By Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji
‘’ The Karonga water project in Malawi provided communal hand pumps to a population of 60,000. It included a four year maintenance phase after installation during which the project team maintained a high profile in the community and provided capacity building support. In 1997, two years after all project support ended, 95% of the hand pumps and boreholes were working, with 75% working ‘’well’’. Communities repaired their hand pumps and purchased spares when they needed them’’.
This project till date is a good example of successful water projects to development workers globally especially those working in the water and sanitation sector.
Based on a review of several sources, the financing gap for meeting Millennium Development Goals water and sanitation targets in Nigeria is approximately given as water is Naira 200 billion while sanitation is Naira 150 billion. Also based on available information, current budgets for water supply represent a small fraction of the financing requirements. The most significant budget allocation is at the federal level. It was estimated that over the period 2000 – 2005, allocations averaged some 4 billion Naira per year.
Actual releases are more difficult to determine but are known to be somewhat less. Available information indicates that secured financing covering the period 2005 - 2009 from major external support agencies such as the EU, DFID, JICA, UNICEF etc. is in the region of Naira 18bn. The actual figure may be somewhat less if the co-financing requirements of government are taken into account.
However, far beyond the financial requirement for such projects, the involvement of the community in all stages of any proposed water supply and sanitation programme in Nigeria is very crucial and should no longer be overlooked. Fairness and equity should be promoted through multi-stakeholder participation using appropriate participatory tools.
In view of this, it should be brought to the attention of the government at all tiers of governance in Nigeria, the many examples of community water and sanitation projects that were built and ended up being abandoned or broken down soon after commissioning. This was because the needs of most of those communities were taken for granted. ‘Top down Approaches’ was used and this meant that communities were given whatever projects the government thought fit. Those communities were never really consulted and their real ‘’felt’’ needs were never identified. This resulted in unwanted projects which were neglected and became ‘white elephants’.
Current realities demand the involvement of a community at all stages of a project. This is important in order to ensure that the community owns the project and willingly takes responsibility for it. The era of project implementation in which experts and officials made all decisions and the community were directed as to how they should participate is gone. Such projects are often products of poor participatory planning and design processes because the government or donors merely bring it, fixed support packages and work to tight schedules, often only ‘’informing’’ community (male) leaders, and lacking time and resources to engage in true consultation and capacity development.
It is important to highlight that the community is the end user of the proposed project. End user’s needs, especially those of poor women and men are at the basis of integrated needs-based planning processes that are cost-effective, socially equitable and environmentally sustainable. Community involvement is therefore essential to ensure genuinely sustainable projects particularly water and sanitation projects. In order to make sure that projects are sustainable, there is every need to identify clear steps in the project implementation process that will engage the community.
The involvement of the community in the proposed service provision will enable their commitment to it. The sustainability of the project will therefore depend on the quality of cooperation by the community at the various stages of the project implementation and even afterwards. However, it is often a challenge in many places to ensure long term sustainability of community participation and management. The Nigerian government and her development partners have a task to overcome this challenge by listing relevant strategies for community involvement and its approaches during project identification and design.
Effective participation in development projects affords communities greater control over decisions affecting their lives. Nigerian rural communities should no longer be denied such opportunities. By incorporating their ideas and values into the planning process, the prospects for appropriate and valued outcomes, and hence sustainability, are also much improved.
Community involvement in this case could be either through Community participation, Community management, Demand responsive approaches, Social marketing; Right based approach and partnership. If for example, the community participation approach is used then vital participatory tools will include processes that can enable the building of self esteem, sense of responsibility, increased awareness of problems/issues and options for change and capacity to change their own lives etc. The expected outputs therefore are decisions and solutions that are identified and implemented for greater common good in the community.
However, and to effectively achieve this, it is suggested that the community be involved in all stages of the project such as; First, Project identification stage; at this stage, community needs can be identified by assessing their development priorities. What do they really need at the moment? Or is their another immediate pressing need? Such need identification could be made using a variety of approaches like the Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA).
Second, Feasibility, design and planning; the important principle for community involvement in this phase of the project is to understand and collectively correct problem area and chart a way forward. It is imperative to ensure that the community takes part in site selection, survey, environmental impact assessment and many other investigations or discussions forming part of the feasibility and design. This may mean spending time explaining the design to key members of the community. The design must also consider community preferences and practices. Issues like capacity assessment, cost sharing and other relevant information are extracted or unveiled at this stage.
