Paul ADEPOJU Reports

Mysteries of the Burning Tire

2012-01-28T21:53:00.000+01:00

As early as five in the morning, protesters were already outside setting up barricades with logs of woods, trees and tires. The atmosphere was still cool that it looked as if things were normal. For a second, you would think the barricades were set up to inform drivers to be conscious and cautious of a faulty car nearby. It looked like a harmless gathering of early risers. But two hours later, things had gone haywire. Commotion was everywhere to the extent that you'd believe a revolt was taking place. Now look around and compare the scene with what held sway say like 2 hours ago. They aren't comparable and it's just one evident change you could see, burning tires.

Most times when there are civil actions like strikes and protests, at least a tire fire is seen on every street. This is not restricted to Nigeria, West and North Africa, or any other place; tire fires unite the world.

Understanding the importance of burning tires during struggles is quite difficult, almost impossible because recorded history has no definite description of the world's gradual interest in tire fire, and the world's acceptance of burning tires as a means of making peoples' grievances known.

The Arab Spring was initiated in Tunisia after a young man set himself on fire. Had he drowned himself in water, the effect wouldn't have been widely spread because some people would see his death as accidental or suicidal. But people all over the world take arson serious.

Tire fire is a serious strong message to the government suggesting that the people are annoyed and are ready to do anything; literally going all the way to achieve their set goals.

Rising global interest in addressing environmental challenges like global warming and climate change could tempt some badly hated governments to ban the burning of fires since it is scientifically proven as a major harm to the environment. Burning fires produce a lot of smoke, which often carries toxic chemicals from the breakdown of rubber compounds while burning. A single tire contains about the equivalent of 7.5 liters (two U.S. gallons) of oil. More than enough fuel to burn down 3 houses, or more when in the hands of a "professional".

States and cities like New York state, Minnesota and several others already have legislation in place to prevent or check indiscriminate burning of tires. But not in Africa. The anger of the people fuelled by the loss of interest of the government in addressing and regulating fire tire could be seen as an extension of the continent's centipede steps in addressing enormous challenges. Hence when there is a tire fire, the gory black images shot and aired by the foreign media paints the picture of a hardened government and resolute citizens that will go to any extent, including an interference with the delicately balanced ecosystem, to make their voices heard.

The burning tire is also expected to instill fear in the mind of those who are opposed to the cause. Tires are typically not prone to self-ignition as a tire must be heated to at least 400°C for a period of several minutes prior to ignition. Anyone who is ready to go all the way to that temperature and beyond should be taken serious because he/she/they are armed with a weapon of mass destruction. They can cast, bind and destroy with strong fire. That's why protesters are often prevented from getting access to properties and infrastructures of national or state importance. With just one misguided rolling burning tire, a national treasure could become a black heap of ashes. The fear of this happening is a bargaining power in the hands of protesters.

Apart from fuelling fires, tire fire also fuels anger. Throughout my experience with riots and rioters, protests and protesters, I've not seen happy people happily flaring tires. No. It's something you do when you are angry and you want to show your anger. In some environment-friendly conservative cultures, you throw shoes and you get attention. But elsewhere tire fire and arson might not even get mentioned in the newspapers which causes more anger and pressurised bottle becomes filled with maddening anger. This is what is happening in Nigeria.

Tire fire isn't an every protest event, it's reserved for those tough times when the issues affect every Nigerian irrespective of age, sex religion, and standard of living. During the military junta and the fight for democracy, tire fires were all over the country. A foreign tabloid even used the phrase "nation up in flames" to describe the struggles then. A re-enactment was also achieved during the labour-spearheaded strike action to oppose the recent hike in fuel pump price as a result of the president's removal of fuel subsidy.

While Boko Haram crisis is dividing the nation along religious, ethnic and sect lines, tire fire is uniting the rest of the nation. During the entire period of tire flaring, Boko Haram was on break. Robbers that decided to operate at night also had to contend with residents who stayed up till daybreak burning tires to ward off criminals.

Some of the questions that come to my mind every time I see thick black smokes from a tire fire is: Where are these tires coming from? Who is footing the bills (I've never seen protesters contribute money to buy a burning kit that includes tires). I also want to ask who is providing the matches? Who is striking the fire? More questions, few answers.

You rarely see the planning that goes into burning tires, but you will definitely see the resulting thick smoke and ashes on the road. This is an attitude that Nigeria and Nigerians should work on improving and utilizing to achieve a lot of great things. The burning tire symbolizes the aggregation of the peoples' affliction and dissatisfaction. The resulting thick smoke rises beyond what could be hidden or contained by any powerful force. And the ashes you step on while going about your daily chores are meant to remind you that the battle is not yet over, it is only suspended until a later date when the pressure will become unbearable and a burst will become inevitable. This is the mystery of the burning tire in Nigeria, and beyond.

Innocent '2Face' Idibia Drops Raindrops

2012-01-27T01:18:00.001+01:00

When I first read about the superstar's video on NotJustOk, I thought it was another effort of the media to bring 2Face to the same par with Kokomaster D'banj. But I was wrong. The video is a classic timeless masterpiece. That's why I'm sharing it here. Shot at locations across Ghana, this is Africa's sensational, Nigerian international and Jostified singer - 2Face Idibia in Raindrops.

Dirts' Health Wealth

2012-01-26T20:16:00.000+01:00

If I get to the hospital any minute after eight, I'm going to be late, except it's a Thursday which happens to be the city's monthly environmental sanitation exercise. On this day of the week, dirts from the closets find their way to the main roads where they are picked up the state's environmental health officers.

It is worthy to note that the environmental sanitation exercise is quite recent. And if the volume of dirts that are packed is anything to go by, then the city actually deserves more than Thursdays to keep citizens clean and healthy. But we can't spend the better part of the week just cleaning. Very soon, there will be nothing to clean up.

I'm currently working with an health energy expert to come up with a recycling plan but that is not the focus of this post. I'm exploring good sides of accumulated dirts to health.

They always say cleanliness is next to godliness. Which is true. But have you ever wondered why the poor man rarely falls sick, or why children of poor parents fair better than the rich kids. The reason is simply innate immunity.

Innate immunity refers to the body's self protection measures to ward off infections and infectious agents. Take chickenpox for instance. Almost every patient that I'm aware of their medical condition didn't return to the health center with chickenpox. The first (and only) encounter with the virus is often strong enough to teach the body how protect itself in the future. This has been proven to be true.

Lots of protective vaccines act by the introduction of the causative agent into the body system. This entry elicits immunological reactions that attacks and destroys the invading organism, and configures the body against future occurrence. It is so simple and scientists often rely on this to help the body protect itself against foreign invasion.

Talking of dirts, lots of infective micro organisms are live in dirts and usually expect unsuspecting individuals to come in contact with the dirt in order for the (the organisms) to continue their own life cycle. Understanding this principle can help modulate the body system and make it more responsive to reacting against foreign organisms on its own without much external interventions with their associated side effects. But there is the need for caution.

There are organisms that we can't just expose ourselves to in order to raise our immunity. Doing so is both stupid and suicidal. But we can work on other subtle conditions. This can help in tackling the issue of resistance since circulating antibodies will be the agents cleansing the body system.

While lots of ethical issues are involved, I can't help but be amazed at how difficult it is for good hygiene to ensure good health while the filthy insane man that eats dungs, sleeps in the open and drinks urine still remain hale, strong and healthy. His life clearly shows that there is more to dirts than filthy scents. It's left to scientists to tap into this raw demeaning yet pluripotent world of dirts. This could be a cutting edge area of research in medicine, a sector that has exhausted almost all availble options.

President Obama's 2012 State of The Union Address [Video]

2012-01-25T15:24:00.000+01:00

US President Barack Obama was at his best last night when he delivered the annual State of the Union address to the joint session of the US legislature. In the just-beyond-an-hour speech that is the last of his administration (except he gets a second term), he reiterated his commitment to ensuring equity in sacrifices made, less bailouts for companies, and new proposals on how to generate more jobs and ensure safe environments. From my point of view, the gave the Republican leading candidates an idea of what to expect when they go head-to-head at the polls. Watch the speech in its entirety below:

Medicines That Make Me Sick

2012-01-25T10:47:00.000+01:00

I live in a country with a larger proportion of citizens having malaria parasites swimming in their blood hence unless it has become a very serious illness, very few patients take malaria serious. Even out of those that are conscious of the malaria parasites in their bloodstream, very few voluntarily go to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment. It is often over-the-counter tablet count that counts. And to a large extent, it is working... almost perfectly.

Four years ago, I read about a WHO TDR initiative in some parts of Africa and Asia that tested the efficacy of using local pharmacists in making drugs available to those who need them. The statistical analysis of figures gave highly significant results. But the problem however is that such measure further increases the possibility of resistance development that could be as a result of wrong diagnosis or incomplete dosage that could lead to tolerance and resistance.

Recently, a three-month old baby was pronounced dead after he was given a high dosage of antimalarial drug that was bought over the counter. Laboratory investigations showed that the baby's blood test tested negative for malaria parasites. It is a popular public health service announcement that drugs shouldn't be used without consulting the doctor, yet more drugs are bought without doctors' consents. This shows that to reduce mortality, health authorities ought to take drug retailers more serious than they currently do.

People are too busy or too poor to go to hospitals. The proximity of drug sellers to citizens of third world countries makes it even more difficult for the hospitals to properly regulate drug intakes. In commercial buses, parks, and on foot, drugs of varying qualities are presented at ridiculously cheaper prices.

Fake drugs are ubiquitous, expired capsules are cosmopolitan while adulterated syrups still rake in millions of dollars annually. Even quality well kept and perfectly dispensed medicines are also harmful when improperly used.

Unlike the popular notion that drugs are good, no drug is perfectly good. It's a give-and-take scenario in the body system. The drugs takes care of the ailment and in return, it leaves a side effect.

Current potent malaria drugs weaken the body system. Cancer drugs can shut down the immune system. Several others can induce vomiting, appetite loss, hair loss, insomnia, destruction of well needed body cells and a host of others. There are even drugs that can negatively affect libido. And some, when not properly used, can stop heart beat.

Tablets look harmless, but the quantum of energy embedded in the molecules is scary. If only scientists can also demonstrate the mechanism of action of most of the drugs that people use without medical advise, very few will dare to take them. But the secret is properly kept away.

To make drugs safer, natural drugs should be the focus. Purification should be the method. And street sales must be outlawed.

It is funny how beers could get to the most interior villages and rural areas, but safe drugs cannot reach all. It is a pure demonstration of unseriousness and sheer ineptitude.

There are many massive drug retail companies that can invest in tackling the avoidable deaths as a result of unsafe drug intake, and can help collate pharmacovigilance data at the local levels. Furthermore, they can also provide essential services to tackle adverse drug reactions and can transport victims to medical facilities nearby for treatment.

As a medical professional, I'm very scared of drugs. I don't abuse or use them indiscriminately because they are very powerful. The adverse effects of drugs also make drug intake a last resort and not a first line of action because what has been ingested is difficult to withdraw without exerting its effect to the fullest.

Our bodies shouldn't be a laboratory for dangerous experiments by indiscriminate use of drugs. We are higher on the food chain, we should know better.

Healing and Sickening Powers of Music

2012-01-24T08:13:00.000+01:00

This morning alone, I've played Na God by Duncan Mighty for like ten times. And from the look of things, I foresee another ten replays. The song is unique and very special. It's a song about God's interest and readiness to help believers in tough times. Duncan Mighty was also at his best thus making the song an artistic perfection that I believe everyone should listen to because it is able to set the day off on a great start. Listen to it below:

Friends on my Blackberry Messaging chat list will nod in agreement when I say I'm addicted to music. I love music so much that it is not possible to see me without my white Sony earphone cords dangling from my ears. I sometimes turn up the volume to the extent that it inflames my eardrums. Now don't think I'm the only one that is guilty. Most music lovers do the same.

At first it could be nasty. But with time, the ears become adapted to the high decibels. This has an advantage. It helps the listener to adapt more easily to noisy environments. This is against the popular myth that loud music is dangerous.

Yes it could be, that's why caution is necessary. Gradual increase in volume is recommended. Start from the lowest volume, then increase the volume gradually. Sudden surge in volume is what could damage the ear. Just like us, the ear as an organ does not like sudden sharp surprises.

With the associated danger taken care of, we can continue to enjoy the music we so much love. It is not just human beings that enjoy music, almost every living creature has a unique playlist. I remember when I was young. I came home from school on a particular afternoon only to meet our neighbor's highly dreaded dog 'Hulk' on the stairs. As I began to walk away, Hulk slowly barked. I increased the pace. When I saw the gap between us was getting shorter, I ran. It pursued me at a swifter pace. It almost got me locked within its claws when we heard Sade Adu booming from another flat. Hulk momentarily stopped the pursuit. It waved its tail and detoured. That afternoon, Sade came to my rescue.

Music has a soothing effect. King Saul's temper was controlled by David's soothing music. It shows that to a large extent, music has healing effect. But contemporary medical practice isn't giving much room for musicians to help in patient care. In some of the hospital wards that I've been to, the TV sets are mostly tuned to news or sports stations. These channels alone can raise the blood pressure of patients on admission. Someone should look into that.

Hospital beds can be made to come with in-built music systems containing BeatsbyDre headsets with which patients can listen to soothing music. It can help them relax, not getting the body so worked up that the healing process is greatly impaired.

I believe medicine is hitting a dry run and in dire need of innovative ideas. Incorporating music into patient's bedside practice is one of the few ideas that can revolutionize medicine and make it more patient-friendly. Cos give or take, they will all love to have fun while getting well. We too can make use of some Duncan Mighty and other great singers at work. It won't distract us, it will only make us happier at work.

Neatness, Illness and Sickness

2012-01-23T19:44:00.000+01:00

This is the picture of my bed twenty fours ago. Prior to this aesthetic commotion, my bed was well arranged and folded before I couldn't find one of my phones (I have three). The disarray started with checking under the pillowcase. I lifted it up but didn't return it to its proper position. Then I checked around the edges, pulled the bed spread which I also failed to properly rearrange after the futile frantic search.

When I couldn't find it on the bed. I took my office bag and emptied its content onto the bed. I looked through but couldn't find it. Then I moved to the wardrobe. One after another, I took the cloths off the hanger. I checked all the pockets and after that, I heaped the cloths in one pile at a corner on the bed.

After turning the room upside down, it then occurred to me that I should have dialed the missing telephone line and I would be able to locate the phone by tracing the sound of the ring tone. I did it. Alas, the phone was in my left hand. I was annoyed and amused at the same time. I heaved a big sigh of relief and cleared a small region on the bed to lay my head on before I attempt to rearrange it later on.

A cool refreshing wind blew through the window panes and I surrendered myself to it. I decided to relax for twenty minutes only to wake up around 6:30am the next morning.

I scampered around to get set for the day's chores. Since the removal of fuel subsidy, I've decided to forsake expensive bikes (okada). Instead, I'm waking up as soon as possible and heading out to meet the 6:45am bus that plies my route. I quickly showered, packed my bags and began to dash towards the door when PHCN flooded the room with light. I took a quick glance at the bed I slept in overnight. "Is this my room?" I asked no one in particular. I took a picture hoping it will be remind me of the eyesore back home that will encourage me to head home and fix it. But it dint't working.

It is almost eight in the evening and I'm still preparing some scientific articles in the hospital's medical library. At 9pm, I will be attending a webinar which will run till 11 when I expect to chat (via skype) with a colleague in London... It's clear that I will sleep in a roughly made bed again tonight. As a medical professional, it becomes imperative for me to ponder on the medical implications of my circumstantial rough trend.

Illnesses share a similar progression with the current scenario in my room. A larger number of disorders start mild. They give signs that we ignore, or compound with some dangerous habits like smoking and heavy alcohol consumption. The warning signs come again yet we ignore them.

This intentional or circumstantial ignorance is a reinforcement for the gradually spreading condition which could become life threatening or terminal. Resources that kept us too busy that we fail to heed the signs go down the drain or up in huge medical bills. Peace is gone. Satisfaction is sacrificed. All because we failed to do just a little something that would have saved us a whole lot of sermons.

Sometimes I wonder why my patients allow problems to compound before rushing to the clinic to get treated. But as I'm typing this blog post, it dawned on me that I'm not different. It is something that is deeply ingrained in everyone of us. And addressing it doesn't need God's intervention, it's all about our resolution to lead a healthy lifestyle.

