election at all cost, knowing so well the judicial process is less than likely to unseat him. It has gradually become very clear that once you were not declared winner after the polls, you stand virtually no chance of reclaiming your mandate in the courts. First, the tribunals give much emphasis on flimsy technicalities and often dismiss several petitions on such grounds. Secondly, they often summarize all arguments and evidences brought before them as having failed to prove the case ‘beyond reasonable doubt’- an ambiguous phrase now so popularly and notoriously used to dismiss many competent cases.

Another source of concern is how INEC is tactfully returning to partisanship after a brief journey away from it. Before then, the electoral umpire has always not been forthcoming in preventing electoral malpractices, many of its actions even encourage it. Before and after elections, multiple alarms of foul play are being raised in different quarters and during the course of the elections, many candidates usually complain of rigging, violence, manipulation and oppression, but all INEC could do was to tell them to head to court if they were not satisfied. Is this all that the law empowers INEC to do?

Talking of the law, this brings us to the issue of the Electoral Act. The 8^th National Assembly did well in comprehensively amending the 2010 electoral act only for President Buhari to refuse his signature for reasons yet to be clearly justified. Lest we forget, the deficient electoral act of 2010 was what gave the Supreme Court the technical window to affirm the hugely questionable gubernatorial elections of Rivers, Akwa-Ibom and Abia states in 2015 on the grounds that the card reader is not recognized by the law. This was what empowered politicians with more impunity into 2019. To date, the 9^th National Assembly which is the darling of the administration appears not to have started any move regarding the Electoral Act. Let’s not begin to talk about the performance of local government elections under this administration.

The bottom-line now is that the electoral reform which had begun to make some progress since 2007 has gone back to square zero. Nigeria, courtesy of her leaders is a nation that is famous for taking one step forward and then two or more steps backwards. Whenever one step is taken in the right direction, several other steps would be taken in the wrong one. This is probably one of the major reasons why we have failed to make a lasting and permanent progress in a lot of things.

I have closely and critically observed elections at all levels since 2003 and I have researched fairly on the histories of past elections in Nigeria. Inspite of the sham we went through in 2003, 2007 and to some extent 2011, now represents the most disturbing moment in our contemporary electoral history. We use to have credible opposition that fights all these evils, now we don’t; we used to have some courts that deliver justice on electoral matters, now we don’t; we used to have majority of Nigerians fighting the menace, now almost everyone has given up.  

Elections appear to be the only potent weapon available to Nigerians against their oppressive leaders. All other constitutional options like impeachment, recall and freedom to protest are either suppressed, too bureaucratic or ineffective. Being aware of this, leaders now misbehave with impunity, use our own money against us with rascality and when it is election time, they rig with authority thinking that they will live till eternity.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Malaria: Nigeria’s Annual Pandemic

26^th April, 2020

By: Amir Abdulazeez

W

hen the decision was reached to spare a date for the observance of ‘World Malaria Day’ in May 2007 by the 60^th session of the World Health Assembly, which is the World Health Organization's decision-making body, there were about 100 countries and territories that have eradicated Malaria, set the path for eradicating it or have reduced the disease to the barest or negligible level. In spite of this, Malaria was still regarded as a global disease, perhaps not for its spatial coverage, but for its high prevalence among a significant number of the global population mostly domiciled in Africa.

The World Malaria Day itself was an offshoot from the Africa Malaria Day, an event that had been observed since 2001 by African governments. The first World Malaria Day was held on 25^th April, 2008 with the theme ‘Malaria: a disease without borders’. The day was established to provide education and understanding of malaria and spread information on annual implementation of national malaria-control strategies, including community-based activities for malaria prevention and treatment in endemic areas. Its observance served as a time to assess progress toward goals aimed at controlling malaria and reducing its mortality in affected countries.

A review of different reports suggests that globally, 3.3 billion people in 106 countries are at risk of malaria. In 2012, malaria caused an estimated 627,000 deaths, mostly among African children. Asia, Latin America, and to a lesser extent the Middle East and parts of Europe were also affected. According to the most recent World Malaria Report, the global tally of malaria reached 212 million new cases and 429,000 deaths in 2015. The rate of new malaria cases fell by 21% and death rates fell by 29% globally between 2010 and 2015. Children under 5 years of age are the most vulnerable group affected by malaria; in 2018, they accounted for 67% (272,000) of all malaria deaths worldwide. Malaria is the 3^rd leading cause of death for children under five years worldwide, after pneumonia and diarrheal disease.

