Monday 27 June 2011

Working with the Ohakim’s 2011 budget

By
Joachim Ezeji
The primary objective of the Imo State 2011 budget proposal as recently enunciated by the state governor includes job creation, education and eradication of extreme poverty. Captioned ‘’Budget of consolidation and continuity’’, the budget had an 8 point policy direction, which consists of embargo on new projects; scaling down , continuation and/or completion of on-going projects; massive road rehabilitation in the 27 local government areas of the state; good governance, transparency, accountability, efficiency and training in the teaching and civil service and total automation of processes; total confrontation of the security problem in the state; job creation/ mass recruitment into government service; and finally, enhanced internally generated revenue.
Ambitious as the 2011 budget is, it offers negligible enthusiasm amongst the people for who it was drafted. This stems from past experiences, particularly, previous budgets which has failed repeatedly with little effort to learn from such failures. For example, the 2011 Imo budget in most aspects is similar to that of 2010. In 2010 the Imo State Government had a total budget estimate of N127, 260, 577, 253. The revenue component of that budget was estimated at 55.5% of the total budget while the capital receipt on the other hand was 44.4% of the total budget. Conversely, the recurrent expenditure constituted 41.6% while Capital expenditure was 58.3% of the total budget.
However, as at end of September 2010 the scorecard of the budget showed that only 50.04% of the estimated recurrent revenue of N70,705,678,311 was achieved while the capital receipts, a mere N18,581,787,844 of the projected sum of N56,554,898,942 i.e. less than 35% of the projected was generated. At 50.04% and 35% ratings, these components of the budget i.e. the revenue cannot be said to have done well in view of the huge expectations and development needs of the state.
On the other hand, the recurrent expenditure as at end of September 2010 stood at 56.8% of the total recurrent expenditure of N52,962,600,572 while the capital expenditure as at end of September 2010 was N36,324,865,583 representing 48.8% of total capital expenditure projection of N74, 297,976, 681. Again, at both 56.8% and 48.8% ratings these components of the budget does not inspire anybody.
In 2011, the governor has proposed a whopping budget of N124,475,132,834. The total recurrent revenue stands at N72,148,781,892 while the total recurrent expenditure stands at N60,675,238,007. The capital receipts this time is estimated at N52,326,350,942 or about 43% of the total budget while the recurrent revenue stands at N72,148,782,892 or 57%.
It is clear that the amount proposed for 2011 is a little less than that of 2010. It remains to be understood why this is so, could it be an adjustment to guide against failure as seen in the preceding year’s budget or a signal that little development would be pursued in the current year? Whatever it is, a coterie of questions still emerge, and some of these are: Why is the state government so much dependent on capital receipts knowing fully how precarious and unreliable it could be? Meeting the capital receipts components of any government budget would certainly require a lot of work which includes immense networking, diplomacy, good governance and transparency amongst others. Unlike recurrent revenue, they are not statutory.
The recurrent expenditure projections and profile of the government is neither plausible nor salutary. It smacks of anything but prudence in resource management for a government to expend 56.8% of its total projected recurrent expenditure at a time when it was merely generating 50.04% of the projected revenue. The amount expended on capital expenditure as at the end of September 2010 was not stated in the 2011 budget review of expenditure events of 2010. It remains to be understood if this omission was deliberate or intentional. Relevant questions should be asked at the follow up sessions on the budget at the House of Assembly.
It remains to be seen how the governor intends to achieve the lofty objectives of the 2011 budget with a fragile revenue base. Top on this objective is poverty alleviation and job creation. According to the governor, the poverty index in Imo State in 1996 was 56% but today it has dropped drastically to 48%. The governor had quoted the United Nations Human Development Index Report without dating the reference document to buttress this assertion. He argued that at 48%, that the poverty index in Imo is clearly above the Federal Government index of 72%, and that the reduction stems from the opportunities created by the massive investments in infrastructure, micro-credit as well as Human Development. He also argued that the establishment of a poverty alleviation bureau has tackled poverty in a multi-faceted manner, from skills acquisition to transportation as well as micro-credit schemes. The governor also revealed that his government had recently set up a committee to fish out the poorest of the poor in Imo State for proper documentation and adequate empowerment in 2011.
Poverty alleviation in Imo state should actually begin with the prompt payment of salaries and pensions. This is not intended to portray a superiority of these statutory payments over other state needs; but they can easily be monitored and measured unlike the so called claims of skills acquisition to transportation as well as micro-credit schemes by the government. Delays and protracted payments of statutory bills does not inspire confidence on the government, no matter what it claims to the contrary. Also, budgets that allocates over 40% of recurrent expenditure on overhead and personnel cost will certainly struggle to do well. This was the case in 2009, 2010 and sadly again in 2011.
What is the security vote of the governor? This important component of the budget is neither obvious nor clear from the wordings of the budget. I need to be shown where it is located and its subhead. However, is it the truth that the speaker of the Imo State House of Assembly has a security vote of N500 million, the secretary to the state government N250million, and the deputy speaker N200million? However, the budget 2011 had shown that the capital projects of the Imo State House of Assembly including its constituency projects is the sum of N470million, without any breakdown of what these are.
Government should be reminded that insensitive allocation of public funds to public office holders stirs envy and bad blood in the polity. It sounds so unreasonable to allocate as much as 40% of recurrent expenditure on top office holders be they members or part of the executive, legislature or judiciary. High level criminality such as kidnapping, armed robbery, contract inflation, graft and greed will remain eternal consequence of such allocations. Prudency should start from the top of the pyramid where the bulk of the resources are manipulated.
On education, the governor claims that as part of his effort to ensure the realisation of functional and qualitative education in the state, it released the sum of N18million for the procurement of science equipment, chemicals and reagents for the 2010 May/June NECO and SSCE practical examinations for the 31No public secondary schools in the state. He further claimed that his government has released the sum of N150million out of the N250million approved for the accreditation of all courses in the college of engineering of the Imo State University. He also asserted that has successfully returned forty-five secondary schools to the Missions, while discussions are on-going with voluntary agencies/private proprietors that have indicated interest to take back their schools. He further revealed that his government has instituted a special overseas postgraduate scholarship scheme for Imo indigenes. And that candidates with first class or second class upper degrees would be encouraged to enrol in the Ivy League Universities in the world. The purpose of this, according to the governor is to produce well trained first class graduates who would be future leaders of the state and are well equipped to play leadership roles.
The happenings in the educational sector of the state is nothing to cheer about. It defies common sense to return forty-five secondary schools to private organisations and missions, and then have government withdraw apposite responsibility just after 2 years of offsetting staff salaries. What does government intend to achieve? What is the primary objective of that action? Is it merely to offload government financial responsibility thereto and have the now accruing government revenue saved? What happens to it, will it be looted, frittered or prudently reinvested into governance? I think that the wholesale returning of schools to missions or private organisations is utterly a bad idea. The simple reason is that these missions lack the capacity to make these schools competitive. Missions may struggle to meet the requisite funding required to run them. Running of schools is another important public service that needs to be preserved and nourished. Investment in school infrastructure is as important as teacher motivation. Trying to save funds in the face of competing educational needs amounts to self destruction.
The revelation on the institution of a special overseas postgraduate scholarship scheme for Imo indigenes is a welcome development, though overdue. We need to have the modalities for this published with the relevant bureau set up. However, the issue of Ivy league universities as the centre point of the policy is outlandish and neither here nor there. People need to be supported to train abroad in various spheres where Imo lack skills. It must not necessarily be an Ivy league university. Moreover, there are just about 10 Ivy league universities and all of them are located in the USA hence limiting this policy on Ivy league universities smacks of utopian targets. As an international environmental scholar at Brown University, one of the Ivy league universities, I can humbly assert that there are many other great universities in the USA as well as other parts of the world in the likes of Oxford, Cambridge, Loughborough and even KTH in Sweden. Great leaders of the state in the future who are well equipped to play leadership roles can emerge from even modest schools. Tell me, what school did the greatest leader Imo State has ever i.e. Late Sam Mbakwe attend?
Relocating Imo State University and designating and developing a location for the new School of Engineering campus of the university needs to be reprioritized. I shudder to query the worthwhileness of these two major capital projects in the same budget timeline. Since the university currently have a campus in Owerri, efforts should rather be exerted to first develop a new School of Engineering campus of the university instead. Anything other than this will further weaken the budget.
The government’s proposals on the economic sector of the state ; consisting of agriculture, commerce, industry, works, transport, housing, petroleum , environment, public utilities and rural development are very salutary and needs commendation. Government capacity to generate jobs for the teeming unemployed is very possible provided utmost good fate is deployed. However, I am pained that the government is mute about the implication of climate change on the economic sector if ignored. This therefore calls to mind the imperativeness of adopting a policy stand on how to go about economic development in the state. In view of the uncertainties involved with climate change, it is important to identify low-cost, no-regret responses that enhance the choices available in the future. For example, economic cost-benefit analysis – which could include environmental values – would suffice if decisions are made primarily based on economic efficiency. If, however, sustainable development is a leading policy objective, developments of today would also have to be evaluated based on their effects on intergenerational and intra-generational equity, and should include consideration of environmental impacts.
Tourism in the state could also be transit to eco-tourism in order to safeguard the environment. In this regards the government should once again reappraise its position on the ‘disvirgining’ of the Oguta lake. There is a lot the government could learn from the civil society, particularly NGOs working on sustainable development in the state. Isolating NGOs or treating them with suspicion undermines sustainability.
Till the house reconvenes to deliberate on the budget, I join other noble Imo citizens to query the governor; are you sure Imo is in the hands of God?