Total Condomization versus Partial Segregation

2012-01-22T15:01:00.001+01:00

For about two hours, the ever quiet and serene International Conference Center, Abuja became rowdy and excessively noisy. Even the army officers on guard had to look around to ascertain the security status of the continental monument. It wasn't a Boko Haram invasion or a political rally; it was a noisome pestilence emanating from the hall where the first Regional Education Summit on HIV/AIDS in Africa (RESHAA 2011) youths pre-summit was taking place. The participants weren't fighting over foreign funds, no, their argument was centered on a tiny object that has been described as the best discovery since the discovery of the virus itself – condom.

Several decades after the diagnosis of the first HIV/AIDS case in Nigeria, the nation still gropes under the heavy impact of the virus and terminal debilitating disease. With the billions of dollars that have been expended on both brilliant and silly control and prevention initiatives, Nigeria still ranks second in prevalence on the continent, second only to South Africa a nation that the president allegedly said that the virus could be washed away with a warm bath.

Apart from being figures away from total ignorance, Nigeria's HIV/AIDS data is highly questionable and contested. For instance, there are several loopholes in the flow of diagnosis information. Many Nigerians secretly go for unrecorded diagnosis that aren't part of the data that the health authorities have, and an alarmingly high percentage of the citizenry still dread the deadly virus and choose ignorance over potential stigmatization. Furthermore, there is no reliable mapping of the spread of the virus. Hence it could be conclusively said that if Nigeria still ranks high with the limited data available, extrapolating all parameters and infusing these and several other shortcomings could evidently put the incidence rate of HIV/AIDS in Nigeria slightly or much higher than what the nation currently has. It might overshoot South Africa's.

HIV/AIDS has therefore been an ever-lucrative governmental/non-governmental project to pursue with guaranteed foreign assistance. Nigeria has so many HIV/AIDS related initiatives. They include NACA, SACA, LACA, SFH, APIN, ARFH, ENR, GYCA, UNAIDS, USAIDS, UNICEF, UNFPA, GHAIN, NECAIN, PEPFAR, MEPIN, SPDC, FHI, NPLWHA, NYSC PET and several others. These agencies, clubs, associations, organizations, groups and societies perform (or claim to) different roles that their grant statements often describe as being central and vital to the fight against HIV/AIDS.

It is therefore a faulty and highly nebulous assertion to say that paucity of funds is a major challenge here. The major challenge in Nigeria is lack of realistic implementable policies. At every medium and intellectual gathering that Nigeria's HIV/AIDS experts gather to iron out the various bottlenecks in the nation's HIV plan, the resolutions are always excellent…on paper because they always fail to tackle the major issue that presents Nigeria as a lucky unserious nation. The strongest of such is the evident double standard. At the event mentioned in the opening paragraph, the stakeholders including representatives of the federal ministry of education, UNFPA, UNICEF and several others reiterated their commitment to continue the current abstinence/no condom campaigns in primary and secondary schools and safe sex with condoms in higher institutions. This is in order to preserve the nation's cultural and moral sanctity.

This position further highlights the information gap and lack of closer proximity of these agencies to the population that is worst hit by the virus, the youths. It isn't inappropriate to say that Nigerian youths currently have higher-than-usual libido no thanks to the advent of internet, an avalanche of pornography in different formats and indigenization of foreign cultures and habits. Free social networks now make booty calls easier to make and educational imbalance, landmark failures in examinations, NUT strikes and other Proudly Nigerian youth woes provide long periods of joblessness that could be used to pursue secret inguinal agenda.

Unlike the good olden days when the proverbial eyes were still on the knees, the youths of nowadays know a lot, more than the elders can ever imagine. At a tender age, they are exposed to informal sex education and they often have first experiences, out of sheer inquisition. Hence pretending that the youths shouldn't know about sex is telling the hot water to pretend as if it doesn't know heat.

During a HIV/AIDS awareness campaign in Calabar, a secondary school student approached the facilitator and asked for some condoms. The person in charge refused based on the current Nigerian HIV/AIDS policy which prohibits the ibution of condoms to school children. The boy however begged the team claiming that he often re-use nylons and modify cellophane bags as condoms. The situation is the same at the
grassroots across the nation. Out of the millions of Nigerian youths, hundreds of thousands of them are teenagers and underage who are sexually active. They've already eaten the forbidden apple yet the government is claiming that they shouldn't use condoms since they are too young to have sex, but old enough to contract HIV/AIDS.

Religious Dimension

As a member of the panel of discussants on the subject of what should be done to tackle the menace in Nigeria, my position on the matter met a stiff opposition from the representative of a joint faith committee on HIV/AIDS from Borno state. He argued that removing the option of condoms is the best. As a religious nation, he claimed the churches, mosques (and shrines?) ought to be supported by the government to
exploit the religious dimension and preach total abstinence which is morally and spiritually right, and happens to be the best prevention method for HIV/AIDS.

But religion has been one of the major undoing of Nigeria. Most of the crises in Nigeria have religious undertone. Thousands of lives have been lost, millions homeless and destinies changed forever because of religious misconceptions. Just as every religion preaches peace yet peace remains elusive in several Nigerian cities, it is in the same vein that abstinence is preached yet many members of the congregation are sexually active. But despite this anomaly, churches and mosques have the sacred obligation of promoting holiness, purity and abstinence. The cue of the government is however a matter of utmost concern.

Fighting AIDS or Fighting Sex?

Although school children are told to abstain from sex, they are not strongly prohibited from purchasing condoms in shops and retail outlets. Unlike the religious leaders that have the moral obligation to preach abstinence, the federal government, state and local governments are not the custodians of religious beliefs; they are required to keep everyone safe irrespective of personal beliefs, religious affiliations and moral obligations. It is only criminal acts that the government should not support and according to the Nigerian Constitution, coital activities aren't on the same pedestal as hard drugs possession and other crimes hence sex isn't illegal. Therefore everyone having sex should be protected by the government which is required to make information freely available and individuals should be allowed and guided to make free choices.

No research study has shown that if youths use condoms, they are at higher risk than the adults. So, the sexually active ones shouldn't be denied condoms. Those in charge of formulating and enforcing HIV/AIDS
policies in Nigeria should realize that as long as there is increasing incidence of underage pregnancies, the school students aren't immune against contracting HIV/AIDS.

The decision to abstain from sex is a personal one. President Goodluck Jonathan, Vice president Namadi Sambo, Senate president David Mark and every political officeholder in Nigeria put together cannot ban anyone from having sex. And as long as this is impossible, the best they can do is to make sex as safe as possible.

Safer Sex

The popular limitations of current latex condoms could be addressed by massive investment in nanotechnology. With this technology, contraction of HIV/AIDS via condom usage is next to zero. However,
religious machineries militating against the project are claiming that with this kind of condoms readily, freely or cheaply available, sexual promiscuity will go unabated. They have a strong point, but they've totally digressed away from the major reason why the nanocondoms are needed which is to fight HIV/AIDS.

Confusing and conflicting roles in the fight against HIV/AIDS in Nigeria as a country and the world at large have been counterproductive. Ideally, the social and family structures are expected to train up a child in the fear of God and instill good morals that would enable the child to decide personally to abstain from sex without the pastor dissipating energy or the government banning condoms. Likewise, scientists are expected to provide means of protecting everyone irrespective of their moral values and social statuses.

However, everything has been muddled up. The same government that is trying to fight HIV/AIDS using every available means which include condoms is also acting like the bullying overprotective father who wants to compel his children to stay away from sex until later in life. But like the various experiences of children with such fathers, their interest in the forbidden fruit grows with every stroke of the cane and warnings. And with the greatest of all influence, peer influence, the child that's been in the dark often gets to see rays of light and seek to explore. The aftermath is a booming rate of underage HIV infection due to insufficient information on how to play safe.

At the end of the rowdy session described earlier, participants visited the stands of the partnering organizations. At the USAID stand, a secondary school student asked for some educational materials and condoms. He got the books but wasn't given the rubber. He went to his friends and they devised an ingenious means to overcome the obstacle. They removed their school uniforms and wore muftis. They posed as undergraduates and rejoined the long queue of those waiting in line to get free condoms. When it finally came to their turn, they got all the condoms they wanted.

Who are fooling? Ourselves of course.

--
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared
to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Paul Adepoju | +2348060887107

Health Guide To Safe Protests

2012-01-22T14:54:00.001+01:00

Without gainsaying, the need for a safer protocol when it comes to civil unrests, strikes and protests cannot be overemphasized especially at a time when there is so much tension in the nation. With numerous trigger-happy security officers and insecurity instances around us, Nigerians need to protect themselves before protecting their rights and much cherished fuel subsidy. It is a popular saying that it is only the man that is alive that gets the plate number of the hit-and-run driver.
Since Monday, the nation has recorded several protests dotted across the nation. From the well paved Abuja roads to the hinterlands, many Nigerians are grumbling and are already on the streets burning tires, chanting, singing songs and clamouring for the return of the much loved subsidy. And as usual, not every one of these protests is going on smoothly. At the Eagle Square rally for instance, the crowd was dispersed with tear gas. And in Ilorin, a protester was allegedly shot dead.
There are basic things we can do to prevent fatal outcomes, curtail dangerous incidences and take care of victims; even while making our voices heard. The first thing we need to know about is tear gas.
Tear gas is used by law enforcement officials for crowd control and by individuals for personal protection (pepper spray). Though considered as a mild agent, medical history has shown that tear gas could be weaponized as terrorists could use it for attacks. Tear gas could be released in the air as a mist of fine droplets or particles. If tear gas was released into the air, people could be exposed through skin contact, eye contact, or breathing it in.
Tear gas causes burning sensation and irritation to the area of contact within seconds of exposure. The extent of harm caused by tear gas depends on the amount a person is exposed to, how the person was exposed (skin contact, eye contact, or breathing), and the length of time of the exposure. The effects of exposure to tear gas are usually short-lived (30-60 minutes) after the person has been removed from the source and cleaned off (decontaminated).
However, long term exposure (for about an hour or to higher concentration) can lead to blindness, glaucoma (potential cause of blindness), respiratory failure due to difficulty in breathing, and death as a result of serious chemical burns to the throat and lungs. It is worthy to note that these deadly effects of tear gas will only occur when individuals are overexposed or higher than normal concentrations are formulated and used. Nigerian protesters should be prepared for both.
After getting exposed to tear gas, usually via breathing, the first thing to do is to quickly leave the area. This sounds so simple but in a protest, the people tend to challenge the law enforcement officers. In a nation like Nigeria, it is during this period that big grammars are spoken and the already exposed individuals are further exposed. Simply moving to an area where fresh air is available is a highly effective method of protection., and let’s keep in mind the fact that tear gas will form a heavy vapor cloud that will settle close to the ground. Hence just staying there increases the exposure rate.
In case of burning eyes or blurred vision, the eyes should be rinsed with plain water for 10-15 minutes hence protest organizers should ensure that water is readily and freely available. Eye symptoms are treated by rinsing the eyes with water until the stinging starts to go away. Treatment for breathing difficulties involves helping the affected person get more oxygen in his or her blood. Medications that are used to treat asthma (such as bronchodilators and steroids) may be used to help the person breathe. Burn injuries to the skin are treated with standard burn management techniques, such as medicated bandages. Hence first aid kits should be readily available in addition to placards and signs.
Gunshots
Another issue that protests organizers should be prepared for is how to handle gunshot wounds. Unlike teargas, gunshots at rallies are unexpected. Normally, rationally, sensibly and logically, guns aren’t expected at civil rallies; but in a nation where police officers frequently shoot helpless citizens behind the wheels at checking points for refusing to pay twenty naira illegal dues, gunshots at protests should be expected and well prepared for. The Ilorin incidence attests to the fact that it will be unwise not to expect gunshots although preparedness can reduce its impact.
The severity of a gunshot wound is dependent on the location of the injury, the size and speed of the projectile. By and large, ten minutes should be allotted to each gunshot victim before ambulance transport.
The victim should not be moved unless the safety is in jeopardy. If the victim is unconscious, keep the airway open and clear. But if the victim is not breathing, someone should begin CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). The process is simple.
Place the heel of your hand in the middle of the victim’s chest and put the other hand on top of the first with your fingers interlaced. Compress the chest at least 2 inches (4 – 5 cm). Allow the chest to completely recoil before the next compression. Compress the chest at a rate of at least 100 pushes per minute. Continue to do chest compressions until the victim wakes up, or a trained person takes over the CPR process to perform the rescue breath.
The bleeding should be controlled by applying pressure on gauze or cloth placed on the wound site. Gunshot to the chest should be sealed with some type of plastic to keep air from being sucked into the wound thus preventing the collapse of the lung. But if the victim complains of worsened shortness of breath, gently remove the seal.
Conscious victims should sit or lie in positions most comfortable to them, while unconscious victims should be placed in the recovery position. To put the victim in recovery position, grab his or her leg and shoulder and roll him or towards you. Continue to roll the victim until he is on his side. Adjust the top leg so that both the hip and knee are bent at right angles; gently tilt the head back to keep the airway open. If breathing or circulation stops at any point in time, roll the person back and begin chest compression.
In a broad sense, ensuring breathing and stopping bleeding are the major issues that determine whether a gunshot victim will survive or not. Hence organizers of protests should make adequate provisions and have a medical team on stand by plus an ambulance on speed dial.
Panic and Stampede
Although teargases are often used at rallies and protests, few things cause more harm than panicked protesters. This is what the law enforcement officers in this part of the world often capitalize on. They chase protesters and threaten to shoot. In return, the protesters often scamper for safety in the process of which collisions and stampedes tend to occur depending on the number of those in attendance and the location of the venue.
The victims most affected are often children and the aged. This is why it is not advisable for kids and grannies to be at rallies that are not well planned. However, the simple solution is to use a widely open location, not the end of a closed arena. Also, the organizers can plan the rally such that participants are organized into groups and each group could have a safety instructor guiding them and should show the way when there is commotion.
The panic button is the easily pushed button hence Nigerian protests organizers should be prepared to handle such and ensure the safety of those in attendance by providing adequate medical, psychological and aesthetic provisions that are necessary to make rallies and protests delights to be.
While the law enforcement officers are expected to be at their best behavior, the Nigerian civil group should learn from past occurrences. They should take note of the issues raised in this article and ensure that while protesters are clamoring for the return of subsidy, all of them live to see their wishes come through.

Prolific Economists Wanted

2011-03-23T13:16:00.001+01:00

Island of Knowledge is a reputable conglemeration of professionals across the world who are saddled with the responsibility of solving some of the world's tidious problems. As part of our expansion programme, we are starting an economics arm of the establishment that would use emperical evidence, statistical data and creative innovations to create ideas that will be of tremendous use to the end-user.
In line with this, we are looking for sound professional economists who have the onus and what it takes to stand out in the comity of professionals. Unlike other similar establishments, we are not looking for degree or certificate holders; we need people who can get the job done.
If your passion matches our intentions, then we are interested in hearing from you. But we have a small test for you. In simple English, and short words, write on the following topic:

"New business models that will enable a future healthcare information economy in which the private health data could benefit healthcare research, lower costs and ultimately improve patient care, with special emphasis on Africa".

Send your entries, with your credentials to islandofknowledgerecruiting@gmail.com An automatic response will be sent to you confirming your entry.