Third, construction, the roles of who should do what should be clear at this stage. Typical community roles during construction may include labour and/or gifts to labourers. The management committee and possibly other members of the community should be involved in measuring and approving the work carried out. This gives some level of project control to those involved.
Fourth; Operation and maintenance; the community should have a greater role and responsibility in the management and operation of the project; this is so because the community is the principal beneficiary. However, the operation and management of a water supply and sanitation requires awareness, skills and experience that many communities may lack. Community capacity may therefore be strengthened so that they can manage such new projects with ease. This stage has often richly demonstrated to bring immense benefits in terms of increased ownership and sustainable management.
And fifth; monitoring and evaluation; there is need to assist the community to develop suitable system for monitoring the performance of the water and sanitation infrastructure. This is important for management, re-adjustment or introduction of new approaches towards improving the new project when in use.
The adoption of community participation or management does not imply that the users must carry out all repairs and maintenance. No! only that they are responsible for ensuring that it gets done. It is also germane to emphasise that the way forward lies not in assigning all responsibility either to government or the community, but in matching community capacity to the capacity of government to provide an enabling, supportive environment.
Monday, 23 January 2012
Natural Gas: To flare or not to flare
By
Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji
I am not really enjoying the current debate amongst environmental stakeholders over the flaring of natural gas or otherwise. I have this nauseating feeling that this is uncalled for. It is uncalled for because the government policy on the environment should naturally be binding on all stakeholders. The issue of fixing and unfixing deadlines to gas flaring is risky.
I say so because the issue of stopping or not stopping gas flaring in Nigeria appears to be running on a roller coaster track, with alarming swoops downwards followed by exhilarating zooms upwards, and none of the riders quite sure what is going to happen next.
It is already stale news that Africa possesses abundant natural resources. That the abundance of these natural resources is yet to transit into economic well being to Africans is totally a different discuss. It is a fact that Africa possesses 99% of the world’s chrome resources, 85% of its platinum, 70% of its tantalite, 68% of its cobalt, and 54% of its gold, among other minerals. The continent has significant oil and gas reserves; the extent of which has not been definitely measured. It produces more gem quality diamonds than anywhere else.
The numbers speak for themselves; in 2006, annual FDI rose to a historic high of US$38.8bn, a record growth of 78% from 2004. According to the UN World Investment Report, the serious FDI cash was concentrated in a few industries, notably oil, gas and mining. And six oil- producing countries- Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Equitorial Guinea, Nigeria and Sudan – consumed nearly half of it.
But beyond the economic benefit; is the sheer inability of many African governments to manage the accruing environmental problems associated with exploration and development of these natural resources. Governments seem to be keener on the revenue coming into its purse than the general well being of the host environment.
In South Africa there are some environmental issues that have not really caught the attention of the government but the academia is now pushing it and this is the release of uranium into the atmosphere as well as the volume of tailings that is created with the mining of uranium.
According to Prof. Judith Kinnaird who is also a geologist and lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand it is a serious concern that much uranium is being lost to the environment, through the burning of coal that contains uranium, which according to her should be raised as an issue in intensifying debate on the reintroduction of nuclear energy.
There are many environmental issues that the government in Nigeria is yet to come to terms with in the oil and gas industry. One major environmental issue that the release or the reckless burning of gas into the atmosphere; another is the release of radioactive isotopes and chemicals in the processes of exploration and drilling. Both as well as many others are still continuing.
Despite the serial complaints by all oil producing communities and the global campaign against global warming; is the news that the government is granting further extension to gas flaring in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta. Nobody is doing anything at the moment about any palliative for all those whose health, livelihood and well being is being threatened as a result.
The technology of gas capture and storage should at this moment be impressive to the government. I say so because stopping gas flaring through gas capture and/or storage is imperative towards preventing the release into the atmosphere of gas so produced.
Gas from oil exploration is, of course, a key contributor to climate change, and the single biggest industrial source of gas emission is the burning of fossil fuels to exploit oil and produce energy.
The technology of gas capture and storage should be welcomed as a Best Environmental Practical Option. Already in Saskatchawan Canada, a carbon-capture and storage demo-plant has been built. This was a direct follow-up of the unsettling announcement by the United States Department of Energy of what was officially termed a restructuring of its futureGen Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project.
With the support of the Canadian Federal Government, the Saskatchawan Province undertook a C$4billion CCS demonstration project. CCS is directed at preventing the release into the atmosphere of CO2 produced by the industry.
