GUARDIAN REPORT NOV 5 2007

From Uduma Kalu, Literary Correspondent, Enugu.

 DARKNESS fell again in the Nigerian literary firmament yesterday when veteran novelist, pharmacist and public commentator, Cyprian Ekwensi passed on. He was 86 years old.

The author of the popular Jaguar Nana series of novels was said to have died at the Niger Foundation in Enugu where he underwent an operation for an undisclosed ailment. It was not clear as at press time yesterday if he died during or after the operation.

Earlier this year, Ekwensi released Cash on Delivery, a collection of short stories, which turned out to be his last book. When he turned 86 last year, the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Lagos State chapter and the Committee for Relevant Arts (CORA), feted him.

Ekwensi was celebrated as the forefather of the city novel.

He is believed to be the author of the earliest published fiction on social life in the Lagos Metropolis. The accomplished novelist is remarkable for his down-to-earth style of writing and his prolific output, with over 20 novels to his credit.

One of his books, Divided We Stand, a lampoon on the Nigerian Civil War, is slated for discussion by experts in a conference on 40 years after the civil war.

“How far so far”, is one of the themes for discussion at the ninth edition of the Lagos Book Fair, holding on Friday morning at the National Theatre, Iganmu, Lagos.

Told of the passing on of Ekwensi, poet and past president of ANA, Odia Ofeimu, was “shocked beyond words” to comment immediately.

To the newly elected Lagos State ANA chairman, Mr. Chike Ofili, it was an unnerving piece of information. He too withheld his comments till later.

News of the death broke as Nigerian authors were rounding off their yearly convention held over the weekend in Owerri, Imo State.

He was a Nigerian writer who stressed description of the locale and whose episodic style was particularly well suited to the short story.

Cyprian Odiatu Duaka Ekwensi was born at Minna in Northern Nigeria on September 26, 1921. He later lived in Onitsha in the Eastern area. He was educated at Achimota College in the Gold Coast, and at the Chelsea School of Pharmacy of London University. He lectured in pharmacy at Lagos and was employed as a pharmacist by the Nigerian Medical Corporation.

He married Eunice Anyiwo, and they had five children.

After favorable reception of his early writing, he joined the Nigerian Ministry for Information and had risen to be the director of that agency by the time of the first military coup in 1966. After the continuing disturbances in the Western and Northern regions in the summer of 1966, Ekwensi gave up his position and relocated his family to Enugu. He became chair of the Bureau for External Publicity in Biafra and an adviser to the head of state, Lt.-Col. Chukwemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu.

Ekwensi began his writing career as a pamphleteer, and this perhaps explains the episodic nature of his novels. This tendency is well illustrated by People of the City (1954), in which Ekwensi gave a vibrant portrait of life in a West African city. It was the first major novel to be published by a Nigerian. Two novellas for children appeared in 1960; both The Drummer Boy and The Passport of Mallam Ilia were exercises in blending traditional themes with undisguised romanticism.

His most widely read novel, Jagua Nana, appeared in 1961. It was a return to the locale of People of the City but boasted a much more cohesive plot centered on the character of Jagua, a courtesan who had a love for the expensive. Even her name was a corruption of the expensive English auto. Her life personalised the conflict between the old traditional and modern urban Africa. Ekwensi published a sequel in 1987 titled Jagua Nana’s Daughter.

Burning Grass (1961) is basically a collection of vignettes concerning a Fulani family. Its major contribution is the insight it presents into the life of this pastoral people. Ekwensi based the novel and the characters on a real family with whom he had previously lived. Between 1961 and 1966 Ekwensi published at least one major work every year. The most important of these were the novels, Beautiful Feathers (1963) and Iska (1966), and two collections of short stories, Rainmaker (1965) and Lokotown (1966). He continued to publish beyond the 1960s, and among his later works are the novel Divided We Stand (1980), the novella Motherless Baby (1980), and The Restless City and Christmas Gold (1975), Behind the Convent Wall (1987), and Gone to Mecca (1991).