For further details, send an SMS (ONLY) to +2347068367670

Trivalent Battle For Agodi Government House (Part 1 of 7): The Genesis

2011-03-14T14:12:00.002+01:00

I remember my first visit to Oyo state Government House in Agodi, it was at the invitation of the former first lady – Chief (Mrs) Mutiat Ladoja – the founder of Idera De Foundation. Situated at the strategic nexus that joins the highbrow quiet and serene Agodi GRA with the ever busy noisy Agodi Gate – home to the biggest car spare parts market in the entire south western region of Nigeria, the governor’s official residence offers its legal occupant a vantage view and overview of the predominant social statuses in the state – the very rich and the very poor. For the entire period, visitors to the impressively fortified building savour beautiful works of architectural, engineering and horticultural genii who spent, and still spend long hours to keep the power house of the old western region sparkling clean, enticing and attractive.Chauffeur-driven or self driven, you are bound to inhale the powerful aroma in the air, right from the entrance where an array of security personnel comprising policemen and the governor’s “personal security officers” welcomes you to the first point-of-call (there are several of those). During those days that I frequented the Government House, a dark complexioned soft spoken hard built man in his mid-forties whose handsomeness was accentuated with full Gombo tribal marks on both cheeks was the head of the security detail. Way back then, he spent several minutes bragging on his prolixity, and proximity to the governor who he described as a friend to the child of his grandfather’s third wife’s brother’s cousin, or something like that. He rapped on while awaiting confirmation of your appointment via the intercom. Just at the expiration of your patience, you are shown the way into what I can simply describe as another world.
The Government House’s church and mosque are on the left side of the well tarred road, separated by a white building and the first reception where you are told to wait before getting summoned by whoever is looking for you. The receptionist then was also “close” to the governor and exuded the same powerful aura that I felt at the entrance. For several minutes, you are assessed by the human 3D machine called “receptionist” and you can only imagine several other eyes looking at you via the various security cameras that are dotted around the waiting room. When you are finally invited over to the main house, the glass panes, gold plated tinted state-of-the-art cars, exotic upholsteries, architectural designs, lawn tennis court, dutiful and beautiful service providers and courteous doormen can get you transfused with some litres of powerful oomph that seem to be ubiquitous in this highly restricted access area which only a selected few that enjoys nepotism can visit. This is just the experience of a visitor. Now consider what it feels like to be the man at the centre of all attention – His Excellency, the Executive Governor of Oyo state.
Be it old or new, Oyo state is always in the news. Nigerian historians cannot forget the slain former Attorney - General of the federation in a hurry. As state governor and serving federal minister, his indelible marks and unforgettable utterances are quite legendary; yet he didn’t get a second term to stay in Agodi Government House for another four years. Political aficionados are still bereft of words to describe what worked against uncle Bola Ige’s (SAN) second term ambition and why Oyo people reportedly set aside opportunities to allow him to provide more free education, essential services, infrastructures, purposeful, resourceful and result-oriented leadership. Instead, they went with the now familiar Yoruba slang “omo wa ni e jé ó seé” (it’s our child that should do it) and opted for a mathematician – Dr Omololu Olunloyo, who spent statistically insignificant three months in office and was booted out before he could make significant impacts apart from his short knickers.
Unlike his predecessors, Lam Adesina had everything sailing smoothly for the major part of his tenure and looked like a second-term governor. Despite the numerous strong rumours and accusations of extravagant lifestyles of the pensioner’s children including Dapo who is now seeking legislative post, very few doubted the certainty of his second-term. But when the results of the 2003 General Elections were announced, the no-second-term jinx proved stronger than what the white bearded statesman could break especially at a period when he reportedly “scared” teachers and other civil servants with compiled lists of those to sack if he returned to power.
Rasheed Ladoja was the delight of the workforce. Civil servants in Oyo state loved his highly punctuated tenure which was characterised with higher wages and fatter bonuses. In his cheap Ankara cloths which reminded Oyo state citizens of Omololu Olunloyo’s knickers, he led a thrifty government that was only generous to the civil service but frugal to politicians. His godfather (late Lamidi Adedibu) was embittered with his completely changed attitudes. According to him “He (Ladoja) is collecting sixty five million Naira every month as security vote. Am I not entitled to a quarter of that money? He should go away”. Sitting on Adedibu’s right side when he made this statement, and beaming with smiles was Senator Teslim Folarin. In the early hours of Tuesday November 22, 2005, muted clandestine arrangements reached the peak when thugs invaded Oyo state government house in Agodi.
And in another interesting scenario, the slain former head of NURTW in Oyo state – Chief Lateef Salako (also known as Elewe Omo) reportedly presided over the Oyo state House of Assembly that sat on the day Senator Ladoja was impeached. According to the recently released footage of the seating, Elewe Omo said: “On behalf of Oyo state House of Assembly, today twenty two December year two – two thousand and five, we are now impeach Governor Rasheed Oladoja of Oyo state. Thank you”.
In another comment that will definitely make you laugh, a lawmaker in Oyo state House of Assembly Hon Hammed Esuola said “The house direct because there shouldn’t be vacant in that position. The house direct in accordance with Section 109 Sub-section 2 that the deputy speaker, I mean the deputy governor should immediately take up the position. And the house has directed the acting Chief Judge to sworn in the deputy speaker. . . I mean the deputy governor as the new executive governor of Oyo state.”
But thanks to the judiciary, Ladoja was reinstated and he completed the tenure. He however lost the second term bid when his party–the ruling party–gave the gubernatorial ticket to Alao Akala who pitched his tent with Adedibu (and Obasanjo) and won the highly controversial poll which Senator Abiola Ajimobi (candidate of the All Nigerian People’s Party) claimed he won “the mandate”. Now armed with Action Congress of Nigeria’s (ACN) famous brooms and neighbourhood support, Ajimobi is poised to give other candidates stronger challenge for a fresh mandate.
The forthcoming gubernatorial election in Oyo state is peculiar in every ramification. It’s clearly not about the citizens or plans for the state; it’s all about the three favourite contestants who have scores to settle, and are ready to go to any length to prove that they are the strongest of the lot. In other states of the federation, INEC can ideate free-and-fair elections; but in Oyo state, the commission must be prepared for free-for-all fights. Alao Akala is not cash-trapped. Ladoja who was once thrifty has become generous in the twinkle of an eye. And Abiola Ajimobi can count on funds and other “logistics” from Lagos, Osun, Ekiti and Edo states where ACN is the ruling party.
None of the top three candidates is playing it safe and no one is taking anyone or anything for granted. Akala is recruiting. Ladoja is waxing stronger. And Ajimobi is more vocal. Apart from the Broadcasting Corporation of Oyo State (BCOS) that only airs Akala’s adverts and songs, other media houses are smiling to the bank with fat political cheques. NTA Ibadan for instance would have pocketed millions of naira for televising Akala’s declaration live on air. Splash FM’s popular thirty-minute Yoruba news review has been extended to an hour to accommodate more political adverts.
Every available outdoor advertising space has been taken over by political parties whose high quality campaign banners are dotted across the state, and desperation to stand out has led to several ingenious ideations and innovations. Governor Alao Akala for instance had to award a road expansion project to get rid of Ladoja’s intimidating billboard in front of Oyo state PDP secretariat. The opposition is also not relenting. There have been rumours of government-masterminded food poisoning, mass murders, rituals, occultism, assassinations, kidnaps, and fetish practices – all against the incumbent governor and aimed at setting him against the electorate. To some extent, the strategy is working.
On a fateful unforgettable weekday in February, hell was let loose in Ibadan. News went round that the governor was poisoning primary and secondary students with akara (fried beans) and Indomie® noodles. Fathers marched to their children’s schools with bold steps, mothers skittered to the institutions and students were scattered across the city – they protested against the government’s rumoured ritual intentions. It’s clear that many citizens believe the messages of the various circulating CDs – Asiri Nla (Great Secret), Aroba (History) and Eru Ibo (Electoral Malpractices). Hence Oyo people are politically conscious.
The other day, I was taking blood samples from a patient who was down with multi-drug resistant tuberculosis when I got a better picture of how obsessed Oyo state people are with politics. I tied the tourniquet and was about to insert the needle when he removed his face mask and asked who I’m voting for. My tongue drooped. In taxis, at newspaper stands, after church and Jumat services, and almost anywhere that two or three people are gathered, politics is the initial and final subject of discussion. The state is polarized, the atmosphere is charged. Every citizen has caught the virulent political virus.
The politics of Oyo state is bigger than the state itself. What happens here is an extension of, and extends to neighbouring cities and states hence to a larger extent, surrounding states are part of the conundrum known as Oyo state politics. No wonder the PDP in Oyo state during the voters’ registration exercise cried foul when it sensitized INEC of ACN’s “importation” of voters from Osun state to register and vote in Oyo state. Accord Party frequently accuse the state government of planning to assassinate the party’s gubernatorial aspirant.
As we count down to weeks and days before the D-day when votes will be cast at the polling booths, it becomes imperative to have a better understanding of what to expect in Oyo state where the party that rigs and bribes most will surely win. Also, we need to decipher why issues are not the issue here, but pure hardcore old-school politics that had pitched people like Auxiliary (of the PDP) and Sugar (Accord Party) against one another. In the same vein, Akala’s political maturation from a governor that used to prostrate almost on per second basis, to a strong politician who can now challenge the yet unbroken no-second-term jinx that had held the state spellbound for decades is quite impressive.
The no issues, strictly personal gubernatorial conquest in Oyo state is a sign of hope for politics in Nigeria, and bad omen for governance in Oyo state. It’s a sign of hope considering the fact that citizens are now actively interested in the polity and they freely express their opinions on state issues. Bad considering the fact that since Oyo state’s thirty-five year history, governments are substituted after a maximum of one term. When a new government comes in, it’s often after a fierce battle with the incumbent who endeavours to loot the treasury and makes the early days torturous for the new government who is faced with the challenge of starting afresh. No government has enjoyed continuity; they all have to start afresh. And except Akala wins, the cycle is set to repeat itself again. And can Akala win, despite the numerous seemingly insurmountable and unprecedented hurdles before him? Subsequent articles will give an insight into the leaps of faith, the locus standi and intriguing revelations of what seems to be the closest, fiercest, toughest and most anticipated gubernatorial battle in Nigeria.

How Will Jega Handle Touts and Hooligans?

2010-08-02T10:20:00.000+01:00

Photo Credit: inecnigeria.org

Professor Jega on a daily basis is asking for several billions of Naira; Prophetess Ayoka’s presence is precipitating pandemonium in Ondo state; the electoral timetable is tearing politicians apart; and the northern elites are torn between zoning and Goodluck. Politicians across the nation are planning, political underdogs are panting, and law abiding citizens of Nigeria are panicking as we drive towards 2011.

On paper, Professor Jega is qualified to lead Nigeria’s electoral body. His spell at ASUU is enough exposure for someone on that hot seat considering the perennial agitations of Nigeria’s ivory tower elites. As a learned individual, he has the intellectual capacity to run the central agency and possess the diligent audacity to address political parties’ excesses. Though it looks like Jega’s INEC is getting its house in order and on the right path to organizing befitting elections, not everything is within the tight reins of Jega and his commissioners. These defiant areas are where dangers lie ahead of our electoral reforms.

Last weekend, the terror-characterized bye election that was held in Ondo state under the religious eyes of Mrs. Ayoka was a tip of the iceberg of what we should expect in the forthcoming 2011 general elections. While transporting electoral materials and personnel to some areas, the INEC crew and security officials were waylaid by political touts who shot sporadically and went away with the ballot boxes. As usual, the policemen at the scene outran Usain Bolt for their dire lives.

While this is new to the Jega-led INEC, incidences like this are frequent in our political history. In fact, currently, Nigerian elections are considered to be null and void without incidences of ballot box snatching and stuffing, cutlasses and clashes, and widespread bloodshed. The south west region of Nigeria, as an extension of the entire country, has several flashpoints where there is strong panoply of political hooliganism.

Before the political days of Obafemi Awolowo, the imminent propensity to violence of political hooligans had been a central political schism. In what seems like a sustained ancestral ritual, the success or failure of a south western politician remains a factor of the number, strength, dexterity, and sophistication of his Calvary of touts; thus making elections in the area similar to the much-awaited Armageddon. The situation becomes quite embarrassing considering what seems like relics of law enforcement.

The Nigerian Police is notorious for its rare blend of haplessness and helplessness when it comes to handling political uproars and preventing break down of laws and orders at the polls, and beyond. In several cases where evidences are substantive, the force is often reluctant at effecting meaningful arrests. Moreover, the operations of the force had been extensively reduced, by only-God-knows-what, to investigations-in-process that often yield no meaningful concrete results. It is regrettable that in the real sense, The Nigerian Police Force is ill equipped, unprepared and woefully failing in its role of ensuring security of lives and properties.

It’s widely acclaimed that Nigerians, despite the deplorable state of the state, value individual life greatly and would dissociate from anything that brings them within arms reach of danger. Hence if the next elections are intended to validate the voice of the real Nigerian people, and not that of the blood shot red eyed societal miscreants, then Jega and his crew should worry more on how to provide and ensure adequate reliable security during and after electoral outings. Apart from this, the proposed new electoral register would be additional archival materials for the post-2011 INEC chairman. For start, Professor Jega needs to tame the growing wild wings of members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in the south west region.

Ogun and Oyo states are state studies of the effects that the union has on state peace and stability. Troubles are fomented at the slightest provocation and when the dust settles, several lives and properties are usually lost. In times past, the mayhems used to be restricted to disagreements over the ownership and control of motor parks until recently when politicians had saddled the various chapters of the union with the duty of recruiting, managing and deploring touts at will.

When hell was let loose at the Oyo state House of Assembly, observers and several media publications claimed that the leadership of the state chapter of the NURTW played central role in the success of the fracas under the supervision of some highly placed members of the state executive. The state’s local government elections also witnessed a mammoth turnout of NURTW members that were armed with reflecting sharp cutlasses. In all instances mentioned, the respective security operatives are still carrying out their ‘investigations’ while the beneficiaries of the terrors are smiling to the bank.

It is expedient for the Jega-led INEC to critically understudy this union, and similar ones, that politicians are using as unregistered electoral armies. The electoral body should look for a constitutional means of ‘substituting’ the present Nigerian Police with something that can truly police the poling booths.

The major setback in Nigeria’s quest for free and fare elections is not Iwu’s voters’ register, poor training of electoral staffs,-but the land-mine status of the polling booths. While Jega is talking big grammar and electoral economics, the local offices of the various political parties are fast becoming homes for societal misfits who smoke hemps and sharpen their cutlasses in preparation for the battle of 2011. Who will stop them?

How much will Professor Jega need to equip Nigerian policemen that are poorly equipped and well outnumbered? How many billions of Naira is needed to fix the cantankerous twenty-Naira addiction of our official men-in-black-uniforms which could make them complacent or accomplices in electoral manipulations? Does the agency have enough money to grant amnesty to political thugs? And do we have sufficient time to reform them?

President Goodluck Jonathan should make good his promise to organize a free-and-fair election by tightening the loose nuts and replacing worn out tires in the system. The voters’ register is not the major issue; we need adequate security. Of what use is an accurate voters’ register and well trained electoral officers when touts and hooligans with dangerous weapons are disrupting electoral process and disenfranchising law abiding citizens of their constitutional rights? None I guess.