Globally, fossil fuel account for some 33% of all carbon dioxide emissions caused by human activities. And, among fossil fuels, the biggest producer of such emission is coal. A single large power plant can generate 8million tons of carbon dioxide every year.
The idea of CCS, which if successfully adopted, would allow coal-fired power stations to remain in operation- and even for new ones to be built. This, in turn, would keep the coal mining as well as oil exploration industries in business. The alternative would be the phasing out of coal-fueled electricity generation and, with it, the phasing out of coal-mining and oil exploration worldwide.
A coal-fuelled power station with CCS could have 80% to 85% fewer emissions than one without CCS. With CCS, the carbon dioxide would be captured before it could be released into the air, and the sequested.
Sequestration would involve conveying the carbon dioxide, whether in gaseous, liquid, or supercritical form, by pipeline and/or road tanker and/or ship, through storage sites, to a location where it could be securely stored. The catch is that this sequestration has to endure for a very long time, indeed, - at least centuries, if not millennia.
And it must never be able to leak out in large quantities over a short period, for if it were to do so, it could cause large-scale suffocation. In theory- and, currently, in limited practice – the carbon dioxide can be injected into permeable geological formations, surrounded by impermeable rocks, such as deep saline formations, exhausted oil and gas reservoirs, unminable coal seams, and even abandoned coal mines etc.
The Federal Government and the National Assembly committees on Oil and Gas can explore the CCS option as well as many others and implant same into the prevailing policy in order to protect the environment and safeguard public health, livelihoods and general wellbeing.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji
I am not really enjoying the current debate amongst environmental stakeholders over the flaring of natural gas or otherwise. I have this nauseating feeling that this is uncalled for. It is uncalled for because the government policy on the environment should naturally be binding on all stakeholders. The issue of fixing and unfixing deadlines to gas flaring is risky.
I say so because the issue of stopping or not stopping gas flaring in Nigeria appears to be running on a roller coaster track, with alarming swoops downwards followed by exhilarating zooms upwards, and none of the riders quite sure what is going to happen next.
It is already stale news that Africa possesses abundant natural resources. That the abundance of these natural resources is yet to transit into economic well being to Africans is totally a different discuss. It is a fact that Africa possesses 99% of the world’s chrome resources, 85% of its platinum, 70% of its tantalite, 68% of its cobalt, and 54% of its gold, among other minerals. The continent has significant oil and gas reserves; the extent of which has not been definitely measured. It produces more gem quality diamonds than anywhere else.
The numbers speak for themselves; in 2006, annual FDI rose to a historic high of US$38.8bn, a record growth of 78% from 2004. According to the UN World Investment Report, the serious FDI cash was concentrated in a few industries, notably oil, gas and mining. And six oil- producing countries- Algeria, Chad, Egypt, Equitorial Guinea, Nigeria and Sudan – consumed nearly half of it.
But beyond the economic benefit; is the sheer inability of many African governments to manage the accruing environmental problems associated with exploration and development of these natural resources. Governments seem to be keener on the revenue coming into its purse than the general well being of the host environment.
In South Africa there are some environmental issues that have not really caught the attention of the government but the academia is now pushing it and this is the release of uranium into the atmosphere as well as the volume of tailings that is created with the mining of uranium.
According to Prof. Judith Kinnaird who is also a geologist and lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand it is a serious concern that much uranium is being lost to the environment, through the burning of coal that contains uranium, which according to her should be raised as an issue in intensifying debate on the reintroduction of nuclear energy.
There are many environmental issues that the government in Nigeria is yet to come to terms with in the oil and gas industry. One major environmental issue that the release or the reckless burning of gas into the atmosphere; another is the release of radioactive isotopes and chemicals in the processes of exploration and drilling. Both as well as many others are still continuing.
Despite the serial complaints by all oil producing communities and the global campaign against global warming; is the news that the government is granting further extension to gas flaring in Nigeria’s oil rich Niger Delta. Nobody is doing anything at the moment about any palliative for all those whose health, livelihood and well being is being threatened as a result.
The technology of gas capture and storage should at this moment be impressive to the government. I say so because stopping gas flaring through gas capture and/or storage is imperative towards preventing the release into the atmosphere of gas so produced.
Gas from oil exploration is, of course, a key contributor to climate change, and the single biggest industrial source of gas emission is the burning of fossil fuels to exploit oil and produce energy.
The technology of gas capture and storage should be welcomed as a Best Environmental Practical Option. Already in Saskatchawan Canada, a carbon-capture and storage demo-plant has been built. This was a direct follow-up of the unsettling announcement by the United States Department of Energy of what was officially termed a restructuring of its futureGen Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project.
