Tanzania, others ban China’s tainted milk

/ Adeola / 1 Comment
    CULLED FROM THE NIGERIAN GUARDIAN, SEPT 22 2008

IN the wake of the scandal in China involving milk contaminated with the toxic industrial chemical melamine, three African countries-Tanzania, Gabon and Burundi have banned imports of Chinese milk products.

In Tanzania, the country’s food and drug authority said government officials at all border points had been ordered to be “extra vigilant with all dairy products from China including yoghurt, ice-cream powder and chocolate.”

It said experts had also been sent “to check retail and wholesale outlets for any possible traces of tainted milk that had made its way” into the east African country.

Authorities in Libreveille at the weekend banned the import of all brands of Chinese milk until further notice.

The government decree also said that Chinese powdered milk already in the shops would be taken off the shelves.

China admitted this week that milk powder contaminated with melamine, which is used in plastics, had made at least 6,200 babies ill nation-wide and killed four over a period of many months.

Yili, Mengniu and Guangming — big brands consumed and trusted by hundreds of millions of Chinese — were affected by the recall after authorities checked their products and found traces of melamine.

As well as Gabon and Tanzania, the brands incriminated in the scandal export to Bangladesh, Burundi, Myanmar and Yemen.

Melamine added to milk and other food products gives the appearance of higher protein levels.

Burundi became the third African nation to ban Chinese milk products, after tainted milk from the country killed four babies in China and made thousands of others ill, the government said.

“The trade, industry and tourism ministry is calling on importers and shopkeepers who stock Chinese milk to stop selling the product until the end of an investigation,” a ministry statement said.

“This measure also concerns the sellers of repackaged milk, whatever its origin,” added the statement, while urging consumers to keep a watchful eye on the packaging of milk products.

A special commission has been set up to investigate the scale of the tainted milk problem in Burundi and “take urgent measures to protect the population,” the statement said.

Burundi imports milk products from two Chinese companies that are currently embroiled in the tainted powdered-milk scandal.

Four children have died and at least 6,200 are ill owing to milk products contaminated with melamine, an industrial chemical used in the manufacturing of plastics.

A Burundi consumer association, known as ABUCO, expressed concern that tainted milk products were already being stocked in the country’s shops.

“For the moment, nobody knows if the milk is being sold on the Burundi market,” said Noel Nkurunziza, the president of ABUCO.

On Saturday, Gabon and Tanzania banned Chinese milk products and all Chinese dairy

The World Health Organisation yesterday said it was helping China solve its tainted milk formula problem, while criticising the government for initially failing to alert the international community.

Beijing officially sought the WHO’s help on September 11, telling the UN body it had monitored 6,244 cases of people ingesting formula tainted with the industrial chemical melamine, WHO Western Pacific director Shigeru Omi told a news conference in Manila.

__________________________________________________________

BLOG COMMENT

Does anyone knows how many African children that have died due to chinese poison. This is the same China that is becoming the main partner to African countries.

I hope these poisons from China are not being sent to Nigeria because that would add to the mortalities from malaria and other preventable childhood (respiratory) diseases.

Well done to Tanzania and the other countries. I hope that ALL countries in Africa will as a matter of fact stop the importation of poisonous food from China. Think about the children and their future, stop feeding them with poisons that would cause death and mental retardation.

Wake up Africa and make the best use of the resources and food in your own domain.

Power Sharing is neither “Democracy” nor Democratic

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

By Adeola Aderounmu.

It is not obvious that the deal in a number of countries esp in Africa is that the leaders should jostle for power and position regardless of what the people think or want.

Recently we saw power sharing deal in Kenya. Now Zimbabwe has done the same. In a nutshell, it simply means that the people can go to hell and rot away with their votes. Who cares?

If this is the solution to democratic approaches, why do these idiots share power after wasting billions or millions of dollars on conducting election.

In my country Nigeria, it is no secret. Your votes don’t count! We know that and still every 4 years some idiots conduct elections. The results are known before they send the masses out in harsh weather on a wild goose chase.