Fertility Crisis!

•40% men suffer low sperm count
•Late marriage in women big factor
•Couples now queue at orphanages to adopt babies
•15 fertility clinics to the rescue
•IVF costs N1.2m

By PATRICK ASONYE & AGAPTUS ANAELE
Sunday, May 25, 2008
By the accounts of Nigerian medics, there is an upsurge in the number of couples seeking fruits of the womb in the country, a trend experts attribute to a number of reasons ranging from late marriages, environmental factors and decline in the quality of sperm.
Indeed the situation has given rise, in some instances, to the dislocation of some otherwise ideal families founded originally on love.

Worse still, evil merchants, taking advantage of the situation, have set up shops and are surreptitiously trading in babies of indigent mothers like stocks on the floor of the Stock Exchange. Quite a few have been nabbed in the process.

Those that bother to do the right thing run accredited orphanages, now with unprecedented patronage.
At the spiritual level, some self-professed miracle workers have been at their very best, all in an attempt to convince baby seekers to look into their places of religious worship, and be glad that they did.
Yet, the problem remains that Nigerian men are by the day losing their virility to empirical reasons.

On that score, medical personnel are of the opinion that stress alters the reproductive system by impairing hypothalamic function responsible for reproduction in both sexes, fertility declines with age.
They also fingered environmental pollution, substance abuse, obesity in women, and multiple sexual partners that lead to sexually transmitted infections, resulting in tube blockage, as key factors fuelling infertility.

Hear Professor Oladapo Ashiru, Medical Director of Medical Art Centre in Lagos: “The number of infertile couples is on the increase and more worrisome is that the number of men presenting with low sperm count is on the increase.”
Sunday Sun gathered that the statistics has shot up from 15 per cent in men to 40 per cent.
The development has led to the proliferation of fertility centres, churches with bogus claims of miracles and spiritual homes, making couples desperate and even gullible in the hands of opportunists.

Over 15 fertility centres have sprang up in four cities - Lagos, Port Harcourt, Benin City and Abuja.
More worrisome is the fact that it has, in some instance, led to the breakage of many homes. Sperm donation and surrogate motherhood, hitherto perceived as abomination, have become rampant in the country.

However, few genuine Assisted Reproduction and Fertility Centres offer solution to infertile couples, but at exorbitant prices.
On the average, it costs Six hundred and fifty thousand Naira (N650, 000) for a procedure of Assisted Reproduction.
Sunday Sun gathered from orphanages in Lagos that the demand for adoption far outstrips supply, so couples now queue for months on waiting list, further affirming that all is not well with procreation process.

Prof Ashiru speaks:
Yes, infertility is on the increase in Nigeria. The population that is involved with regard to infertility is as high as 20-25 per cent of married couples. One in five couples have fertility problem and the trend is on the increase for two reasons.
One, there is increased awareness about the problem. Secondly, there are more problems that are occurring within the system, that are technological-related that are creating fertility problems.

Stress
For both men and women, the first are emotional stress. Our society is a highly stressed society. From home to work, and the kind of things that goes on, are all stress-related. There is stress in getting on the traffic on the road; there is stress in achieving what you want to do. Even, when you go to the store to buy something, there is stress. There is fear from armed robbery. Economic, financial stress is there, because we live in a society that places a lot of emphasis on money as opposed to value of professionalism. The level of stress that goes into marriage planning and the money spent by the couple is high stress-related. All these have far reaching consequences on a centre in the brain called the Hypothalamus, the centre that controls some of the reproductive functions.

Stress is a condition that triggers the adrenal gland. This is known as the stress gland. When there is too much pressure on the adrenal gland, it will control the ovary and the sperm cell, and the brain. Under normal circumstances, when it is stable, it balances these two hormones, the brain and the hypothalamus and the ovary, so they circulate like an orchestra in symphony, to bring out this tune and at the end of each month, it will clock at 28 days to produce an egg. Stress, either from the environment or your thought, goes straight to the adrenal gland.

If you can’t handle it, it releases some hormones, and could lead to high blood pressure. If you can’t handle it, it releases some hormones that create problems for the ovary and metabolic process, so the person may start to eat too much. It may release something that affects mood, leading sometimes to depression. When that occurs, it may affect the ovaries and the woman may no longer ovulate every 28 days. Sometimes it may be 19 days or it could be delayed. Sometimes, it could lead to early miscarriages.

Effect on men:
In men, stress is known to reduce sperm production by 15 per cent. It destroys the spermatozoa.

Age:
Many people now marry at late. Twenty years ago, people married at the age of 25 or even earlier. Today, people are getting married at the age of 32 or older. I am referring to the women or ladies. And for the men, it is even slightly higher. At this age, reproductive function is already declining. From basic raw statistics, for somebody that is between 16 and 21, fertility is almost 75 per cent. By the time you get to age 40, it has declined to eight per cent.

Environmental hazards: generators and all:
There are too many things in our environment leading to infertility. There is no electricity. Excessive use of alternative energy leads to the release of hydrocarbons and they are definitely having far reaching consequences on the sperm production process in men and the ovulation process in women. Smoke release is also a major factor. If you look at our society, the level of pollution that we are witnessing now cannot be compared to what we saw in the 70s and 60s. Almost every other house has a generating plant and when there is no light (public power supply), they all release fumes and pollute the air.

Poor water source:
We don’t have enough regulation to control our water system and there are a lot of poisons being released into the water system. In some cases, petrol stations are sited near the river. We site soap and dry cleaning industries in the various places. These have serious consequences on fertility.
Bad urban planning:
Previous governments made use of area planning by strictly reserving some areas as residential and some for commercial purposes. In developed societies, residential areas are strictly residential, maybe with one or two corner shops but here, areas reserved for residential are converted for commercial use. All these emit serious toxins into the air.

Men firing blank
Men are having very low sperm count. The percentage of men with low sperm count is higher than that in the US. From my experience in Chicago in the US, the male problem is about 30-35 per cent, but in our country, the male factor is rising. The uses of hard substance, smoking, alcohol and marijuana have far reaching effects on sperm count and sperm production.


Occupational hazards:
Occupational hazards, like those who work with heavy metals and those who work in hydro and petrochemical industries are at risk. Men working in plastic and paint industries are also at risk, because these are occupations that are known to drastically damage the sperm.

Sperm count hitherto:
From raw information, when you have 10 couples with infertility, ten years ago, the problem was predominantly tube blockage, and those who are unable to ovulate and may be 15-20 per cent with low sperm count. Then, you could help them if you concentrate the sperm and inseminate it into the woman. But today, you are having as high as 35 per cent of men with low sperm, if not 40 per cent and a substantial per cent, say 15-20 per cent of them, you will have to get the sperm and inject it into the wife, through the procedure we call intracytospemic sperm injection (ICSI), because the sperm on their own cannot do anything. A low percentage of them have obstruction to the sperm, which are genetical factors whereby the sperm are blocked on the pathway, so you have to do a special procedure called testicular extraction to extract the sperm from the testis and then use it by ICSI to achieve fertilization and get them pregnant.

Sperm count:
Sperm count is the amount of sperm that is produced in semen. When a man ejaculates, he comes up with a fluid, either grey or yellowish in colour. The semen contains very small cells known as spermatozoon for one and spermatozoa for many. Normally, it should be 60 million in one ml and a man should be able to produce about 2-3mls per ejaculate. So you will be expecting about 120-200 million sperms in that ejacula.

You could have oligospermia, in which case the sperm is there, but in small quantity and anything below 40 per cent or 40 million per ml is oligospermia. However, a man that has 10 million sperm cells can get a young lady that is very fertile pregnant. Whereas a man that has 40 million sperm cells and has a woman that is old and not so fertile may find it difficult to impregnate the woman. The next one is Exospermia in which there is no sperm cell at all, or Dispermia, that is abnormal sperm cells or Aspermia, which means there is no sperm produced at all in the ejaculate.
There is also low motility. The sperms are there, but they are not very motile; they can’t move all the way to the tube from the vagina where they are deposited. By the time they get to the uterus, most of them are dead, because they are slow moving.

Causes:
Artificial sweetners like saccharine can cause low sperm count. Wearing very tight pants can cause testicular overheating. It creates a very high temperature around the scrotum and that burns the sperm cells. Sperms thrive when the temperature is low, slightly below the body temperature.

Female factor:
In the US, 10 per cent of women between the ages of 44 have impaired fertility and about 25 per cent of these women will have infertility problem when they get married. On a general level, we are looking at 37 per cent of infertile women between age 35 and 44 have infertility.

Age:
As age progresses, the problem of fertility also progresses. A higher percentage of women are having fertility problem because we are not marrying early. If they marry early, the problem is less. But in our own environment here, some of the causes of infertility in women are attributed to stress.