With the support of the Canadian Federal Government, the Saskatchawan Province undertook a C$4billion CCS demonstration project. CCS is directed at preventing the release into the atmosphere of CO2 produced by the industry.
Globally, fossil fuel account for some 33% of all carbon dioxide emissions caused by human activities. And, among fossil fuels, the biggest producer of such emission is coal. A single large power plant can generate 8million tons of carbon dioxide every year.
The idea of CCS, which if successfully adopted, would allow coal-fired power stations to remain in operation- and even for new ones to be built. This, in turn, would keep the coal mining as well as oil exploration industries in business. The alternative would be the phasing out of coal-fueled electricity generation and, with it, the phasing out of coal-mining and oil exploration worldwide.
A coal-fuelled power station with CCS could have 80% to 85% fewer emissions than one without CCS. With CCS, the carbon dioxide would be captured before it could be released into the air, and the sequested.
Sequestration would involve conveying the carbon dioxide, whether in gaseous, liquid, or supercritical form, by pipeline and/or road tanker and/or ship, through storage sites, to a location where it could be securely stored. The catch is that this sequestration has to endure for a very long time, indeed, - at least centuries, if not millennia.
And it must never be able to leak out in large quantities over a short period, for if it were to do so, it could cause large-scale suffocation. In theory- and, currently, in limited practice – the carbon dioxide can be injected into permeable geological formations, surrounded by impermeable rocks, such as deep saline formations, exhausted oil and gas reservoirs, unminable coal seams, and even abandoned coal mines etc.
The Federal Government and the National Assembly committees on Oil and Gas can explore the CCS option as well as many others and implant same into the prevailing policy in order to protect the environment and safeguard public health, livelihoods and general wellbeing.
Friday, 20 January 2012
Engaging Civil Societies for Sustainable Development.
It has become necessary to talk about the work of civil society organizations in our communities and their engagement by the government in the delivering of good governance or the so called dividends of democracy. This discussion has become vital in the face of development demands across the globe.
Government and people across the world are re-discovering, and attaching more importance to civil society. This realm includes NGOs, but extends well beyond them to encompass people’s organizations, trade unions, and human rights bodies, associations of business and professional people’s organizations and so forth. All may be found in the domain termed civil space, and thus are called Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
Civil Society is the collective noun, while “civic group” are the individual organizations that constitute the sector. The myriad of civic organizations in civil society include, but are not limited to non-governmental organizations (NG0s),people’s and professional organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, consumer and human rights groups, women associations, youth clubs, independent radio, television, print and electronic media, neighborhood or community-based coalitions, religious groups, academic and research institutions, grassroots movements and organizations of indigenous peoples. Where there is no civil society, there can be no political society.
Civil Society is that realm between the household and the state, populated by voluntary groups and associations, sharing common interests and largely autonomous from the state. Within the core of the concept are intermediate institutions and private groups that thrive between the realm of the state and household such as voluntary associations, charities, religious associations, social clubs, professional groups and trade unions. NGOs and the media also fall within the list.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) however differ from this pack by being private, voluntary, non-profit organizations or social enterprises that operate primarily to enhance the social and economic well being of a community. In making this distinction, I make bold to emphasize that not every organization in civil society necessarily plays a positive role, or reflects genuine associational life that is relevant to sustainable development.
Some CSOs lack positive purposes or authenticity, or both. Moreover, civil society is not necessarily a place of harmony. Competition and destructive conflict can take place in this realm. But by the same token, civil society can serve as a place to vent grievances, open channels of communication and thus to build a basis for social harmony.
Poverty reduction outcomes can be broader, deeper, and more sustainable where appropriate stakeholder groups in civil society help design, steer, and otherwise participate in them. Those actors can reinforce public sector institutions, while not substituting for them. CSOs therefore have instrumental value with respect to the development targets, although they should not be viewed as mere instruments or contractors.
Organizations representing key constituencies in public life, including independent and credible organizations that monitor, analyze and report trends in public life, possess increasing capacities to stimulate open processes of public and private sector policy-making. The adoption of open and responsive, honest and competent governance by the government; such approaches can and should promote and involve active and responsible citizens, and other key civil society actors.