In Kenya, we saw how innocent people laid their lives fighting that their votes be counted and considered. Nigerians did that in 1993 on a lower scale. They-the people-died in vain. In Zimbabwe there is serious problem and the best way out is a proper dispensation of democracy (as one would have thought) but what we saw in the end was power sharing.

May I propose that in all these countries, the useless leadership should spare us the agony of expecting or monitoring elections.

Please continue to share the power and continue to loot your economy and continue to let the people live below poverty level. Stop disturbing world order with announcement of elections that play no role in nation building and infrastructure development.

(To be reviewed and continued)

Chief Eleyinmi (Oba Funsho Adeolu) is dead

/ Adeola / 18 Comments

Culled from the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper . Editorial of Thursday 11th September 2008.

The Alaye of Ode Remo, Oba Funsho Adeolu, Sataloye II, died recently in a London hospital. He would have been 77 in December. We condole with the people of Ode Remo, Ogun State, and the cast and audience of Village Headmaster, the popular but now rested television series which captured the imagination of the public in the early 70s and 80s, and in which the late Oba Adeolu was one of the leading and memorable actors.

Oba Adeolu was well-known for his inimitable role as Chief Eleyinmi in Village Headmaster; he will be remembered for the creativity, the panache and the wit that he consistently brought to bear on the interpretation of his role, and for his love of the arts. Village Headmaster created by the then NTA Lagos Director, Segun Olusola, later Nigeria’s Ambassador to Ethiopia, was peopled by actors and actresses of exceptional talent who, individually and together, brought life to their respective fictional roles under production conditions that tested to the limit, the creativity of all who took part in the project and, even more so, their improvisational ability.

The television series ran at a time when directors had to make do with the most basic material resources available. Much more than raw talent was required from every member of the cast. It is a credit to the Village Headmaster team that everyone lived up to their respective challenges with the result that, for the many years that it featured, Village Headmaster achieved a must-watch status for an audience that cut across all ages and classes.

Morally clean and genuinely entertaining yet didactic on the issues of personal and community life the play was the authentic family sitcom. It offered a truthful portrayal of life in an archetypal Nigerian village, with emphasis on double entendre, Nigeria’s cultural richness and the diversity of its people.

Oba Adeolu as Eleyinmi was in a class of his own; Village Headmaster was superbly enriched by Chief Nicodemus Ologbenla Eleyinmi, second in command to the Oloja of Oja, and as he would never let the chance go to declare “the Chief Justice of Oja Customary Court”. The late traditional ruler also acted in film productions, including Things Fall Apart and Out of Africa. But without doubt, he was in his best elements as Eleyinmi. It is no wonder that he has been rightly described as ‘a colossus of the drama genre and cultural icon’ by the government of Ogun State.

The late Oba Adeolu studied at the Ahmadu Bello University and the London School of Journalism and worked at various times at King’s College Lagos as a teacher, Texaco Nigeria Limited as Area Manager, and Rank Xerox Nigeria Limited as Training Manager. He also had a stint as sports commentator with the Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation from where he moved on to set up the sports department at Television House. In 1977, he went into private business in the line of Public Relations, Advertising and Film Production. He was crowned the Alaye of Ode Remo in 1990; he became a Justice of Peace in 1991. In 1997, he received the national honour, Officer of the Order of Niger (OON).

Village Headmaster was one of several locally produced television programmes that ranked high in both entertainment and educational values while they lasted. In the 70s and 80s, examples of such programmes which indicated the vibrancy of the local television industry and the richness of local creative talent included Icheoku, Hotel de Jordan, The Masquerades, Cock Crow at Dawn, Samanja, Jagua, Mirror in the Sun, and Behind the Clouds. However, there is now a regrettable decline in the production of such genuinely indigenous television series and an increasing over-dependence on imported television content.

This imbalance in programming has implications for information flow and the integrity of television programming in Nigeria, but the National Broadcasting Commission, the regulatory agency has been negligent in enforcing the rules. At the moment, Nigerian television viewers are hooked on imported soap opera, from everywhere else including Latin America, aired liberally on Nigerian television.