Weight:
Obesity is a major factor in our environment. Overweight women have polycystic ovarian syndrome. It is a condition in which the ovary, rather than produce follicles that will make egg, they produce empty follicles known as cyst, and these follicles will line the ovary and they are not be able to ovulate. This is a condition that creates infertility because the excess fat that is there does not allow the ovary to have proper hormone functions, so rather than have those hormones going to the ovaries; they are working on the fat cells. This is an easily treatable condition if early detected. Women who are also underweight and those suffering from nutritional deficiency and low vitamins also have problems with fertility, just like marathon and long distance runners. Caffeine and alcohol can also cause infertility. Perpetual habit in terms of multiple sexual partners. It can lead to infection and sexually transmitted diseases which is the core of blocked tubes.
What couples should do while waiting:
When couples are newly married, they should begin to be aware of the anatomical and physiological processes that control conception. If you are a man, make sure that you preserve your reproductive processes. Stay away from pesticides, smoke inhalation and the same for the woman. If you notice any infection or discharge in the penis, make sure you give it immediate attention. Same for the woman, because these are things that could lead to chronic infection that could block the tube, or blow up the passage of the testis (Urethra).
Irregular menses:
If the woman notices that her period is irregular or unusually painful, she should seek medical attention. If the flow is excessive or little, she should see the doctor to ensure everything is okay immediately they get pregnant. Before, we used to say that infertility is when the couple is married for one year and they have tried without conception, but because our people are getting married late, they should seek medical consult immediately within three months, not to wait for one year. Those parameters of one year is when they were getting married at 21-24, because you can delay for one year and you still have a lot of time. But now, a lady that gets married at the age of 32, and has ovarian shut down at age 35, the time available for her is not much.
Treatment/Options:
The options are quite many. You could seek medical attention from your doctor. If that doesn’t work, you need to take further investigation.
Fraudulent fertility centers:
I have to warn that there are some people out there that are not really practising advanced technology, but they are telling people that it is what they do. In the last two months, I have seen four women coming to my clinic to complain. One said that she went to a doctor, got pregnant, and she had a surocal suture. We did a scan and there was nothing in the uterine cavity. And we looked at the cervix, there was no suture. Another one had said she was going to have her baby in June and we did a scan and her uterus was empty. People have to be careful.

Man kills 2 in Delta

From KOFA KINGS,Ughelli
Monday, June 27, 2011

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2011/june/27/national-27-06-2011-012.html

A private security aide to a top state government official has allegedly shot two persons dead in controversial circumstances in Owhelogbo community, Isoko North Council Area of Delta State, at the weekend.

The assailant, who works as private security aide attached to the country home residence of the Delta State Government official (name withheld) shot dead two persons in two related attacks, accusing them of robbing his home in the suburb of the community. Luck ran out on him when he was swooped on by a combined team of security operatives.

The death of the two persons triggered violence, as irate youths stormed the suspect’s compound and set ablaze, houses belonging to him, before the police later brought normalcy to the troubled community.
Sources, who pleaded anonymity said trouble started when the suspect’s son told his father he could identify some of the robbers that raided their compound the previous night.

Continuing, the sources said the suspect and some local vigilance group took the law into their hands and allegedly shot dead, an innocent man when they could not get hold of the accused robbers.
The sources confirmed that the alleged robbers were same cult members with the suspect’s son, who were not happy with his conducts , continuing, he said the suspect’s son deceived his father into committing murder.

The sources further said the death of the innocent man sparked off the anger of the youths, who proceeded to the suspect’s place to demand an explanation for his action but immediately he spotted them, he allegedly opened fire on the crowd, killing the second person on the spot.

He said, it took the gallant efforts of the combined security operatives to arrest the suspect and bring normalcy to the community. The Delta State Police Public Relations Officer , Mr Charles Murka confirmed the incident and said the assailant had been arrested. He said the state police command was investigating the matter to ascertain what led to the killing of the two persons at the Owhelogbo community.

RED ALERT: 2500 young people get infected with HIV everyday

By Bimbola Oyesola: bimbeechampion@yahoo.com
Monday, June 27, 2011

http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/features/workforce/2011/june/27/workforce-27-06-2011-001.html

According to Opportunity in Crisis Joint publication by UNICEF, UNAIDS, UNESCO, UNFPA, ILO, WHO and The World Bank presents data on adolescents and HIV for the first time, every day, an estimated 2500 young people are newly infected with HIV.

While HIV prevalence has declined slightly among young people, young women and adolescent girls face a disproportionately high risk of infection due to biological vulnerability, social inequality and exclusion.

Opportunity in Crisis: Preventing HIV from early adolescence to young adulthood, presents data on HIV infections among young people and highlights the risks adolescents face as they transition to adulthood. The report identifies factors that elevate their risk of infection as well as opportunities to strengthen prevention services and challenge harmful social practices.

“For many young people HIV infection is the result of neglect, exclusion, and violations that occur with the knowledge of families, communities, social and political leaders. This report urges leaders at all levels to build a chain of prevention to keep adolescents and young people informed, protected and healthy,” said UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake. “UNICEF is committed to this cause. We must protect the second decade of life, so that the journey from childhood to adulthood is not derailed by HIV – a journey that is especially fraught for girls and young women.”

According to the report, people aged 15-24 accounted for 41 per cent of new infections among adults over the age of 15 in 2009. Worldwide, an estimated 5 million (4.3 million to 5.9 million) young people in that age group were living with HIV in 2009. Among the 10 to 19 year age group, new data shows, an estimated 2 million adolescents (1.8 million to 2.4 million) are living with HIV. Most of them live in sub-Saharan Africa, most are women, and most do not know their status. Globally young women make up more than 60 per cent of all young people living with HIV. In sub-Saharan Africa that rate jumps to 72 per cent.

“Our success with improving access to antiretrovirals means more young people are surviving with HIV, but many are still unaware of their status,” said World Health Organization Director-General, Dr. Margaret Chan. “WHO is committed to helping improve adolescents’ access to HIV testing and counseling and to making sure that health services address their needs for prevention, treatment, care and support.”
Early adolescence is a window of opportunity to intervene, before most youth become sexually active and harmful gender and social norms that elevate the risk of HIV infection are established. Communities,

leaders and young people all have a role to play in changing the behaviours that place young people at risk and creating an environment where they may thrive. In southern Africa, for example where HIV infections are high in older age groups, sex with multiple partners and age-disparate relationships are fuelling HIV transmission among young people, particularly young women.

But progress can be made. Community-led efforts to change such norms have been effective in communities in Tanzania, where the image of men seeking relations with younger women and girls was effectively turned into an image of ridicule. “As the report says, too many adolescent girls become pregnant before they are ready, and have children while they are still children themselves,” said UNFPA Executive Director, Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin.

“This puts their own health and their children’s health at risk and limits their opportunities and potential. To achieve the MDGs, it’s absolutely critical to improve access to comprehensive sexuality education and integrated reproductive health services, including family planning and male and female condoms. Evidence shows that sexual and reproductive health information and services do not lead to more frequent sexual relations or high-risk behavior, but rather to fewer unintended pregnancies, reduced HIV infections and better health.”

Certain high-risk behaviours – such as early sexual debut, pregnancy and drug use – are all signs of things going wrong in the environment of the young adolescent, and may be associated with violence, exploitation, abuse and neglect. Yet social protection systems that are HIV-sensitive can contribute to the financial security of vulnerable families, improve access to health and social services and ensure that services are delivered to marginalized youths.

“The world desperately needs new HIV prevention strategies; for every two people who receive life-saving AIDS treatment, another five become newly infected, which is an impossible situation for many poor countries and their communities,” says the World Bank’s Managing Director, Dr. Mahmoud Mohieldin. “Existing prevention strategies have had limited success, so we have to look for creative new approaches to reverse the HIV/AIDS epidemic. These must address people’s very basic needs for education, economic security, inclusion, dignity, and human rights. These issues are particularly crucial when we consider the health and well-being of adolescent girls, mothers and children, and socially marginalized groups.”

Family members, teachers, community leaders have a role to play in setting norms for responsible behaviour, and in advocating for the full range of services needed for young people to stay healthy. Indeed, reducing the level of HIV incidence requires not one single intervention, but a continuum of prevention that provides information, support and services throughout the life cycle. Yet many adolescents lack access to basic HIV and prevention information, commodities and testing services.

“Young people need to have access to comprehensive knowledge and services in order to make safe choices about their health and relationships”, said UNESCO Director-General, Irina Bokova. “We are fully committed to this effort, leading the evidence-based push to scale up sexuality education and supporting the different needs of young people as they transition from early adolescence to adulthood. We must work together to ensure that all young people, especially girls and vulnerable populations, receive the education, support and protection necessary for preventing HIV and promoting their overall well-being”, she added.

Worldwide many young people driven by economic duress, exploitation, social exclusion and lack of family support turn to commercial sex and injecting drug use. They face an extremely high risk of infection as well as general stigma and discrimination for engaging in such behaviors. The very same young people most often lack access to HIV prevention and protection services.

For national HIV responses to be effective, governments need to address the underlying problems of poverty, exclusion and gender inequality that threaten the health of future generations. Using equity as a guidepost helps to ensure those hardest to reach are not last in line, and that services are available to them and used by them.

“Nearly one of every two new adult HIV infections occurs among 15 to 24 year olds. The ILO Recommendation on HIV and AIDS and the World of Work calls for a special focus on young people in national policies and programmes on HIV and AIDS and highlights the role of education and training systems and youth employment programmes and services as critical channels for mainstreaming information about HIV,” said Juan Somavia, Director-General of the International Labour Organization (ILO). “Already young people often bear a disproportionate share of the burden of unemployment, underemployment and poverty, a situation aggravated by the global recession.

We must enable young people to realize their full potential. Their strength is the strength of communities, societies and economies.” As the report points out, there are opportunities to use proven prevention strategies in all epidemic contexts. In countries with generalized epidemics there are opportunities to encourage healthy attitudes and behaviours, ensure greater gender equality and allow protection to become the new norm.

In sub-Saharan Africa, for example, the same social norms that tolerate domestic violence also prevent women from refusing unwanted sexual advances, negotiating safe sex, or criticizing a male partner’s infidelity – all of which threatens the goal of achieving an AIDS-free generation. And in countries with low-level and concentrated epidemics, where HIV infections among youth are driven by injecting drug use, sex work, or male to male sex, there are opportunities to reshape the legal and social milieu that compounds vulnerability and to empower young people with knowledge, prevention services and health care.

