Are you bothered as I am about the frequency of reoccurrence of infectious diseases in many parts of the country these days? In the past it was once in a blue moon that cholera or any such disease would break out and once the epidemic was curtailed, everyone was safe and in good health for a long time. Not so any longer. Infectious disease is almost an everyday affair now. While cholera is on stage in Borno, yellow fever is on the rampage in Kogi and Kwara. It appears Lassa fever is on a short break. Meningitis and bird flu also stroll in at random. Then, the latest entrant, monkey pox, jumping from one state to another starting fromBayelsa. I’m curious to find out if there are other countries in the world with the same stature as Nigeria that have their citizens routinely ravaged by these communicable diseases. Beyond advising the citizens to be wary of eating monkey or any other bush meat as well as maintaining good hygiene, must we not find out why we’re now prone to infectious diseases scourge? Is it that we have so destroyed our ecosystem that we are now exposed to the animals in the bush and now share in the diseases that ravage them? It’s monkey pox now, who knows which pox we’re going to be battling with next? Hunger pox is a permanent scourge in many homes already.
And as if the monkey pox outbreak isn’t troubling enough, the rumour that soldiers are administering poisonous vaccines in schools, which forced parents to withdraw their children from schools across three geo-political zones is very disturbing.
Schools in Imo, Anambra, and Enugu in the South-east; Delta in the South-south and Ondo in the South-west were deserted after the rumours spread that soldiers were administering killer vaccines to students.
But in our country, it’s one week, one trouble. As one is being doused, another is roaring. At the end of the day no meaningful probe is done and no lesson learnt.
For me, the military that was forced into defensive mode, explaining that it was not administering any vaccination, has lessons to draw from the monkey pox killer injections episode.
The military had launched Operation Python Dance and Crocodile Smile in states in the southern part of the country recently. In Abia State particularly the Army had a bloody encounter with members of the pro-Biafra secessionist group, Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), resulting in loss of lives. Not a few people from this region were dissatisfied with the treatment meted to the IPOB leadership, members and sympathisers. Then shortly after, in what appeared like carrot and stick tactics, the Army took a free medical outreach for the benefit of the people. Is it then surprising what the outcome was when mischief-makers instigated the malicious campaign that the free medical intervention was a ploy to depopulate the region?
The military has done a great job in ensuring peace and security in the country since the assumption of office of the current administration. It deserves kudos for degrading the capacity of the Boko Haram terrorist group to hold territory and wreak havoc on innocent citizens. It also assisted in cutting the wings of kidnappers and petroleum pipeline vandals in critical areas.
But the military has also applied disproportionate force in quelling civil disobedience in some instances like the killing of members of the Shi’ite group led by Ibrahim Elzakzaky in Kaduna and Biafra agitators in the East.
Of course, the disaffection caused by those incidents cannot be overlooked and the Army should have realized that organizing free medical intervention in the East so soon after its personnel had an encounter in which youths were killed was untimely and ill-advised.
In all parts of the world the military is deployed in times of emergency to bring succour to citizens in distress. A medical intervention by the Army would have made a better sense in Borno, which is witnessing a cholera outbreak or Kogi and Kwara where yellow fever is on the rampage.
The unfortunate outcome of the unfounded rumour of Army killer vaccines is the mistrust the citizens have now developed for the military. Even if the Army genuinely sets out to help the citizens overcome their medical challenges in future, will the intervention be warmly acceptable?
The Nigerian military has done well to keep the country safe and peaceful particularly since the advent of the current democratic rule. The military shouldn’t dent this record and mend the fence where it is already broken. But definitely not through uninvited medical outreaches. Genuine efforts must be made to win back the confidence of the people. What about helping to tackle erosion problem that is a nightmare in many communities in the East? What about helping averting flood in the South-south? Won’t the military get thumbs up if it can help crack the endemic Apapa, Lagos ports traffic jam, which is a national shame?