CSOs can (for example)contribute to good governance by focusing of their attention on issues that can inform and alert citizens, thus improving the quality of popular participation in the framing of public policies and managing of public resources, programs and institutions ; their active presence can help channel and amplify claims in defense of the rule of law and protection of human rights, thus reinforcing public support to an enabling legal framework ; their monitoring and reporting of policy issues and performance of public institutions can help improve transparency and accountability; their raising of awareness and understanding can promote checks and balances and practices of the public and private sectors, thereby building-up public confidence in intentions and competences, and curb tendencies towards corrupt, mal-administration etc; an independent media (radio, television, written and electronic press)can promote public understanding of key issues, build the stock of human capital and contribute to citizen participation in governance.
Civil Organizations can often help fight material poverty and exclusion, often in alliance with the public and private sectors. Those CSOs possessing either specific sectoral knowledge and skills, or broad public legitimacy or responsive bodies can improve outcomes for well being and equity by providing access to local information and know-how for problem solving and opinions that improve project design; empowering poorer, more remote or otherwise excluded people to claim and negotiate access to public resources; enabling people to participate in market economies with greater powers as producers and consumers; promoting private sector development at the local level (for example, through the delivery of micro-finance services and support to micro-entrepreneurs and informal sector workers);developing and domesticating innovations that can be scaled up by others; delivering appropriate services to local communities or specific social categories that regular public service bodies are unable to reach; empowering poor women and men to articulate their views, priorities and strategize to overcome their marginalization and poverty; serving to distill best practices and documenting lessons learned from local, national and regional experiences.
CSOs can help people become active agents of their own development rather than passive recipients. They can serve as interlocutors helping to build a shared sense of ownership and commitments to the development process and of responsibility for seeing them realized and sustained. They can help improve communication and collaboration across public/private boundaries, and across social, economic and political frontiers within regions and beyond.
Sadly it remains to be seen how open and generous the Nigerian government could be in engaging the civil society. It is glaring that pretences of the highest order in this regard already exist at the federal level. The situation at both the state and local levels is nothing to write home about. A reason for this is the inertia of government to be transparent because of the parochial interest of its officials. Also responsible for this is the failure of the government to admit that relevant or even superior skills exist in civil societies more than what is often found within the public or civil service. Government should also be made to admit that democracy is all about popular participation of diverse groups and should NOT be limited to only political party members. The consequence of such recalcitrance is unmitigated corruption and poor performance by the political office holders and their lackeys. It is germane to call on the national assembly as well as other legislative houses to come up with relevant laws that will broadly define the modus operandi for the engagement of other well informed well trained and highly skilled groups like the civil societies especially the NGOs. Till governance is made a multi-stakeholder process which recognizes and incorporates the inputs and roles of the civil society; the much trumpeted eldorado may remain utopian.
Government and people across the world are re-discovering, and attaching more importance to civil society. This realm includes NGOs, but extends well beyond them to encompass people’s organizations, trade unions, and human rights bodies, associations of business and professional people’s organizations and so forth. All may be found in the domain termed civil space, and thus are called Civil Society Organizations (CSOs).
Civil Society is the collective noun, while “civic group” are the individual organizations that constitute the sector. The myriad of civic organizations in civil society include, but are not limited to non-governmental organizations (NG0s),people’s and professional organizations, trade unions, cooperatives, consumer and human rights groups, women associations, youth clubs, independent radio, television, print and electronic media, neighborhood or community-based coalitions, religious groups, academic and research institutions, grassroots movements and organizations of indigenous peoples. Where there is no civil society, there can be no political society.
Civil Society is that realm between the household and the state, populated by voluntary groups and associations, sharing common interests and largely autonomous from the state. Within the core of the concept are intermediate institutions and private groups that thrive between the realm of the state and household such as voluntary associations, charities, religious associations, social clubs, professional groups and trade unions. NGOs and the media also fall within the list.
Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) however differ from this pack by being private, voluntary, non-profit organizations or social enterprises that operate primarily to enhance the social and economic well being of a community. In making this distinction, I make bold to emphasize that not every organization in civil society necessarily plays a positive role, or reflects genuine associational life that is relevant to sustainable development.
Some CSOs lack positive purposes or authenticity, or both. Moreover, civil society is not necessarily a place of harmony. Competition and destructive conflict can take place in this realm. But by the same token, civil society can serve as a place to vent grievances, open channels of communication and thus to build a basis for social harmony.
Poverty reduction outcomes can be broader, deeper, and more sustainable where appropriate stakeholder groups in civil society help design, steer, and otherwise participate in them. Those actors can reinforce public sector institutions, while not substituting for them. CSOs therefore have instrumental value with respect to the development targets, although they should not be viewed as mere instruments or contractors.
