A dog in diaper feeding on barbeque

Not quite the eemo lereko (indescribable gaily-dressed dog in town), but somewhat indescribable all the same. A travelling puppy feeding on barbeque at Lokoja in Kogi State, Nigeria on its way to Abuja.

 

Phew, space junk misses station astronauts


The International Space Station

Nigeria’s own David, roasted yams and the long-untarred road

By Frank Onyezili

As you drive out of Enugu State into the part of Benue that flaunts billboards proclaiming a prospective Apa State, you will hit the trunk A road connecting Otukpa with Otukpo, the anticipated capital of the dream Apa State. Fifteen minutes later, you divert left, cross the same Otukpa-Otukpo road, and pass the aging Ugbokolo Polytechnic entrance.  Another 15 minutes takes you to Eke Junction. You turn right at this junction to rejoin the road and drive towards Otukpo.

Soon, you are forced to reduce speed to a crawl on the stony and bumpy earth road. You pass the ever-present hawkers selling roasted yams and ‘pure’ water to weary commuters. Next, you pass the bona fide garri traders of Edumoga, folks who for years have survived on selling this staple in wide basins open to dust from the luckless road. All are helpless stakeholders in the enigma of a road that defies completion and remains a death trap despite gulping much of the country’s wealth.

Look closer at the hawkers and traders. They are the worse for wear and tear. And their children, exposed to serious health hazards, are the potential victims of this unending road rehabilitation project. Listen to the endangered commuters too, and realize that they are amazingly well-informed on the high, dishonorable stakes at play regarding this road project.

The road’s rehabilitation has lasted at least a decade. Sporadically, road workers are mobilized, but when you think they have finally resolved to finish the job, they disappear, to reappear again. Just when tangible results appear at the Otukpo end and you relish the prospects of the end of the shenanigans, the workers vanish. When they reappear to continue the work in the Otukpa direction, the accomplishment at the Otukpo end has potted up, re-enacting the vicious cycle repeatedly.

The question is: when will this chicanery end? When will relief come to those who live on, live by, or just ply this important link road that is within the ‘oversight function’ of David Mark, Senator representing Benue South constituency since 1999, and Senate President since 2007?

Mark, 63, needs no introduction. However, he is Nigeria’s incumbent Senate President, of the “doctrine of necessity” flip, and battering ram for the failed third-term bid of then President Olusegun Obasanjo. Mark’s pedigree is the Army, where he cut his teeth, becoming relevant in 1984 as the military governor of Niger State. Later, during the Ibrahim Babangida era, anecdotes put him at the centre of a gun-to-the-head drama that resulted in the annulment of ‘June 12’. Before then, as Babangida’s Communications Minister, he had said that telephony was not for poor people.

Poor ordinary Nigerians, we’ve come to realize, can own phones—even 21^st century mobile phones. Poor ordinary Nigerian people voted to determine who their senators and oversight functionaries should be. And ordinary Nigerians, who don’t own personal aircraft, are the primary users of Nigeria’s roads. In his 12^th year as Benue South representative in the Senate, David Mark owes his poor, ordinary constituents an obligation to deliver on the Otukpo-Otukpa Road without further delay.

I agree with Dr. Reuben Abati’s description of the “entitlement mentality” that stands in the way of work that Nigeria’s legislators should do. Abati’s exquisitely poetic “gale of surprises”, triggered in the country’s April 2011 elections, which shut out not a few legislators, will gather speed in spite of the nation’s stultified National Assembly. And it is ordinary Nigerians that will see to this, as Governor Peter Obi in Anambra State started learning a while ago, when godfatherism failed and a quite sellable Professor Dora Akunyili was rejected to spite Obi.

The electorate that so dramatically devalued Obi’s once-sparkling political stock in Anambra State is mostly poor ordinary people, the same kind of people who in Imo, Oyo, Ogun, Nassarawa and Kaduna states successfully protected their votes last April. Once literally supine, ordinary people are quickly developing their own capacity to become supremely strident and will not be taken for granted for much longer anywhere, including Apa.