Nigerian Health Care System – A Ticking Time Bomb (2)

2010-07-16T10:35:00.000+01:00

According to the Organogram for the New NPHCDA Agency (NPHCDA & NPI Merged) V 2.1 – Post Lokoja Workshop, the purpose of the agency that has now been merged with the National Programme on Immunization (NPI) is to ensure the development of primary healthcare system through advocacy, social mobilization, resource mobilization, community ownership, capacity building and development of effective managerial processes. However, apart from hefty monthly salaries, a visit to the agency’s South West office in Agodi GRA in Ibadan would attest to the fact that the agency’s workers still have a lot to learn about their work mandate, and are working at a sickening slow snail speed. While they are learning, the pressure of the failure of the Nigerian primary healthcare has shifted to other tiers- the secondary and tertiary health sectors.
Presently, the only evident difference in the services rendered by these two tiers are the medical trainings—undergraduate and postgraduate—offered by the tertiary health institutions, and what remains of our extensively eroded health referral system. In Ibadan for instance, both UCH (a tertiary health institution) and Adeoyo General Hospital (a secondary health facility) treat secondary wounds, deliver babies, give immunizations and vaccinations (duties of primary health centers), operate HIV clinics, carry out minor and major surgeries, and train medical and paramedical staffs. Nigeria’s emergency medical practices and wards also point to the fact that our health system is in disarray.
The entropy (degree of disturbance and disorderliness) is highest in our tertiary health facilities where patients with minor cases that are treatable with a salt-sugar solution mixture compete for medical attention with those presenting with medical conditions that could only be treated at the prestigious King Fasai Medical Center in Saudi Arabia.
It’s only in Nigeria that a 911 dial gives a number-not-in-use response. Our various governments claim to have procured ambulances, yet no citizen knows how to contact them when in dire need. It’s therefore an expected aftermath that Nigeria, despite its enormous oil wealth, has one of the highest emergency mortality rates in world history. Even Mozambique and Tanzania fair better than the self acclaimed giant of Africa!
No thanks to the lackadaisical attitudes of those at the top, these shortcomings, as bad as they are, are nothing when compared with associated dangers of the numerous accesses that are now available to terrorists, and anyone with harmful intentions.
According to the Atlanta based US’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a bioterrorism attack is the deliberate release of viruses, bacteria, or other germs (agents) used to cause illness or death in people, animals, or plants. The agents used are ubiquitous and are widely found in nature, but could be transformed to increase their viability and ability to cause disease (e.g. botulinum toxin), drug resistant (e.g. XDR-TB), or to increase their ability to be spread into the environment (e.g. anthrax). Air, water and food are common routes of spread.
Any terrorist with scores to settle with the Nigerian government or a desperate politician who can pay a medical scientist may produce biological agents that are extremely difficult to detect.
Globally, bioterrorism is fast becoming an attractive weapon because biological agents are relatively easy and inexpensive to obtain or produce. They can be easily disseminated, and can cause widespread fear and panic beyond the actual physical damage they can cause. Politicians too are gradually seeing bioterrorism as a potential tool in ensuring victory at the polls. This has been used in God’s own country—the USA.
According to a Wikipedia article, in 1984, followers of the Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh attempted to control a local election by incapacitating the local population. This was done by infecting salad bars in eleven restaurants, produce in grocery stores, doorknobs, and other public domains with Salmonella typhimurium bacteria in the city of The Dalles, Oregon. The attack infected 751 people with severe food poisoning.
In Nigeria where dangerous arms proliferation goes unabated, weaponization and dissemination of agents like small pox, anthrax, botulinum toxin, bubonic plague, and several others are but a piece of cake. The fatality of such would be as a result of our popular synonyms- executive nonchalance, cantankerous corruption, poor planning and very late response.
Biosurveillance, early detection and rapid response are the keys to combating bioterrorism. These involve a close cooperation among doctors, medical laboratory scientists, epidemiologists, security agencies, and a working healthcare system. With political agitations and confrontations coming from all fronts, it is not a white elephant project for Nigerian government to start putting its health house in order to prevent sacrificing the lives of innocent Nigerians on the altar of peculiar ignorance, professional inertia and political insanity.
As a matter of urgency, governments at all levels should remove the health sector from their political reach and allow the health system to be run by the experts. The experts should also collaborate with the brilliant minds at the ivory tower to fortify our health boundaries against adverse medical invasions and importation of foreign diseases as experienced with the report, few years ago, of Asian avian influenza in Lagos and other states of the federation.
A complete overhaul of the Nigerian healthcare workforce is long overdue as the system is presently footing the bills of numerous ghost workers and wrong workers. The government needs to sort this out to ensure that our medical facilities are manned by qualified and experienced professionals that would ensure the good health of the sick patients and patient healthy citizens.
Since our traditional health practitioners are quite numerous and currently enjoy the patronage and trust of a large proportion of the sick population, the Nigerian Ministry of Health needs to incorporate the alternative health practitioners as primary healthcare providers, and closely monitor their activities and not act, like NAFDAC numbers, as an official rubber stamp for all shady activities and esoteric procedures.
There is also the need for the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) to go back to its situation rooms and drawing boards after awakening from its perpetual slumber. The nation is in dire need of a rejuvenating and reinvigorating programme that would revitalize our sick primary healthcare and equip our local clinics with required facilities and resources (human and otherwise) to regain the long lost confidence of grassroots’ healthcare seekers.
The age long professional bias in the Nigerian health system is another clog in the wheel of the progress of the sector. The administration at all levels should be unfaltering, just and fair in ensuring that this is permanently removed, and compel health professionals to see contemporaries as colleagues, and not competitors or enemies.
The NHIS’ current shape is shameful hence an understudy of the UK’s NHS and US’ Medicaid is suggested as this would enable Nigerian health insurance policy formulators to have an idea of how national health insurance should be operated with the interest of care seekers, and not care providers, at heart. If Guilder and other beer brands could get to every corner of the nation, health insurance policies should.
There is an urgent need for meaningful health campaigns aimed at informing and attracting citizens to government health facilities. At government hospitals, healthcare seekers should be treated with courtesy, confidentiality and mutual respect that are accorded law abiding citizens of the nation by the Nigerian Constitution.
The frequent sojourns of Nigerian leaders abroad in search of quality treatment for minor ailments connote more doom for our already disarrayed health sector than a bioterrorist’s anthrax threat hence such travels should be stopped. If government officials are satisfied with, and could boast of the quality of healthcare they’ve put in place at our various health institutions, they should be confident enough to fell asleep under the influence of anesthesia in our hospitals without any doubt on their minds.
Whichever way we choose to progress, let’s have it on the back of our minds that time is fast running out. Sooner or later, the only thing that would be safe is our last breath because the next, might actually be the last.

Nigerian Health Care System – A Ticking Time Bomb (1)

2010-07-16T10:23:00.000+01:00

At the International Health Conference, New York, (19 June – 22 July 1946); an harmonized all-encompassing definition of ‘health’ was postulated, accepted and signed on 22 July 1946 by the representatives of the 61- member states of the World Health Organization (Official Records of the World Health Organization, no. 2, p. 100) and enforced on 7 April 1948. The pact defined health as a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity as widely assumed. And till date, this definition holds sway as the hallmark and foundational basis of all health systems in most regions of the world.
Apart from the WHO whose major role as an offshoot of the United Nations is to ensure that member countries have closely monitored health sectors, and that health episodes of intra and international epidemiologic interests are well documented, individual countries also have central roles to play in ensuring that their citizens are healthy. According to protagonists of medical history, the most viable and far-reaching effective National Health Programme is the one that encompasses the primary, secondary and tertiary tiers of government, and health infrastructures. This is the type we have in Nigeria.
Rais Akhtar in one of his numerous publications reiterated the fact that the Nigerian federal government’s role in health in recent years has been limited (restricted) to coordinating the affairs of the federal university teaching hospitals and medical centers, NAFDAC and other health- related agencies, while individual state government, through respective hospital management boards, manages the various general hospitals. The local governments in Nigeria on the other hand regulate the activities of dispensaries, pharmacies, community health centers, local maternity clinics and more recently, traditional healing homes.
In Ronald J. Vogel’s book—Financing Healthcare in Sub-Saharan Africa—Nigeria’s total expenditure on healthcare as a percentage of GDP was put at 4.6, while the percentage of federal government’s total expenditure on healthcare was (and still) a miserly paltry 1.5% when juxtaposed with the nation’s official (and muted) population size, enormous health challenges like the incessant ethnic uproars and disease-predisposing religious crisis up north. The nation is also groping with illiteracy, endemic malaria, ravaging HIV, astronomic population upsurge indicating the imminent need for improved birth control, poliomyelitis, drug adulterations (fake drugs) and several other Proudly Nigeria health-related debacles which point to the fact that very soon, if something urgent is not swiftly done, danger looms at all levels.
At the state level, the dividend of democracy—politicization of the administration and running of state-owned health institutions—spells great doom. Unlike past years when duly and ably qualified health professionals were at the helm of affairs at the General Hospitals, it is gradually becoming a familiar scenario, especially in South Western Nigeria, for opulent potbellied politicians to parade themselves as heads of the Hospital Management Board (HMB). Apart from the possibility of funds meant for the development of the state’s health sector growing wings or being used for a wrong cause, the yardstick with which the success or otherwise of the health sector is measured is gradually transmogrifying from the reputed overall assessment of the health of the citizens and residents, to the number of contracts awarded by the government. Oyo state is a good case study.
On its official website (www.oyostate.gov.ng), the state government’s webmaster highlighted the following state government pioneered projects as a sign that its health sector is vibrant.

Hospital Equipment worth 70million naira was procured by the Ministry of Health to Government hospitals in the year 2007.
Essential drugs and consumables worth N52million were procured during the period. Contracts for the supply of Essential Drugs and consumables worth 298 million naira were also awarded to contractors in December, 2008.
Commissioning of Health facilities, namely Cold Chain Laboratory, Eleyele, Primary Health Center, Odo-Oba, Ogo Oluwa Local Government, Butubutu, Ona-Ara Local Government and Primary Health Center, Ogbooro, Saki East Local Government.
Construction of General Hospital, Iwere-Ile, Iwajowa Local Government is almost completed and will be ready for commissioning soon.
Three buses were procured by Health System Development Project II [HSDP-II] for Health Institutions, namely schools of Midwifery, Nursing and Hygiene.
Two other vehicles were procured by HSDP-II for Projects Monitoring.
Several others

While these projects and undertakings are quite laudable, they are however inconsequential and of little significance in proving that every resident of Oyo state is healthy— physically, mentally and socially. Recent health indices give a clearer picture of the current status of the state’s health sector.
According to a recent edition of WHO Bulletin, the state still has a high incidence of poliomyelitis (a viral disease that has been declared extinct in most countries of the world). Furthermore, mental illness in Oyo state has escalated to the level that if INEC does a thorough job and fairness is ensured, mad men and women can now contest and win elections in the state. And socially, the health status of Oyo state indigenes and residents couldn’t be worse.
Social welfare services provided by the state are literally non existent, yet the state, like most Nigerian state governments, spends hundreds of millions of Naira absurdly publicizing procured equipment, renovated hospital infrastructures, free condoms, and prompt payment of health workers’ salaries as indications that the state’s Ministry of Health is healthy. The ravaging misplaced priority has also been extended to the grassroots—the primary healthcare—where the local governments had lost the confidence of the local communities.
Sometimes ago, I was at Alade Orthopeadic Hospital in Oke Adu Area of Agodi Gate, Ibadan where the owner—Dr. Moruf Alade—was happily having a busy day seeing to the health needs of his patients who religiously and astutely followed the expensive esoteric treatment regimens. While at the clinic, I coincidentally saw Egbeda Local Government’s Mobile Clinic drove bye. Unlike what is expected of an ambulance, the automobile was packed full with bananas, plantains and other perishable edibles.
Nowadays, sick citizens that can afford private services are gradually not seeing government-owned primary health centers as reliable clinics to get treatment when sick. In the same vein, privately owned motherless babies homes like the one in Total Garden, Ibadan, and Red Cross Home for the Motherless situated at Warehouse, Hospital Road Owerri, now enjoy more patronage than respective State Child Welfare Units which are fast becoming CICS offices where social workers lend and borrow money at will.
Local government chairmen nowadays are enthralled by the pictures of established health centers which would be used for canvassing for votes at the polls, and not actually meeting the health needs of the host communities. Little wonder that few months after the glamorous opening ceremony, thorns and bushes encroach on the new clinic while rats and termites become the attending patients of the drug-deprived, poorly lit and deserted Local Government Health Center. Good examples are some health centers found in Ibadan North East, Ogun Waterside and Isiala Mbano Local Government Areas of Oyo, Ogun and Imo states respectively. The National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA)—the agency responsible for the regulation and establishment of primary healthcare centers—is also haplessly helpless in the discharge of its saddled responsibilities of ensuring that our primary healthcare centers cater for our primary health needs.

En Route 2011: e-Jonathan Takes The Lead

2010-07-13T11:22:00.000+01:00

Few years ago, going to bed on an empty tummy and waking up to an malnourishing meal seemed to be a familiar tale in Nigeria. However, since last week, President Jonathan or his Honorable Minister for Facebook Affairs has added another feather to our national cap— Aso Rock e-comedy. The question now is- are you filled?

In all ramifications, Nigeria remains an interesting country. Although other countries of the world, especially the so called G8 countries, can boast of economic vibrancy, personnel resourcefulness, security intelligence and political might, our political geniuses are also not lagging behind. For more than 5 years since Nigerians caught the internet fever and Facebook addiction, the online community used to be the arbiter and home zone of the so called internet militants. With several websites that are spearheaded by nigeriavillagesquare.com and saharareporters.com. Nigerian writers home and abroad, young and old; ensure that though the Freedom of Information Bill is dust-laden in the chambers of The National Assembly, our voices are heard online. Current scenarios however indicate otherwise. We’ve been compromised.

Almost every political execu-thief is on Facebook. The list also includes several lawmakers and senators, governors who now have special advisers on Facebook Matters, ministers, commissioners and several heads of government establishments. There are also budding political office seekers who disguise under the pretense of youth advocacy to gain undue popularity. However, none of these individuals could be said to brandish a potent online talisman like that of Mr. President who now seems to be hosting the online version of NTA’s AM Express live from Aso Rock studios.

Like Angel Gabriel blaring his vuvuzella on the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, Dr. Pat Utomi and other popular e-warriors sounded the trumpet announcing Goodluck Jonathan’s debut on Facebook. And before you can say Jo, President Jonathan had taken over the internet. When he sneezes, expect about 13,000 comments and 25,000 likes. And when he delivers his long speeches in form of status updates, Facebook servers bear the brunt as Nigerians in thousands compete for Mr. President’s attention. This shows that as far as 2011 is concerned, Jo holds the ace with his online craftiness which is epitomized in his ‘brilliant’ promises for the Nigerian youths. Even the self- proclaimed genius does not come that close.

Last Friday, President Jonathan pledged his administration’s unalloyed ommitment to ensuring that our ivory towers are functioning perfectly. This he said would be achieved by prompt payment of lecturers’ salaries, personnel training and infrastructural development among other interventions. Without an extensive juxtaposition of those words with his recent incidences, Mr. President’s page was over painted with goodwill messages from those who are either star struck, or seeking the good face of Goodluck.

Unlike what Reuben Abati, Okey Ndibe, Pius Adesanmi and other literary warriors propagate online, especially the popular notion of Save Nigeria Group that Nigerians are angry with the status quo and crave for change; it’s becoming evident, on a daily basis, that Nigerians are actually enjoying the show!

If not, we would have set aside a day that every comment would be absolutely against every wrong actions of Jo’s administration and recommend our marshal plans. He said he reads them, why shouldn’t we draw his attention by uniting in our clamors instead of seeking PHCN contracts, Aso rock visits and Presidential handshakes?

The geniuses at Facebook are ensuring access, what we do with it is left to us. Goodluck wants to spend billions yet a large percentage of his friends pat him on the back. Is it that we can’t come up with a strong argument against such, cannot recommend better things to do with the sum, and cannot prove through uploaded videos that the average Nigerian is embittered? As far as present responses are concerned, Jonathan could as well go ahead with the spending since the money would grow wings sooner or later!

It’s evident that Goodluck is having a good time reading all those wonderful comments from the so called oppressed youths and sidelining fellow contestants like Utomi et al at the same time.

I can’t believe that in the twinkle of an eye, President Jonathan could attract such a huge attention in the blogosphere that Dr Utomi, Ribadu, Momodu and the rest once dominated. The stage, though fair enough for all to thrive, seems to be dominated by Mr. President, yet the Nigerian opposition parties are resting on their oars and giving everything away sheepishly (and stupidly) to Jonathan. It’s surprising that the Action Congress (AC), All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), APGA. Labour Party and the legion of mushroom parties are nowhere to be found with the elections not far away. The internet ought to have become the theater of minds where accusing fingers are pointed, issues are raised and fears are allayed. Presently, this is not the case.

What if other candidates host their own Facebook shows like Jonathan is currently doing? What if they point out his shortcomings and sell themselves to Nigerians at no extra cost? It is a gospel truth in Nigeria that popularity, good or bad, plays a vital role in ensuring victory at the polls; but if current results are anything to go by, Jonathan is taking the lead.

Nuhu Ribadu, Pat utomi, Nasir El Rufai, IBB, Goje, Ahmed Yerima, Bukola Saraki, Pastor Chris Okotie, Dele Momodu, Donald Duke, Atiku Abubakar, other acclaimed candidates and intending presidential aspirants should take on Jonathan on a daily basis. Let there be clashes of ideas, conquests of intellects, contests of opinions, and evidence of intelligence. This is what e-democracy is all about. If they can’t challenge Jonathan on Facebook, how feasible will it be to contend with someone with the power of incumbency tightly secured in his hat?

The President should also sit up to the issues being raised by some Nigerians who are not hypnotized and are making good use of the medium to have their opinions passed across. There have been several reports of people being blocked and prevented from posting comments on our President’s wall. Jonathan should realize that this is a rare blend of democracy and internet liberty. Hence he should either delete his account, or step up and allow freedom of speech- our amended constitutional right.