“Young people are not only tomorrow’s leaders, they are the leaders of today,” said Michel SidibĂ©, Executive Director of UNAIDS. “If young people are empowered to protect themselves against HIV, they can lead us to an HIV free generation.”

Sunday 26 June 2011

Communicating Adaptation in Africa

By
Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji

Does it bother you that most discussions of how to address climate change in Africa has focused much more on adaptation(e.g. coping with the storms, floods, drought, sea- floor rise and other impacts that climate change will bring) than mitigation (e.g. reducing green house emission etc)?

Not to worry, both adaptation and mitigation are very crucial in addressing the challenges of climate change. However, the onus of addressing mitigation is common with countries like China, USA, Russia, India, Japan, Germany, Canada, UK, South Korea, Iran, Italy, South Africa, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, France, Australia, Brazil, Spain, Ukraine and Poland etc whose expanding economy has a huge feed demand for fuel. For these countries, mitigation is a central concern they constitute the top 20 CO2 emitters per capita (measured at metric tonnes per person). Apart from South Africa, no other African country made this list.

However, it is germane to note that in Marrakech in Morocco in November 2001, at the Seventh Conference of the Parties, delegates focused their minds on both adaptations to climate change and mitigation measures and, for the first time, formally recognized the dilemmas of adaptation for the developing nations. This recognition took the form of funding mechanisms to assist countries to adapt. The Delhi Declaration from the Eight Conference of the Parties in November 2002 reinforced the importance of adaptation. The Delhi Declaration, in effect, has linked the participation of the developing world in mitigation of emissions to actions and funding on adaptation to the impacts of climate change.

While developing countries with lean economies and who no doubt suffer the negative impacts of a changing climate are still struggling to define and adopt an adaptation pathway peculiar to its milieu, those in the top 20 CO2 emitting bracket have long set out in setting emission reduction targets.

In August 2008 Brazil launched the Amazon Fund, aimed at protecting the rainforest so vital to the world’s climate and combating climate change. In December 2008 Brazil also launched a national climate change plan which proposed to cut the country’s deforestation rate in half by 2018. For South Africa, an emission reduction strategy was drawn in July 2008. A final domestic policy is likely to be adopted by the end of 2010, likely to involve mandatory targets for reducing transport emissions and plans for increasing the carbon price.

Countries in the EU such as Germany and the UK are part of the European Union’s Climate Action Programme. The EU is committed to reducing its overall emissions to at least 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, and is ready to scale up this reduction to as much as 30 per cent under a new global climate change agreement when other developed countries make comparable efforts. Barack Obama has set out initial overall ambitions on climate change; and these are to return US emissions to 1990 levels by 2020, and reduce them by 80 per cent below 1990 levels by 2050. A key tool will be a cap-and-trade system like the EU’s Emission Trading System.

In April 2007 Canada released an action plan to reduce green house gases. The Canadian government committed to reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (relative to 2006 levels) by 20 per cent by 2020 and by 60 per cent to 70 per cent by 2050. In June 2007 China released a three-pronged national climate change programme, the first by any developing country. Its aims are to control greenhouse gas emissions, stimulate research and development, and raise public awareness. It has a renewable energy target (15 percent of total energy by 2020), and a plan to increase forest coverage rate to 20 per cent by 2010.

The IPCC proclaims that there is now little doubt that human induced climate change is happening. All societies consequently need to learn to cope with the changes that are predicted such as warmer temperatures, drier soils, changes in weather extremes and rising sea levels. The vulnerability of a system to climate change is determined by its exposure, by its physical settings and sensitivity, and by its ability and opportunity to adapt to change or otherwise. To illustrate these categories, sensitivity will be high where the system in question includes, for example, settlements built on flood plains, hill slopes or low-lying coastal areas.

What this means is that some sectors will be more sensitive and some groups more vulnerable to risks posed by climate change than others hence underscoring the urgency to build resilience through adaptive capacity required to face the evolving challenges in the years ahead. Peoples vulnerability to the risks associated with climate change is feared to likely evolve many other tight challenges such as poverty, especially in places like Africa where dependence on resources that are vulnerable to changing climate such as farming, fishery, water supplies etc is very high.

In terms of action, adaptation may take the form of reducing dependence on vulnerable systems such as diversifying food production away from a limited number of drought-prone crops, of decreasing sensitivity by avoiding building settlements and infrastructure in high-risk locations, or by strengthening existing systems so that they are less likely to be damaged by unusual events.

It also includes the need to mainstream into adaptation projects the recognition that people of developing countries are not just passive victims. Indeed, in the past they have had the greatest resilience to droughts, floods and other catastrophes etc. Pastoralists in West African Sahel have been known to adapt to cope with rainfall decreases of 25-33% in the twentieth century.

However, as efforts to develop and diffuse adaptation mechanisms in Africa and elsewhere grows in momentum, one major constraint has been the failure to develop an effective communication strategy to drive the process. Effective communication as a sub-set of development needs to be developed in order to get the message down to the bottom of the pyramid where those most affected agglutinate. The concept of information in general and of climate change adaptation information in particular, as a resource for effective adaptation and development needs to be domesticated well beyond current cosy confines of conference rooms and research hubs.

In Guinea, rising sea levels linked to global warming is feared to likely result in stronger coastal currents, higher tides and sea encroachment of land. Guinea’s coastal region, home to West Africa’s largest and richest mangroves, would therefore bear the brunt of global climate change. The region’s entire economy is now under threat. It is feared that the main victims of all these climate variations would be people living near the coast. An estimate of 2 million people is likely to suffer income losses.

In an effort to limit the foreseeable damage, Guinea has launched a national plan of action for climate change adaptation (PANA-CC), which sets out priorities, among them measures for protecting coastal areas. It outlines vigorous action for saving the mangroves and reforesting the region, planting teak and cashew trees. Faced with rising water levels, communities are being advised in Guinea to build sea walls and plant trees along the coast in order to protect the rice fields that have taken the place of the mangroves.

Other recommendations include enforcing laws on coastal settlements and tackling pollution. For these adaptation measures to work, it is crucial that local people be provided with environmental education and prepared for possible catastrophes in the future. Efforts such as those in Guinea need to be supported and diffused into other countries in the region as quickly as is possibly.

As measures such as those in Guinea and elsewhere get developed, it becomes urgent to educate people including government officials on what mitigation is, and how it differs from adaptation. Local policy makers, planners and administrators need to recognize that information is indispensable to the adaptation process. This is apparent with due cognizance of the fact that in most parts of Africa, the essential information mechanisms and infrastructural facilities are not yet sufficiently developed to foster the generation, storage, preservation, retrieval, dissemination and utilization of information.

However, effective communication is seen as an essential tool for the establishment and maintenance of good social and working relationships and it enables people to exercise control over their environment. The purpose of communication is to bring about change of attitude, knowledge, skills and aspiration of the receivers. In Nigeria, various communication media are commonly used to transmit all sorts of information to people. Some of these include magazines, leaflets, newsletters, newspapers, pamphlets, radio, internet, telephone (GSM) and television, among others.

Among these lot, radio rates higher and is often the most preferred tool of mass communication in Nigeria. Radio programs are usually timely and capable of extending messages to the audience no matter where they may be as long as they have a receiver with adequate supply of power. The absence of such facilities as road, light and water are no hindrance to radio. Similarly, such obstacles as difficult topography, distance, time and socio-political exigencies do not hinder the performance of radio. Illiteracy is no barrier to radio messages since such messages can be passed in the audience own language.

Pre-Paid Metering is Anti-Poor!

By
Joachim Ezeji (Email: santajayinc@yahoo.com)

Today in Nigeria, all the 36 State Governments and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have each set up a State Water Supply Agency (SWA) charged with the responsibility of providing potable water supply to the urban and in some cases their semi urban communities.

From Lagos to Calabar; Kano to Port Harcourt; and Owerri to Birnin Kebbi sad tales of high operational costs, poor revenue, epileptic power supply, inadequate funding, ill-motivated personnel, aging plants and machineries have remained the undoing of many of the 36 state water utilities in Nigeria.

The result is that many Nigerians lack sustainable access to clean drinking water, and those for productive activities. The tragedy in all these is such that if sustainable water supply is a ladder in economic development with higher rungs representing steps up the path to economic well being, there are roughly 80% of households, three-quarter of Nigerians, who live lacking support to get a foot on the first rung of the development ladder.

A typical case is the Lagos State Water Corporation. Here, the water distribution network can only reach one in every three of the 15 million inhabitants of the city. Yet, they projected population growth of 4% per annum of the city means that the city’s water demand, will double by the year 2020. The cost of meeting current and projected demand has been put at around $2.5 billion over the next 20 years.
A World Bank 2003 report stressed how the abysmal performance of public utilities has come to symbolize the poorest aspects of governance in Nigeria. Using Lagos as a reference the report revealed that being neglected and close to collapse, the publicly run Lagos State Water Corporation holds the dubious distinction of having the highest recorded level of unaccounted-for-water in the world. Only 4 percent of its water production capacity goes towards the creation of revenue.
Unaccounted-for-water is the most common measure of the efficiency of a water company. The World Bank defines it as “the difference between the quantity of water supplied to a network and the metered water by the customer” It has two components; physical losses due to leakage from pipes; and administrative losses due to illegal connections and under registration of water meters.
No doubt water tariffs must be set and where necessary raised to meet the costs of water supply, which continue to increase due to more advanced treatment, greater distance to be traveled, lower groundwater tables, and more costly distribution in densely populated areas.
However water metering can be detrimental if water prices are set too high. An unaffordable rate structure can threaten the health and welfare of economically disadvantaged populations if they cannot afford to pay for a necessary amount of water.
One way to try to avoid this problem is to calculate an average monthly consumption rate needed to cover key human needs and then charge a basic rate for this amount and a higher price for any consumption above that amount. Can Pre-paid metering guarantee this?
It must however be noted that the objectives guiding tariffs are anchored on the goal to protect consumers while achieving and maintaining the financial viability of utilities. Pre-Paid metering does the later and ignores the former!