I have residual faith that, perhaps even before my gray hairs lie in earthy rest, Nigeria will emerge from the stifling grip of politicians. Ordinary people, now hostages of Nigeria’s ruling class, will free themselves from mediocre leadership in a nation where convicts still hold court. The pace of liberation will accelerate and celebrating corruption will end. President Goodluck  Jonathan, for whom I did not vote because olives don’t birth figs, may yet continue his run of rare luck and turn out to be PDP’s joker. By not bowing to the zoning arrangement of his party, he epitomizes this new stridency of ordinary people, and his 2011 election victory suggests that equal access to political power, social justice and equity is already afoot.

Sen. David A. Mark

If the ancient record of the gifted shepherd boy who withstood the Philistine giant does not instruct David Mark, he can learn from not-so-ancient history—the self-confessing not-so-gifted Charles Darwin. He might then see how, even with only moderate abilities, his action to quickly complete the Otukpo-Otukpa road can dramatically improve the lives of so many vulnerable people who, presumably, have been voting for him, and are still touting his slogans on Apa State. Otherwise, these ordinary people, whose verdict will ultimately determine his place in Apa’s history, if not Nigeria’s, will withstand him and, here on earth at least, have the final say.

Frank Onyezili is a retired professor of Biochemistry and former Head of Nutrition, UNICEF Nigeria (1998-2009)

Culled from Daily Independent: Friday, 12th February , 2012; P. 33

Kofi Annan's floundering mission to Syria

Is anybody surprised that Kofi Annan's mission to Syria is failing? Well, it was doomed to fall flat on its face even before it got underway. What with Mr. Annan ruling out the military option even before he flew into Damascus for talks with Mr. Assad? Remember Rwanda where he looked on while 800,000 people were being slaughtered? Remember Libya where here he achieved nothing? I wonder why the powers that be keep wasting money asking Mr. Anan to mediate in conflict when he's such a pacifist who would rather beg an unwilling bully to sheath his sword. How do you make a 'belligerent' bully to stop killing without letting him know there is the military option behind you?!

Mr. Kofi Annan

Eemo l'ereko

There is this Yoruba way of describing the indescribable with the chant:

Mo r’eemo lereko; aja w’ewu o ro’so (I have seen the indescribable; I saw a gaily dressed dog in town). I have lived in Abuja (Nigeria) for a while, and I see eemo (the indescribable) on the roads on a daily basis. These photos are the indescribable I saw the other day—a man reading a newspaper while driving. Take a look, he was also on his phone at the same time! 

Unbelievable: our friend with a newspaper on his steering wheel while driving down Ahmadu Bello Way, Wuse 2.

He is not only reading the newspaper but making or receiving a  call as well.

And that's him seemingly in hot pursuit of the motorcycle in front of him!

Season of the Noma Children

I

t is late afternoon on July 26, 2005, and Health Minister, Prof. Eyitayo Lambo is rounding off his three-day advocacy visit to three of the seven states of Nigeria’s North-West Geo-Political Zone. One of the health facilities that he must visit is the Noma Children’s Hospital, Sokoto. There is very little time, yet NCH is a must-see.

         

The minister decides on a flying visit, arriving about 6.30 p.m. As he goes through the hospital, however, he encounters a special case, a boy called Mohammed, who has been in the hospital for about three months. The Minister and entourage stop in their tracks, for although the boy looks a particularly bad case, the management say he is actually one of the success stories of the hospital.

When little Mohammed first arrived at Noma Children’s Hospital three months ago, very few people gave him any chance of survival. One side of his face was badly mangled; it was as though it had passed through a grater. And the left eye looked as if it would pop. Mohammed was as unwell as he could be, his ailment, a disease with an exotic sounding name, Noma. Like kwashiorkor, the root of the name is in Ghana.  

Medically, the condition is called Kancrum oris, an infection that attacks children with severe malnutrition, eating up the jaws and face. If not treated in time, it results in facial deformity and, or death. The deformity that results depends largely on how soon intervention starts.

Doctors at the hospital went to work on Mohammed; before long his condition improved, and he got a new lease of life. In his three months at NCH, however, he has had to undergo several rounds of reconstructive surgery and treatment with antibiotics to stop the infection that had almost killed him, and nutrients in drug and food forms to address the underlying cause of the infection. In due course, he will have to be operated on twice more to improve his facial appearance. It is only then that he will be considered fit to go home.