Oba Funso Adeolu’s performance as television actor and the impact of programmes such as the Village Headmaster attest to the need to provide more support for the development of local content and ensure balance in television programming. As a traditional ruler, Oba Adeolu attracted attention to his home-town of Ode Remo and used both his influence and goodwill for the benefit of the community in terms of development and the maintenance of peace and stability. He is the third member of the Village Headmaster cast to die in recent times, the other two being Joe Layode (Teacher Garuba) and Oba Wole Amele (Councillor Balogun) who also ruled as theAlara Aromoko of Ekiti

The fondness with which members of The Village Headmaster cast and other actors in the television series of old continue to be remembered by the Nigerian public should provide useful lessons for the present generation of Nigerian artistes, particularly members of Nollywood, Nigeria’s local movie industry.

Racism at the Olympics

/ Adeola / 2 Comments

My son lost Olympics gold to racism, says Chukwumerije
From Alifa Daniel, Asst. Political Editor, Abuja

 (CULLED FROM THE NIGERIAN GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER 26/08/2008)

THE Beijing Olympics may have ended, but in Nigeria, a senator, who spent his funds to send his son on a six-month training across the world, Uche Chukwumerije, has fired a protest to the World Taekwondo Federation (WTF) over the manner the boy was allegedly short-changed out of contention for a gold or silver medal in the sports. Chika, Senator Uche Chukwumerije’s son, won a bronze medal.

The senator in a letter to the President which he read to journalists in his office at the National Assembly, explained that beyond protesting the injustice done to his son, his action would alert the administrators of taekwondo and the Olympics of the imminent danger posed to the sport by poor officiating.

Alluding to a racial tendency on the part of the administrators, the senator said that his protest was intended to ensure that the presence of African athletes in future competitions will be treated with more respect. “Sports should be blind,” he added.

He prayed the WTF president to replay the tape of this fight in any international sports channel and give the large international jury of Masters of Taekwondo an opportunity to appraise the fight and make their judgment, adding that such a jury with its experience and professionalism is more likely to deliver a merit and rule-driven verdict.

“I am compelled by the insensitivity which the dead ends of WTF official channels have offered to plead for justice and my fears about the deleterious effect of such deadness on the future of our Taekwondo sport to make this protest to you.

“The object of this petition is the poor officiating in the (Men’s Over 80kg) quarter-final tournament between Nigeria (Chika Chukwumerije) and Greece (Alexandro Nicholaidias) on August 23 in 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing (Beijing Science and Technology University Gymnasium). The officiating was so flawed that the victor was robbed of victory, and the defeated awarded an unmerited victory.

“My locus standi: What, you may ask, is my rightful interest in this matter? I am a member of the Taekwondo family – a senior black belt, a promoter of taekwondo in Nigeria and the father of the short-changed player in this disputed contest, Chika Chukwumerije.

On the grounds for his protest, Chukwumerije noted the overlook of a punishable violation of contest rules by Alexandro of Greece. His words: “In the second round of the contest, Alexandro held Chika by his chest protector and attempted an ass kick on the head, apparently in a desperate bid to wipe off Chika’s two-point lead. Holding an opponent while kicking is a punishable offence by Taekwondo rules. The referees overlooked the infraction. No point was deducted from Alexandro.”

He urged the WTF president to watch the tape of the fight and judge for himself.

Other grounds he gave were: “The attempted ass kick by Alexandro totally missed Chika who successfully ducked. But the referees inexplicably awarded two marks to Alexandro and he levelled up with Chika’s two-point lead.

  • Denial of Chika’s score – Almost immediately after this 2-2 score, Chika made a clear kick to Alexandro’s chest. Inexplicably, the referees denied him the score.

“

  • Second unmerited award to Alexandro – Three seconds to the end of the round, the referees inexplicably gave one point to Alexandro, bringing the score to 3-2 in his favour. No kick, no punch to justify this score.

