The Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, has commended the immediate past administration of ex-President Goodluck Jonathan for embarking on massive projects that were beneficial to Nigerians.
Speaking at a Town Hall meeting in Abuja, Amaechi, who is former Rivers State governor, said that his ministry did not meet any uncompleted project on assumption of office.
He said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration had continued with the projects of the previous administration because “we realized the impact of the recession.”
Amaechi said that the Kaduna-Abuja railway was nearly 80 percent completed by the Jonathan’s administration, adding: “in the ministry of transportation, we did not meet anything comatose. We met an attempt to bring back our rail services.
“The Kaduna-Abuja railway was nearly 80 percent completed which we commissioned and commercial services have commenced.” [myad]
The Registrar of the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Professor Is-haq Oloyede, has announced the release of the results of the United Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME), conducted Saturday last week.
The Registrar, who made the announcement during the monitoring of the ongoing UTME exams, said: “The result of UTME has come out and the performance is not too bad. But we are sure that this is the performance now rather than thinking you can get result one way or the other.”
Speaking along with the Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwukah, in Abuja, Oloyede expressed satisfaction over the smooth conduct of the examination so far. [myad]
Justice Oluwatoyin Ipaye of an Ikeja High Court has sentenced the former Chief Accountant of Vanguard Newspaper, Bhadmus Abiodun, to 14-years in prison for forgery and stealing of N3.1million. The money belongs to the media house.
The Judge, in his ruling today, Tuesday, pronounced:“the defendant is hereby sentenced to seven years in prison on count one. He is sentenced to seven years in prison each for counts two to eight. The prison terms for counts two to eight are to run concurrently.”
Abiodun, a middle-aged man and a resident of No. 5, Tijani Ashogbon St., Bariga, Lagos was convicted of an eight-count charge of conspiracy. Two of the charges filed against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), are stealing and forgery.
He was initially arraigned alongside Samuel Ogbole, the Vanguard Media Representative in Onitsha. He absconded when bail was granted to the duo by the court after their arraignment. He remains at large.
According to the EFCC prosecutor, Abba Mohammed, Abiodun committed the offences alongside Ogbole between January 9, 2006 and January 4, 2008.
“The convict and his accomplice on various dates illegally converted the sum of N400,000, N2.5million and N120,000 belonging to the complainant.
“On January 16, 2007, the duo conspired to and forged a Wema Bank deposit slip with No. 7125699 purporting to be the value of N225, 165.
“On May 30, 2007, the men conspired to and forge a Wema Bank deposit slip with No. 3270712 purporting to be the value of N256, 850.
“The offences violated Sections 390 (7), 467 (2)(i) and 516 of the Criminal Code Law of Lagos State 2003,” Mohammed said.
If you visit the website of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH), you would be somewhat impressed. Unlike many Nigerian institutions that boast appalling websites, the UATH website closely resembles the virtual personality of a modest government owned medical facility. You would easily rate UATH a fairly decent teaching hospital if you didn’t know better than to accept its digital persona at face value.
But if you pay a physical visit to the hospital location, you would experience a shocking cognitive dissonance. The sleek University of Abuja Teaching Hospital that exists on the web is a total stranger to the rundown brick and mortar University of Abuja Teaching Hospital you encounter in Gwagwalada. The real UATH is a veritable whited sepulcher, coated with makeup on the surface and full of rottenness and stench within.
The University of Abuja Teaching Hospital is a 350-bed facility with an assumed capacity for expansion to 500 beds. A hospital that evolved from a specialist hospital to a teaching hospital for the University of Abuja in 2006, UATH was established to serve the medical needs of residents of Abuja and environs and to function as a tertiary health institution for the training of medical students of the University of Abuja. However, the edifice is serving as an architectural argument in favor of the bastardization of The Hospital Idea.
The University of Abuja Teaching Hospital is a tangible equivalent of ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ If your life depended on professional medical treatment, your rushing to UATH, rather than improve your chances of survival, will increase the odds that you will leave the facility in a worse state than when you were admitted. ‘The hospital’ is such a miserable interpretation of the concept of a hospital that you are more likely to die passing through it than anywhere else.
Granted, the standard of the public hospitals in Nigeria is nothing to write home about, which is the reason why the rich go overseas to treat the commonest ailments. Time and again, we shudder as Nigerian leaders themselves pass a vote of no confidence on our healthcare system by unabashedly leading the incestuous medical safari that also represents the capital flight of billions of dollars in foreign exchange.