These objectives often include; (i) serving the urban poor; (ii) using lifeline rate for the urban poor; encouraging demand management; developing schemes that ensure self-sufficient operation and maintenance etc. Again Pre-paid metering is not in tandem (i) and (ii) above!

For any water utility to maintain or restore a lead to consumers on water efficiency, it must get on top of its leakage problems. Leakage by water companies in England and Wales fell by around 20 million liters a day (ml/d) in 2005/06 because of strict regulation by the Office for Water (OFWAT).

The overall leakage in England and Wales was close to 3,600ml/d in 2006 compared to nearly 5,000 ml/d just a decade earlier. OFWAT took action that required a utility like Thames Water to make a substantial reduction in leakage, and the company entered into a legally binding agreement with the regulator (OFWAT), committing it to spend GPB150million of its own money to step up the program of water mains replacement. It also risks being fined if it does not meet its future leakage targets.

But here, who regulates Nigeria’s urban water utilities? There must be an independent regulator before these utilities would demand Pre-paid water metering, as if this is the only vital fulcrum in their performance improvement plans.

It is germane to underscore therefore, that at the state level, a model water supply services regulatory law has been prepared in association with the World-Bank supported Water Investment Mobilization and Applications Guidelines (WIMAG).

WIMAG provides a basis for water supply reform legislation including the establishment of State Water Regulatory Commission and licensing procedures for all water service providers. It provides an equitable approach to water pricing in Nigeria.

In tandem with the National Water and Sanitation Policy (2000) and the National Water Resources Bill (2007), WIMAG and the model State Water Supply Services Regulatory Law (WSSRL) insists that each state of the federation with a State Water Agency (SWA) must establish a regulatory commission that is empowered to issue licenses for the provision of water supply services by both government and private sector entities; define minimum service requirement; set tariffs; define rights and obligations of the water service providers; and define performance standards.

Further to the foregoing, States are to ensure that water service providers are autonomous bodies subject to regulation by the state regulatory commission; and that the regulatory commission is not subject to the direction or control of the state governor or any other person in respect of any determination, report or inquiry; and that the sector is structured to prevent misuse of monopoly power.

Above all, WIMAG demands that Nigerian States should incorporate principles of good governance into the structure and operational procedures of state water agencies, particularly; equity, accountability, efficiency, transparency and public participation. States are also required to establish appeals mechanisms for decisions taken by water service providers under their jurisdiction.

Till these things are rightly done it would amount to sheer mischief for State Governments and their SWAs to adopt such an extreme measure as Pre-paid metering of drinking water. In this context is the fact that beyond everything else, water is a “social service”, because it is a life and death issue for all living things especially humans.

Nigerian SWAs need not be reminded that there are many ways to set and collect water tariff beyond using pre-paid meters. What is simply required is to achieve such is team discipline and corporate focus. These attributes are on reign in parts of Europe and North America where many homes as at today are not even metered, talk less of being pre-paid.

In South Africa the introduction of Pre-paid meters is already causing serious problem despite the provision for FREE basic water (200 liters per household per day) as a lifeline support for the poor!

Commoditizing drinking water by selling it as a recharge card anywhere in Nigeria will further expand poverty, boost misery and upscale ill health.

We should not allow this to happen!

David-West’s lamentations for Nigerian varsities (1)

On June 19, 2011 · In Sunday Perspectives ..
By Douglas Anele

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/david-west%E2%80%99s-lamentations-for-nigerian-varsities-1/

Tam David-West is well-known nation-wide. Apart from being a former Minister of Petroleum and Energy, and later Minister of Mines, Power and Steel, he is a retired Professor of Virology at the University of Ibadan. Now, although I do not agree with him on several issues, including his uncritical, almost worshipful, admiration of former military dictator, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, his latest comments on the state of Nigerian universities are right on target.

As an experienced academic who rose to the pinnacle of the profession, Nigerians should take his frank dissection of the decay in our so-called Ivory Towers very seriously. In a recent interview in one of the national dailies, David-West, in his characteristic boldness, took a critical look at the situation in the topmost level of our educational pyramid and concluded that things have seriously fallen apart.

The former minister began his jeremiad by reminiscing about his days as an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan in the 1950s. According to him, the population of students was low whereas the quality of lecturers then was high. Students were properly fed and taken care of in the halls of residence.

Apart from lectures, they were taught the rudiments of gentlemanly culture, that is, the culture of the elite Western bourgeoisie. David-West recalled that when he was in school a monthly banquet dinner was organised “in which highly-placed guests were invited from outside the university to “wine and dine” with students.

At that time, which he referred to as the “bloom years”, students didn’t just pass through the university alone, the university passed through them as well. Thereafter, from the mid-1980s, the system started collapsing. The standard is so bad now that even lecturers lack the refinement expected of the cognoscente.

David-West cited the cases of a lecturer who picked a piece of meat from the floor, washed and ate it; of female lecturers who park recklessly across the street, only to apologise when confronted; and, of postgraduate students who write English very poorly. He argued, correctly, that blame for the rot in the university system is not only for the politicians that have failed to fund these institutions properly for years.

In his words “the degeneracy is too much. I feel like crying for the universities. The standard is too bad.” According to Niyi Osundare, another retired Professor from Ibadan, there are politicians in academic gowns. Of course, increasing decline of academic excellence has jeopardised standards in all our universities. The problem is compounded by the plunge in moral rectitude. Instances of moral turpitude by lecturers, especially those at the professorial cadre, rankle the mind.

Some professors, David-West avers, share research grants meant for their departments; others manipulate the system to get their spouses appointed professors. There was a case of a deceased Deputy Vice-Chancellor whose son stole a book from the bookshop; the matter was hushed because his father was a VIP in the system.

Subsequently, the criminal was awarded a degree, with the clichĂ© on the certificate which reads: “having satisfied the university in learning and character.” There are professors who forge the signatures of their heads of department and other principal officers of the universities, and collude to award degrees, even doctorates, on the basis of poorly-executed research programmes. In the mad rush to produce doctorate holders, or get certain unqualified lecturers promoted on irrelevant grounds different from laid down rules, senior academics shamelessly compromise the system.

Instances are known of professors on sick beds who are asked to evaluate the papers of professorial candidates just to “quicken the process and save time.” The current regulation from the National Universities Commission (NUC) making it mandatory that every university lecturer must have a doctorate was soundly criticised by David-West. I am also one of the few lecturers at the University of Lagos who consider NUC’s decision disingenuous because, as the saying goes, “the hood does not make the monk.”

Mere possession of a half-baked (or even unbaked) Ph.D. is academic corruption of the highest order, since it creates the false impression that its possessor has done original work on a subject-matter which has contributed to knowledge in that field. I know of someone with a Ph.D. in English Literature whose internal assessor complained that the work was redolent with mistakes in the use of tense and in other basic elements of English grammar and usage. David-West hits the nail on its head by claiming that “Some PhDs are rubbish.

”I’ve got lecturers that are Masters or BA or B.Sc. that are fantastic.” As a consequence of irrational obsession with Ph.D. by NUC (a body headed by professors), unnecessary pressures and lobbying from both the candidates and senior academics on supervisors and assessors has already increased, with some low-grade universities metamorphosing into rolling mills or factories for cloning Ph.Ds. Many professors usually send the Ph.D. theses of their favourite, not-really-brilliant, candidates to their aburos, sometimes with the tendentious suggestion that the latter should “take it easy with the candidates.”

Someone told me of an incident where, in less than two weeks a busy professor had finished reading a thesis of over 300 pages sent to him by a friend in another university – of course, the verdict on the work was highly favourable. Overemphasis on journal publications for promotion is killing not only the motivation for excellent teaching and for writing good books but, more importantly, has encouraged unscrupulous lecturers who are desperate to become professors to steal or clone the ideas of other colleagues.

Furthermore, in the sea of “cut and paste” writings that are becoming the norm in the system as a result of the wrongheaded ideology of “publish or perish”, great ideas are submerged in the flood, ideas that are rare and precious.

To be concluded.

David-West’s lamentations for Nigerian varsities (1)

On June 19, 2011 · In Sunday Perspectives ..
By Douglas Anele

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/david-west%E2%80%99s-lamentations-for-nigerian-varsities-1/

Tam David-West is well-known nation-wide. Apart from being a former Minister of Petroleum and Energy, and later Minister of Mines, Power and Steel, he is a retired Professor of Virology at the University of Ibadan. Now, although I do not agree with him on several issues, including his uncritical, almost worshipful, admiration of former military dictator, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, his latest comments on the state of Nigerian universities are right on target.

As an experienced academic who rose to the pinnacle of the profession, Nigerians should take his frank dissection of the decay in our so-called Ivory Towers very seriously. In a recent interview in one of the national dailies, David-West, in his characteristic boldness, took a critical look at the situation in the topmost level of our educational pyramid and concluded that things have seriously fallen apart.

The former minister began his jeremiad by reminiscing about his days as an undergraduate at the University of Ibadan in the 1950s. According to him, the population of students was low whereas the quality of lecturers then was high. Students were properly fed and taken care of in the halls of residence.