According to the latest World malaria report, released in December 2019, there were 228 million cases of malaria in 2018 compared to 231 million cases in 2017. The estimated number of malaria deaths stood at 405,000 in 2018, compared with 416,000 deaths in 2017. African continues to carry a disproportionately high share of the global malaria burden. In 2018, the region was home to 93% of all malaria cases and 94% of all malaria deaths. Malaria transmission is more intense in places where the mosquito lifespan is longer with the parasite getting adequate time to complete its development and having preference to bite humans rather than other animals. The long lifespan and strong human-biting habit of the African vector species is the main reason why approximately 90% of the world's malaria cases are in Africa. Thirty countries in Sub-Saharan Africa account for 90% of global malaria deaths.

How has Malaria been faring in Nigeria? In 2018, six countries accounted for more than half of all malaria cases worldwide: Nigeria (25%), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12%), Uganda (5%), and Côte d’Ivoire, Mozambique and Niger (4% each). With this, Nigeria is the World Malaria Capital constituting a risk for 97% of Nigeria's population. The remaining 3% of the population are reported to only be relatively safe because they live on the highlands. According to the United States Embassy in Nigeria, there are an estimated 100 million malaria cases with over 300,000 deaths per year in Nigeria. This compares with 215,000 deaths per year in Nigeria from HIV/AIDS. Malaria is a major public health problem in Nigeria where it accounts for more cases and deaths than any other country in the world. This explains why the World Malaria Day is an important event in Nigeria.

Malaria is not the only deadly health challenge in Nigeria. According to various reports, the top causes of death in Nigeria are; malaria, lower respiratory infections, HIV/AIDS, diarrheal diseases, road injuries, protein-energy malnutrition, cancer, meningitis, stroke and tuberculosis. The Nigerian office of the International Center for Disease Control and Prevention listed the top 10 Causes of Death in Nigeria as at 2018 to be lower respiratory infections, neonatal disorders, HIV/AIDS, Malaria, diarrheal diseases, Tuberculosis, Meningitis, lschemic heart disease, Stroke and Cirrhosis. Researches have suggested that Malaria accelerates other diseases, including some of the ones mentioned above.

In most cases, malaria is transmitted through the bites of female Anopheles mosquitoes. According to WHO, there are more than 400 different species of Anopheles mosquito; around 30 are malaria vectors of major importance. All of the important vector species bite between dusk and dawn. The intensity of transmission depends on factors related to the parasite, the vector, the human host, and the environment. Anopheles mosquitoes lay their eggs in water, which hatch into larvae, eventually emerging as adult mosquitoes. The female mosquitoes seek a blood meal to nurture their eggs. Each species of Anopheles mosquito has its own preferred aquatic habitat; for example, some prefer small, shallow collections of fresh water, such as puddles and hoof prints, which are abundant during the rainy season in tropical countries.

Transmission also depends on climatic conditions that may affect the number and survival of mosquitoes, such as rainfall patterns, temperature and humidity. In many places, transmission is seasonal, with the peak during and just after the rainy season. Malaria epidemics can occur when climate and other conditions suddenly favour transmission in areas where people have little or no immunity to malaria. They can also occur when people with low immunity move into areas with intense malaria transmission, for instance to find work, or as refugees.

No matter how severe Malaria has become, it is time to eradicate it in Nigeria and all other places. Doing it is not rocket science provided sustainable and dedicated efforts are put in place. Globally, the elimination net is widening, with more countries moving towards the goal of zero malaria. In 2018, 27 countries reported fewer than 100 indigenous cases of the disease, up from 17 countries in 2010. The WHO Framework for Malaria Elimination (2017) provides a detailed set of tools and strategies for achieving and maintaining elimination. From 1999 to 2019, if Nigeria had a solid and implementable vision against Malaria, the disease may have been history by now. This would have eased the pressure on our health facilities and saved billions of Naira spent on drugs.