Noma Children’s Hospital has treated innumerable cases like Mohammed in its three decades of existence. The hospital was set up by the government of Sokoto State in collaboration with a German foundation. Patients are treated free of charge with subventions initially only from Sokoto State Government. Over the years, however, Sokoto State has reduced its subventions to the hospital and successfully asked for FG support since patients come from all over the country and from neighbouring nations.

German surgeons fly in to do the necessary surgery once a year when there are patients to treat. Thereafter, the hospital becomes a multi-purpose health facility until the following season when Noma children are the focus.

Part of the preparation for the Noma children treatment season is that all adult and non-Noma patients are discharged to make room for Noma children, who come from far and near.

A Bad Day to Fly

The weather has been fine all day, but close to zero hour it gets hazy, and it starts to drizzle. Worse, it is also raining in Bauchi, the destination of the 15-member mission to the North-East Zone. In other words, it is a bad day to fly, particularly in a 17-seater prop engine aeroplane that is so light it is prone to getting tossed around in the air.

Zero-hour is 3 p.m., but weather conditions make take-off impossible. Half an hour later the situation has not improved. Indeed, it is getting worse: the drizzle has turned into a light shower, and Easy Link Airline officials advise that the flight be rescheduled for tomorrow morning. However, the Health Minister, Prof. Eyitayo Lambo would have none of that.

“We must get to Bauchi today; we have firm appointments to see the Governor and the Emir of Bauchi. If we don’t see them today, then that crowds our schedule for tomorrow; it could also affect the schedule for the rest of the week,” the minister reportedly reasons. In his mind, he adds: “The Lord will take control.”

“Then we have to wait for the weather to clear up a bit,” officials advise.

“OK, we wait,” Lambo says with a tone of finality. In his mind he continues to pray for a turn-around. There must be a dramatic improvement in the weather soon otherwise the flight will have to be rescheduled; at 6 p.m. the airstrip in Bauchi will close for the day.

Around 3.45 p.m., the weather in Abuja is still not too good for flying, but then you can take off while it is raining. So a half-dozen umbrellas are found, and one after the other, officials escort members of the mission into the aircraft, which is waiting oblivious of the rain about 200 metres from the VIP Lounge of the airport. While the passengers are boarding and their luggage is being loaded, the rain stops rather dramatically. The pilots start the engine and run it for a while. The captain realizes that his passengers are curious that there is no movement and the cabin is getting stuffy. He explains that the aircraft has a little too much fuel, and it has to be burnt so the plane can safely take off; he continues to run the engine for a while. At 4.16 the aircraft begins to taxi onto the runway.

While taxiing, the lone cabin crew, Rita, makes the usual pre-take off announcements: fasten your seat belts; remain in an upright position; the flight will take 55 minutes…

“Kai, 55 minutes!” Laide Shokunbi is alarmed. He had hoped the flight would not take more than 30 – 45 minutes. He mutters a prayer under his breath as the plane gathers speed for take off. Beside him is Siju Alabi, Health Correspondent and Newscaster at Channels Television, Lagos. She is apprehensive. “I’ve never flown in an aircraft so small,” she says.

“Oh well, you’ll tell me your experience when we get to Bauchi. Emm…” Shokunbi almost adds a warning, but decides against it. “No point frightening this lady, he tells himself.” All the same he tells her that as a reporter with The Guardian in 1999 he covered the Vice President’s election campaign and flew with him from Yola to Abuja in a near-identical plane. Before then he had flown several times in the Fokker 27 prop engine that Nigeria Airways had so many of in the 1970s and 80s. F27 is much larger than this, but the experience could be similar if not identical.

The plane lifts off, and in the twinkling of an eye Abuja is underneath and getting farther and farther away. Most of the passengers who had been chatting all fall into silence except for talkative Ayo Osinlu, the Minister’s Chief Press Secretary. He continues to joke as is his wont. Dr. Bola Olowu, a Deputy Director in the Federal Ministry of Health, picks up a newspaper and begins to read. Before long, the plane shudders as it runs into some clouds and loses altitude a little. For a moment, it is as though the plane is going to drop out of the sky. Fear leaps into many faces. Siju Alabi’s jaw drops. The unspoken question is: Are we going to drop out of the sky?