Apart from lectures, they were taught the rudiments of gentlemanly culture, that is, the culture of the elite Western bourgeoisie. David-West recalled that when he was in school a monthly banquet dinner was organised “in which highly-placed guests were invited from outside the university to “wine and dine” with students.

At that time, which he referred to as the “bloom years”, students didn’t just pass through the university alone, the university passed through them as well. Thereafter, from the mid-1980s, the system started collapsing. The standard is so bad now that even lecturers lack the refinement expected of the cognoscente.

David-West cited the cases of a lecturer who picked a piece of meat from the floor, washed and ate it; of female lecturers who park recklessly across the street, only to apologise when confronted; and, of postgraduate students who write English very poorly. He argued, correctly, that blame for the rot in the university system is not only for the politicians that have failed to fund these institutions properly for years.

In his words “the degeneracy is too much. I feel like crying for the universities. The standard is too bad.” According to Niyi Osundare, another retired Professor from Ibadan, there are politicians in academic gowns. Of course, increasing decline of academic excellence has jeopardised standards in all our universities. The problem is compounded by the plunge in moral rectitude. Instances of moral turpitude by lecturers, especially those at the professorial cadre, rankle the mind.

Some professors, David-West avers, share research grants meant for their departments; others manipulate the system to get their spouses appointed professors. There was a case of a deceased Deputy Vice-Chancellor whose son stole a book from the bookshop; the matter was hushed because his father was a VIP in the system.

Subsequently, the criminal was awarded a degree, with the clichĂ© on the certificate which reads: “having satisfied the university in learning and character.” There are professors who forge the signatures of their heads of department and other principal officers of the universities, and collude to award degrees, even doctorates, on the basis of poorly-executed research programmes. In the mad rush to produce doctorate holders, or get certain unqualified lecturers promoted on irrelevant grounds different from laid down rules, senior academics shamelessly compromise the system.

Instances are known of professors on sick beds who are asked to evaluate the papers of professorial candidates just to “quicken the process and save time.” The current regulation from the National Universities Commission (NUC) making it mandatory that every university lecturer must have a doctorate was soundly criticised by David-West. I am also one of the few lecturers at the University of Lagos who consider NUC’s decision disingenuous because, as the saying goes, “the hood does not make the monk.”

Mere possession of a half-baked (or even unbaked) Ph.D. is academic corruption of the highest order, since it creates the false impression that its possessor has done original work on a subject-matter which has contributed to knowledge in that field. I know of someone with a Ph.D. in English Literature whose internal assessor complained that the work was redolent with mistakes in the use of tense and in other basic elements of English grammar and usage. David-West hits the nail on its head by claiming that “Some PhDs are rubbish.

”I’ve got lecturers that are Masters or BA or B.Sc. that are fantastic.” As a consequence of irrational obsession with Ph.D. by NUC (a body headed by professors), unnecessary pressures and lobbying from both the candidates and senior academics on supervisors and assessors has already increased, with some low-grade universities metamorphosing into rolling mills or factories for cloning Ph.Ds. Many professors usually send the Ph.D. theses of their favourite, not-really-brilliant, candidates to their aburos, sometimes with the tendentious suggestion that the latter should “take it easy with the candidates.”

Someone told me of an incident where, in less than two weeks a busy professor had finished reading a thesis of over 300 pages sent to him by a friend in another university – of course, the verdict on the work was highly favourable. Overemphasis on journal publications for promotion is killing not only the motivation for excellent teaching and for writing good books but, more importantly, has encouraged unscrupulous lecturers who are desperate to become professors to steal or clone the ideas of other colleagues.

Furthermore, in the sea of “cut and paste” writings that are becoming the norm in the system as a result of the wrongheaded ideology of “publish or perish”, great ideas are submerged in the flood, ideas that are rare and precious.

To be concluded.

Ode to a bosom friend: Mr Mark Obumneme Emmanuel

By Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji

One striking feature I have always admired in my bosom friend Mark is his ability to get along well with all kinds of people. It is this unique streak that has underpinned my relationship with him since 1998 when we first met and instantly became great friends. He is very unassuming, very kind and very understanding. I first came in contact with this young man at a Rotaract Club meeting/fellowship hosted by the Rivers State University of Science and Technology Port Harcourt in 1998.

Over these years I have come to realize that both of us share similar ideologies, philosophies and world views on contemporary issues. This is more pronounced in our uncompromising attachment to moral, entrepreneurial and professional excellence. For him, this is most manifest in the fact that in less than three years of graduation he defied all odds to get enmeshed in the risky world of self employment through the setting up of a group of firms, and providing employment for over 27 young graduate Nigerians.

Amongst his companies are: NUEL MARK & PARTNERS, an indigenous firm of Estate Surveyors and Valuers registered in Nigeria as a business concern with Registration No. PH/079872 and recognized by the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON) to practice the profession of Estate Surveying and Valuation throughout Nigeria.

Another is; Nuel Mark Environmental Services Limited, a professional services firm focusing on the environmental needs of our clients and providing them sustainable environmental strategies and solutions. Nuel Mark Property Consulting Limited is a unique multi-disciplinary consultancy that provides a comprehensive set of professional services to organizations and businesses involved in property development and asset management.

Yet, another is; Nuel Mark Property Consulting Limited, which provides its institutional, government and private client base significant expertise with recent experience of a wide range of property development projects.

Mr Emmanuel O. Mark is well known and highly respected for his knowledge and success in the Nigerian real estate market, selling and marketing some of the most successful residential and commercial developments throughout Nigeria over the past 15 years.

In addition to all the foregoing, Obum (an Igbo name meaning ‘’I am’’ as I usually call him) is a well-bred and cultured community man. He takes great pleasure at community service as encapsulated in his membership of the Rotary family since the past ten years now. Starting at Rotaract club, a youth wing of Rotary he rose to become the District Rotaract Representative (DRR) with the onerous responsibility of leading an international organization in a district with well over 1500 Rotaractors. His commitment to Rotary was further underscored when members of his Rotary club elected him to the position of President of the Rotary club of Port Harcourt Central in Port Harcourt, Nigeria. He had a most successful tenure and was soon rewarded with a district appointment as the District 9140 Rotaract Committee Chairman.

Mark takes great pleasure in attending local and national professional conferences and symposia. He reads voraciously and can work independently to a very large extent. The gain he derives from these is bounteous and stands him shoulders above many of his peers in terms of the social and intellectual benefits that have continued to build and mould his person. I say so because I have seen him make and listen to presentations and also make contributions of meaningful worth to learning at these events.

Obum is very humble and ever willing to learn irrespective of his personal views and opinion. He never throws his weight or status around and can comfortably mix-up and socialize with anybody. This is one quality I admire greatly in him.

He takes great interest in creativity and innovative thinking as well as in socio-economic researches that can improve the living environment. His recent partnership with RAWDP, a Nigerian NGO to effectively optimize her clean water project using cheap and affordable natural resources is a vivid example. To boost this activity, Mark is already privately shoring up relevant contacts for the wider adoption of the technology.

Further to all the foregoing, I wish to underscore that my getting to know Mark has not been without its low points too. He can easily loose steam and can at times vacillate a little, requiring and testing the persuasive skill of an adroit expert friend to roar him to action once more. Most often he exhibits traits of shrewdness, a streak common with the average Igbo business man; though his’ never compromises honesty and fairness to all. He never cheats and can rarely be cheated.

To some extent he could be seen as also being hedonistic but this can easily be excused for man who works so hard to earn every of his penny. In Nigeria, Port Harcourt can appropriately be classiofied as a city of jolly good fellows. And Obum is exactly one. We never miss our ‘’ishi ewu’’ , ‘’ugba’’, aso rock’’ and even ‘’national assembly’’ often prepared by ‘’Werulem’’ his beautiful and charming wife, whenever I am in town.

Ode to Mark Obumneme Emmanuel; an accomplished professional, friend and family man. To God Be the Glory!

David-West’s lamentations for Nigerian varsities (2)

On June 26, 2011 · In Sunday Perspectives ..
By Douglas Anele

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/06/david-west%e2%80%99s-lamentations-for-nigerian-varsities-2/

Prof. David-West argued that one should not judge Ph.Ds awarded these days at face value. According to him, many of them did not meet the minimum academic standard and are awarded on the basis of dubious, watered-down, criteria. He recalled a case when he was an assessor of a candidate for the award of a doctorate in Virology. His conclusion at the end of the exercise was that “this thesis or dissertation has contributed nothing new to virology.” Yet, the person in question still received the degree.

David-West promised to keep fighting “until the Ph.D is withdrawn and all those who are involved, directly or indirectly, are dismissed because they are evil”. I fully agree with him that any work that contributes nothing original or new in a given field does not deserve a doctorate. But how many of our senior academics think this way? Only very few, I am afraid, and the number is diminishing rapidly.

Any PhD thesis that fails to expand the frontiers of knowledge, no matter how little, should not be countenanced by a serious university. But with NUC’s myopic stance on the possession of PhDs, a new disease called Phdmania is afflicting our universities right now, with disastrous consequences for the future of education in the country.

The disease has started producing the ugly excrescence of PhD holders who lack the intellectual capacity to speak authoritatively on subjects in which they claim to be “experts”. Another serious problem is the mushrooming of universities – federal, state, and private.

There are over one hundred and thirty-six universities in Nigeria. Only a handful have the capacity, both faculty and infrastructure, for teaching and research at the tertiary level.

Universities that are barely surviving, groaning under the heavy weight of inadequate academic staff and basic facilities for teaching and learning are running numerous part-time programmes and satellite campuses – some even have the audacity to mount post-graduate programmes.