Countries that have achieved at least 3 consecutive years of 0 indigenous cases of malaria are eligible to apply for the WHO certification of malaria elimination. Over the last decade, 10 countries have been certified by the WHO Director-General as malaria-free: Morocco (2010), Turkmenistan (2010), Armenia (2011), Maldives (2015), Sri Lanka (2016), Kyrgyzstan (2016), Paraguay (2018), Uzbekistan (2018), Algeria (2019) and Argentina (2018). Some of these countries do not have half the resources that Nigeria commands.

Fighting and defeating Malaria even in advanced countries has not come without challenges. But the key issue is that prevention is always better than cure. Over the years, hundreds of millions of Insecticides Treated Nets have been distributed and used in most parts of Nigeria, yet the problem still persists. Sometimes, mosquitoes that transmit Malaria bite their victims before the bed time in which they might have been inside the nets. Therefore, they major way out is comprehensive town and environmental planning which will rehabilitate slums, poor unplanned settlements and stop the emergence of new ones. Government must rise up against the disease-breeding shanties we call settlements. Drainage network planning and rehabilitation is also essential.

One key control measure is vaccination. RTS,S/AS01 is the first and, to date, the only promising vaccine against severe malaria, in young African children. It acts against P.falciparum, the most deadly malaria parasite globally and the most prevalent in Africa. Among children who received 4 doses in large-scale clinical trials, the vaccine prevented approximately 4 in 10 cases of malaria over a 4-year period. This shows, even the vaccine is not a permanent ultimate solution. The WHO’s top advisory bodies for malaria and immunization have jointly recommended phased introduction of the vaccine in selected areas of sub-Saharan Africa. Three countries – Ghana, Kenya and Malawi – began introducing the vaccine in selected areas of moderate and high malaria transmission in 2019.

Eradicating Malaria can best be achieved first by individual and then community efforts. It is not a coincidence that the themes for the 2019 and 2020 World Malaria Days have been "Zero malaria starts with me". If we all make a resolve to take good care of our environment and personal hygiene, we stand a chance to defeat Malaria. Community efforts towards regularly sanitizing the environment and getting rid of stagnant waters through clearing of drainages and water ways is equally important. Community contributions for the periodic spray of insecticides will be far be better than sticking to the individual mosquito coils that drain our micro-economy. It is also far better than waiting to be infected and then spend hundreds or thousands on treatment.

The current efforts to defeat Malaria and other diseases by various stakeholders, even if inadequate yet, must be commended. Alongside the World Malaria Day, the WHO has dedicated days for seven other global public health campaigns; World Health Day, World Blood Donor Day, World Immunization Week, World Tuberculosis Day, World No Tobacco Day, World Hepatitis Day and World AIDS Day. With current developments, we may soon have World Coronavirus Day.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Conditional Cash Transfer

17^th April, 2020

By: Amir Abdulazeez

I

n 2001, the Nigerian Government created the ambitious National Poverty Eradication Programme (NAPEP). The population then was estimated to be well above 120 million with over 63% of it living below one dollar per day which as at then exchanged for between 99 to 105 naira. NAPEP may not be declared a major success even if it fairly represented an improvement over previous attempts. A 2008 analysis on African Poverty reported that the programme was able to train about 130,000 youths while engaging 216,000 beneficiaries.

There were three main problems with NAPEP; its impact was too minimal considering the large population, there were widespread allegations that many of the beneficiaries were politically selected and hence not poor and thirdly, the programme was not organized to be sustainable. Since NAPEP, the Federal Government had initiated other cosmetic initiatives like YOUWIN, SURE-P empowerments, N-Power, etc directly and indirectly aimed at reducing poverty and unemployment. Equally, many state governments have invested heavily in vocational programmes. Since the APC government came in 2015, it has also introduced Conditional Cash Transfer where vulnerable Nigerians are paid N5,000 monthly.

Will this kind of initiatives end poverty in Nigeria? I believe, the major question we should be asking as Nigerians is not about the need to fight poverty, it should be about why do we have growing poverty? Should Nigeria have any significant business with poverty? Do the current and past leaders actually understand the level of poverty in the land as well as the right strategies to fight and defeat it? Are we fighting poverty from its roots or are we only selectively relieving its symptoms? Will conditional and even unconditional cash transfer reduce poverty significantly? What is the sustainable way of defeating poverty?