Organizations representing key constituencies in public life, including independent and credible organizations that monitor, analyze and report trends in public life, possess increasing capacities to stimulate open processes of public and private sector policy-making. The adoption of open and responsive, honest and competent governance by the government; such approaches can and should promote and involve active and responsible citizens, and other key civil society actors.
CSOs can (for example)contribute to good governance by focusing of their attention on issues that can inform and alert citizens, thus improving the quality of popular participation in the framing of public policies and managing of public resources, programs and institutions ; their active presence can help channel and amplify claims in defense of the rule of law and protection of human rights, thus reinforcing public support to an enabling legal framework ; their monitoring and reporting of policy issues and performance of public institutions can help improve transparency and accountability; their raising of awareness and understanding can promote checks and balances and practices of the public and private sectors, thereby building-up public confidence in intentions and competences, and curb tendencies towards corrupt, mal-administration etc; an independent media (radio, television, written and electronic press)can promote public understanding of key issues, build the stock of human capital and contribute to citizen participation in governance.
Civil Organizations can often help fight material poverty and exclusion, often in alliance with the public and private sectors. Those CSOs possessing either specific sectoral knowledge and skills, or broad public legitimacy or responsive bodies can improve outcomes for well being and equity by providing access to local information and know-how for problem solving and opinions that improve project design; empowering poorer, more remote or otherwise excluded people to claim and negotiate access to public resources; enabling people to participate in market economies with greater powers as producers and consumers; promoting private sector development at the local level (for example, through the delivery of micro-finance services and support to micro-entrepreneurs and informal sector workers);developing and domesticating innovations that can be scaled up by others; delivering appropriate services to local communities or specific social categories that regular public service bodies are unable to reach; empowering poor women and men to articulate their views, priorities and strategize to overcome their marginalization and poverty; serving to distill best practices and documenting lessons learned from local, national and regional experiences.
CSOs can help people become active agents of their own development rather than passive recipients. They can serve as interlocutors helping to build a shared sense of ownership and commitments to the development process and of responsibility for seeing them realized and sustained. They can help improve communication and collaboration across public/private boundaries, and across social, economic and political frontiers within regions and beyond.
Sadly it remains to be seen how open and generous the Nigerian government could be in engaging the civil society. It is glaring that pretences of the highest order in this regard already exist at the federal level. The situation at both the state and local levels is nothing to write home about. A reason for this is the inertia of government to be transparent because of the parochial interest of its officials. Also responsible for this is the failure of the government to admit that relevant or even superior skills exist in civil societies more than what is often found within the public or civil service. Government should also be made to admit that democracy is all about popular participation of diverse groups and should NOT be limited to only political party members. The consequence of such recalcitrance is unmitigated corruption and poor performance by the political office holders and their lackeys. It is germane to call on the national assembly as well as other legislative houses to come up with relevant laws that will broadly define the modus operandi for the engagement of other well informed well trained and highly skilled groups like the civil societies especially the NGOs. Till governance is made a multi-stakeholder process which recognizes and incorporates the inputs and roles of the civil society; the much trumpeted eldorado may remain utopian.
Rising Death toll on Nigerian Roads
By
Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji
For many years now I have come to retain one nasty phobia for traveling on local roads in my country Nigeria. The very poor state of these roads and the avalanche of rickety vehicles plying on them make my heart skip all the time. Incidences of arm robbery are also another inevitable sour reality. The events of 2002 has stuck like glue in my memory ever since. The event was an auto accident I had while on my return trip from Aba along the ever busy Aba-Owerri road. That accident took place along the Okpala axis. Then, I was a passenger in a commuter bus that was traveling from Aba to Owerri. I never knew the bus was to become ill-fated.
Along the way and in the course of the trip, the bus had a burst tyre and somersaulted. It somersaulted for about seven times before it came to a stop. At the end of this ghastly incident, nine innocent citizens of Nigeria out of fourteen passengers on board the bus laid dead. It was a ghastly scene!
It was all a nasty and bizarre experience. When this happened, traffic on that busy express way came to an abrupt standstill just as life came to an abrupt end for all the dead nine.I wonder how life has been ever since for all those they left behind. However, when this happened a few other users of the road who were benevolent and kind hearted gave a helping hand by assisting to get the wounded to the nearest hospital and evacuating the dead to the nearest morgue.