But UATH is not your average Nigerian hospital. UATH is the gold standard of disguised incapacity. It is a hospital that has the distinction of being farthest from the merit of the name.
You wouldn’t want an emergency to introduce you to the fraud that is ‘the hospital’. Because the experience could cost you your own life. UATH has the one of the highest mortality rates in the country.
The intensive care unit (ICU) of UATH has a 50% mortality rate. That is to say, one in every two persons who enters the ICU is carried out dead. Or to put the statistic another way, one’s fate depends on the tossing of the coin.
Patient death is so common in the UATH environment that incidences of recovery are largely celebrated as happy accidents. The facility produces such preponderance of deaths that it might well be officially mandated to feed as many of its patients as it possibly can to the morgue!
The condition of UATH is terrible beyond exaggeration. The operating theatre of UATH works for only four hours a day. And sometimes, the hospital lacks consumables for surgery. This means that patients have to wait for long hours and for days, in certain instances, and the unlucky ones with desperate conditions have to die due to delayed intervention.
‘The hospital’ is so dysfunctional that people die routinely from simple procedures such as an appendectomy. It is a stretch to task the supposed ‘Teaching Hospital’ with relatively complex procedures because the result is guaranteed to be much worse. In cases simple and complex, trying ‘the hospital’ for a cure is a risk…on the side of assisted suicide!
The real tragedy is that this abattoir of a hospital, this death factory called University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, is operating ‘normally’ in the Federal Capital Territory. It is not located in some far-flung part of Nigeria. Yet, the Federal Government of Nigeria is indifferent to the hospital’s mass murder business.
The killings continue under the watch of supervisory authorities. The Department of Hospital Services in the Ministry of Health is responsible for monitoring the operations of Nigerian hospitals and evaluating the quality of their service. But that department which coexists with UATH in the FCT has effectively permitted ‘the hospital’ to sustain the war on the sick.
The carnage in UATH is an open secret. It is well known to the superior authorities. But they can’t interpose to stop the waste of human lives because the status quo favors their individual bottom line. They are getting rich off the death of the sick.
The hospital laboratory is a corrupt cottage industry of its own. It is in such dismal state of disuse that doctors disregard results obtained from the laboratory. Thus, laboratory scientists have a ‘legitimate excuse’ to collect samples from patients, run the tests in their own private labs in town and rob the sick twice for the same service.
The management of the hospital is an active part of this regime of exploitation. They wink at the extortion. And they receive tithes of the filthy proceeds to allow staffers of the hospital bleed patients of money before abandoning them to die.
One tiny fact: nobody is punished for this gang-rape. Because remittances are sent up to the top of the pyramid in the Ministry of Health. Everybody in the depraved food chain is quiet and happy because the gains enrich them.
It’s a racket. A rent system. A syndicate of vampires!
There has to be an urgent sanitation in UATH. There is a need for a clean sweep of the officials that have reduced the hospital to a slaughter house. The hospital staffers must be weaned from blood money and introduced to a new paradigm that respects the sanctity of human life and incalculable value of health.
At the moment, the cleaners, porters and guards of the hospital are on strike. It’s a protest. They are demanding payment of their 4 months’ salary.
The teaching hospital cannot persist as a mockery of its original mission. Presently, it is neither competent in its ‘teaching’ mandate nor in its foundational life saving and body healing assignment. It is just as woefully incapable of imparting the requisite knowledge to its medical students as it is in restoring health to the sick.
The medical students who finish from ‘the teaching hospital’ are behind the curve. The climate they were presumably trained in is not oriented to groom them to function better than quack medics. So their potential practice is doomed to reflect the poverty of their proficiency –and this, at the expense of human lives.
The Nigerian poor deserve better than to be killed by a hospital that is not worth its name. We have to make the hospital work. Or quit killing the sick seeking for relief.
We cannot purport to maintain a hospital that is antithetical to its purpose. One that kills sick people under false pretenses. We just cannot continue to acquiesce to the reign of a death cult over our hospital.
Our humanity should forbid the subsistence of this scam called University of Abuja Teaching Hospital.
The Daily Trust newspaper has published an interesting feature story (May 15), on the sudden surge in the number of First Class degrees being churned out by Nigerian universities. Daily Trust reports that its investigation reveals that in the last five years, 16 Nigerian universities have produced a total of 3, 499 first class graduates. Between 2011 and 2016, 12 of these universities produced 2, 822 First Class graduates, and it seems this First Class galore is a growing fashion particularly among the private universities.