Re: These excursion deaths must stop
Abdulfatah, there is no doubt that your piece “These excursion deaths must stop” really covered greater areas of deficiency in the exercise itself. Excursions are necessary for students to enhance their knowledge about tourism. That was in the past. Education has been so commercialised now that excursions are organised for financial gains to concerned institution. Most of the incidents enumerated in your piece, if investigated, would be related to private institutions. In the past, locations to be visited by prospective students, would have been properly investigated and examined by school officials ahead of the exercise to ascertain its safety. But now, even the pilot of the students might be visiting the place for the first time just as the students are. So, where is safety valve for the lives of the touring students? Taking the testimony of the student in respect of the Kaduna mishap relating to the collapsed stairway, which led to the drowning of five students, might have been avoided if the school had sent the pilot, ahead of the excursion, to examine the safety of facilities available at the waterworks. Another bewildering episode was the case of pupils, within ages of eight and fifteen, returning from an excursion to Ngwo Forestry at as late as 8.45pm. What an unimaginable scenario! The issue of container-carrying trailers being involved in accidents, even during the day, is so rampant that a right thinking human would avoid travelling at night. The serial nature of accidents in the country generally is linked to many disheartening reasons. One of such is the failure of government to ensure that every person behind the steering undergoes driving tests before being issued with a driving licence. In my area, most of the people in private cars are women who purchased their driving licences from the local government without driving tests. Their driving mode betrays tested skill. There are even professional drivers in that class as well. All they need to do, when challenged by traffic officials, is to apply “settlement modus”. The rest is history. Right now on our street is a trailer which destroyed two workshops and smashed a vehicle conveying school pupils home.. Luckily, none of them got injured. On arresting the driver, he was found to be under the influence of marijuana; which he confessed. With such drivers on our roads, which have delapidated beyond repairs, with relevant governments refusing to repair them, where is the safety of the lives of students on escursion? In my view, escursions by students, which entail travelling long distances, should be minimal, while the identified problems listed by you are looked into for safety of students on escursion. God save our kids, Amen.
–Lai Ashadele
Perhaps what is the cause of these harvest of excursion deaths is lack of professional knowledge of student excursion. It could also be due to profit motive of the planners hence hiring of poor maintained vehicles and carelessness of the drivers. Thus it becomes expedient that schools planning excursion for their students should exercise more care by engaging those with professional knowledge of excursions than to conserve and/or for profit motive choose to planning it themselves. To the bereaved families, my heartfelt condolences, to the departed,eternal rest in peace in the Lord’s bosom. Editor, may your ink never dry
–Tony Enyinta, Isuikwuato, Abia State.
The fact that life has very little meaning in our country Nigeria today is no longer news given the rate at which incidents that result in mass death of citizens occur. What is news, however, is that these deaths no longer shock those whose duty it is to provide solutions to this abnormal challenge. Abdulfatah, name it: carnage on our terribly dilapidated road, Fulani herdsmen’s terrorism, periodic outbreak of deadly diseases, communal clashes, infant mortality, maternal mortality and so on. We can continue to count endlessly. With the kind of wealth God has endowed Nigeria with, human and material, these things that cause death, pain and anguish could be checked where the leadership at governmental levels live up to the oaths of office taken. Here in our clime, it appears that the main reason majority seek political offices is to steal public funds, hunt and hound the opposition, label them and unleash propaganda on the citizenry to confuse unwary. At the end, we continue to go round in a circle developmentally. There is nothing wrong with excursions per se. You have rightly mentioned some of the benefits of the exercise to students such as: enhancement of academic pursuits and the excitement it provides those engaging in it. And these remain incontrovertible facts. Our situation has become what it is because our roads are terribly bad. They are not given the attention they require even though billions of naira are budgeted for their maintenance annually. One begins to wonder why we still have federal directors of works in the states if our highways cannot be attended to. Another major cause of deaths on our roads is the failure of the agencies established to enforce the rules as they concern the roadworthiness of vehicles that ply these roads and the manner in which people drive. They are very visible on our roads but instead of insisting that the right conditions be maintained, they most of the time get compromised. Broken down vehicles are left on the roads without adequate warnings for oncoming vehicles to beware. Doubtlessly, human factors contribute to these mindless deaths on the roads such as drunkenness, inexperience on the part of the drivers, poor knowledge of the roads, over speeding and driving at night, the fact remains that if our roads are properly maintained, adequate signs put in place and the rules we have in place are enforced and offenders punished, more lives will surely be saved. Thanks.
–Emma Okoukwu.