Times like this pandemic are the trying periods when all that have been said about Nigeria’s poverty which hitherto appear theoretical is now experienced in real and practical terms. The main clog in the wheel regarding fighting coronavirus in Nigeria is poverty. Locking down 200 million people, out of which about 50% or more are very poor can come with dire consequences. While many modestly developed and truly developing countries are concerned mainly with the micro-economic dimensions of this crisis, Nigeria is dealing with both the micro and the macro. In fact, the micro is more critical as this is the main reason why the government appear to be giving much priority to conditional cash transfer which it apparently lacks the capacity to execute intensively and extensively without macroeconomic consequences.

In 2017, Nigeria with 94.5 million extremely poor people representing 47.2% of the population, was declared the world’s poverty capital overtaking India with 70 million poor people or 5.1% of their population. Carried away with its ‘largest African economy’ status, the government instead of reflecting and getting back to work immediately, rather went on denial. Today, what the authorities denied verbally, they have been forced to accept practically as it is obvious that the government is facing more headache from the consequences of measures taken to fight Covid 19 than the actual disease itself.

For example, how do you ask a people you have deprived clean drinking water to wash their hands with running water frequently or a population in which a significant percentage are either homeless or semi-homeless to practice social distancing? It is evident therefore, ever since majority of Nigerians have been fighting with a bigger virus, much bigger than corona. How did we get here?

Just yesterday, the Daily Trust reported that the Nassarawa State Government spent over 500 million naira to procure ‘official’ vehicles for the state law makers. According to the paper, the 24 vehicles cost about 21 million naira each. This is happening amidst the coronavirus pandemic in which the state is reported to have no single government-owned ventilator which cost between 9 to 18 million. The picture on the paper’s story showed the Speaker of the State House Assembly and his crew shamelessly and satisfactorily inspecting the vehicles as they wore face masks that give the false impression of their concern towards the current predicament.

The Nassarawa story is a summary of how governments at all levels had been behaving towards poor Nigerians since 1999. The trillions of naira wasted on irrelevant priorities while peanuts are budgeted for the so-called poverty alleviation initiatives over the past 20 years is the major reason why majority of ordinary Nigerians are becoming poorer and poorer everyday.

Before 2017, I was of the habit of reviewing federal and state government yearly budgets; I even volunteered to translate some of them into local languages for the benefit of other readers. One general conclusion I reached was that majority of these budgets are mere recycled documents that will probably change nothing positively as far as development is concerned. As the representatives of the people, the legislature which supposed to vet these budgets and make them pro-poor end up making them more anti-people by manipulation, rubber stamping the corruption-motivated projects proposed by the executives and insertion of self-servicing fraudulent constituency projects.

If Nigeria is truly serious about alleviating poverty, it must take some solid, sincere and long-lasting measures against the cosmetic and rhetorical ones it keeps packaging regime after regime. First, it has to guarantee its citizens security at all cost. Insecurity is perhaps one of the biggest sources of poverty. Only God knows the amount of monies and sources of livelihood lost by poor and ordinary Nigerians to terrorism, armed robbery, political thuggery, kidnapping, farmers-herders’ conflicts, religious riots and ethnic unrests over the last 20 years. Many have had permanent disabilities and lost the very health they can otherwise use to stay out of poverty.

Government must provide power at all as it is the most critical sector that has the potential of automatically creating and consolidating direct and indirect jobs. For example, if there is adequate security and power supply, industries will be revamped and businesses will run for 24 hours. When some people who conduct businesses during the day are asleep, some others who were resting during the day will conduct businesses during the night. Nigerian businesses will work for 24 hours with no valuable time to waste thereby hugely increasing productivity. When power is available, thousands of jobs would be created both directly and indirectly. The idea of banning the import generators is just a laughable way of diverting attention from government failures.

Massive and not cosmetic investment in agriculture is required. As at 2016, I counted about 109 major dams and reservoirs that can support irrigation but largely underutilized across the country. I want to believe they are much more than that.  A particular state with about 26 major and minor dams that cut across almost each Local Government are among those complaining of poverty. The governors have vandalized the state resources on white elephant projects that are not only useless in terms of revenue generation, but adds burden to state finances for their maintenance. A survey conducted revealed that a 4-billion-naira investment in the irrigation scheme will generate over 2 million jobs for poor people, but no, the governors prefer straight-forward projects in urban centres that come with high returns on kickbacks. Shameless and wicked.   

