TOP 040522 EDITORIAL SNIPPETS

"The World Malaria Report 2021 reaffirmed the sorry reality of Nigeria and other SSA states: 80 per cent of all malaria deaths in the region were of children under age five. This is an unacceptably high toll that should be reversed at all costs.The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), and the 36 state governors should take note of these figures: Nigeria, with 31.9 per cent of the total, led three other African countries to account for over half of the total global deaths. It was followed by Congo DR’s 13.2 per cent; Tanzania’s 4.1 per cent, and Mozambique’s 3.8 per cent. One study described malaria as Nigeria’s No.1 public health problem, accounting for 30 per cent of all under-five deaths, 25 per cent of deaths in infants and 11 per cent of maternal mortality.

The country has failed to utilise or maximise global interventions to reduce the disease burden. Both the 1998 Roll Back Malaria project aimed at malaria burden reduction by at least 50 per cent through precise interventions, and the 2005 Abuja Declaration to overturn malaria burden, were poorly executed. Till date, Nigeria falters and wobbles on lofty malaria eradication initiatives designed to reverse the trend. Like many other national programmes, there is no consistency in implementation as succeeding administrations and ministers often abandon ongoing activities halfway to promote empty new slogans.

The various governments have to fund preventive treatment during pregnancy to reduce the burden of malaria in pregnant women as experts say pregnancy reduces a woman’s immunity to malaria. Among other programmes, Nigeria should determinedly partner with the WHO Global Technical Strategy to achieve its target of reducing malaria incidence and mortality rates by 90 percent by 2030, including eliminating the illness in 35 countries. The federal and the state governments should ensure that Nigeria is one of them."

… Punch

"For over two years since Abubakar Shekau’s Boko Haram sprouted in Niger State and started operating in a trademark style of attacking villages, abducting students and highway travellers and extracting levies from locals, the insurgents were operating side by side with the bandit-terrorists. Indeed, Sheikh Ahmad Gumi had openly lobbied the “Bandits” to become jihadists. Nigerians were outraged but Gumi went scot-free.

Now that even the Federal Government has admitted that our enemies are successfully uniting against our country, we are waiting to see what will be done. In the first place, it should have been obvious to any proactive government that Boko Haram would eventually diversify from the North-East to other areas of the North, including the Federal Capital Territory.

At the rate we are going, our 2023 general elections are already in danger as the Independent National Election, INEC, has warned." 

… Vanguard

"The headline went a bit overboard: “… wicked Nigerians donate expired products to Abuja orphanage”.  That suggested the bad food items must have been wilfully donated, in a fit of meanness, when charity ought to guide such matters.

That would appear a tad contrary to reason, as Janice, a 19-year-old orphan, resident of Honoured Ground Home, Abuja, the orphanage in question, beautifully reasoned: “To them, they might think it is good for consumption but we pray God still blesses them.  We also hope,” she added, “that they realise the things they donated were not good; and they decide to change their ways.”

Then, as beneficiaries: both the managers and children of the orphanages are often so overjoyed at the donors’ benevolence that it becomes outrageous to begin to interrogate the donors’ motives, not to talk of question them.  That would be looking a gift horse in the mouth!

… with the food scare at that orphanage, it has become clear that we cannot take everyone’s motive for granted — even if cases of malevolent donations could be rare.  Malevolent donations!  That appears a violent contradiction in terms!  Donations are voluntary gifts from benevolent souls.  They ordinarily should never be malevolent.

But those expired foods and materials could well be cases of honest mistakes.  Some of them might even have expired after they had been donated: some, because the expiry time was close but the donor did not notice; others, because the items had lingered too long in the orphanage’s pantry.

To make things easier and less offensive, each orphanage should come up with a list of criteria, which every single donated item must meet — and make such public information, on their notice boards or even websites, so that each intending donor is well aware of these criteria, before embarking on shopping for such materials.

Such criteria could be expiry dates of donated items not less than one year at the time of donation, adequate NAFDAC number on drinks and other processed foods, NIS certification of other non-food items: tyres, electric bulbs, etc”."

… The Nation