Alabi breathes a little better when she is told that because of its low weight and speed, a plane this size can be tossed around as it moves through clouds, but whatever, there is no cause for worry. “Is that so?” she says. “Sure.” Alabi shrugs and chatting resumes. The plane runs into more clouds and seems to move from side to side like a toy plane hanging by a rope and getting blown around by a strong wind.

Behind, Mrs. Otsemobor, also of the Federal Ministry of Health, bends low in her seat. As she explains later, that is the only way that the bobbing and weaving of the aircraft would not cause her to pass out. Her partner is Ibanga Isine of The Punch, who keeps laughing and assuring her that there is nothing to fear. Mrs. Otsemobor at some point accuses him of being insensitive the way he keeps laughing. Much later, Isine confesses that he was just as scared as everybody else, but could not afford to show it lest she compound Mrs. Otsemobor’s problems. Up front, just behind the cockpit, the Minister is calm and resplendent in his blue agbada. It is as though nothing were amiss. But he must be praying, too.

Eventually, the plane gets steady and the public address system crackles to life. The captain apologizes for the rough ride so far and promises to make it a little less uncomfortable by slowing down to a speed that would make the ride less bumpy.

“Slow down ke!” Shokunbi retorts in his mind. It should be better to speed through the clouds. That way, the drag of the clouds would be compensated for, and in any case we will get to our destination faster. But then, the captain should know better.

The Captain continues: “The weather along the direct route to Bauchi is not particularly good because of rain clouds, so we shall go through Jos and then head into Bauchi. Because of the detour, we cannot tell you how long the flight would take at this time. We shall let you know as soon as we can.”

An animated discussion starts over the time issue. The flight was originally to last for 55 minutes, somebody offers. “No, 45 minutes,” another cuts in. “No ooo, 65.” OK, Rita, what did you announce? “I said 75 minutes.” Seventy-five minutes! Meaning: the flight could last 2 hours. The bobbing and weaving continues intermittently.

The PAS comes alive again after what seems like many hours. “We are almost overhead Jos now…” Some passengers look down and see the landmark rocks, as well as the ditches and ponds that are the relics of tin mining on the Jos Plateau. Moments later, the plane goes into a session of giant bobbing and weaving and continues to do so endlessly. It drops and rises again, and continues swaying from side to side. Then it shudders and drops for what seems like 10 metres. The men who have been trying to calm the women lose what remains of their masculine calm.

All along, Dr. Olowu had been reading her newspaper or pretending to do so. As the flight gets more and more rough she drops it flat on her chest and goes to sleep. Behind Olowu, Maureen, a Radio Nigeria reporter has covered her head with her snow-white handkerchief. Her eyes are shut, and it is as though she is sleeping. But the truth is that she is in dialogue with God. She must be saying a thousand Hail Marys or something. On his part Shokunbi is saying the litany under his breath: Jesus Christ, son of God who took away the sin of the world, have mercy upon us…”

The plane gets into more ‘potholes’, and Shokunbi shifts gear: “Have mercy on us; have mercy on us...” Alabi and Shokunbi grab each other for succour. Otsemobor hides her face the more. Isine’s laughter dies out. Fred, an NTA cameraman looks back, a smile on his lips. It is a rather sour smile. His brown eyes are glazed over. Later, he confesses he was actually “a gonna.”

Eventually, the plane gets out of the potholes in the sky and the flight becomes less turbulent. The captain speaks up once more. He apologizes, saying the rough flight is one of those things people have to put up with in this part of the world because the system is so inadequate: “You never know what to expect until you get up here!”

The rest of the flight is almost uneventful, but every now and again it gets rough and bumpy, but never as much as it did over Jos with the passengers looking down as if they were going to drop on the rocks. Soon, the Captain announces the approach to Bauchi and begins to descend. The touchdown is flawless, and the passengers burst into applause for what somebody says must be compensation for the rough flight. The aircraft taxis to a stop at about 5.45 p.m., and the Captain announces arrival at the destination. Again, he apologizes for the rather bumpy flight that had taken about 90 minutes!

The passengers disembark practically into the waiting arms of their expectant hosts, officials of Bauchi State Government, who had been waiting at the airstrip for some time. Within 20 minutes, the visitors and their luggage are arranged into waiting vehicles. The long convoy then leaves for the palace of the Emir of Bauchi.