Though fatally wounded and weakened I was a little conscious and well alive. I was not dead as my God did not allow me to make such an untimely transition. My state of immobility and immense weakness exposed me to the vagaries of gross incapacitation. For a while I was a hand-capped. As a result of this, I was at the mercy of passers by. It also damned on me at that point that the Nigerian system is actually comatose.
Genuine effort made by good Samaritans to take us to the local clinics for any available first aid service was least successful as almost all the clinics had nothing to offer. In some of these clinics it was outright rejection of casualties by their owners as they lacked the emergency wherewithal, while in others the medical directors/personnel were away hence leaving their clinics bereft of any intervention input because those left behind i.e. the nurses were ‘empty’. Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing good came out from any of those local clinics in Okpala. The result was a recorded high number of the dead.
Sadly again my 2002 experience came alive again in a most macabre and tragic manner five years later and that was five weeks ago. This time around the scene of the accident was still along the busy Aba-Owerri road but this time along the Owerrinta village. This time, a commuter bus with a total of 18 passengers rammed into a trailer and killed all passengers. A bizarre sight was the death of three family members; a mother and her two daughters, the first daughter and the last, a baby of nine months. I was at the scene as my vehicle was a little behind the casualty commuter bus. Only one man out of the whole lot survived the ghastly impact.
The scene to say the least was a theatre of the absurd as men; women and children both young and old got dead trapped in the ill-fatted bus. Rescure efforts were totally abysmal this time around. I took it upon myself bearing in mind my past experiences in 2002 to help in carrying both the dead and the wounded. Together with other good Samaritans we combed the villages for medical support but to no avail. Most of those casualties who perhaps could have been revived died in the course of these search for support.
Two weeks after the first accident, it was also in the news that three buses rammed into each other along the Owerri-Port-Harcourt Road. It was reported that over 33 persons lost their lives in this ghastly accident. The most painful aspect of the news was that a mysterious fire that emanated from the ensuing collision got all of them burnt beyond recognition. All of them were subsequently interred in a mass grave nearby the accident scene a few days later. Another accident has also been reported from Jos, Plateau State were a group of journalists on the entourage of Ex-Gov. Joshua Dariye lost their lives just a week ago.
These events when related with many other such accidents happening all over the country leaves a sour taste for all well meaning Nigerians. One is startled to wonder when all these nonsense will stop. When will the government get alive to its responsibilities and make the country a better place for all especially the poor who are often the victims of such accidents.
Dying on the road in Nigeria is fast becoming a heritage for most Nigerians. The close pace at which it keeps occurring makes bare the rot that has infested our country. In the face of all these politicians are busy prancing on the stage without bordering to give a serious thought to all these.
One sour reality emanating there from is that most of the vehicles plying our roads are no longer road worthy. Unqualified and reckless drivers are plying our roads with the consequences getting unabated. In most places the roads are totally bad or spoilt and in most places embellished with a lot of pot holes.
The poor state of emergency response at both the local and public scenes leaves much to be desired. This is compounded by the sheer absence of quality health care facilities all over the villages. The result is that many people get fatally wounded and many never survive.
I do not wish to be involved again hence the need to take a more serious look at the road transport sector. Why can’t alternative transport means be developed and optimized? How long will the plan to revive the rail transportation sector get concrete? When are we expecting a better and much more robust air transport?
In raising all the foregoing posers, I stand to make it categorical that the Federal Road Marshalls may not be able to tackle these problems alone. They need every support by both government and individuals. All the requisite and appropriate budgetary allocations must be fully released and on time too. NGO organization could be extended to this area.
However the bulk of of the onus lies on the government. It behooves the government to optimally use public funds for public course as anything remote from this is evil.
Joachim Ibeziako Ezeji
For many years now I have come to retain one nasty phobia for traveling on local roads in my country Nigeria. The very poor state of these roads and the avalanche of rickety vehicles plying on them make my heart skip all the time. Incidences of arm robbery are also another inevitable sour reality. The events of 2002 has stuck like glue in my memory ever since. The event was an auto accident I had while on my return trip from Aba along the ever busy Aba-Owerri road. That accident took place along the Okpala axis. Then, I was a passenger in a commuter bus that was traveling from Aba to Owerri. I never knew the bus was to become ill-fated.
Along the way and in the course of the trip, the bus had a burst tyre and somersaulted. It somersaulted for about seven times before it came to a stop. At the end of this ghastly incident, nine innocent citizens of Nigeria out of fourteen passengers on board the bus laid dead. It was a ghastly scene!