Come what may, unlike in times past, the internet would be a good place to judge our political aspirants. Nigerians need to open their eyes well enough to fairly judge how these crop of politicians handle issues, issue statements, and state their views on various issues ranging from global security to common pornography. I can’t wait for the next episode of A.M. Express with Lucky Jo while hoping that other aspirants would grow some balls.

Nigerian Witches: Where Are You?

2010-04-17T09:23:00.003+01:00

Nigerian Witches: Where Are You?

Adepoju Paul Olusegun

adepojupaul@gmail.com

"You witches too, bring your science into the light to be written down so that ... the benefits in it ... endow our race."
- Janzen & MacGaffey

As of 2006, between 25,000 and 50,000 children in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, had been accused of witchcraft and thrown out of their homes. In April 2008, Kinshasa Police arrested 14 suspected victims (of penis snatching) and sorcerers accused of using black magic or witchcraft to steal (make disappear) or shrink men's penises to extort cash for cure, amid a wave of panic which blew across the entire West African region. Arrests were made in an effort to avoid bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by mobs.

It was reported on May 21, 2008 that in Kenya, a mob had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft. Tanzania’s unwritten anti-witchcraft policy is strongest in the Meatu district where half of all murders are “witch-killings” and in 2008, following the murder of 25 albinos, President Kikwete publicly condemned witchdoctors for killing albinos for their body parts which are thought to bring good luck. We Nigerians are not saints either.

Christian pastors in Nigeria have been involved in the torturing and killing of children accused of witchcraft. In Akwa Ibom and Cross River states for instance, about 15,000 children branded as witches ended up abandoned and abused on the streets. Over the past decade, over 1000 children have been murdered with some being publicly set on fire. Church pastors in an effort to compete favorably, establish their credentials by accusing children of witchcraft. When repeatedly asked to comment about the matter, most church pastors refused to comment.

Elsewhere, in Gambia, about 1,000 people, according to Amnesty International, were accused of being witches. They were locked in detention centers in March 2009 and forced to drink a dangerous hallucinogenic potion. Every year, hundreds of people in the Central African Republic are convicted of witchcraft. The list is endless. While our notoriety as Africans at killing witches is legendarily epic, white witches fair better.

In England, the term 'witch' was not used exclusively to describe malevolent magicians, but could also indicate cunning folk. As Reginald Scott noted “…it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, ‘she is a witch’ or ‘she is a wise woman’”. While a cunning folk could command a lot of respect, public perceptions of them were often ambivalent and a little fearful, for many were deemed just as capable of harming as of healing.

Some of the healers and diviners historically accused of witchcraft made themselves mediators between the physical and metaphysical realms. They described their contacts with fairies, spirits or the dead, often involving out-of-body experiences and traveling through the realms of what Ginzburg called an 'other-world'.

Beliefs of this nature are implied in the folklore of much of Europe, and were explicitly described by accused witches in central and southern Europe. Repeated themes include participation in processions of the dead or large feasts, often presided over by a female divinity who teaches magic and gives prophecies; and participation in battles against evil spirits, 'vampires' or 'witches' to win fertility and prosperity for the community. Africa’s witches could have enjoyed the same treatment if all had understood what African witchcraft is really all about.

According to Rose Ariadne, African witchcraft is a nature based religion, where one or more deities, nature spirits and ancestral spirits are worshipped. The witchdoctor, with his or her ability to commune with deity, nature spirits and ancestral spirits, is traditionally held in awe - an awe which is an odd mixture of respect and fear.

The witchdoctor can be either male or female. Although there is no gender equality in African culture, no distinction is generally made where spiritual practices are concerned. The witchdoctor is responsible for divination, healing, presiding over rituals, conducting rites of passage, performing sacrifices, finding lost cattle, protecting warriors, casting and removing spells, and narrating the history and myths of old.

For harmony between the living and the dead, which is an essential component of leading a trouble-free life, ancestors are shown respect by means of daily offerings, prayers and songs, elaborate rituals and animal sacrifice.

Witchcraft in the African sense may be used for both positive and negative purposes. It can be used to bless and to curse, to cure and cause disease, to bring peace and to initiate battle, to protect and to harm, to create and to destroy. These are specialties that Nigerians can utilize to find a lasting solution to our peculiar national challenges.

In the popular Harry Porter series, the young wizard singlehandedly saved the universe from the hands of those seeking to destroy it, led by the-one-whose-name-must-not-be-mentioned. The same scenario is playing itself in Nigeria, and we are in dire need of our own Harry Porter!

The recent visits of selected Christian leaders and Islamic clerics have shown that prayers alone cannot solve Nigeria’s problems. If the Nigerian witches are as powerful as Nollywood flicks depict them to be, then they should rise to the aid of Nigerians and help demystify the Yar’adua age-long debacle.

Our witches had been reputed as capable of dragging someone in New York City to Erunmun village in the split of a second; let them use the same magic to call forth Yar’adua from his sparingly accessible Aso Rock’s solitary confinement.

In The Legend of The Seeker, we saw how a map was made to specifically locate an individual using something that belonged to the person being looked for. We all have access to Yar’adua’s pictures hence Nigerians will be eternally grateful if our witches can teleport (metaphysical form of transportation) journalists, photographers, reliable medical experts, cameramen and others to the President’s current location without being seen by Turai and her cabal.

In Yoruba culture, ancient warriors used egbé and àféèrí for swift transport and gathering intel information about their opponents. If any witch can help us out, since Bishop Oyedepo et al won’t talk, the entire nation won’t be kept in the dark. Also, the acting President and the National Assembly would be armed with enough evidence to implement Section 144 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, or commence impeachment proceedings as the case might be.

Globally, our witches are known for their unimaginable powers. However, we are all affected by the epileptic and erratic power supply. If they are indeed powerful, they should help us reach out to the electrical forces and resolve the mystery that has gulped billions of Naira in several failed attempts to fathom. If the problems are man made, let the witchdoctors cast spells on those behind it, and if metaphysical, let the witches fight for us. Every Nigerian home - bewitched or with witch - is in darkness, and the government has failed in solving this mystery. Hence if there is anything anyone can do, don’t mind religion, Nigerians are open to suggestions!

Handling corrupt leaders is another area where Nigerian witches could help out. I’m of the opinion that western problems warrant western solutions, and indigenous challenges need indigenous resolutions. In Saudi Arabia where Sharia law is fully enforced, pilfering, theft and all manner of ill practices are reduced, in occurrence, to the barest minimum. American and English legal systems are incorruptible, and the openness of government allows public views to hold sway in checkmating public office holders, hence democracy is potent enough to guard against corruption. But in Nigeria, and most African countries, democracy is alien, rule of law is foreign and swearing by the Holy Books is more or less an ordinary requirement to step into treasure-laden political offices.

How lovely will it be if our politicians swear by Ogun, Nworie river goddess, Amadohia, and other local and regional gods and goddesses? Be that as it may, Nigerian witches can help us speed up the snail speed judgment process, avenge us, and administer justice on corrupt officials. It would be awesome if all corrupt leaders are daily afflicted with untreatable boils, sores, chickenpox, and midnight nightmares! They will not steal without daring the consequences. And the once bitten ones won’t have the nerves, as shown by IBB, to return to such hot seat. The works of EFCC, Amnesty International, Transparency International, and social crusaders would be made easy if witches and wizards can take our predicament personal.

Another area of interest is that of conflict resolution.

Recently, the mad clans in Jos went on rampage for the umpteenth time. Nigerian witches can help solve this national embarrassment once-and-for-all if they can send delegates to the state to carry out massive flogging of perpetrators- Moslems and Christians- such that next time religious crisis is ideated in any of the camps, the fear of unseen rod would prevent such. Moreover, the Bible says “do not spare the rod!”

Many are of the opinion that the inability of Nigerian witches to act is as a result of the widespread act of witch hunting by the likes of Helen Ukpabio. It is however worthy to note that if the witches want to be spared, they should demonstrate their relevance. Helen Ukpabio and other witch hunters should also pick their Bibles and get a better understanding of God’s position on witch hunting.

In the Holy Scripture, references to sorcery are frequent, and the strong condemnations of such practices found there do not seem to be based so much upon the supposition of fraud as upon the abomination of the magic in itself.

The King James Bible uses the words "witch", "witchcraft", and "witchcrafts", wherever the Masoretic text, from which it is translated, has כשף (kashaph or kesheph) and קסם (qesem), and the Septuagint has φαρμακεια (pharmakeia); similarly in the New Testament it uses 'witch', 'witchcraft', and 'witchcrafts' to translate the φαρμακεια (pharmakeia) of the underlying Greek text.

Traditional translations of verses such as Deuteronomy 18:11–12 and Exodus 22:18 therefore produce "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live" which was seen as providing scriptural justification for Christian witch hunters in the early Modern Age.

However, Kashaph more literally means either mutterer (from a single root) or herb user (as a compound word formed from the roots kash, meaning herb, and hapaleh, meaning using); the equivalent pharmakeia of the Septuagint means poison. As such, a closer translation would be potion user (additionally, pharmakeia implies further malevolent intent), or more generally one who uses magic to harm others, rather than a very general term like witch.

The Bible provides some evidence that these commandments were enforced under the Hebrew kings:

And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?

The Hebrew verb ‘Hichrit’ (הכרית) translated in the King James as ‘cut off’ can also be translated as excommunicate, or as kill wholesale or exterminate. It should be noted that the Hebrew word ob, translated as familiar spirit in the above quotation, has a different meaning than the usual English sense of the phrase; namely, it refers to a spirit that the woman is familiar with, rather than to a spirit which physically manifests itself in the shape of an animal. If this is true, then witch hunters should go after the spirits, and not the old women and children who are said to have contacted them. This is done during sensibly serious and Biblical deliverance sessions.

As it now seems, pastors had failed us as a nation, Islamic clerics are also short of ideas; the nation is at a standstill, and in dire need of help. It is evident that Nigeria can make use of all assistance it could get and if witches should help out, Helen Ukpabio and others should watch out- stones are coming their way!

Maga Will Still Pay

2010-04-03T16:26:00.000+01:00

"The availability of e-mail has helped to transform a local form of fraud into one of Nigeria's most important export industries."

Insa Nolte, University of Birmingham's African Studies Department.

Greek George Makronalli was 29 years old when he was invited to South Africa in 2006 to complete a lucrative deal with his new business allies. On arrival, his host supposedly took him round on a familiarization tour of infrastructures on ground for the smooth take off of their enterprising deal. At a particular point however, he suspected foul play when he noticed that many things were amiss in the deal. He tried to back out but his host won’t succumb, a situation which culminated in several bitter outbursts. George was overpowered, kidnapped, and murdered in cold blood, when his family failed to pay a stipulated ransom. This incidence sparked off INTERPOL investigations into the matter. George, however, is not the only one who had died after falling mugu (victim) of internet scams.

In November 2003, Leslie Fountain, a senior technician at Anglia Polytechnic University in England, set himself on fire after falling victim to a scam; Mr. Fountain died of his injuries. In 2006, an American living in South Africa hanged himself in Togo after being defrauded by a Ghanaian 419 con man. In 2007, a Chinese student at the University of Nottingham killed herself after falling for a lottery scam. That’s not all.

In February 2003, Jiří Pasovský, a 72 year-old scam victim from the Czech Republic, shot and killed 50-year old Michael Lekara Wayid, an official at the Nigerian embassy in Prague, and injured another person, after the Nigerian Consul General explained he could not return $600,000 that Pasovský had lost to a Nigerian scammer. While death is usually at the extreme, the usual aftermaths of successful scams are monetary losses.

In a 2006 report produced by a research group and reported by BBC News, it was estimated that internet scams cost the United Kingdom economy £150 million per year, with the average victim losing £31,000. Individuals are often the worst hit.

Nelson Sakaguchi, a director at the Brazilian bank Banco Noroeste, transferred hundreds of millions of US Dollars to Chief Emmanuel Nwude, Nigeria's most accomplished scammer. The scam led to at least two murders, including that of one of the scammers, Mr. Blessing Okereke. The scam was the third biggest in banking history, after Nick Leeson's activities at Barings Bank, and the looting of the Iraqi Central Bank following the March 2003 US invasion.

In 2008, Janella Spears, an Oregon woman, lost $400,000 to a scam, after an e-mail message told her she had inherited money from her long lost grandfather. Her curiosity was piqued based on the fact that she actually had a grandfather whose initials matched those given in the email. She sent several hundreds of thousands of US Dollars over a period of more than two years, despite numerous opposing views from her family, bank staff and law enforcement officials. It is therefore evident that internet scams are devastating and spell great doom for national economy and global security, but this wasn’t the intention of the founding fathers (and mothers) of scamming.

In the late 1800s, Western Union allowed telegraphic messages on its network to be sent to multiple destinations. The first recorded instance of a mass unsolicited commercial telegram started from May, 1864. Until the Great Depression of the 1930s, wealthy North American residents were deluged with nebulous investment offers. This problem never fully emerged in Europe to the degree that it did in the Americas, because telegraphy was regulated by national post offices in the European region.

Arguably, the aggressive email spamming by a number of high-profile spammers such as Sanford Wallace of Cyber Promotions in the mid-to-late 1990s contributed to making spam predominantly an email phenomenon in the public mind. Prior to 2009, most spam mails sent around the world were in the English language; since last years however, spammers had began to use automatic translation services like Google Translate to send spam mails in other languages.

Throughout the history of spamming, one fact was clear-spam was meant to facilitate access without which marketers wouldn’t have been able to contact their prospective customers. However, as deeply rooted in the human mind, abuse of anything is inevitable. Scamming gives access, what the user now does with the access is left to individual choice. Spamming was majorly used for advertisement, product promotion and awareness in the past; starting from late 20th century however, spamming has found its synonym in crime and criminality.

Spam can be used to spread computer viruses, trojan horses or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft, or worse (e.g., advance fee fraud). Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed whilst other attempts to use the victims' inexperience with computer technology to trick them (e.g., phishing). The question that now rises is how could spamming be successfully carried out in a country like Nigeria that is on every published publication on internet scam? The answer, according to the active yahoo boys consulted, is simple, use the tools!

A serious scammer starts with the purchase of a secure IP address from any of the online proxy address retailers for a token. To know how it works, I got one from proxy.com with the aid of a credit card (I will come to that later on). Instantly, my IP address was changed to that of Cyprus. With this, a scammer is able to hide his identity. The next stage is getting the email addresses of prospective mugus. While some internet scammers have and share a mailing list, advancement in technology now makes email list creation relatively easier with the use of email extractors. I was introduced to emailextractorpro.com.

According to its manufacturer, Email Extractor is the software that allows email marketers conduct their email marketing campaigns without any efforts. “Our intention was to create affordable, flexible and efficient email marketing software.” The software allows users to access several large diverse databases like America Online (AOL), Google, Yahoo!, etc, as well as create some addresses via encoded algorithms.

When email addresses are collated, the scammer then begins to send emails based on the specialty of the spammer. Wikipedia has a good feature on the different sectors under internet scam, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud. It is however worthy to note that the commonly encountered ones are the next-of-kin, wire transfer, goods purchase, check cashing, lottery scams, and internet romance. Others include those related to charity, fraud recovery, eBay, Craiglist, Bona vacantia (properties without owners) and several others.

Communication with potential victims is another challenge in spamming considering the fact that callers originating from Nigeria are handled with greater caution. When I was told the way out, fear gripped my heart.
My ‘lecturer’ typed UKNumbers.com into the address and I was guided through a short step which resulted in a free UK cell number (7023037975) that automatically diverts calls to my cell number in Nigeria.

As shown in my experience, the booming nature of internet fraud in Nigeria is as a result of a 3-faceted strong collaboration and complementation that entail foreign empowerment, Nigerian factor, and evil ingenuity.

I’ve come to realize that everything being used to perpetrate internet frauds and scams-tools, websites and services- are not created in Nigeria or by Nigerians, but abroad. For those involved in credit card detail theft for example, Graham King is a name that readily comes to mind; he is the genius at darkcoding.com, a place where credit card numbers could be gotten free of charge. The testimonies of the site’s visitors are also appalling, although Graham claims the card are fake.

Users like Dineshkumar Ponnusamy used one of the cards to buy something worth 3500 Euros, another reader claimed to have purchased a Sony laptop with one of the credit cards. This shows that all the ideas behind scam did not originate from Nigeria; the computer application packages that are utilized are not created in Nigeria, but downloaded from numerous foreign sites with scammers whose reputations are legendary in the business of scamming.