Government must re-establish peoples’ trust by ensuring equity and transparency. Over the years, virtually only rich sons and daughters can secure white collar jobs while the poor are left with crumbs or nothing. While lucrative opportunities are reserved for the rich to make them richer, palliatives like Npower are established for the poor to save face. With this, national resources are channelled towards making others richer, while the poor remain poorer. A poor university graduate that can secure a job with NCC, NNPC, CBN or FIRS can gradually pull the whole of his family out of poverty. But he can’t dare get such opportunities unless on rare occasions.

The Local Governments are major shock absorbers in terms of poverty reduction. For the past 10 years, everyone concerned had folded their arms and watched while the state governments have massacred them and rendered them useless through hijacking their responsibilities as well as withholding and siphoning their funds. Many of the states consume their resources and expend them on political projects that yield no financial dividend for the future. We hardly hear states investing in agriculture, industrialization and tourism.

The absence of a national development plan has given way to the politicization and inconsistencies of government activities at the federal and state levels. Government projects are not initiated along any short or long-term development plan but rather based on political sentiments. At the states, hardly, can you find a state with any long-term development plan which is continuous and consistent; even states that have been governed by one party since 1999 experience planning inconsistencies and policy summersaults. Right from 1999, if the states had made it an objective to truly eradicate poverty, many would’ve achieved significant progress by now.

Right now, Nigerians are part of the global community being held hostage by this pandemic. Many poor people are likely to be affected in high proportions. The post-pandemic period will likely come with additional economic challenges. After all these, we must return to fighting against our main virus which is the poverty that was artificially imposed on us by people who called themselves our leaders.

It is unfortunate that we have reached a level where we cannot get the most basic things right in this country and nobody is held responsible. At different levels, we are governed by heartless leaders who can maim and kill their own people with impunity to stay in power while the constitution grants them immunity. In our country, truth has been reduced to a mere opinion. Under these conditions, it is only a matter of time that every Nigerian become vulnerable and then eligible for conditional cash transfer.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

Corona: More than a Virus

17^th March, 2020

 

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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hen America killed the Iranian Commander of the Quds Forces, Major General Qasem Soleimani barely three days into the new year 2020, only few people believe that by now there wouldn’t be a full blown war not just involving the two countries, but one which may well set the path to another World War. Soleimani was killed by a drone near the Baghdad Airport while he was reportedly planning to meet Iraqi Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi to discuss Iran-Saudi Arabia peace mediation in Baghdad.

Although, some tension-escalating events like the attack on the American embassy in Baghdad among others that followed the assassination represented some serious threats, but the current situation now suggests that the US-Iranian conflict is no longer an issue taking centre-stage, at least for now. The two countries involved and the world at large are now fighting a different unprecedented battle against a common global enemy, a war against corona virus.

When coronavirus was announced as an emerging pandemic on the 20^th January in South Korea, some media outlets termed it ‘Chinese’ coronavirus. Little did anyone know that it will soon become global. At about the same time, China’s National Health Commission had reported only the third death from coronavirus, the number of infected having increased by 136 during the previous two days. That report came after Chinese authorities had confirmed that the virus had spread from the Wuhan Province to major cities, including Shenzhen, Beijing, and Hong Kong. Two months later, we are now talking of the virus covering about 83% of the world’s countries in a manner so rapid mysterious that raises more questions than experts can answers.

The latest updates on the virus reveals that about 160 countries across all inhabited continents have recorded at least a case and about 100 countries have between 50 to 100 cases. Prior to this, the total cases confirmed in Europe as at 31^st January was probably not up to a hundred. Presently, China still tops the list with over 82,000 cases, Italy which about six weeks ago had only 2 cases or so is second with about 28,000 cases, Iran has over 16,000, Spain over 11,000 and South Korea about 8,500 cases making 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th worst affected nations respectively. Every hour, these figures change for the worse and every 24 hours, the worsening situation escalates geometrically depending on territories. For example, there have been 13,903 new cases and 862 new deaths globally from yesterday. Only God knows how many other possible unreported cases exist.