Ekwensi also published a number of works for children. Under the name C. O. D. Ekwensi, he released Ikolo the Wrestler and Other Ibo Tales (1947) and The Leopard’s Claw (1950). In the 1960s, he wrote An African Night’s Entertainment (1962), The Great Elephant-Bird (1965), and Trouble in Form Six (1966).

Ekwensi’s later works for children include Coal Camp Boy (1971), Samankwe in the Strange Forest (1973), Samankwe and the Highway Robbers (1975), Masquerade Time! (1992), and King Forever! (1992).

In recognition of his skills as a writer, Ekwensi was awarded the Dag Hammarskjold International Prize for Literary Merit in 1969.

Ekwensi, a one-time Commissioner for Information in the old Anambra State, is survived by children and grand children.    

By Adeola Aderounmu.

After the new government was inaugurated in Sweden last year (2006), Maria Borelius, the Trade Minister left the new government only after 8 days. What were her crimes? In the 1990s, she hired a nanny and she did not pay any tax on the nanny’s wages. She has a Television but she had not been paying her TV license regularly. She had been involved in some irregularities in a share trade and she is also living in a house that is owned by a company based in the tax haven of Jersey. These were the offences that led Maria Borelius to leave the government JUST 8 days after its inauguration. In a press conference to announce her exit, she stated: “The reason is the pressure that has been put on those closest to me. My family, my friends, my neighbours and their children, business associates, relatives, even my children’s friends, have been put under close scrutiny which means that normal family life has become impossible.”      

Just about 2 days later, the Minister of Culture, Cecilia Stegö Chilò also resigned. She was found wanting in matters relating to her private finances. She had not been paying her television license fee for 16 years! This means she had withheld 15 000 Swedish Kronor (about USD 2 330) from the public service broadcaster-The Swedish Television (SVT). In addition, she had a domestic help who was working black when her children were small. As she threw in the towel, these were her words: “By not paying my television license fee and employing black market domestic help in the period before becoming minister, I have committed errors which are not acceptable, but which I have attempted to rectify as far as possible. Since it will not be possible to rectify the situation within a reasonable period of time I no longer see any possibility of repairing the damage I have caused the government.”     

In September this year, the Defense Minister in Sweden, Mikael Odenberg resigned in protest against the government defense cuts. The Finance Minister had presented a budget which will allow a savings of 4-5 billion kronor but the Defense Minister said such a decision was made without basis or foundation. Speaking at a press conference on his decision, he repeatedly stated his opposition to the fact that the government had announced cuts in defense spending without first analyzing Sweden’s military requirements. He also hinged his arguments on the following points:“You can’t just take away lots of defense procurement spending without it having operative effects. The cuts would damage Sweden’s capacity to take part in international operations and would make it impossible for Sweden “to belong to the EU’s core in defense matters.” He indicated that his decision to resign was a matter of conscience: “I want to be able to face myself in the mirror and look our military personnel in the eye.” Odenberg said he did not have any objections to other aspects of government policy and added that he was resigning “entirely without bitterness.”     

So, it happened that Odenberg was the third minister to resign from Fredrik Reinfeldt’s cabinet. Maria Borelius resigned as trade minister after only eight days in the job. She was forced to quit after questions were raised over her tax affairs. Culture Minister Cecilia Stegö Chilò resigned two days later after admitting she had not paid her television license fee for sixteen years.      

If we put the events above in parallel with all the nonsense that have been going on in Nigerian Politics for the past 40 years, the first question that comes to mind is this: where is our honour in Nigeria? Other questions will obviously follow: do Nigerians or Nigerian politicians really know what shame is? Do they feel it?  Essentially, probity and accountability are absent from our political landscape. Our own politicians can NEVER resign or vacate their positions even in the face of the highest form of corruption. Imagine just how ordinary the kinds of crimes that these Swedish politicians have committed compared to very serious atrocities that we live with daily in Nigeria. Our politics is not only dirty in Nigeria; it is also an eye sore and stinking. Genuinely, all the woes and problems in Nigeria today have been trace to bad governance, a reflection of the ineptitudes of our seriously corrupt politicians. How did shame become a virtue in Nigeria?      