Given this scenario, our so-called institutions of higher learning are steadily evolving into factories for the production of half-baked graduates by half-baked lecturers. David-West was forthright when he stated that “majority of the lecturers are corrupt and crooked”. He said that they are wily manipulators. Some lecturers in his university (UI) were giving lectures at night, until they were stopped by the Vice-Chancellor.

These very lecturers, he said, spent the day running around for business and contracts; they had no option but to teach at night. I was sorely disappointed when the immediate past Minister of Education, Raqqayatu Rufai, argued that the main justification for the rapid haphazard increase in the number of universities in Nigeria is to absorb more candidates from the increasing number of those seeking university placement.

Therefore, concerns about quality, sustainability and future growth, as far as she was concerned, are of secondary importance to the Professor! I know of some institutions, especially, private universities, which hire senior academics from other places to put down their names and pose as Heads of Department and lecturers in order to secure accreditation for various courses, only for the “academic mercenaries” to return to their bases when accreditation exercise is over. And talking about accreditation, we must honestly admit that NUC still has a very long way to go in ensuring reliable quality control of academic programmes in the universities.

It is well known that some university authorities set aside good money for “entertaining” and “settling” members of accreditation teams in order to get their courses approved. Obviously, such arrangee accreditation cannot ensure good quality academic programmes. Prof. David-West highlighted the fact that female students are increasingly turning into prostitutes – and their male colleagues, I must add, are joining cults various cult groups on campus. For David-West, however, the worst problem facing our universities presently is the catastrophic drop in the quality of academics.

As a result, he lamented that “the system still gives us that aura of university don. They say, ivory tower. Which ivory tower? It is mud tower! The days of classical ivory tower, centre of excellence, centre of rectitude, centre of examples, are gone!” I totally agree with most of what Tam David-West said about the decay in our universities. But he did not acknowledge that academics of his generation collectively have failed woefully to pass on to the next generations those lofty ideals that made some of them outstanding scholars.

It is ridiculous, for example, that senior Professors are busy hustling for contracts and lobbying for political appointments at the detriment of their academic duties.

‘Sorting’, sex-for-marks and other academic misdemeanours are gradually spreading within our campuses. Some private universities produce first class honours degrees like pure water in order to attract more “customers”. But despite all the abominations going on in our campuses, I am consoled by the fact that there is still a sizable number of world-class academics in the universities who are doing their best to ensure that the system does not collapse completely.

I know many of them at the University of Lagos and other institutions across the country. These valiant women and men, quietly and unobtrusively in spite of temptations to join the bandwagon of incompetence or of those leaving the system for greener pastures elsewhere, are the ones sustaining what is good and noble in our universities. I salute all of them; they should continue their pursuit of excellence and other lofty ideals behind the concept of “university”.

The university is the beacon of hope for any society, more so now that we are living in an increasingly knowledge_driven world. Therefore, all stakeholders, lecturers, students, parents, university authorities, and government must work together to restore the lost glory of our Ivory Towers. The time to start is – right now!
CONCLUDED.

What they won’t tell you about Ndigbo

What they won’t tell you about Ndigbo
By ORI MARTINS
Sunday, June 26, 2011
http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2011/june/26/national-26-06-2011-004.html

This is not a very good time to be an Igbo man in Nigeria. If you don’t understand what I mean, read my mind. The Igbo do not occupy the Presidency nor Vice Presidency, Senate Presidency, Speaker of the House of Representatives and even chairmanship of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Rather the PDP gave the South East the position of Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF). This is the first time this position will be ranked as a grade one office for zoning by the ruling party since 1999.

This was how it started in 1993 when the Social Democratic Party (SDP) zoned its offices and what was given to the Igbo was the SGF, which Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu rejected, saying the position of secretary was for a tea server. Sadly, Ojukwu is still hospitalized and no person to speak against it. Thus, this position has reared its ugly head again and forced down the throat of Ndigbo when Imo State, an Igbo enclave, gave President Goodluck Jonathan the highest number of votes. So, what did Ohanaeze and other Igbo leaders negotiate with President Jonathan during the pre-election campaign? Well, this is a topic for another day.

Despite the fact that Nigeria is the trouble with the South East, even as the region is always painted in bad light when actually its sons are enterprising and ingenious, there are certain things, like other tribes, we are not doing right. How? Diplomatic ties between America and Japan went sour and the USA dropped atomic bomb in the Japanese city of Hiroshima on August 6, 1946 killing 140,000 out of the city’s 350,000 population. Two days later the U.S. bombed Nagasaki, another town in Japan, and 76,000 people died.
To tell the story to the unborn generation, Japan made these two cities tourist centres and ensured that every child born in Japan is taught and lectured about the tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki even as it preserved the carcass and debris of the shattered towns till date. Japan is yet to forget the bitterness of Hiroshima and Nagasaki .

British journalists and authors continue to regale us with tales of Winston Churchill’s heroics during World War II. But Ndigbo have no trace of all the fabricators and manufacturers of the Ogbunigwe (bomb) and have allowed them to die unnoticed and uncelebrated. This is not how to survive as a people in a plural state like Nigeria. How many Igbo men and women that witnessed the war, especially those who fought at the battle-fronts or who held positions, have told the story in a book for posterity? Is there any institution that was preserved so as to point to the coming generations that there was an incident called the Civil War in which about two million Igbo lost their lives? There is the Ojukwu Bunker in Umuahia, the Ahiara Mbaise Declaration Joint, Zik Mausoleum, etc. But these historic and symbolic memorabilia are allowed to decay even when it is less than 50 years after the war ended. Will anybody recall the Civil War again after 100 years?

You see, the Igbo have so many heroes, heroines and monumental achievements to be proud of and even celebrate but they do not toe this direction. Rather, we allow the efforts of our ancestors to waste like that. In sports, the Igbo have always held sway. For instance, how many us know that the first sports person to win an international medal for Nigeria was Emmanuel Ifeajuna, an Igbo? Ifeajuna put Nigeria’s sports on world map when he jumped over 6ft 8” high and gave the country gold in high jump at the 1954 Commonwealth Games in Vancouver, Canada. As you read this, you may not know that an Igbo ward, Dan Anyiam was the first Nigerian coach to obtain an overseas certificate in coaching and eventually became the first indigenous coach to be hired by NFF.

Anyiam later made Enugu Rangers the most dreaded team in Africa as the side emerged as Nigeria’s undisputed champions between 1974 and 1976, leading to its African Cup glory in 1977. By 1975, Enugu Rangers, formed after the war, was the first Nigerian club to play in any CAF competition, the CAF Champions League, in the final , but lost to Hafia of Guinea. The late Chris Udemezue was the first coach to make Nigeria qualify for any FIFA competition. Udemezue attained this enviable height when he took the Flying Eagles to the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Mexico in 1983. From here, the gate was opened for other subsequent qualifications and glories at the world level. Sadly, Udemezue is not credited for this wonderful feat rather, he is remembered more with the Chile’ 87 calamity than his other glorious deeds. Do you still remember Dick Tiger (Richard Ihetu)?

Till date, Dick Tiger remains the only African to be inducted into the World Boxing Hall of Fame. He took the world by storm when he punched America’s Gene Fullman to stupor and was crowned the World Middle-weight champion He successfully defended the title in a spectacular first world title fight (boxing) ever to be held in Africa, staged in Ibadan in 1963.

We also had Chief Jerry Enyeazu, the ebullient sports administrator who founded Enugu Rangers, Heartland, Enyimba and Grasshoppers of Owerri. Enyeazu was Nigeria’s first Director of Sports who conceptualized what is now called National Sports Festival and put in place the second All Africa Games in 1973 in Lagos which Nigeria hosted. He also facilitated the establishment of the National Institute of Sports (NIS) . Nwankwo Kanu led Nigeria’s soccer team to the 1996 Olympics and won the soccer gold. Chioma Ajunwa and Emeka Omeruah also did Nigeria proud by winning gold medals on the international scene. Chioma Ajunwa won Africa’s first ever individual gold in a field event.

Do not forget that Omeruah as Sports Minister groomed the team that won FIFA U-17 World Cup in 1985. With him as NFF Chairman, Nigeria qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 1994 and lifted the Nations Cup for the second time in Tunisia. To cap it all, it could have been marvelous , if Ernest Okonkwo were alive to tell Nigerians how Enyimba lifted the elusive CAF Champions League cup for Nigeria in 2003. How many of these persons are honored nationally or remembered by the Igbo nation? Yet, the South West honours Awo annually and new books on him emerge. Just recently the Yoruba celebrated Pa Awolowo’s legacies but not so for the Great Zik by his Igbo people. Emulating the South-West, the South-South have learned to celebrate Adaka Boro with fun-fare via the Niger Delta Volunteer Force but the Igbo remain adamant about their heroes.

An example of what Ndigbo can do is Prof Kenneth Onwuka Dike’s notable deeds. He wrote about contemporary Africa; supervised the transformation of colonial University Ibadan to a glorious modern university. He was the institution’s first Nigerian indigenous Vice Chancellor[thus he was Nigeria’ first ever VC] ; he established the Nigerian National Archives. He also headed Nigerian Antiquities Commission that set up the National Museum and eventually founded the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs[ NIIA],Lagos.