What is corona virus? It sounds quite odd that despite been a global pandemic, many of us have still not taken time to truly know what the virus is. The word ‘Corona’ itself is a biological term. In Anatomy it refers to the crown-like upper portion of a bodily part or structure, such as the top of the head. In Botany, it is a crown-shaped, funnel-shaped, or trumpet-shaped outgrowth or appendage of the perianth of certain flowers, such as a daffodil. The World Health Organization (WHO) described Coronaviruses (CoV) as large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). Coronaviruses are zoonotic, meaning they are transmitted between animals and people.  Detailed investigations found that SARS-CoV was transmitted from civet cats to humans and MERS-CoV from dromedary camels to humans. Several known coronaviruses are circulating in animals that have not yet infected humans.

Coronavirus disease is a new strain that was discovered in 2019 (hence the code COVID-19) and has not been previously identified in humans before now. Common signs of infection include respiratory symptoms, fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, infection can cause pneumonia, severe acute respiratory syndrome, kidney failure and even death. Standard recommendations to prevent infection spread include regular hand washing, covering mouth and nose when coughing and sneezing, thoroughly cooking meat and eggs. Avoid close contact with anyone showing symptoms of respiratory illness such as coughing and sneezing.

We have had many pandemics in history. From the small pox that reportedly killed millions in 1520 to the Asian Flu that killed 1.1 million between 1957-1958, the world has seen enough. In this millennium, SARS, Swine Flu, MERS and Ebola (all largely regional pandemics) have been responsible for the death of over 210,000 people. Corona may not be the deadliest, but it is proving to be one of the most historical in contemporary times because of its spatial coverage and temporal brutality. It has generated a chain of events that are changing the course of history.

Before now, the last time Iran asked for IMF loan was 1962. Price of crude oil per barrel is below $30, down from about $65 in early January. The Saudi Arabia authorities have reportedly suspended all Umrah (lesser Hajj) activities with the main 2020 Hajj itself billed for August/September in serious in doubt. Multi-billion-dollar sporting events are now cancelled and postponed with Euro 2020 football competition becoming the latest victim. International and local flights have been grounded with over 90% cancelled. Cities are now on lockdowns; public places are shut down almost everywhere. Leaders of countries and highly-placed government officials are testing positive for the virus. The US-President Donald Trump was recently pressured by the public outcries to subject himself to a test.

Although, the global confirmed cases are still a little below 200,000 as at now and total deaths still below 10,000, the global population are in panic. Over 7 billion people are concerned about the mystery surrounding the diseases living under the fear that any place and anyone could be next. The over $88 trillion global GDP from 193 economies is facing its worst uncertainties. Virtually everything and everyone has been directly or indirectly affected by the virus.

In all these, there is a big lesson for Africa and Nigeria. Africa is lucky yet that the pandemic is still not an epidemic in the continent, but this should call for caution and more preparation and not the complacency and mockery circulating that black people have immunity and all that. The bigger lesson we however have to learn is the need to start giving attention to our health sector which we have not taken seriously over the years. Our health sector is not only one of the worst, but also one of the most inadequate and inefficient and we are doing little or close to nothing to fix it. That our leaders can no longer travel for medical trips because of Corona, at least for now should force them to fix the facilities we have here and provide the ones we lack.

Health budgeting must improve from states to federal. The federal Government budgeted only N441.5 billion (4%) for the entire health sector. This is about N2000 per citizen for the whole year. Kano for example with a population of about 20 million has since 2011 spent over N50 billion on white elephant flyovers and underpasses while its health sector is overstretched to a limit beyond comprehension. In situations like these that we can barely provide routine healthcare, how can we deal with epidemics and pandemics successfully?

The first few weeks of the 2020 gave us a hint about the year to expect. The continuation of the Australian bushfires from 2019; the stampede at Soleimani’s funeral killing 56 people and injuring 213; a magnitude 6.4 earthquake in Puerto Rico; renewed Boko Haram atrocities with 30 people killed in Gamboru, Borno State; about 50 people killed and over 19,000 displaced as flash floods hit the Indonesian capital of Jakarta; 36 people killed and others injured after a building under construction collapses in Kep, Cambodia. All of these happened in the first seven days of 2020. As if that was not all, the next week started with a Boeing 737-800 crashing (later reported to have been ‘mistakenly’ shot by Iranian authorities) while taking off from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport, killing all 176 people on board.