Do you know what? On the 31st day of October 2007, the secretary to the prime minister of Sweden left her job! She resigned! Her crime was this: she visited a Stockholm bar with a TV reporter while she was on call. The story appeared in the newspaper where her photos showed that she was kissing the reporter whom she is not romantically involved with. Actually, in recent days, her alcohol consumption has been a source of accusation for the government against the backdrop of her duties to the government’s emergency response organization. In the Nigerian context, many people will find this amusing. Imagine Action Congress Party asking Kingibe to resign because he had been drunk in an Abuja bar where he was found kissing a reporter from NTA Channel 10. Will Kingibe resign? It will never happen!     

The story of Nigeria is no longer news. One die hard woman killed another man while trying to rationalize the use of over 5 million dollars to renovate a new house. One man is not telling us where more than 10 billion dollars of our oil money is since 1991, and he lives among us. The idiot was even recently called upon to address writers and authors. Eh eh! What rubbish? One thoughtless man told us we will never have telephone in our homes, we still don’t have them, (save for mobile phones), and the man is our senate president. Another one told us we have to eat from the dustbin and we did eventually. Still, one shameless autocrat imposed another dude slash puppet on us and we pretended like it was alright. He, the animal called man, even stole our monies to fix his farm while we hunger. It was okay by us. For 40 years or more, we are still allowing thieves and rogues to live freely among us and spread their goodnews aka poverty, while we worship them. No greater shame!     

There is no honour in Nigeria Politics, period! Worse still, the parameters to confer honour to our politics are conspicuously missing. We have reached a point such that when we try to solve a problem in this country, we would need several-edged approaches. Taking care of one problem in Nigeria requires taking care of other multi-faceted problems that hang along with that original problem. For example, how can we eradicate corruption without having genuinely elected politicians in service? How can we transform our society at large to one in which the interest of the country rises above those of individuals? Leadership in Nigeria to this day is a big disaster, a monumental failure! Those who are supposed to be role models or good examples have helped to set the stage for calamities and discordant tunes. The wanton hopelessness and penury that is rampant in Nigeria will not go away UNLESS we start doing things right at some point in our lives. If green or orange revolution is the anticipated solution, we should let it be. My constant fear is for our children’s children. How can we lay the foundations needed for their existence? Are we going to find any excuse to explain to them that their childhood, adolescence and even adult life had been taken from them long before they were born?

Herein lies my pain, my passion.   

Acknowledgement; I got useful information from http://www.thelocal.se (Sweden’s News in English),

By Adeola Aderounmu.

I stumbled on this piece of news 630am this thursday morning in the Nigerian Guardian:

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Amputee Eagles seek funds for World Cup.

By Olalekan Okusan

THERE are indications that Nigerian amputee soccer team may miss the Amputee Soccer World Cup holding in Turkey as the N5 million needed to prosecute the trip is yet to be raised.

Efforts by the Amputee Football Association of Nigeria to source for funds are yet to yield results.

For 18-year-old Augustine Ugwu, a striker with the team, featuring at the global championship would ignite his hope of better future.

But Ugwu is worried that the fund needed by the team is yet to be raised despite efforts by the association to source for funds from corporate bodies.

President of the association, Prince FeyisetanAre told The Guardian on Monday that he was optimistic that Lagos State governor, Babatunde Fashola would come to the aid of the team as they have written to his office.

“We have written to corporate bodies like Globacom, MTN, Oceanic Bank and the Ogun State governor including our sports loving governor of Lagos, Barrister Fashola to assist the team to ensure that Nigeria’s flag is hoisted at the championship.

“The organisers have assured us that the feeding, accommodation and other things will be catered for while the N5 million is meant for the ticket, kits and allowances of the team to the championship,” said Are.

It would be recalled that the team had to travel six days by road to be part of the first African Amputee Soccer competition in Sierra Leone. Though the team arrived late for the competition and their performance against host, Sierra Leone and champion, Ghana was able to convince the organisers to be listed among the teams that will feature at the tourney in Turkey.

The team is planning to depart on November 6 for the competition starting on November 11 to 21 in Antalya, Turkey.

Brazil and Russia have won the championship more than any nation, while Brazil, who are the defending champions will be aiming to defend the title it won at home in 2005.