According to a 2009 Cisco Systems report which listed the origin of spam by country, Brazil, USA and India are the origin of about 17.9 trillion spam messages per year with Brazil blazing the trail. Nigeria, as notorious and synonymous as the country’s name is with scam, is not even on the top ten list which makes one wonder what is peculiar about Nigerian scams?
My interactions with young boys who daily throng cybercafés revealed that unlike their foreign contemporaries, Nigerian scammers are more desperate, a situation that makes their impacts harder felt than other scammers in other parts of the world.

In America for instance, citizens are not at a greater risk of being swindled, it’s the stores, shops and other establishments like banks. In India, telecoms companies like Mobitel are the major focus of internet scams. On peperonity.com and other social network platforms, Indian IT gurus share free call cheats with contemporaries while software design and advanced hacking are the major sources of revenue generation. To the Nigerian scammer however, everyone is a potential mugu-the poor single black mother of four in the ghettos of New York, terminally ill patients and fellow Nigerians could be swindled. Many things are responsible for the peculiarity of Nigeria’s case.

One of such is the large number of scammers around. Nightly across the nation, especially in the South, several hundreds of thousands of Nigerians of all ages type away on keyboards. With each one of them knowing that thousands like him or her are sending the same message probably to the same set of recipients, victim selection is left out. This makes one inquire why there are so many people-young and old-that are interested in internet scams.

Based on my observations, I won’t blame unemployment and poverty; this is due to the kind of cars some of these scammers ride, and the evening shift scammers who are employed married old men who also try their luck. The most tenable reason would be the relative ease with which internet scam is carried out here, the complacency of Nigerian government and its agencies, and the gradual acceptance of internet scam as an acceptable vocation in some Nigerian cultures.

The roles of the Nigerian government in promoting internet scam are of high magnitude, and seem to be responsible for Nigerians’ online fraudsters’ status.

In 1997 for instance, an American was swindled by a Nigerian scammer who claimed to be an official of the CBN (most scams are woven around the CBN). During the course of investigation, she produced valid CBN phone numbers. Furthermore, when told to identify some staff, she was able to convincingly identify three top CBN staffs that were lined up. This shows that the CBN’s house, like most arms of the Nigerian government, is leaking. ATM fraud is another point of reference to the corruption in the Nigerian government.
In the course of my research, I learnt that when victims sheepishly give their bank account details, scammers send such details to someone with an ATM card printing machine that produces an ATM card for the account details provided, and such cards could be used at any ATM machine or POS terminal. One begins to wonder and ask how the machine got into the wrong hands. However, one stops wondering after realizing the fact that this is a country where submarine ammunition, rocket launchers and war guns are in the creeks without an explanation on how they got there in the first instance, how much more a small concealable ATM printing machine?

In another similar scam in 2004 involving a number of Nigerian fraudsters, investigators asked Nigerian government to apprehend the beneficiaries of the largess since the wire transfers were traced to them. They got the shock of their lives when the Nigerian government said it wasn’t possible to arrest identified perpetrators.

Our banks are also playing the role of devil’s advocate and facilitator for internet fraudsters.

For a non fraudulent international wire transfer, it takes a minimum of 10 days for a transaction to be completed in UBA and Zenith Bank while it could take several weeks or months in banks like First Bank. But for a well connected internet fraudster, bank transfers could be completed within few hours to two days into untraceable bank accounts in any part of the world. How are they able to achieve this feat against the purported background of unemployed fresh graduates, and annual JAMB UME candidates? One of my respondents informed me that they have insiders in some banks that help them with wire transfers. Another infiltration is that of the law enforcement agencies.

While the notoriety of the Nigerian Police Force is legendarily monumental, Nigerian internet fraudsters, in addition to infiltrating the NPF, are organized into what they call hoods with godfathers that bail them out of any trouble encountered. Such troubles include EFCC arrests, Police incarceration and border complications. It is only those who are not well connected that are arrested in the Nigerian scam sphere.

NCC is another government agency whose helpless haplessness leaves much to thought, and I inquired about the possibility of blocking the websites that provide internet scammers with their tools. I was made to understand that it is as simple as ABC. Some events in the media confirmed this.

Few months ago, I tried to download a BBC Sports podcast but was told that access from my region is restricted. I tried using the hide-my-proxy IP that I procured online all to no avail. This shows that it is very possible to ban some websites from being visited in Nigeria, or restrict access. Iranian government successfully clamped down on social network websites during the last general elections when the opposition was utilizing the medium to instigate rebellion in citizens. Hence it's either NCC officials don’t know what they are doing, or are benefiting immensely from the status quo.

The last reason for the thriving nature of the Nigerian scamming industry could be traced to the colonial era when whites-Americans and Europeans, were seen as superior to the citizens of the colonized nations. According to a good source, yahoo boys are showing the world that Nigerian youths are smarter than the smartest whites. This is compounded by the inability of most of those duped to report such incidence to relevant authorities to guard against any negative implication or retribution.

Judging by the global trend in internet fraud, Nigeria's dark days are yet to come, hence there is still time to restore order. However, if the current trend goes unabated, the phase when banks and major companies would be victims is not far away.

Recently, there was a technical breach at MTN Nigeria, an incidence which gave hackers access to MTN database. Unlike before when message from 0803 were certified as directly from MTN, these hackers now send messages to subscribers with different claims. An uncle once fell victim as he was told to pay ten thousand Naira for the transportation of a giant screen TV he won in an MTN contest he never entered.

Effectively checkmating internet frauds and scams are a simple individual responsibility; we should stop being greedy and opportunistic.

On a daily basis, Prayer Mountains across the nation are filled with miracle seekers who pray for God’s hands to miraculously bless them. When such individuals receive such emails or SMS, they think it’s God that has answered their prayers. Their knowledge of the scriptures that all has roles to play in miracle perfection makes them go along with the mind game being played by the fraudsters and before they realize God’s innocence in the whole deal, scammers had eloped with their hard earned resources, starting another bout of frustration, rejection and poverty. Also, the emotional impact of being duped was recently placed on the same scale with rape by a recent New York Times publication.

To combat scammers therefore entails individuals not being greedy, selfish and unreasonably optimistic. Satisfaction, contentment and hope are the bedrock and themes of a life that cannot be defrauded. No matter how good an internet scammer is, there is no means of forcefully taking money out of the pockets of an individual that is not greedy.

NCC also needs to update its knowledge on internet safety. There are numerous recent means of combating online crimes, frauds and scams that the Ernest Ndukwe-led agency is evidently not aware of. All actions would be taken serious when there is an enacted legislation that criminalizes internet frauds.

Law promulgation and enactment evidently are duties of the legislature which in Nigeria is regrettably full of people who can’t even speak good English language, talk less of passing bills that could effectively curb internet misconducts. Moreover, how many of them know how to operate an ordinary Facebook account when all they could ask a prospective minister was her culinary skills?

Nigeria’s dreaded status in internet scam is in no way as a result of the skills of the scammers, but the inability of the Nigerian government to checkmate it, even when strong evidences could steer toward easy resolution. Our government is not serious; the regulating agencies are short of ideas, the law enforcement agencies are compromised and the yahoo boys are having a field day. This will continue until when someone who knows what to do comes on board. Till then, the message is simple; you’re on your own!

Maga Will Still Pay

2010-03-31T12:00:00.000+01:00

"The availability of e-mail has helped to transform a local form of fraud into one of Nigeria's most important export industries."

Insa Nolte, a lecturer of University of Birmingham's African Studies Department

In November 2003, Leslie Fountain, a senior technician at Anglia Polytechnic University in England, set himself on fire after falling victim to a scam; Mr. Fountain died of his injuries. In 2006, an American living in South Africa hanged himself in Togo after being defrauded by a Ghanaian 419 con man. In 2007, a Chinese student at the University of Nottingham killed herself after falling for a lottery scam. That’s not all.

In February 2003, Jiří Pasovský, a 72 year-old scam victim from the Czech Republic, shot and killed 50-year old Michael Lekara Wayid, an official at the Nigerian embassy in Prague, and injured another person, after the Nigerian Consul General explained he could not return $600,000 that Pasovský had lost to a Nigerian scammer. While death is usually at the extreme, the usual aftermaths of successful scams are monetary losses.

In a 2006 report produced by a research group and reported by BBC News, it was estimated that internet scams cost the United Kingdom economy £150 million per year, with the average victim losing £31,000. Individuals are often the worst hit.

Nelson Sakaguchi, a director at the Brazilian bank Banco Noroeste, transferred hundreds of millions of US Dollars to Chief Emmanuel Nwude, Nigeria's most accomplished scammer. The scam led to at least two murders, including that of one of the scammers, Mr. Blessing Okereke. The scam was the third biggest in banking history, after Nick Leeson's activities at Barings Bank, and the looting of the Iraqi Central Bank following the March 2003 US invasion.

In 2008, Janella Spears, an Oregon woman, lost $400,000 to a scam, after an e-mail told her she had inherited money from her long lost grandfather. Her curiosity was piqued based on the fact that she actually had a grandfather whose initials matched those given in the email. She sent several hundreds of thousands of US dollars over a period of more than two years, despite numerous opposing views from her family, bank staff and law enforcement officials. It is therefore evident that internet scams are devastating and spell great doom for national economy and global security. This wasn’t the intention of the founding fathers (and mothers) of scamming.

In the late 1800s, Western Union allowed telegraphic messages on its network to be sent to multiple destinations. The first recorded instance of a mass unsolicited commercial telegram started from May, 1864. Until the Great Depression of the 1930s, wealthy North American residents were deluged with nebulous investment offers. This problem never fully emerged in Europe to the degree that it did in the Americas, because telegraphy was regulated by national post offices in the European region.

Arguably, the aggressive email spamming by a number of high-profile spammers such as Sanford Wallace of Cyber Promotions in the mid-to-late 1990s contributed to making spam predominantly an email phenomenon in the public mind. Prior to 2009, most spam mails sent around the world were in the English language; since last years however, spammers had began to use automatic translation services like Google Translate to send spam mails in other languages.

Throughout the history of spamming, one fact remains clear- spam was meant to facilitate access without which marketers wouldn’t have been able to contact their prospective customers. However, as deeply rooted in the human mind, abuse of anything is inevitable. Scamming gives access, what the user now does with the access is left to individual choice. Spams were majorly used for advertisement, product promotion and awareness in the past; starting from late 20^th century however, spamming has found its synonym in crime and criminalities.

Spam can be used to spread computer viruses, trojan horses or other malicious software. The objective may be identity theft, or worse (e.g., advance fee fraud). Some spam attempts to capitalize on human greed whilst other attempts to use the victims' inexperience with computer technology to trick them (e.g., phishing). The question that now rises is how could spamming be successfully carried out in a country like Nigeria that is on every published publication on internet scam? The answer, according to the active yahoo boys consulted, is simple, use the tools!

A serious scammer starts with the purchase of a secure IP address from any of the online proxy address retailers for a token. To know how it works, I got one from proxy.com with the aid of a credit card (I will come to that later on). Instantly, my IP address was changed to that of Cyprus. With this, a scammer is able to hide his identity. The next stage is getting the email addresses of prospective mugus. While some internet scammers have and share a mailing list, advancement in technology now makes email list creation relatively easier with the use of email extractors. I was introduced to emailextractorpro.com.

According to its manufacturer, Email Extractor is the software that allows email marketers conduct their email marketing campaigns without any efforts. “Our intention was to create affordable, flexible and efficient email marketing software.” The software allows users to access several large diverse databases like America Online (AOL), Google, Yahoo etc, as well as create some addresses via encoded algorithms.

When email addresses are collated, the scammer then begins to send emails based on the specialty of the fake sender. Wikipedia has a good feature on the different sectors under internet scam, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud. It is however worthy to note that the common ones are the next-of-kin, wire transfer, goods purchase, check cashing, lottery scams, and internet romance. Others include those related to charity, fraud recovery, Craiglist, Bona vacantia (ownerless property) and several others.

Communication with potential victims is another challenge in spamming considering the fact that callers originating from Nigeria are handled with greater caution. When I was told the way out, fear gripped my heart.

My ‘lecturer’ typed UKNumbers.com into the address and I was guided through a short step which resulted in a free UK cell number (+17023037975) that automatically diverts calls to my cell number in Nigeria.

As shown in my experience, the booming nature of internet fraud in Nigeria is as a result of a 3- faceted strong collaboration and complementation that include foreign empowerment, Nigerian factor, and evil ingenuity.

I’ve come to realize that all tools, websites and services being used to perpetrate internet frauds and scams are not made in Nigeria, but abroad. For those involved in credit card detail theft for example, Graham King is a name that readily comes to mind; he is the genius at darkcoding.com, a place where credit card numbers could be gotten free of charge. The testimonies of the site’s visitors are also appalling, although Graham claims the card are fake.

Users like Dineshkumar Ponnusamy used one of the cards to buy something worth 3500 Euros, another reader claimed to have purchased a Sony laptop with one of the credit cards. This shows that all the ideas behind scam did not originate from Nigeria; the softwares that are utilized are not created in

Nigeria

, but downloaded from numerous foreign sites with scammers whose reputations are legendary in the business of scamming.

According to a 2009 Cisco Systems report which listed the origin of spam by country, Brazil, USA and India are the origin of about 17.9 trillion spam messages per year with Brazil blazing the trail. Nigeria, as notorious and synonymous as the country’s name is with scam, is not even on the top ten list which makes one wonder what is peculiar about Nigerian scams?

My interactions with young boys who daily throng cybercafés revealed that unlike their foreign contemporaries, Nigerian scammers are more desperate, a situation that makes their impacts harder felt than other scammers in other parts of the world.

In America for instance, citizens are not at a greater risk of being swindled, it’s the stores, shops and other establishments like banks. In India, telecoms companies like Mobitel are the major focus of internet scams. On peperonity.com and other social network platforms, Indian IT gurus share free call cheats with contemporaries while software design and advanced hacking are the major sources of revenue generation. To the Nigerian scammer however, everyone is a potential mugu- poor single black mother of 4, terminally ill patients and fellow Nigerians could be swindled. Many things are responsible for the peculiarity of Nigeria’s case.

One of such is the large number of scammers around. Nightly across the nation, especially in the south, several hundreds of thousands of Nigerians of all ages type away on keyboards. With each one of them knowing that thousands like him or her are sending the same message to probably same recipients, victim selection is left out. This makes one inquire why there are so many people interested in internet scams.

Based on my observations, I won’t blame unemployment and poverty; this is due to the kind of cars some of these scammers ride, and the evening shift scammers who are married old men who also try their luck. The most tenable reason would be the relative ease with which internet scam is carried out here, the complacency of Nigerian government and its agencies, and the gradual acceptance of internet scam as an acceptable vocation in some Nigerian cultures.

The roles of the Nigerian government in promoting internet scam are of high magnitude, and seem to be responsible for Nigerians’ online fraudsters’ status.

In 1997 for instance, an American was swindled by a Nigerian scammer who claimed to be an official of the CBN (most scams are woven around the CBN). During the course of investigation, she produced valid CBN phone numbers. Furthermore, when told to identify some staff, she was able to convincingly identify three top CBN staffs that were lined up. This shows that the CBN’s house, like most arms of the Nigerian government, is leaking. ATM fraud is another point of reference to the corruption in the Nigerian government.

In the course of my research, I learnt that when victims sheepishly give their bank account details, scammers send such details to someone with an ATM card printing machine that produces an ATM card for the account details provided, and such cards could be used at any ATM machine or POS terminal. One begins to wonder and ask how the machine got into the wrong hands. However, one stops wondering after realizing the fact that this is a country where submarine ammunitions, rocket launchers and war guns are in the creeks without an explanation on how they got there in the first instance, how much more a small concealable ATM printing machine?

In another similar scam in 2004 involving a number of Nigerian fraudsters, investigators asked Nigerian government to apprehend the beneficiaries of the largess since the wire transfers were traced to them. They got the shock of their lives when the Nigerian government said it wasn’t possible to arrest identified perpetrators. Our banks are also playing the role of devil’s advocates for internet fraudsters.

For a non fraudulent international wire transfer, it takes a minimum of 10 days for a transaction to be completed in UBA and Zenith Bank while it could take several weeks or months in banks like First Bank. But for a well connected internet fraudster, bank transfers could be completed within hours to 2 days into untraceable bank accounts in any part of the world. How are they able to achieve this feat against the purported background of unemployed fresh graduates, and annual JAMB UME candidates? One of my respondents informed me that they have insiders in some banks that help them with wire transfer. Another infiltration is that of the law enforcement agencies.