This trend should ordinarily be a good thing: if Nigeria can manage to produce more First Class intellects, this should reflect on the long run on the country’s business, social, economic and cultural life. We would have more Ph.Ds hopefully, and so produce more qualified, research academics, especially now that close to 60% of Nigerian university lecturers do not have a Ph.D. The more brilliant persons a country’s education system is able to produce, the better, such persons can indeed make a significant difference and drive the leadership process on all fronts.
The only problem is that this growing trend needs to be interrogated. Previously, a First Class degree, the equivalent of a Distinction, was something quite rare, awarded by Departments after very careful consideration. I am not too sure that the entire Faculty of Arts of the University of Ibadan would have awarded up to 3,000 First Class degrees in the entire history of that Faculty. University departments talked about a First Class as if it was a comet. When students got a 2:1, they were the real lords of the Department, and even then a 2:1 was never given out in bus-loads.
I recall the story of a former colleague at the University of Calabar who was denied a First Class in those days, because he slapped a young lecturer, who had just been recruited and who did not know that this particular student was the star of the department and his Faculty. It was our final exam. He was summoned to appear before a disciplinary panel and told matter-of-factly that university degrees were awarded on the basis of character and learning. Check: it was always character before learning.
He made the First Class grade, but they gave him a 2:1. He was later appointed a Graduate Assistant though. He was also recommended for a Commonwealth Scholarship and sent to Cambridge for graduate studies. He would later prove to be a true First Class Brain. It was also the practice in those days for lecturers to remind brilliant students of the achievements of those who had obtained First Class degrees. Because they were not too many, a First Class graduate served for many years as a role model for succeeding generations.
It was also the case that there were more First Class graduates in the Sciences, Engineering and the Applied Sciences. The Humanities produced fewer First Class graduates. Some of our lecturers used to ask: “What do you want to write that will earn you a First Class? You must be really exceptional to know all the answers in literature, history or philosophy?” Those were the days when a Professor would start a class and frighten you with the information that the last student who scored an A grade in the course was a certain Professor so and so who ‘sat in this same class 30 years ago!’ If you must get an A, you’d have to prove to me that you are smarter than him”.
University authorities created such big myths around a First Class degree that many students just didn’t want to kill themselves trying to get one, only to be disappointed at the end of the day. The students who tried were not necessarily popular. They were labeled “Triangular Students”, “Bookworm”, “Effiko”, or “Akukwo”. Students in the 2:1 category felt more relaxed, many of them could even be as good as the First Class students, but just didn’t bother to apply themselves hard enough. The 2:2 students were easily the most popular. They would proudly tell you “they wanted to pass through the university and also allow the university to pass through them.” Maybe they were right.
In later life, many 2:2 graduates still ended up with Ph.Ds and even became Professors, or captains of industry. We also had those students in the Third Class and Pass categories: we referred to them jokingly as the “let my people go, no-future-ambition crowd”. If you ended up with a First Class, your colleagues congratulated and admired you, but they didn’t feel like they had failed in any way. The Nigerian education system in those days was so good every graduate left the campus confident that he or she had been well-equipped. First Class graduates by the way did not enjoy any special privileges. There were employment opportunities in the country. Companies came to the schools and the youth corps camps to recruit prospective staff, and many “let my people go” graduates also got jobs and opportunities as soon as they graduated!
So much has changed. It looks like there is now a greater emphasis on people getting better paper grades, and with the way our universities are churning out the First Class grades, very soon, there will be a First Class graduate on every street corner. One justification given for this is that the population of students in Nigerian universities and the number of courses, have increased. With 153 universities, we should logically, so the argument goes, expect more First Class graduates. It is also possible that university students in Nigeria today are smarter than the ones before them.
Except that the quality of their grades is at variance with the quality of their skills or the environment that is producing them. No one will argue that the quality of our universities, both private and public, is poor, for instance. Where are the outstanding scholars in our universities who are breeding First Class graduates? Where are the First Class universities churning out high grades?
Within the same period that Nigerian universities produced more than 3, 000 First Class graduates, only one Nigerian university –the University of Ibadan- was ranked among the world’s top 800 universities, number 601 as at September 2015. In the older Nigerian system that I described, Nigerian universities boasted of world-class intellectuals, with some of them ranking among the very best in their fields. There were top research libraries and laboratories in our universities and the environment was conducive for intellectual pursuit.