Other countries taking part in the competition include England, France, Ghana, Iran, Liberia, Moldova, Russia, Sierra Leone, Turkey, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Amputee soccer was invented by Don Bennett of  Seattle in Washington, United States (U,S,), while the first international amputee soccer championship was held in 1984.

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Adeola says: this is a country where some idiots stole more than 10 billion US dollars each as politicians. This is the same country where a house will be renovated for 628 million dollars.

Yet, we are being told that getting 5 million naira to allow our Eagles play in a football tournament is a big problem so much that newspapers have to write about it on their front pages online.

Please can someone send a message to the IDOKO panel that they should just take 10 million out of the 628 million and give to these sportsmen. Our sportsmen and women have brought us fame around the world and they are more honourable than the useless politicians who continue to ridicule the name of Nigeria.

 

By Adeola Aderounmu.

There is absolutely no reason to cry for being deposed as the Speaker of the House of assembly. Life itself is a passage while power is transient. Nothing last forever! Nothing!

To have dragged on for this long was unnecessary in the first place. Nigeria lost a medical doctor in the ugly scenarios that accompanied the tug of war in the dishonorable house. The death of Aminu Safana was a sacrifice too big for the process that requires only a simple removal of an erring officer. There are serious lessons to be learnt.  

A word to Segun Adeniyi and Yar Adua: please can you guys shut up and stop embarrassing Nigerians further with you press releases. How on earth can you describe the resignation of Patricia Etteh as voluntary? 

The process that led to the exit of Patricia was tumultuous and it claimed a life. She was forced to resign, the other dead end option was to be impeached. Yet Yar Adua through Segun Adeniyi can still tell us to our face that such a resignation was voluntary. Are you guys alright? Nonsense!   

Goodnight Patricia Olubunmi Etteh, think about your errors and learn from them. Think about what you can do to make Nigeria a better place. SOMETIMES, the best efforts are made from ordinary positions. Being in the spotlight is not a prerequisite for performance. 

This experience should shape the rest of your life which I expect you to dedicate positively to humanity.  

AND TO Nigerians, let’s add this event to one of the corners of our turning points…I see it coming. It’s our GLORY

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By the way Patricia, maybe you will be prosecuted, who knows. I hope 628 million can fetch you the best liars in town.

By Adeola Aderounmu.

A recent report in the Nigerian Guardian (23/10/2007) revealed that the Minister of Health, Prof. Adenike Grange promised free Medicare for children and pregnant women. She pointed out that some states in Nigeria are doing that already. These two related declarations are absolutely welcomed developments. To those who do not know, a pregnant woman will become sick more easily than a non-pregnant woman and that is not because she is lazy. The simplest reason is because her immunity is now compromised (not as efficient as when she wasn’t pregnant). The immune system of a pregnant woman is saddled with the protection of more than one person. A new baby on the other hand will possess an immune system that is immature and hence can be easily weighed down by different kinds of infections. It takes time before babies develop acquired immunity which coupled with the natural (inherited immunity) can confer some degree of protection against common diseases and infections. There are quite a number of factors which will affect the maturation or development of acquired immunity. When babies are overwhelmed by infections or diseases, they could succumb and give up the ghosts.

 From the foregoing therefore, it would seem very appropriate to place premium emphasis on the care of these categories of people amongst us. My past experience in malaria research opened my eyes to the un-abating trend in the death of children due to malaria, respiratory diseases and other kinds of infections, many of which are preventable or curable. For so many years now, the introductory expression in any malaria research manuscripts or published papers have read something close to or exactly like this: An estimated 300-500 million cases each year cause 1.5 to 2.7 million deaths globally of which more than 90% are in children under 5 years of age in Africa (some use sub-Saharan Africa). The population of Nigeria shifts the bulk of these deaths to our doorsteps. In addition, my MSC thesis from 1999 revealed that probably up to 65% of Nigeria’s general population experience at least one attack of malaria each year. The estimated results were based on statistical analyses of data obtained from LUTH. I am also aware that we have a number of disturbing intestinal and respiratory infections with alarming statistics on the effects on babies and children. To include the effects of HIV in the list adds to the distress.