The truth is that 2020 has been a tough year for the world so far. Many countries have been taking additional measures to absorb the shocks provided by the year and preparing to navigate and end it on a stronger note. With Corona proving to be more than just a virus, Presidents are addressing citizens giving them assurances on measures taken to put the situation under control medically, economically and socially. Here in Nigeria, we are above 2020, we have started talking of 2023.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez

A Word on the Nigerian ‘Activist’

18^th August, 2019

By: Amir Abdulazeez

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hen renowned columnist Mohammed Haruna was appointed INEC National Commissioner from North Central in 2016, he wrote a farewell article which was published in some national dailies. In that article, he reflected on what it took to become a newspaper columnist when they began writing in the late 1970s and what it took now; he also discussed the future of writing columns. One critical and interesting thing I understood from his submission was that the business of writing columns was no longer prestigious these days as virtually anyone with averagely good writing skills can become a columnist and with the rise in the popularity of social media, publishing and publicity was not much of an issue.

When I was done reading that article, I concluded that quackery had taken over the business of writing columns and opinion pieces. Until some ten to fifteen years ago, newspaper columns were written by patriotic, informed, experienced and privileged experts who have a full grasp of the past, a clear understanding of the present and insight into the future. Before now, many people buy newspapers only to read back page columns and some opinion pieces inside the paper. Today, as Haruna asserted, everyone with average understanding of issues can write on virtually anything and publishing is not his problem. This had led to the proliferation of our media spaces with heaps of debris that have helped in compounding instead of addressing issues.

The case of activism appears to be worse. While writing requires some basic and sometimes thoughtful skills even by Nigerian standards, activism appears to be a vague activity down here. You can hardly define what actually constitutes activism or what it takes to become an activist. This is why despite some decent efforts; we are still struggling to bring out significant and impacting relevance out of our different non-governmental struggles to change the course of events in this country.

While activism is conventionally used to refer to any direct or indirect action employed in attempts to bring about social or political change in a society, but for the sake of analysis in the Nigerian context, let’s just consider it to refer to any activity employed by people who have any cause or belief to express disagreement with government or its activities.

The lack of a defined framework for what activism should be has made virtually any anti-government activity irrespective of how silly to pass as activism these days. This is the reason why the boundaries between partisanship, opposition, advocacy, struggle, criticism, character assassination, abuse, irresponsibility and even treason is very blurred and indistinctive. The conflicting methods of carrying out all these are even more unclear, confusing and indistinguishable. This perhaps may be partly responsible for the reason why government find it so easy to declare groups as terrorists and dissenting voices as enemies.

In another clear and apparent inadequacy of government responses and attempts to have control over these activities, today invitations, arrests, kidnappings and abductions virtually look the same. People are arrested without warrants, sometimes in the most bizarre of circumstances in the name of holding them accountable for things they wrote, causes they advocate for or against and groups they align with, making government suspicious whenever any critic gets missing or harmed.

We cannot deny the fact that the position of activism in our society today is more of an avenue to get fame, relevance and money rather than the desired change it appears to be yearning for. The patriotism and sincerity required to change a country is simply lacking in our brand of activism. This is why everyone with a substantial following on social circles, no matter how ignorant or uninformed will quickly declare himself an activist and begin to see his opinion as an authority which attracts strong rebuke when challenged.

It is also glaringly clear that many of our so-called critics are using activism as a platform to make inroads into politics especially when the conventional way of doing so is dotted with so many barriers which they don’t have the financial and political power to overcome. This is why we see many so called activist accepting positions in governments that are clearly at variance to what they claim to stand for. It is also not unconnected with why so many of these activists failed in government when called to serve. For these reasons, we see activism working and leading to change of regimes in many countries including Africa, while it is close to insignificant down here.

Despite all these lapses, people in power should have no justification to harass and indiscriminately attempt to silence activists. It would be better to look inwards and attempt to correct or to take care of those issues which give the activists the avenue to rant and express disagreement. If leaders can have the attention to notice criticisms and critics, they should have the courage to address issues raised rather than attempt to suppress those criticisms. If politicians can accept praises unconditionally even if they don’t deserve them, they should have the bravery to tolerate criticisms.