The notoriety of the Nigerian Police Force is monumental. In addition, Nigerian internet fraudsters are organized into what they call hoods with godfathers that bail them out of any trouble encountered. Such troubles include EFCC arrests, Police incarceration and border complications. It is only those who are not well connected that are arrested in the Nigerian scam sphere.

NCC is another agency whose helpless haplessness leaves much to thought.

I inquired about the possibility of blocking these websites that provide internet scammers with their tools. I was made to understand that it is as simple as ABC to block a website with particular themes. Some incidences in the media confirmed this.

Few months ago, I wanted to download a BBC Sports podcast but was told that access from my region is restricted. I tried using the hide-my-proxy IP that I procured online all to no avail. This shows that it is very possible to ban some websites from being visited in Nigeria. Iranian government successfully clamped down on social network websites during the last general elections when the opposition was utilizing the medium to instigate rebellion in citizens. This further shows that it is either NCC officials don’t know what they are doing, or are benefiting immensely from the status quo.

The last reason for the thriving nature of the Nigerian scamming industry could be traced to the pre-colonial era when whites- Americans and Europeans, were seen as superior to the citizens of the colonized nations. According to a good source, yahoo boys are showing the world that Nigerian youths are smarter than the smartest whites. This is compounded by the inability of most of those duped to report such incidence to relevant authorities to guard against any negative implication or retribution. As far as scamming is concerned in Nigeria and the dark days when banks and major companies would be victims are not far away.

Recently, there was technical compromise at MTN Nigeria, an incidence which gave hackers access to MTN database. Unlike before when message from 0803 were certified as directly from MTN, these hackers now send messages to subscribers with different claims. An uncle once fell victim as he was told to pay ten thousand Naira for the transportation of a giant screen TV he won in an MTN contest he never entered. To effectively checkmate internet frauds and scams is a simple individual responsibility; we should stop being greedy and opportunistic.

On a daily basis, Prayer Mountains across the nation are filled with miracle seekers who pray for God’s hands to miraculously bless them. When such individuals receive such emails or SMS, they think it’s God that has answered their prayers. Their knowledge of the scriptures that all has roles to play ion miracle perfection makes them go along with the mind game being played by the fraudsters and before they realize God’s innocence in the whole deal, scammers had eloped with their hard earned resources, starting another bout of frustration, rejection and poverty. The emotional impact of being duped was placed on the same scale with rape in a recent New York Times publication.

To combat scammers therefore entails individuals not being greedy, selfish and unreasonably optimistic. Satisfaction, contentment and hope are the bedrock and themes of a life that cannot be defrauded. No matter how good an internet scammer is, there is no means of forcefully taking money out of the pockets of an individual that is not greedy.

NCC also needs to update its knowledge on internet safety. There are numerous recent means of combating online crimes, frauds and scams that the Ernest Ndukwe- led agency is evidently not aware of. All actions would be taken serious when there is an enacted legislation that criminalizes internet frauds. This evidently goes down to the House of Assembly which is regrettably full of people who can’t even speak good English language, talk less of providing laws that could effectively curb internet misconducts. How many of them know how to operate an ordinary Facebook account when all they could ask a prospective minister was her culinary skills?

Nigeria’s dreaded status in internet scam is in no way as a result of the skills of the scammers, but the inability of the Nigerian government to checkmate it, even when strong evidences could steer towards easy resolution. Our government is unserious; the regulating agency has no idea, the law enforcement agencies are compromised and the yahoo boys are having a field day until when someone who knows what to do comes on board. Till then, the message is simple; you’re on your own!

Tuberculosis: Save One, Save All

2010-03-23T19:34:00.000+01:00

It started with a cough, an autumn hack that refused to go away, then came the fevers. They bathed and chilled him, his lungs clattered, his chest tightened and he ached with every gasp. During a wheezing fit at 4 a.m., he felt a warm knot rise from his throat. He ran to the bathroom sink and spewed a mouthful of blood.

I'm dying, he told himself, "because when you cough blood, it's something really bad."

It was really bad, and not just for him.

His father was in his office in the choice city of Peru as he tried to go about his daily chores in his dimly lit office. Suddenly, his phone buzzed with a call from a man who introduced himself as Ashkin from A.G. Holley, America's only functioning sanitarium. The doctor called with a clear message about his son's illness.

It's a rare disease, said Ashkin, hard to define. Your son is one of two people in the world known to have had this strain, he said.

"What happened to the other person?" his father asked.

"He died."

The controversial history of tuberculosis could be traced to homo erectus migration from Africa about 500,000 years ago to Europe. In a recent study that was published in December 7, 2009 issue of American Journal of Anthropology, this young man whose body was recently exhumed in Turkey, in the course of his sojourn (probably in pursuit of greener pastures) had a lowered immune system function arising as a result of interference in form of prevention of vitamin D synthesis by the action of melanin.

Melanin is the color pigment that make blacks black, and whites white. It is found to confer protection from the dangerous UV rays emitted from the sun while as well predisposes individuals to certain medical conditions like hypertension, cancer, multiple sclerosis, cardiovascular diseases, and infections like tuberculosis.

The role of melanin in predisposing an individual to tuberculosis arises when there is interference with the geographic biotic balance where like organisms, individuals are situated in locations that best suit they make up. Like homo erectus, Africans (except albinos) are heavily pigmented hence they could fair well in hot tropical countries while the Europeans who are majorly poorly pigmented can favorably survive in the cold low latitude countries of Europe. Due to migration and incessant search for the golden fleece, the world has found itself still under the heavy influence of tuberculosis as a result of the body trying to adjust to the fewer sunshine nature of lower altitudes.

Before the Alexander Flemming's (1881 - 1955) 1928 crude penicillin discovery and purification of antibiotic manufacture in 1945 by the British scientists- Howard Florey (1898 - 1968) and Ernst Boris Chain (1906 - 1955), exposure to abundant sunlight in sanitarium was the preferred 100% effective treatment for tuberculosis infections as sunlight stimulates the synthesis of cholecalciferol (vitamin D3) via the conversion of 7-Dehydrocholesterol (vitamin D precursor) to the active form only after exposure to sunlight. These complex steps subsequently lead to the reversal of signs, symptoms and aberrations brought about by tuberculosis and other associated infection. This innate immunity was potent enough.

However, in 1944 a critically ill TB patient was given a new miracle antibiotic and immediately recovered. New drugs quickly followed. They worked so well that by the 1970s in the U.S., it was assumed the disease was a problem of the past. But less than 25 years later, the world is worse than it once was. The major reasons for the comeback were immigration and travel. These two broke down invisible walls that had contained TB.

According to Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who was himself infected with tuberculosis while caring for drug-resistant patients at a New York clinic in the early '90s, "drug resistance is starting to be a very big problem. In the past, people stopped worrying about TB and it came roaring back. We need to make sure that doesn't happen again. We are all connected by the air we breathe, and that is why this must be everyone's problem."

In April 2009, the WHO sounded a global alarm on multi drug resistance when it conveyed the Beijing drug- resistant TB summit. At the gathering, the message was clear- the disease has already spread to all continents and is increasing rapidly. Even worse, WHO estimates only 1 percent of resistant patients received appropriate treatment last year, and there is a huge upburst in resistance.

Apart from inconsistent use of anti TB drugs, individuals are at risk of acquiring the drug resistant strains via another means.

TB germs can float in the air for hours, especially in tight places with little sunlight or fresh air. So every time someone with the deadly coughed, sneezed, laughed or talked, he or she could spread the deadly germs to others. According to the young man who had the first reported case in America, "You feel like you're killing somebody, like you could kill a lot of people. That is the worst part."

WHO's latest data placed tuberculosis as the top single infectious killer of adults worldwide, and it lies dormant in one in three people, 10 percent of which develop active TB, and about 2 million people a year will die from it. The fascinating conundrum about tuberculosis is its treatment.

According to Associated Press, simple TB is simple to treat — as cheap as a $10 course of medication for six to nine months. But if treatment is stopped short, the bacteria fight back and mutate into a tougher strain. It can cost $100,000 a year or more to cure drug-resistant TB, which is described as multi-drug-resistant (MDR), extensively drug-resistant (XDR) and XXDR.

There are more than 500,000 cases of MDR tuberculosis a year worldwide and XDR tuberculosis killed 52 of the first 53 people diagnosed with it in South Africa three years ago. Multi drug resistant tuberculosis has been said to be a time bomb. It has become a man made problem that is costly, deadly, debilitating, and the biggest threat to all current TB control strategies.

Unlike America and other developed countries of the world, Nigeria has no fully operational sanitarium that could be saddled with managing new and virulent forms of the disease. Our current TB centers could be likened to the incidence of 1850 when about 25% of Americans and Europeans who were isolated in sanatoriums died in isolation. Nigeria's poor medical recording system is another setback to most STOP TB programmes since most drug sales are done over the counter. No one knows who is latently infected and how safe the next breath is, every inhalation is a risk for everyone since MDR TB does not have a distinct aroma. We all breath in fear, and are perfect ingredients for an epidemic disaster.

So the question is: Is this a strain that's evolving? That's mutating? That's becoming more and more resistant?". I think the answer is yes. Nigerian doctors grappling with these new strains inadvertently give the wrong medicines, and so the TB mutates to become more aggressive and resistant.

Although they are well trained, Nigerian medical laboratory scientists do not have the resources to determine whether a patient's TB is drug-resistant. Their practice is resource- restricted to sputum culturing and timely drug-susceptibility testing, while expensive processes are performed only in reference laboratories. However, all hope is not lost as WHO is working to make these methods more available in high-risk countries like ours as well as negotiating cheaper prices for second-line drugs.

"There's a lot of MDR and XDR-TB that hasn't been diagnosed in Nigeria and this poses a big public health threat, one that is stronger than the Libyan leader's division option.

It cost the state of Florida $500,000 to treat a Peru national with the first case of TB. They did it not because they love Peru, but for the fact that an untreated MDR TB is a disaster waiting to happen. As a country, we should borrow a leaf from Florida. We should not wait until disasters happen before we act.

The international community is also not left out. This year's celebrations mark the halfway point for the Global Plan to Stop Tuberculosis (2006 - 2015). With much at stake, a lot still needs to be done. TB is a highly mutant contagious infection that could be difficult to treat, and a potential tool for biowarfare.

As it stands, weaponizing XXDR TB is a simple task in the hands of a learned medical microbiologist (I can do it) and the cost of treatment ($500,000 per patient) could leave all countries of the world including America grounded like Nigerian Airways, therefore it's a viable option for terrorists. It therefore becomes imperative for all agencies, governments, bodies, relevant organizations and researchers to speed up the process of combating MDR TB to avert a global Armageddon.

How I wish we could reverse time and go 500,000 years back when sunshine, like the blood of Jesus, can wash us clean of every infirmity like tuberculosis.

Enough Is Enough Nigeria: Let's Go There!

2010-03-16T11:47:00.000+01:00

It's been said that it takes a drug to cure a disease, it takes failure to appreciate success, and as shown recently, it takes an ailing president, overambitious first lady and helplessly weak vice to invoke the anger of Nigerian youths.

Human beings all over the world are similar in needs and challenges. Things go smoothly when these needs are met, and the challenges are well contended with. Times immemorial, the history of nations of the world had been written with the tears of the oppressed who couldn't take unwarranted challenges any longer, having being pushed to the wall and had resolved to put in all it takes to seek and get revolution. In Nigeria, it's a thing of joy that 50 years post- independence, we've finally agreed on one very vital fundamental issue- enough of these rubbish!

We've sat arms akimbo for so long watching our collective destinies toyed with by an insignificant few who had held an entire nation ransom. However, our collective silence didn't connote weakness but timed patience. As followers, we've waited for the leaders to retrace their steps back to sanity, yet the insane lane had been their consistent choice. This must stop!

For how long will we continue to live as disenfranchised citizens of our fatherland without any right? How long will it take for those in government to be aware of the impact of their unimaginable weaknesses? And what will it take to have sense restored to the 'cultists' in Aso rock who seem to be running another country with our national resources?

Nigeria's challenges are not peculiar but clear cut hence they are not that difficult to decipher or fathom, yet those expected to lead us into the limelight are walking like ignorantly lost blind men in dire need of direction. Must we leave our fate in their hands? I don't think so!

This is the time to voice out individual bedroom grievances, frustrations and dissatisfactions. It is an ample opportunity to lend our voices to the widely circulating perception that Nigerians are tired of deception. And who has more at stake than the youths of the nation?

Like a used tissue paper, Nigerian youths are constantly dissociated from the largesses of good governance. The palpable acrimonic selfishness in government coupled with the ills of political politricks in the national assembly had made issues like protracted academic punctuations the slogan of our tertiary institutions. Lack of gainful employment made internet fraud, kidnapping and prostitution new preferred job preferences, and the popular proverbial bright future is literarily not in sight in this part of the world.

Going down memory lane, it's worthy to note that it took resolute UI students to kick out a minister of education, it was a Kenyan youth that was at the vanguard of the revolution that made the nation enviable, and it was the unflinching, unyielding and unrelenting youthful spirit in Nelson Mandela that brought an end to apartheid in South Africa. Hence for Nigeria to rise, the youths must arise!

If there is no youth attending the Abuja rally that had suffered from the executive and legislative ignorance, just remember Paul.

5 ASUU strikes, 4 NASUU strikes, 3 NLC strikes, 8 years for a 5 year course without failing, scary dreams and countless sleepless nights that still haunt till today. We must agree and resolve that generations to come must not experience these inhumanities.

We need to start asking for answers, demanding for actions and requesting for our rights. Posterity has given us another opportunity to rewrite history in our 50th year as a nation, failure is not an option.

To Toyosi Akerele, MI, Omotola and other youth leaders involved, do not be deceived by the welcoming smiles of the [mis]representatives or overtures from senators, let the tears of the powerless Nigerian youths fuel your anger and be the driving passion of today's rally. Like Terry G will always say, I request that you Ginja your swagga in Abuja!

Let our united voice be heard around the world, let foreigners see our disapproval of the nation's current famililocratic style of governance where a family holds an entire nation ransom. Let the world know that this is Nigeria, not Swaziland, or a family compound!

Lord Lugard might name Nigeria while getting a blow job, there is something that I'm cork sure of, it wasn't a mistake. There is a purpose for the nation and come what may, it shall stand.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery and today is a gift, that is why it's called present. Let's start stepping out of our shells and take our destinies by force. This is what the Enough-is-Enough rally is all about- using today's present to resolve tomorrow's mystery by re-writing our history. Let's go there!

How To Report The President's Condition: A Rejoinder

2010-03-08T19:58:00.000+01:00

While I totally agree with Rufus Oteniya's comparison of Zambia's case with Nigeria's current predicament, I will like to point out some salient facts why it might be impossible for such to surface in Nigeria.

Unlike Zambia, Nigeria has an enormous population and expansive demography which makes it almost impossible for those in authority to relinquish power. It's widely said that how powerful a man is solely depends on the size of his kingdom, and the number of people under his rulership. Zambians are not as numerous as Nigerians hence power is more valued here.

Before his current bed ridden status, Yar'adua acted like the Oluwo of Egbaland by administering oaths of secrecy on his cabinet members. While we are aware of the formality, no one, except the oath takers, knows the terms of the convenant, the sacrifices involved and aftermath effects on defaulters. The secrecy of the presidency makes it impossible for Nigerians to see the inside of Aso Rock, talk less of getting true reports on the health of their president.

Thirdly, those who ought to be reporting have also been compromised. PUNCH newspapers is now in the middle of several allegations and counter allegations emanating from a summarily sacked over ambitious journalist. The newspaper's managements are not the only ones with skeletons to hide. Politicians, especially Yar'adua loyalists have successfully infiltrated the media houses with exorbitant adverts, exclusive sponsorships, mouth watering and tongue drooping honorarium and several tempting overtures which are making publications that were once credible mere town criers for the government.

A forth fearful factor is that of the true state of the president's health. Considering the manner in which the issue is being handled, one begins to ideate that it's not just acute pericarditis that our president is suffering from. If the package, ferry, smuggle, hide-and-seek games are put into consideration, one begins to think of conditions like highly contagious extremely drug resistant tuberculosis, heart transplant or magun, among other scary health conditions that might keep us all at the edges of our seat in awe.