Obafemi Awolowo University, known then as the University of Ife, was considered the most beautiful campus in Africa! Tourists visited our universities to visit either the zoos or take pictures. The animals in the zoos have been sold or eaten, the libraries are old, with a few now digitalized, the laboratories are either non-existent or they lack equipment. The university authorities complain of poor funding; the lecturers do not always get their salaries and research grants.
The idea of the university is in trouble. These days, Nigerian academics become Professors with “scholarly, research essays” published in departmental journals or in journals published by their friends in other departments and printed in Somolu or Dubai. There are Professors who have never published an article in a leading international journal or conducted any significant research. A National Universities Commission official quoted by the Daily Trust tried to justify the First Class galore in Nigerian universities by saying NUC is not aware of anybody buying First Class degrees and that “our system is one of the best.” I hope that is not the mind-set of the NUC.
Could it be that the examinations have become too easy or that the teachers have become less rigorous in setting standards? It is sad to hear for example, that students in the Humanities, and Management and Social Sciences in some universities now sit only for multiple-choice examinations at the end of the semester, because they are so many and the lecturers can’t mark exam papers?
Our education system is far behind the rest of the world. Are we dealing with a problem of grade inflation? Any degree at all, is useless without the skills and competence to justify it. Private universities in Nigeria are reportedly more notorious for giving out high grades as a marketing strategy to attract rich parents to patronize them. A First Class or 2:1 degree may get you a job, and provide you an advantage in the face of the unemployment crisis in the country, but what will keep you on the job is something far more than the paper you hold: talent, skills, competence, creativity, people and communication skills and the ability to work with a team to achieve results. Many employers of labour in Nigeria, have had to retrain new recruits because they are often confronted with graduates with good grades, who can neither write nor think, or who may have learnt whatever they know through simulation or alternative methods. This is the real, worrisome trend, and it only gets worse: the evidence can be seen, increasingly, in the low quality of public debate, the public and private sectors and our cultural life.
Many professional associations try to raise the bar by setting rigorous standards for membership qualification, but of what use is a university system that may have adopted the tactics of GSM companies, offering bonus top ups, to gain market share?
II:
The New President in France
Emmanuel Macron, the 39-year old who was sworn in on Sunday, May 14 as the new President of France has become a reference model for persons who would also like to see young Nigerians occupy high positions of responsibility, including the Presidency. There is a Not-Too-Young-To-Run-Campaign already being promoted, with plans to seek relevant constitutional amendments. The Macron Miracle may still take a long time to come in Nigeria’s democracy. A young Nigerian seeking to be President of Nigeria, under circumstances similar to Macron’s would find it difficult.
They don’t have a sit-tight syndrome in France. President Francois Hollande who handed over power to Macron had only done one term in office, and was eligible to run for a second term. But seeing that his ratings were low, he just didn’t bother. In Nigeria, Hollande’s supporters, ethnic, political and religious, would have threatened to kill anyone that stood in his way. Hollande himself would have insisted that it is his right to have a second term by every means possible.
Macron would have been accused of trying to bite the fingers that fed him. He would have been told to go and sit down and that he knows nothing about politics. Five years ago, Macron was unknown. He got his first major job in 2012, and was appointed in 2014 as Minister of the Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, both by President Hollande. He has never run for any elective office. To become President he had to start his own movement, “En Marche!” He doesn’t belong to any of the existing political groups, right or left. In Nigeria, even if he is the best thing since toothpaste, he would need Godfathers, and he would need to spend money, to bribe voters and the “kingmakers”.
Macron is President of France, the youngest since Napoleon, on the strength of sheer luck, ideas, vision and the people’s choice. In Nigeria, the voter would have placed little premium on his ideas. He is married to his former drama teacher. She is 64. He is 39. Her first son is Macron’s age-mate. She is now the First Lady of France. The French public is laughing at the cradle-snatching incongruity of their professed love. Nigerians would have laughed even more, but this would probably not have been an issue for some Nigerians if Macron was 70 and his wife, 17.
When Macron holds his first France-Africa summit, he will be hosting African leaders who would be mostly of his grandfather’s age. Cameroon’s 84-year old President, Paul Biya, became President in 1982, when Emmanuel Macron was just 4 years old. That is where the real joke lies. Immediately after he was sworn in, Macron visited wounded soldiers at a military hospital. Yesterday, he travelled to Berlin for a meeting with Chancellor Angela Merkel. He hit the ground running and named Edouard Philippe, 46, his Prime Minister. To have the kind of change we admire in other democracies, we must begin with a reform of the processes, culture and tone of Nigerian politics. [myad]
A Judge of the Federal High Court in Lagos, Justice Mojisola Olatoregun has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to publish the interim order on the possible forfeiture of $5.7million belonging to the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Dame Patience.