“

  • Deaf ears to our Constitutional Right to Hearing of our Appeal for a Review – In accordance with the rules, Chika’s coach and the Nigerian Taekwondo leadership filed a protest to the Taekwondo supervisory board against the poor officiating. To underline the seriousness of Nigeria’s concern for the stultifying effect of this level of refereeing on the future of Taekwondo, the top management of Nigeria’s Olympic Sports Organisation (comprising Habu Gumel, Chairman of Nigeria Olympics Committee; Banji Oladapo, Secretary-General of the Committee, Alhaji Bappa, the Assistant Secretary-General, Patrick Ekeji, the Director-General of Sports Development in Nigeria, Nathaniel Nnaji, Chairman, Nigeria Taekwondo Association and my humble self) met the Chairman of Africa Taekwondo Union, General Fouli of Egypt, and re-emphasised our protest.

“We were told that the protest would be considered and a review was under way. The next shock, which hit us was a display on the television screen announcing a tournament for a third position and listing Chika Chukwumerije as a contestant. This meant that our protest received merely a nominal nod, but was never treated, unlike the protest by Britain in an earlier bout.”

He further urged the WTF president to review the tapes and come to his own conclusion.

Chukwumerije went on: “From this account, the following observations are noteworthy: First, by fair officiating, this tournament should have ended 3-0 in favour of Chika Chukwumerije. The calculation is thus:- the three points given to Alexandro were unmerited gifts and therefore a nullity. On the other hand, Chika’s three (3) points — that is, the two (2) points acknowledged by the referees and the one (1) point denied by referees — were clearly earned.

Secondly, the capricious behaviour of the judges was reflected in an unprecedented number of stoppages of the fight for consultations among the referees in the bout. As can be seen in the tape, “on three occasions, the referees stopped the fight and consulted among themselves, thereby giving a strong impression that they were unsure of their readings of the contest. Please compare the stoppages in this fight with referee interventions in all the other taekwondo fights in this Olympic Games.”

Chukwumerije noted that Nigeria was bound to be demoralised, stressing that her only protection and assurance in the sport was the hope that taekwondo convention offers a level playing ground in competitions.

“This hope has now been severely undermined,” the senator lamented, adding that “the international image of taekwondo may be soiled and its standing in the comity of world sports lowered by a growing impression of subjective and unpredictable commitment of our referees to the rules of the game.

He also averred that “the insensitivity of the Taekwondo Supervisory Board to genuine protests against provable acts of poor officiating in accordance with the rules encourages anti-compliance behaviour among practitioners. Compare the responses of the Supervisory Board to two protests — Britain’s and Nigeria’s.

In an earlier bout (Women’s Under 57kg Quarter Finals), the British coach angrily shot up from his seat like thunder bolt and protested in a loud voice against a case of poor officiating. He aggressively followed up after the contest with a strong protest to the board. The supervisory board reviewed the case, played back the tape in full view of the audience, and reversed the verdict of the judges.

In Nigeria’s case, the Nigerian coach quietly waited like a law-abiding practitioner till the end of the bout to make his protest. Nigeria avoided violence of fist or body language. The supervisory board ignored our appeal and the review of the disputed contest did not take place. We gathered from the grapevine that the supervisory council was afraid that a second reversal of an unjustified verdict would be one too many and could deal embarrassing damage to the image of World Taekwondo Federation.”

 

Swedish wrestler Ara Abrahamian has been disqualified and stripped of his Olympic bronze medal.

(From the  BBC)

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) said the Swede was punished for violating the spirit of fair play during the medal ceremony.

Abrahamian, who came third in the 84kg Greco-Roman category, dumped his medal on the floor after receiving it and strode off in protest.

He was furious at a controversial penalty call in his semi-final.

The call decided the match against Italy’s Andrea Minguzzi, who went on to win the gold medal.

Following the semi-final loss to Minguzzi, Abrahamian, who won silver in the Athens Olympics four years ago, had to be restrained by his team-mates.