The silence of the opposition is another issue that makes it seem as if it's a normal thing for Nigerians, especially those voters who dared the harsh weather and sharp cutlasses on Election Day, to be kept in the dark. Till date, none of the hundred and something have made any concrete meaningful action to checkmate the continual desecration of the presidency. With members in both chambers of the national assembly, and strong members of the Governors' Forum, Nigerian opposition political parties and their candidates seem to find nothing wrong. The only set of voices being heard are that of activists, crusaders and those whose interest is not in the bounties of politics but the dividends of legitimate, good, vibrant and accountable governance. The Zambia's case was different as the voice of opposition was loudly heard from the Victoria Falls to Luanda!

Nigerians can also be blamed for the paucity of information on the health status of those at the helm of affairs. On the various streets across Nigeria, Nigerians go about their daily chores as if all is well in the well. They are unruffled, unconcerned and less bothered by the situation. National issues are only discussed when tabled with isi ewu, nkwuobi, pepper soup, idikangikong, paraga and ofe owerri. To them, the plight befalling Nigerian leaders are self inflicted. Nobody develops pericarditis when in power; it's been there all along.

It is quite disheartening that after 50 years of independence, Nigerian leaders still fail to fathom leadership, the opposition parties are not even aware of what opposition is all about while the only voices heard are those of well meaning Nigerians under the auspice of the Save Nigeria Group (SNG).

How will Nigeria fair if Prof. Wole Shoyinka had stayed with lecturing, if Yinka Odumakin stay only with the preservation of Awoism and Tunde Bakare preaches only on Sundays and at high profile events? It would have been worse than this. It is evident that even if Yar’adua camp decides to say the truth like Zambian political did, Nigerians are undeterred and summarily but regrettably uninterested.

2010 International Women Day: A Celebration of Choices

2010-03-08T19:53:00.000+01:00

My pastor, Bishop Maxwell C. Korie has a unique way of describing women. While men were refined once from the dust, women were double refined by a perfect God. Going by the Biblical point of view, the pastor's point is true but going by the tales of the plight of the African women, one doubts if they are actually God's handiwork. Let me explain.

African ancient cultural beliefs set men well above women as most responsibilities they are saddled with are majorly to support and cater for the head of the house, the man. The 21st century woman is however a product of extensive mutation of the normal female gene.

There is virtually almost no area that women are not challenging men. From medicine, music to mortuary, males are daily having their God- given egos challenged by the Biblical ribs. Gender equality is now an issue most employers contend with as the undue preference of male gender over female is a long gone issue. In sectors like banking and financial institutions, female employees are fast out numbering the male contemporaries.

The cases described earlier are of developed countries. In the third world nations however, women, especially those in the rural areas, are still languishing under the heavy impacts of ancestral gender bias, intimidation, compelled surbordination and barbaric cultural practices like genital mutilation and forced marriages.

It is a clear truth that the limited roles of women in Nigerian affairs could be traced to our inertia which makes certain illogical practices vital determinants in our affairs. Let's make some instances.

The National Assembly could not pass into law a bill prohibiting child marriages because they believed the tradition is a core part of the cultural practice of some tribes! How can these young, forced wives ideate and create to elevate the state?

In spite of all peculiar gender challenges and impeding cultural traditions, some Nigerian women are distinguished as amazons in their fields and worthy mentors for young girls, and boys alike.

They include Kudirat Abiola, Fela's mum, Dora Akuniyili, Oby Ezekwesili, and several others. They've shown that womanhood is not all about cooking, fashion and gossips. Like their male counterparts, some women had warmed their ways into our history's bad books.

People like Patricia Etteh, Iyabo Obasanjo, Prof. Adenike Granje (disgraced minister of health), and with due respect, madam first lady, Turai, are no longer epitomes of womanhood based on ridiculous accusations and allegations, just like their male counterparts.

Nigeria's recent events, and those on the international arena are showing all the differences between males and females are not reasons for good acts or bad attitudes, they are a factor of choices made.

In this regard, it is expedient for this year's International World Women Day ceremonies to recognize women daily making good choices in the daily chores and corporate duties, cultures making choices to respect women more, and governments and institutions who have chosen to work tirelessly towards the enforcement of gender equality and fairer treatment of women at all levels.

They are the reason for 8th March of every year. Their choices made the world a better place for all, let's thank them. To them I say Happy 2010 International Women day.

Recurrent Jos Mayhem: Who Will Heal The Land?

2010-03-08T19:08:00.000+01:00

The Nigerian nation is facing its toughest multi faceted challenges in recent times. There is a sick president no one sees, a daily threat of military coup, the legislative arm is helpless in the discharge of its responsibilities and the frustrations of Nigerians are evolving and climaxing into incessant blood sheds and horrendous conflicts.

Conflicts arise as a result of disputes, misunderstandings and misconception of actions and overtures. While it is a normal phenomenon for all to disagree, it becomes totally abnormal for conflicts to remain unresolved, and reoccurring every now and then. This is the Jos story.

Jos was once the best place to stay in Nigeria considering the heavenly weather and blissful peace that once characterized the city. However, bouts of killings, religious unrests and the likes had given Jos a new name, Nigeria's hottest spot and most volatile region where bloodbaths start at the slightest provocation.

As hard as various governments (federal and state) had tried to fathom and proffer conclusive solutions and resolve agitations, the problems seem to be more deeply rooted than we imagined making bow tie loving Bola Ajibola and other reputable emissaries unable to help us solve this debacle.

The crisis in Jos is no longer restricted to Jos and Plateau state alone, it has become a national insult on our ability to internally resolve crisis and put the house together without warranting external interventions, a feature that characterize a nation bound to succeed.

While the truth is we still don't know what the problems in Jos are, unlike past Kano religious unrests, the impacts of the killings are palpable, the stench of death is strong, and the devastations are of great magnitude, not just to present residents, but generations yet unborn. This must stop!

We must sincerely get to the root of the problems, not the faulty hasty TV conclusions, start the process of reintegration and embark on land cleansing.

According to cultural myths and Biblical facts, lives cut short in their primes constantly cry for vengeance on the land by demanding woes and more blood. Going by the rate of hate in the state, the volumes of the cries are at ery high decibels, it's time to act.

This is no longer an individual state affair knowing that lives are lost, and the integrity and unity of the nation are being subjected to litmus tests. The federal governments from step in, and deliverance ministers must help out.

Acting President Jonathan must realize that dispatching army men to the city is not enough action. Federal resources should be fully utilized to ensure that we solve the Jos mystery once and for all. The gladiators should also understand the woes being brought on their children and future generations by the barbaric acts in the 21st century. They must take it upon themselves to heal their lands, and cleanse it from avenging innocent blood.

Religious leaders, especially deliverance ministers must arise from routine activities in ultra modern worship centers, and lead Jos leaders and residents in delivering the city and the state from the strong claws of wars, and the tent of death over it.

The various arms of government might have been complacent, unserious and weak in handling other issues, they all must sit up and resolve the Jos crisis for the common good, just like it's been done in the past in places like Kano and Modakeke.

The woes of having unrests in Jos is now a national phenomenon and the tasks must also be collective. Journalists must continually speak of the atrocities, writers must constantly write about the killings, photographers must ensure that our leaders are daily (and nightly) haunted by the images of those maimed or killed during the crisis, and radio stations should daily air the cries of the homeless, fatherless and those that were devastated by the crisis. The tempo must be sustained until Jos city and the Nigerian nation is wiped clean of religious and sectarian crisis, ethnic battles and other shameful incidences that constantly put Nigeria on the international scene, usually for the wrong reasons.

We used to be a happy nation before these crisis, we were once tolerant of one another, and the Nigerian spirit that once spurred us to fame is still in us, we just don't know what is wrong. God, please heal our land.

The Validity Of Christianity

2010-03-04T20:29:00.000+01:00

One of the issues that true Christians contend with on a daily basis is that of poking non Christians who boast of having complete knowledge of the Bible. While their mastery of the words of the Bible is quite commendable, same cannot be said of their understanding of the Christian faith.

According to my PC's dictionary, religion is a particular system of faith and worship and a life under monastic vows. In other words, and going by etymology, religion is a thing that one is devoted to. A devotion is a routine, a practice that is religiously carried out with the belief that by regularly observing the routine, one connects well with the Creator. For some religions, this is quite true. Examples of such include Islam, Buddhism and several others.

Moslems for example are expected to religiously say their Sallat prayers five times daily. That is religion, Christianity however is quite different. I know it's quite difficult to decipher, I'm gonna break it down for you.

Going by my personal encounter, christianity is a journey that starts with an encounter. For some, it's a voluntary decision while for somehow stubborn ones like me, God had to take it personal, taking us through several inundating experiences, challenges, battles and obstacles which made us realize that we need something and somebody beyond our normal realm, horizon and genus. In both instances however, there is no compulsion or threats because it's a choice that transcends into a relationship.

Unlike religions where members are literarily inducted and initiated usually from conception, a prospective Christian must have an insightful understanding of what he or she is entering into. It is more than daily chores, periodic events and astral obligations, it's an all encompassing extreme makeover!

From the outset when an individual somehow makes the bizarre decision to follow Christ and live a life by faith and not by sight, the lifestyle of a true Christian is gradually transmogrified into one similar to Christ's, although in a smaller way. Such stages include forsaking old ways, bad influences, sinful acts and unedifying circumstances. This stage is usually painful and extremely difficult.

One of the difficult things I forsook when I decided to be a serious Christian was the group I hung with. We did a lot of 'great' things together that were pretty fun. But when it became evident that they are gradually becoming a negative influence and unnecessary impedance to spiritual progress and self fulfillment, I made the somehow painful decision of letting them off my hook. Some Christians had to leave relationships, forsake families, lucrative jobs, and befitting residences to stand all alone in the midst of everything surrounded by nothing but their new way of life, the Christian faith. This has its good sides, even in the normal human realm.

People like these are not scared of making tough decisions and are confident in their God- given abilities. They are aware of the pains of sacrifices, and the sweetness of good success. They are inspired to go all the way and the extra mile knowing God is with them, and more importantly, they trust God to do everything through them.

Another peculiar nature of Christianity is the individual basis of relationships and diversities of encounters.

I once heard a non Christian describe the diverse Christian denominations as an indication of the uncertainty of the Gospel. In the true sense however, what the fellow failed to understand is that God interacts with Christians on an individual basis, and individual preferred modes of worship therefore varies. Since denominations refer to the mode of God worship, one million Christians are expected to have at least one million denominations. How about that?

The Bible is another aspect of Christianity that is grossly misunderstood. In just 66 books, it covers all aspects of human life and more- business, safety, warfare, medicine, music, geography, science, poetry, arts, vocations, philosophy, psychology, economics, human relations, love and sex!

The accuracy of Biblical facts also amazes science knowing that the chapters were written, preserved and passed down from generations that had no access to automated technology. Unlike other books that are said to come from heaven, the Bible was written by human beings and inspired by God and situations around. The Bible ordinarily is just like any other religious book, that is why anybody can pick it up and read without having the deep rhemaic insight that liberates, frees and clarifies an individual's heart.

The validity of Christianity is not in any writing on a baby's forehead, a Holy place, unusual book from heaven or anything AWOL. It is the too-simple-to-be-true nature of the Gospel.

This unbelievable truth daily gives hope to those passing through humanly hopeless situations. They are unshaken because of the truth that had helped out generations past. It worked then, and still at work now!

State Of The Nation: Free Readers Speak

2010-03-01T07:39:00.000+01:00

'N na ehn, na wa for this country o!'

'Wetin happen again?'

'U never read Tribune headlines?'

'Which one abeg I no get much time to spend here'

'E le bi inaga?'

'Where I dey go? You dey craze. Have you forgotten that I have a job to keep and family to feed?

Hapumaka biko'

'I should leave you alone? Okay. Tribune and some papers are suggesting that Umoru is not in Nigeria'

'I thought as much considering the way he was dispatched like a dangerous DHL package'

'You know this is not funny.'

'It has not been funny since November when the kitchen cabal took over without a coup'

'Their latest act should compel the house to invoke section 144'

'Na wa o. Hear carpenter quote constitution. Na 6 inches nails or sledge hammer? Werenwayo!'

'The person I pity most in all these is Yari'

'Me too. He lays as they said in a Ford ambulance while his boys and wives sign budgets, mobilize soldiers, direct aircrafts and switch off airport lights at will'

'By the time this is all over, only God knows the number of foreign things we would have advertised free of charge'

'What do you mean?'

'Do you know King Fasai Medical Center before?'

'No'

'What of Ford ambulances?'

'No'

'You see what I mean?'

'Now I understand'

'I learnt that some Nigerian politicians with health problems are now registering at the Saudi hospital as the King's guests'

'Rumormonger'

'I even heard that the Senator representing you has ordered for a Ford ambulance for his personal use'

'What is wrong with him?'

'Malaria'

'You are insane'

'Is there any other news apart from Yari?

'NFF seems to have surprised Nigerians by naming a coach in a record shortest time of less than 3 months'

'What do we know about the new guy?

'Guy? You no get respect. He is like a father to those that interviewed him. I learnt they were even prostrating before him'

'Mechonu. I think they said he once coached the Swedish national team, he should be okay'

'I don't think he's the best for us. I would have preferred Metsu, his stature alone can scare stubborn players to get themselves together'

'You know your idea does not count here'

'The fact is that we will put our faith in the hands of another Bora'

'See this headline'

'Chei! NFF spent 8 billion Naira in getting a coach'

'And we are here sharing one cup of kai kai'

'I know you love money but this is a colossal waste of public funds'

'Dey talk big grammar. The man-in-charge is sick, madam due process is out of office while madam EFCC is on sabbatical. Read the signs mumu!'

'Oh my God!'

'Ogini kwanu? Wetin you see?

'See Bush and Rice in Abuja'

'Since El Rufai left I've also noticed a lot of bushes around Abuja city, and we all know that rice is a major staple food here, fifty Naira per cup. Why are you surprised?'

'Na wa for you oh! No wonder you are still unemployed, who will employ dullard like you? George Bush and Condoleeza Rice came to town!'

'Point of correction, I'm underemployed, not unemployed. Why are these warriors here? Are we going to war with Iraq?'

'No, they were in town for ThisDay Awards

'I'm always surprised how the paper does it annually, inviting all these important people to our country in a time we just got rebranded'

'Rebranding? I thought it's dead'

'It has achieved its purpose which is to showcase Nigeria and Nigerians to the rest of the world. Have we ever been this popular before in history?'

'I agree but I've not been showcased'

'You? Don't make me laugh'

'What is funny?'

'Nigeria is not for people like you, go to Niger'

'You need deliverance. Rev. King!'

'Religious people'

'What is wrong in calling on God?'

'Some things need common sense, not God'

'Who gave you sense? No be God?'

'9ja is a typical case of the Biblical nation of Isreal that only draws near to God in times of troubles, afflictions and dire needs. When all is well, they forget all past woes and go AWOL like King Solomon with 1000 women. The man strong oh! Why didn't God strike him dead?'

'That is the covenant He made with David at work'

'If I understand you well, David fought all Solomon's battles while Solomon had enough time to satisfy his libido'

'The man na real actor'

'Any news on our actors?'

'Which ones?'

'What do you mean?'

'Everybody is an actor in Nigeria- Leaders, politicians, lecturers, pastors, businessmen and poor artisans like you.'

'I'm talking of Ramsey Noah et al'

'Don't you know they lower IQ? As a sharp Igbo guy, nwanne, you need a high IQ for maximum efficiency. You dey feel me?'

'I feel you. There is one actor that I'm looking for, the guy and his IQ too much'

'Onye?'

'Erastus Akingbola. He surprised me'

'Dey there now, na wa for you oh! That na sharp actor. Our own Arnold Swaziniggagm, make I no break teeth'

'Where is he?'

'You dey ask me?'

'I thought you used to be well informed. Anyway, I'm just wondering when Nigeria will be done with these art and act of acting and actors'

'How I wish I can help with an answer'

'You? Taa'

'Make I shut up? No be your fault. Na 9ja cause am'

'How?'

'Sick people, wives and those without ideas are at the top while intellectuals like me are stuck with illiterates like you'

'That is 9ja for you. Relax!'