The Judge, today, Monday, ruled that the interim order should be published in a newspaper to enable any interested party to appear before the court within 14 days to “show cause” as to why a final order of forfeiture should not be made in favour of the federal government.
The EFCC had sought for the final forfeiture of what it called the remaining $5,731,173.55 after the wife of the former President had allegedly part of the $6,791,599.64 (about N2.1billion) which she paid into her account between February 8, 2013 and January 30, 2015.
The anti crime agent said the the money, which Dame Patience allegedly directed her aides to pay into her account while her husband was president, was suspected to be proceed of unlawful activities.
It said she later spent $949,282.98 (about N296,141,911) from the money apart from withdrawing another $100,000 from the account in April, leaving a balance of $5,731,173.55.
EFCC prayed the court to order the temporary forfeiture of the remaining sum to prevent her from further dissipating it.
This was even as Dame Patience’s lawyer, Ifedayo Adedipe (SAN), urged the court not to order a final forfeiture of the money, saying that his client was not given sufficient time to “show cause” why the money should not be forfeited to the federal government. [myad]
Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi ll has appealed to Hausa speaking people from the North to respect the culture of any community in the Southern parts of the country where they find themselves.
Sanusi, who received the newly installed Garkuwan Hausawa in Ogun, Otunba Rotimi Paseda, in his palace in Kano, emphasized the need for Hausa people to respect the culture, tradition and norms of their host communities for peaceful co-existence.
“You should be good ambassadors of the north and ensure that you leave in peace and harmony with your host communities. Nigeria will remain one and indivisible country and Nigerians will continue to be one family.
“I was delighted when I learnt of your goodwill to Hausa people in Ogun state. I am not surprised of the good testimonies I hear about you taking cognizance of the fact that you are from a ruling house.
“Oba Awujale of Ijebu Land is my personal friend. We have enjoyed a long-standing relationship; and I feel happy for the role you are playing as the Garkuwan Hausawa to ensure cordial relationship between my people and the Yorubas.”
The Emir appealed to those agitating for another country to be carved out of Nigeria to have a rethink, saying that if Nigerians respect each other, they would continue to remain as one entity irrespective of their tribes, religion and cultural differences.
“This is what we, the traditional rulers are promoting among our subjects. So, we should ignore our difference and help in building one country.”
The Garkuwan Hausawa, Otunba Rotimi Paseda, said he was at the palace to pay homage to Emir Sanusi and receive his blessings as the newly crowned Garkuwan Hausawa.
Paseda, also the national leader of Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) said, he had enjoyed fruitful relationship with the Hausa people living in Ogun state.
“They are my brothers. I ensure that they are happy and I can testify to you that they have remained good ambassadors of the Hausa race in the state.
“They live in peace with us and I will ensure that the status quo is maintained,” he added. [myad]
The Daily Times of Nigeria (DTN) has announced that it will confer posthumous awards on the late former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and the former Managing Director of DTN, the late Alhaji Babatunde Jose tomorrow, Tuesday.
The management said that the conferment of the awards on the distinguished Nigerians will take place at the organization’s “Heroes Award’’ in Abuja as part of activities to mark its 91st anniversary.
In a statement today in Lagos, the DTN said that the recipients of the awards are being honoured for their individual contributions to the country’s development.
It said that late Yar’Adua, Nigeria’s President between May 29, 2007 and May 5, 2010, carved a niche for himself as a democrat and selfless leader who gave his all to re-building not only his home state, Katsina, but Nigeria as a whole.
“The late Yar’Adua, born in Katsina, North Central Nigeria on Aug. 11, 1951, died on May 5, 2010, was a one-time civilian governor of Katsina State between 1999 and 2007.
“During the period, he enunciated and executed several developmental projects, including roads, education, health, housing and agriculture in his desire to increase the living standards of his people.
“The late president, born into an aristocratic family in Katsina by the older Yar’Adua, a former Minister of Lagos during the First Republic (1960-1966), attended Ruffuka Primary School, in 1958.
“He also attended Katsina Boarding Primary School, Government College, Keffi, 1969; Barewa College (1971) and the prestigious Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, 1972-1975, graduating with a Bsc. (Edu), Chemistry.