I once received a call from an associate asking me to take down an article I circulated online. The article was a brief reaction around early 2016 when a State Government in Northern Nigeria published the extracts to one its weekly State Executive Council meetings and my attention was drawn to the approval of the council of hundreds of millions of naira to train selected youths on social media skills. I refused to take down the article. What I did instead was to reread the article severally and see if there was anything written that warrants even an apology, but I couldn’t find a single one. That associate of mine later opened up that my arrest was contemplated before they asked him to talk to me. It’s very sad that rather than digesting the suggestions I offered in that article, those responsible chose to indirectly threaten me. It is very wrong and unthinkable to attempt to suppress ones God-given rights to react to issues within the confines of the law.  

The big mistake of people in power is wanting leadership without responsibility; they want to enjoy the privileges and paraphernalia of office but they don’t want to endure the burden and criticisms that comes with it. The best way to avoid too much criticism is for a government to play by the rules and deliver effectively. However, even the best of administrations never escape criticisms. A government that doesn’t obey the laws of the land is the biggest threat to the progress of any nation and the public officials that seek to enjoy the privileges of leadership without wanting to endure its burden of responsibility are the biggest liability to any government.

While government must trade with justice and tolerance in dealing with criticisms, activists must also operate with caution and responsibility. Governments are populated with human beings like you who have feelings and families. It is only natural if they get disturbed when you spread falsehood and half-truths against them. People must be well informed before they discuss issues. This, in addition to Mohammed Haruna’s wise words is the reason why for about seven years I have been very reluctant towards fully accepting the offer of becoming a regular columnist for many news outfits. When you are compelled to write every week, even if you may not have anything substantial to say in certain periods, you may end up going against the ethics just to produce something for the readers, especially if your knowledge of issues isn’t as deep as others might have been expecting.

For activists to make any significant progress in influencing how things are done in this country, they must do away with the bad eggs among them; those who are all out to abuse and assassinate the character of responsible people just because we have freedom of expression or because such people are in power or politics. We must never stand or support activist who area clearly unethical or whose motive is confirmed to be self-centred and self-serving. We must not continue to cheer people when they are busy spreading abuses against leaders only to start trending for their release when they get arrested. Critics must also be ready to tolerate and accept criticisms.

Another important thing is to adhere to international best practices in advocacy and campaigns for social and political change. We shouldn’t praise and criticize blindly; we should learn to agree with government and support it when it is right. Our obsessions should also not be on government and politicians alone. We have so many anti-people tendencies perpetrated in the private sector as well as many social community ills which we are largely ignoring.

Activism must also have some discipline, organization and focus as well as sustainability and non- political alignment to make meaningful impact. Nigerian activists don’t seem to have much synergy within their ranks; their activities are disjointed, uncoordinated and short-lived. When they occasionally come together, their incompatibility due to individual biases becomes irreconcilable. In this regard, we have a lot to learn from the proponents of the Bring Back our Girls Struggle which is by far one of the most organized, impactful and sustained non-partisan struggle in recent history. It had its own lapses during and after the struggle, but as a whole, it was spectacular and enduring.  

Government and people in government are the biggest stakeholders in almost everything. If a government doesn’t have the endurance to tolerate criticism, how on earth does it think it has the competence to deliver? Public officers must look at the substance of criticism and not the critics, and this with the intention of addressing issues. When you are presiding over peoples’ common wealth, you must be ready to hear them out. If it is inevitable that activists or critics must be arrested, it should be done within the confines of the law and people’s offence must be clearly defined, and offenders or suspects must be properly charged to court rather than kept for days under secret custody.

All in all, no activism can change a society if its basic tenets are not laid on a solid foundation. For example, how do you make progress in a country which its constitution empowers leaders to become criminals without consequence?

I was recently introduced to an online forum of African discussants on how to influence and change the focus of governance in the continent and I was surprised when someone from far away Uganda asked me whether it is true that Nigerian leaders are so corrupt that they openly stash dollars in their pockets? I was thinking of an appropriate answer when another discussant from South Sudan quickly chipped in and said, he read somewhere that some people were recently arrested for organizing a revolution to change that situation. After some few laughs, many wondered if certain things reported about Nigeria are actually possible in such a powerful country. Referring to me, the moderator asked but where are you, the activists. I jokingly replied, I am not an activist.

Twitter: @AmirAbdulazeez