The pronouncement credited to the honorable Minister that it is possible to make free medical care available for pregnant mothers and children under five years of age is not new to us in Nigeria. Prof. Grange went further to pledge reduction of maternal mortality and reduction of diseases burden on Nigerians. The prevailing maternity mortality in Nigeria today reveals the overall deficiency that laden the successful deliverance of health services in Nigeria. If we go by the recent report on maternal mortality released jointly by the WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA (United Nation Population Fund) and the World Bank, then the statement by the honorable minister was good timing. For 2005 only in Nigeria, up to 59 000 women may have died nationwide in cases related to maternity. One of out every 18 deliveries carries the risk of death and a whooping 1 100 deaths were estimated from 100 000 live births. This is huge and alarming if the parameters used at arriving at these estimates are dependable. Nigeria was conspicuously missing from the list of countries with good death registration and good attribution of cause of death. Hence, the report on Nigeria and other countries in Group H (the last group) were simply formulated. The republic of Ireland which recorded only one maternal death from 100 000 live births in 2005 is in group A. There were 58 other countries among those who kept National records on maternal health. Sweden recorded just 3 maternal deaths per 100 000 in 2002, the United States had 11 per 100 000 in 2003 while the United Kingdom recorded 8 deaths per 100 000 in 2004. Here are figures that Nigeria’s Millennium Development Goals should be aiming at; after all human lives ought to have equal values.  

The implication of our present shortcomings in the health sector is that the success of our health ministry will (like most other things in Nigeria) depends on everlasting standard procedures that will define the workings of the health department as an institution and not as a minister-dependent organ.  Prof. Grange may not the Minister of Health next year or in 4 years but there ought to be procedures that will ensure that a serving or a new minister does not start all over from the scratch every New Year. Obviously, there should be room for new ideas and innovativeness but continuity to reach certain goals such as MDG on Health should be standard. When Ministers come in every other year and make the same old pronouncements (like we are starters), then one can detect that we have simply been toying not only with the health of the vulnerable groups mentioned above but also with that of the elderly and the rest of us as well.

Nigeria has actually reached that point when words must be translated into non-stop actions without delays and not just some documented events. In this country, there are a lot of scientific and medical research reports that are wasting away. Many of these reports are awashed with blueprints on eradication of medically important diseases. No one is opening the books or database. Perhaps things are just been done shabbily or half-heartedly. That would explain why despite the popularity of interventions like RBM (Roll Back Malaria) which took off in Abuja on April 25th 2000; the reports on reduction of malaria morbidity and mortality are still indicating slow progress. So much that the documented incidence of malaria in 2003 was higher than in 1990! There should be more and more of government funding for research and development. It is time we took our health issues more seriously. After surviving all these deadly childhood diseases, isn’t it appalling that life expectancy in Nigeria is still estimated to be less than 50 years? Nigeria must look inwards and purposefully too.

Let us begin to apply our medical research results with our peculiarities in mind so that we can make giant strides in the health industry. The ministry of health must enforce national objectives that will remove the obstacles hindering the eradication of polio in Nigeria. That particular problem should be given a permanent solution once and for all. Polio is one disease we must put behind us this year by taking care of the cultural and religious hindrances attached to it. The other states of the federation that have not started implementing free medical care for children and pregnant women should be ordered to do so as soon as possible. The health insurance scheme should also cater for pensioners and old people in general so that they can also have access to cost-free or subsidized health care. For everyone, the cost of receiving excellent health care should be affordable. Public and private Health institutions at various levels (Federal, states, local and community) should be upgraded and standardized forthwith in order to meet the challenges of an ever growing population and the diversities of our health problems. The continuous public health education or enlightenment of the citizenry and the significance of family planning in all of these scenarios cannot be overemphasized. The importance of health is huge: a healthy nation is a wealthy nation.  

aderounmu@gmail.com__________________________________________________________________________

Adeola Aderounmu is a Medical Parasitologist and author of the book: The Entrapment of a Nation (http://www.bokmaskinen.se/index.php?page=2&link=2&view=1149)