“The late Yar’Adua, was married to Turai, and they were blessed with seven children — five daughters and two sons.
“He held various managerial positions, including General Manager, Sambo Farms; and Chairman of several boards, including Katsina Investment Ltd and Madara Ltd, respectively,’’ the statement said.
“He was elected governor and president on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but was challenged by a protracted illness during which he died.”
The statement said that Alhaji Babatunde Jose, a doyen of journalism, was the first indigenous Managing Director of Daily Times Group in 1962.
“A foremost journalist and indeed, one of the respected Nigerian journalism rose through the ranks to become a colossus in the media industry.
“Jose, an astute manager of human and material resources, was born in Lagos on November 13, 1925 to Hamzat and Mrs Hajarat Jose, both of blessed memory.
“He was educated at the Lagos Government School, Yaba, Lagos Methodist School, and St. Saviours’ College, also in Lagos, before becoming a trainee at 16 years of age.
“At various times, in 1946, when he was transferred to the Editorial Department of The Daily Times, Jose later became a Correspondent in the then Eastern and Northern regions, when the Daily Mirror was created and bought a majority share holding in the Daily Times.’’
The statement said that Jose rose again, to become the News Editor of Times, Assistant Editor, and later Managing Director of The Daily Times. “He grew the paper as the best to beat, churning out over one million copies and making sales that ran into millions of Naira.
“He was later eased out, following the 1975 coup, and he went into some other endeavours, including training and manpower development of young journalists.
“One of his products is the distinguished chairman of the awards and former Times man, as well as, former civilian governor of Ogun State, Chief Olusegun Osoba.
“The history of the Nigerian journalism industry cannot be complete without mentioning the critical role of the late Jose,’’ it said, adding that he died on Aug. 2, 2008. [myad]
“What got me thinking was the chicken and egg puzzle which the statement immediately raises. Do countries become more corrupt because the people are poor or are the people poor because their country is corrupt? We may never be able to answer this question to everybody’s satisfaction.”
The Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki posed this question today, Monday, at the launching of Senator Dino Melaye’s anti-corruption book titled: ‘Antidote of Corruption,” in Abuja.
Dr. Bukola Saraki, who spoke extensively about how to fight corruption in Nigeria said: “if the purpose of government is to improve the quality of lives of its people, then any conversation about corruption must focus primarily on how it affects human development, whether it is health, wealth or education.”
He identified one area where he believed the President Buhari-led administration had made remarkable progress in the past two years, saying that it is that corruption has been forced back to the top of the national political agenda.
“Every single day, you read the newspapers, you listen to the radio, you go on the internet, you watch the television, the people are talking about it. The people are demanding more openness, more accountability and more convictions. Those of us in government are also responding, joining the conversation and accepting that the basis of our legitimacy as government is our manifest accountability to the people.”
He stressed the need for governments across All Levels to join the fight against corruption, adding: “we acknowledge that if we want Nigerians to trust their government again, then government at all levels must demonstrate that we are not in office for the pursuit of private gains, but to make our people happier by helping them to meet their legitimate aspirations and achieve a higher quality of life…Nigeria and Nigerians have not accepted corruption as normal; we recognize it as a problem; that we are determined to make a break with our past and live by different rules.”
The Senate President insisted that deterrence is a better approach to fighting corruption and that he is convinced that we must return to that very basic medical axiom that prevention is better than cure.
According to him, the reason why the fight against corruption has met with rather limited success is that we appeared to have favoured punishment over deterrence.
“We must review our approaches in favour of building systems that make it a lot more difficult to carry out corrupt acts or to find a safe haven for corruption proceeds within our borders. In doing this, we must continue to strengthen accountability, significantly limit discretion in public spending, and promote greater openness.”
Dr. Saraki said that the National Assembly, last week, took the first major step in the fight against corruption with a direction towards greater openness.
He said that for the first time in our political history, the budget of the National Assembly changed from a one-line item to a 34-page document that shows details of how we plan to utilize the public funds that we appropriate to ourselves.
Speaking on the anti-corruption legislation being considered by the Senate, the Senate President said serious attention is now being paid to the passage into law the following bills:
“The Whistleblower Protection bill, which I am confident will be passed not later than July 2017.
“The Proceeds of Crime bill
“The Special Anti-Corruption Court, which would be done through constitutional amendment and;
“The Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Bill.”
He said that the National Assembly, driven by the saying that “whoever comes to equity must come with clean hands” had demonstrated itss commitment to transparency and a more open legislature, adding: “we will be operating on a higher moral ground in carrying out our oversight duties as prescribed by the constitution.