The IOC executive board ruled that the wrestler’s action amounted to a political demonstration and a mark of disrespect to his fellow athletes.

They added that no athlete will receive Abrahamian’s medal.

The Last Days of Anita Westlund (1924-2008)

/ Adeola / Leave a comment

By Adeola Aderounmu

I met Anita for the first time just about 4 years ago. It was one cold and dark winter month in late 2004 and our first meeting was a very exciting one. She had opined that she looked forward to having a very good discussion with me and so it turned out to be. Our meeting enabled her to practice her English language. Anita’s first language is Swedish. She learnt how to write and speak English language when she was over 60 years old. It was one of the few challenges she took after her retirement.
You can imagine how interesting our conversation went as I struggled with my Swedish language and Anita with her English. She was impressed that I understood (and could interpret to English) the few lines that I’d read to her from a book written in Swedish. In subsequent years we spoke in Swedish only as my command of the language had improved but at 80+ she cherished the challenge to always impress with her English. She spoke well of her English teacher.

Anita was a jovial old lady. She radiated warmth and gladness in her family and to the people that she knew. She was a good and loving mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She had a good heart, was compassionate and always wanted everyone to be happy. This was not just in her old age. As I understood it, that was her life-that everyone that she knew or got acquainted with should be happy.

While she was alive, Anita and her equally wonderful living 86 year-old husband Rune Westlund prayed for their entire family every morning at the breakfast table. They are philanthropists and they support homeless people in their local council. Through their life-long dedicated involvement in church activities, they accommodated foreigners in their home and helped them to settle to life in Sweden. They are also paying for the school fees of a certain adopted child living in India. They longed for the good of all and to see smiles on faces of other people. Last year, they won an award for their seflless service to humanity.

It came to us as a rude shock when Anita was diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer of the liver on the 11th of July 2008. Three months ago at the ripe age of 84, Anita could still ride her bicycle to the shopping mall and she could walk briskly to the swimming hall for her swimming exercises. No one could have suspected that she was living with such an illness because she was looking healthy and vibrant as usual until when she took ill at the end of June.

Anita took her situation in good fate and she cracked wonderful jokes until the last day that she lived on earth. She spent the last 2 weeks of July visiting her entire family both near and far. As the end approached, she did everything that she wanted to do-travelling, talking, laughing, eating good food, drinking wine and most of all-giving.

When the phone rang so early at 0844am on Sunday the 10th of August 2008, the only thing on my mind was “Anita may be dead”. So it turned out to be. Five minutes before the phone rang; I’d woken up partially but still lying on the bed and having Anita on my mind. Some of the moments we spent together were being relayed in my mind and then the news of her death revealed to me that I was very well connected to her. She was the great-grandmother to my daughter but she also treated me as one of her grandchildren.

I’m going to miss Anita just the same way that I’d missed my biological grandparents in Nigeria. One of my Christmas presents this year will not read “From Rune and Anita”. It will most likely read “From Rune”. During her farewell visit to us on the 21st of July, she wanted us to remember her and all the good times we had together. Surely, I will never forget you Anita. It will not be because your name will be missing from the Christmas and birthday gifts. I will miss you because you were a wonderful person. I will miss you because you showed me love as much as you did to your children. Far away from home, I felt very special because of you.

I cannot write everything about your life history but I know that you came into this world on the 30th of May 1924. I know some of your views about life. I’ve heard very exciting and wonderful stories about you. I know that one of your main characteristics was openness of mind and heart. You were not afraid of what you didn’t know like many other people are. It was your open heart that made you and your husband such great friends and helpers of the immigrants in Sandviken, Sweden. I am very sure that the Burmese refugees in Sandviken will never forget you as well.

You completed your race and journey the best way possible. I completely understand and respect your wish not to make this journey again because I can only imagine the pain when you made that comment just 48 hours to the end of the race. You will always be in my heart.

Rest in peace Anita!

Anita’s Photos on Facebook

Article also available at The Nigerian Village Square