Dike was among organizers of the first World Festival of Negro Arts which was held in 1968. Despite all these accomplishments, has Dike been honored by any government in Nigeria or Igboland? As it is with Dike, so also it is with Prof Eni Njoku , the first Chairman of the Electricity Corporation of Nigeria(now Power Holding Company of Nigeria) .That was in 1956. Later in 1962, Njoku was made the Vice Chancellor of University of Lagos. Him with Dike, were the first two indigenous Nigerian VCs of Igbo extraction! Still in academics, the accomplishments of Profs Chike Obi, Chinua Achebe and Ben Enweonwu cannot be overlooked. How many Igbo students in the higher institutions know Ben Enweonwu?

Great minds like Jaja Wachukwu, Nigeria’s first Minister of Foreign Affairs drafted the country’s foreign policy thrust. Mbonu Ojike; K.O. Mbadiwe; Akanu Ibiam; M. I. Opkara; Amanze Raymond Njoku who was voted by British journalists as Africa’s Most Well Dressed Man in the 1960s. K.B.C. Onwubiko was West Africa’s most accomplished historian and author; Mbazulike Amaechi, was the first Aviation Minister. They and few others who are of Igbo extraction who worked assiduously for Nigeria’s independence and greatness. If Nigeria forgets, why should Ndigbo forget?

Between 1950 and 1966, Sir Louis Ojukwu was not just West Africa’s richest man but also the greatest investor in transport and mercantile businesses and was the first DG, Nigeria Stock Exchange[NSE].
•Ori Martins (08060205494) works for The Sun.

Saturday 25 June 2011

He cheats and beats me

Agatha Edo, womaneditor@independentngonline.com, gataedo@yahoo.com or agatha.edo@gmail.com, 08054500626


Dear Agatha,

I am 26 years and my husband is 37. We have been married for three and half years now. My problem is for about two years that I have lived with my husband, he has cheated on me with more than 10 girls.

The first time I discovered his infidelity, I couldn’t believe it because one of the major reasons I married him was because of his religious disposition.

I was naturally devastated. Worst of all, he didn’t even try to explain things to me. Instead of apologies, I got the beating of my life that very day although he later came to ask for forgiveness. I forgave him with the confidence he would change, but he didn’t, he continued cheating and beating me. This has happened more than 10 times.

Three months ago, I heard him telling someone on the phone that he would send money to pay for a hotel accommodation where they would stay when he comes.

I was forced to check through his phone and discovered he was making an arrangement with his girl friend on where they would meet.

I got the beating of my life that same day and was admitted in the hospital. According to him, I had no right to go through his phones.

Agatha, I now hate him for all the pain and embarrassment he has caused me.

We are yet to have children; we have been to hospitals and they confirmed he has watery and low sperm. He was told to stop smoking and drinking, though he drinks once in a while but he doesn’t want to give up smoking as instructed by doctors.

Right now, I don’t know what to do; my father is an evangelist and I always consider my parents in all that I want to do.

I am in tears as I write this. I have no kids yet, the person that should be my source of happiness is causing me so much pain, always beating and cheating on me. Please advice me on what to do.

Amara.



Dear Amara,

Life, most of the time, isn’t fair because we always don’t get what we want or deserve.

And when it comes to the issue of marriage, it can be very complex and complicated. However, many a time, we are also architects of our pains. Because of your family background, you simply wanted a man who was religious without bothering about the person behind the mask.

You looked at his ‘cloak of religion’ without looking at his life. Before walking down the aisle with him, what did you know about him; about his background; his friends and values? What did you know about his mind and the workings of that mind? Did you bother to find out about the man you planned to spend the rest of your life with beyond his religious disposition?

Did you ever consider what marriage was before marrying him? What precisely was your idea of marriage and its many challenges? What were the things you noticed and pretended didn’t matter until now?

Religion comes from the mind, an awareness of who God is and what He requires of us as His people while ‘religiosity’ is pretentiousness and comes without the conviction of a deeply religious person.

Had you a clear idea of the type of man you would be most happy with, not one who is masquerading to be another person you would have noticed that he has always been unfaithful and a complete cheat.

To be frank, he didn’t deceive you. You did the most harm to yourself by treating the issue of marriage with levity, something which isn’t serious, that doesn’t need planning and preparations.

You don’t marry for a single reason. An enduring marriage survives on multiple tripods.

Your mistakes are not in his unfaithfulness but in his attitude and the violence that follows your every new discovery. While a marriage can endure unfaithfulness, only the living survives to tell of the story of violence. This is one time, you have to overlook the desires of your parents and face the challenge with all the seriousness it deserves.

Your life is the one at stake, not your parents’ or their image. Your father is the evangelist, not you. Even evangelists know when to give up.

If his beating is serious enough to get you admitted into hospital, there is the need for your families to know about it. Go to your parents and report the issue because if you leave it for too long, you might be driven to commit murder because when hatred gets to a boiling point, it can deaden all reasoning faculties.

As it is, you are already suffering dejection from his totalitarian approach to your matrimonial challenges. This is definitely something you cannot handle on your own. You need help to define your marriage and fashion a way out of your mistake.

It is either you keep quiet and continue to endure maltreatment or depression or take the bold step of making open a potentially dangerous trend. Telling your parents doesn’t automatically mean you are quitting the marriage but their own experiences and knowledge of God would offer you and your partner something to lean on with a view of managing your own peculiarities.

Don’t feel ashamed of anything, believe me, you don’t have the solution to this problem. A lot of women are contending with worse situations in their own marriages but the difference is in their willingness to get help.

You both need peace to settle the issue of his infertility. There is no way you two can ever discuss and solve any issue without first clearing out the deficit of trust.

Talking to your parents is not ridiculing your marriage or the image of your parents. As a matter of fact, the ridicule would come if you do something out of character.

Your husband has to be helped to realise that with a problem like the one he is facing, it can’t be solved going from the arms of one woman to another. He has to realise it is a very serious medical condition that not only needs the grace of God but a good attitude on his part to solve.

No doubt he has hurt you more than words can say but if you don’t find it in your heart to let go of these pains, the clarity and objectivity of mind to offer him help would not be easy for you to summon.

The knowledge that he might not be able to get you pregnant might be one of the top reasons for his attitude. Deep down, he understandably feels less than a man and might have convinced himself that you would eventually leave him hence sees no reason to be nice to you or elongate the marriage.

For a man, the knowledge that he cannot get a woman pregnant is crippling. Your husband may appear to you to be wicked or having all the fun in the world with the many women he is being unfaithful with, but his attitude is also a cry for help. He seems determined to ruin himself because he thinks there is nothing worth living for. Deep down he may feel that his life is completely ruined as a man.

This is the point you, your parents and his family have to step in to offer him a solid pair of shoulders, love and words of encouragement. The first step is to help him realise the damage he is causing you by beating you. Once he is made to realise that your love is unconditional and that violence would only drive you further from him and even cause him to lose his home, the tiny step of reformation would have started.

For now, you may have to relocate to your parents or another place to drive home the point that you don’t like to be treated like an animal but there is no way both of you can avoid discussing all the troubling issues in your marriage.

As part of your plans, include the option of child adoption. The fact that he has a medical condition doesn’t mean you cannot adopt children. Discussing the issue with him with all the honesty and care you can, would give him the assurance of being loved by you and make him consider constructive options instead of this path of self destruction he seems hooked on.

Let him know he has something worth living for in you.

Marriage is a voyage of sacrifices and patience. It is also a journey which requires wisdom at every point. If you react to the current situation without applying wisdom, there is the danger of you destroying your happiness forever. You may have married him for the wrong reasons but if he is the one God has destined you to be with, you may never find happiness with another man.

Leaving him completely isn’t a solution, at least for now. It is only when he refuses to change you can consider it as an option but for now, the option is to find ways of getting him to listen to and see the love you have for him through your support for his predicament.

This is the agenda you should present before your parents when you go to them for help.

Furthermore learn to pray for help and strength from God to be able to go through this period successfully because the pains of what is happening in your home now could make even the most sane woman make mistakes.

Good luck.

Thursday 23 June 2011

JUST A MUM?

A woman, renewing her driver’s licence, was asked by the woman at Registry to state her occupation. She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself. ‘What I mean is, ‘explained the woman at Registry, 'do you have a job or are you just a ...?' 'Of course I have a job,’ snapped the woman. ‘I’m a Mum.’ We don't list 'Mum' as an occupation, ‘housewife’ covers it,' Said the recorder emphatically.
I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation. The Clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, 'Official Interrogator' or 'City Registrar.' ‘What is your occupation?' she probed. What made me say it? I do not know. The words simply popped out.
'I'm a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.' The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in mid-air and looked up as though she had not heard right. I repeated the title slowly emphasizing the most significant words.
Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written, in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire. ‘Might I ask,' said the clerk with new interest, 'just what you do in your field?' Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice, I heard myself reply,
‘I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn't) in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out). I'm working for my Masters, (first the Lord and then the whole family) and already have four credits (all daughters).
Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money.' There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk's voice as she completed the form, stood up and personally ushered me to the door
As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants -- ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby) in the child development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt I had scored a beat on bureaucracy!
And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than 'just another Mum.' Motherhood! What a glorious career! Especially when there's a title on the door.
Does this make grandmothers? ‘Senior Research associates in the field of Child Development and Human Relations' and great grandmothers ‘Executive Senior Research Associates? I think so! I also think it makes Aunts, Associate Research Assistants.'
Please send this to another Mum, Grandmother, Aunt, and other friends you know. May your troubles be less, your blessing be more,And nothing but happiness come through your door! Be kinder than necessary. Everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle.
You never know when a moment and a few sincere words can have an impact on a life! Hi people, Enjoy!
Josephine Nzerem (Ashoka Fellow) Executive Director, Human Angle; Suite 24, Zuma Complex E Close, 202 Road, FESTAC Town Lagos, Nigeria Tel: +234.802.308.5551