“We need to simplify our bureaucracy and administrative procedures. Because it is in the complexity and red-tapes that corrupt officials profit. However, I also strongly suspect, while not justifying anything, that majority of these low level corruption are largely powered more by need even more than greed.
“If we are able to build a quality public education system, especially at the basic and secondary level, which would not require parent to pay through their nose for their children’s education; if we are able to build an efficient public health system that provide insurance covers to ordinary citizens so that when they fall sick, they can access quality healthcare without running from pillar to post looking for money; if we are able to build a system that guarantees food and shelter to everyone; if we are able to do all these, we would have gone a long way in removing much of the driving force for corruption at this level.”
The Senate President berate Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index on Nigeria, saying that the year-on-year report does not fully reflect or account for the progress being made in the fight against corruption.
It was his belief that the key challenge is ‘perception’ which he said, is largely subjective, adding that it is important for the Transparency International and other such organizations to improve on their methodology by developing more robust parameters that reflect the progress that some countries are making in respect to corruption. [myad]
“They say I am a dog, but I have two legs not four. I don’t have a tail or a snout,” President Zuma told a gathering at People’s Park.
The President was attending a prayer gathering organized in his honour at the Moses Mabhida Stadium, in Durban.
Speaking in isiZulu, Zuma remarked that all the agitation about him being corrupt is the doing of third forces.
President Zuma asserted that it is more profitable for all the anti-Zuma campaigns to focus on the issues troubling workers and the poor instead of wasting time on abusing him and the ANC in the public.
“They say all sorts of accusations about this dog, saying I am corrupt, I steal, without a shred of evidence of this theft. There is a problem in this country of people who are saying we are in crisis…
“Those saying that the ANC is in crisis must come to Zuma and tell Zuma that he is no longer leading well,” he said.
To President Zuma, it’s surprising that members of ANC would join opposition parties and spend much time talking about the ANC.
“The funny thing” he said, “is that those who voted against the ANC have not changed; they continue being against us, they do not surprise us. The surprise comes from those who are part of the ANC who start talking things that are incomprehensible and they don’t say these things in the right places,” wailed Zuma.
The President futher lamented that ANC’s alliance partners aren’t treating the ANC the ideal way.
“Never has the ANC talked about discussing one of the alliance partners. We talk about matters of the ANC, by the ANC; we don’t utter the name of another organisation.
“These unusual actions indicate that there is a third force that these people report to…I’m not saying much but it is suspicious,” stated Zuma.
Having said that, President Zuma urged SA religious leaders to quit their harsh criticism of political leaders and pray for them.
He said: “At times you hear religious leaders say things that a priest should not say. Religious leaders must pray for us political leaders when we go astray and not criticize us like some are doing, calling us criminals or idiots or Satan.” [myad]
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The Scam Called University Of Abuja Teaching Hospital, By Emmanuel Ugwu
If you visit the website of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH), you would be somewhat impressed. Unlike many Nigerian institutions that boast appalling websites, the UATH website closely resembles the virtual personality of a modest government owned medical facility. You would easily rate UATH a fairly decent teaching hospital if you didn’t know better than to accept its digital persona at face value.
But if you pay a physical visit to the hospital location, you would experience a shocking cognitive dissonance. The sleek University of Abuja Teaching Hospital that exists on the web is a total stranger to the rundown brick and mortar University of Abuja Teaching Hospital you encounter in Gwagwalada. The real UATH is a veritable whited sepulcher, coated with makeup on the surface and full of rottenness and stench within.
The University of Abuja Teaching Hospital is a 350-bed facility with an assumed capacity for expansion to 500 beds. A hospital that evolved from a specialist hospital to a teaching hospital for the University of Abuja in 2006, UATH was established to serve the medical needs of residents of Abuja and environs and to function as a tertiary health institution for the training of medical students of the University of Abuja. However, the edifice is serving as an architectural argument in favor of the bastardization of The Hospital Idea.
The University of Abuja Teaching Hospital is a tangible equivalent of ‘the valley of the shadow of death.’ If your life depended on professional medical treatment, your rushing to UATH, rather than improve your chances of survival, will increase the odds that you will leave the facility in a worse state than when you were admitted. ‘The hospital’ is such a miserable interpretation of the concept of a hospital that you are more likely to die passing through it than anywhere else.
Granted, the standard of the public hospitals in Nigeria is nothing to write home about, which is the reason why the rich go overseas to treat the commonest ailments. Time and again, we shudder as Nigerian leaders themselves pass a vote of no confidence on our healthcare system by unabashedly leading the incestuous medical safari that also represents the capital flight of billions of dollars in foreign exchange.
But UATH is not your average Nigerian hospital. UATH is the gold standard of disguised incapacity. It is a hospital that has the distinction of being farthest from the merit of the name.
You wouldn’t want an emergency to introduce you to the fraud that is ‘the hospital’. Because the experience could cost you your own life. UATH has the one of the highest mortality rates in the country.
The intensive care unit (ICU) of UATH has a 50% mortality rate. That is to say, one in every two persons who enters the ICU is carried out dead. Or to put the statistic another way, one’s fate depends on the tossing of the coin.
Patient death is so common in the UATH environment that incidences of recovery are largely celebrated as happy accidents. The facility produces such preponderance of deaths that it might well be officially mandated to feed as many of its patients as it possibly can to the morgue!
The condition of UATH is terrible beyond exaggeration. The operating theatre of UATH works for only four hours a day. And sometimes, the hospital lacks consumables for surgery. This means that patients have to wait for long hours and for days, in certain instances, and the unlucky ones with desperate conditions have to die due to delayed intervention.
‘The hospital’ is so dysfunctional that people die routinely from simple procedures such as an appendectomy. It is a stretch to task the supposed ‘Teaching Hospital’ with relatively complex procedures because the result is guaranteed to be much worse. In cases simple and complex, trying ‘the hospital’ for a cure is a risk…on the side of assisted suicide!
The real tragedy is that this abattoir of a hospital, this death factory called University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, is operating ‘normally’ in the Federal Capital Territory. It is not located in some far-flung part of Nigeria. Yet, the Federal Government of Nigeria is indifferent to the hospital’s mass murder business.
The killings continue under the watch of supervisory authorities. The Department of Hospital Services in the Ministry of Health is responsible for monitoring the operations of Nigerian hospitals and evaluating the quality of their service. But that department which coexists with UATH in the FCT has effectively permitted ‘the hospital’ to sustain the war on the sick.
The carnage in UATH is an open secret. It is well known to the superior authorities. But they can’t interpose to stop the waste of human lives because the status quo favors their individual bottom line. They are getting rich off the death of the sick.
The hospital laboratory is a corrupt cottage industry of its own. It is in such dismal state of disuse that doctors disregard results obtained from the laboratory. Thus, laboratory scientists have a ‘legitimate excuse’ to collect samples from patients, run the tests in their own private labs in town and rob the sick twice for the same service.
The management of the hospital is an active part of this regime of exploitation. They wink at the extortion. And they receive tithes of the filthy proceeds to allow staffers of the hospital bleed patients of money before abandoning them to die.
One tiny fact: nobody is punished for this gang-rape. Because remittances are sent up to the top of the pyramid in the Ministry of Health. Everybody in the depraved food chain is quiet and happy because the gains enrich them.
It’s a racket. A rent system. A syndicate of vampires!
There has to be an urgent sanitation in UATH. There is a need for a clean sweep of the officials that have reduced the hospital to a slaughter house. The hospital staffers must be weaned from blood money and introduced to a new paradigm that respects the sanctity of human life and incalculable value of health.
At the moment, the cleaners, porters and guards of the hospital are on strike. It’s a protest. They are demanding payment of their 4 months’ salary.
The teaching hospital cannot persist as a mockery of its original mission. Presently, it is neither competent in its ‘teaching’ mandate nor in its foundational life saving and body healing assignment. It is just as woefully incapable of imparting the requisite knowledge to its medical students as it is in restoring health to the sick.
The medical students who finish from ‘the teaching hospital’ are behind the curve. The climate they were presumably trained in is not oriented to groom them to function better than quack medics. So their potential practice is doomed to reflect the poverty of their proficiency –and this, at the expense of human lives.
The Nigerian poor deserve better than to be killed by a hospital that is not worth its name. We have to make the hospital work. Or quit killing the sick seeking for relief.
We cannot purport to maintain a hospital that is antithetical to its purpose. One that kills sick people under false pretenses. We just cannot continue to acquiesce to the reign of a death cult over our hospital.
Our humanity should forbid the subsistence of this scam called University of Abuja Teaching Hospital.
You can reach Emmanuel at immaugwu@gmail.com and follow him on Twitter @EmmaUgwuTheMan. [myad]