It was all a nasty and bizarre experience. When this happened, traffic on that busy express way came to an abrupt standstill just as life came to an abrupt end for all the dead nine.I wonder how life has been ever since for all those they left behind. However, when this happened a few other users of the road who were benevolent and kind hearted gave a helping hand by assisting to get the wounded to the nearest hospital and evacuating the dead to the nearest morgue.
Though fatally wounded and weakened I was a little conscious and well alive. I was not dead as my God did not allow me to make such an untimely transition. My state of immobility and immense weakness exposed me to the vagaries of gross incapacitation. For a while I was a hand-capped. As a result of this, I was at the mercy of passers by. It also damned on me at that point that the Nigerian system is actually comatose.
Genuine effort made by good Samaritans to take us to the local clinics for any available first aid service was least successful as almost all the clinics had nothing to offer. In some of these clinics it was outright rejection of casualties by their owners as they lacked the emergency wherewithal, while in others the medical directors/personnel were away hence leaving their clinics bereft of any intervention input because those left behind i.e. the nurses were ‘empty’. Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing good came out from any of those local clinics in Okpala. The result was a recorded high number of the dead.
Sadly again my 2002 experience came alive again in a most macabre and tragic manner five years later and that was five weeks ago. This time around the scene of the accident was still along the busy Aba-Owerri road but this time along the Owerrinta village. This time, a commuter bus with a total of 18 passengers rammed into a trailer and killed all passengers. A bizarre sight was the death of three family members; a mother and her two daughters, the first daughter and the last, a baby of nine months. I was at the scene as my vehicle was a little behind the casualty commuter bus. Only one man out of the whole lot survived the ghastly impact.
The scene to say the least was a theatre of the absurd as men; women and children both young and old got dead trapped in the ill-fatted bus. Rescure efforts were totally abysmal this time around. I took it upon myself bearing in mind my past experiences in 2002 to help in carrying both the dead and the wounded. Together with other good Samaritans we combed the villages for medical support but to no avail. Most of those casualties who perhaps could have been revived died in the course of these search for support.
Two weeks after the first accident, it was also in the news that three buses rammed into each other along the Owerri-Port-Harcourt Road. It was reported that over 33 persons lost their lives in this ghastly accident. The most painful aspect of the news was that a mysterious fire that emanated from the ensuing collision got all of them burnt beyond recognition. All of them were subsequently interred in a mass grave nearby the accident scene a few days later. Another accident has also been reported from Jos, Plateau State were a group of journalists on the entourage of Ex-Gov. Joshua Dariye lost their lives just a week ago.
These events when related with many other such accidents happening all over the country leaves a sour taste for all well meaning Nigerians. One is startled to wonder when all these nonsense will stop. When will the government get alive to its responsibilities and make the country a better place for all especially the poor who are often the victims of such accidents.
Dying on the road in Nigeria is fast becoming a heritage for most Nigerians. The close pace at which it keeps occurring makes bare the rot that has infested our country. In the face of all these politicians are busy prancing on the stage without bordering to give a serious thought to all these.
One sour reality emanating there from is that most of the vehicles plying our roads are no longer road worthy. Unqualified and reckless drivers are plying our roads with the consequences getting unabated. In most places the roads are totally bad or spoilt and in most places embellished with a lot of pot holes.
The poor state of emergency response at both the local and public scenes leaves much to be desired. This is compounded by the sheer absence of quality health care facilities all over the villages. The result is that many people get fatally wounded and many never survive.
I do not wish to be involved again hence the need to take a more serious look at the road transport sector. Why can’t alternative transport means be developed and optimized? How long will the plan to revive the rail transportation sector get concrete? When are we expecting a better and much more robust air transport?
In raising all the foregoing posers, I stand to make it categorical that the Federal Road Marshalls may not be able to tackle these problems alone. They need every support by both government and individuals. All the requisite and appropriate budgetary allocations must be fully released and on time too. NGO organization could be extended to this area.
However the bulk of of the onus lies on the government. It behooves the government to optimally use public funds for public course as anything remote from this is evil.
Ezeji : A resolute Commitment to Clean Water
JOACHIM IBEZIAKO EZEJI is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Rural Africa Water Development Project (RAWDP), a leading Nigerian Water and Sanitation Non-governmental Organization. He founded the organization in 2000.
The organization has a coterie of objectives that includes;
(i) The promotion of public health through appropriate water, sanitation and hygiene interventions.
(ii) The improvement of access to safe drinking water through household water treatment technologies and other interventions.
(iii) The promotion of the productive uses and management of water as a poverty alleviation strategy.
(iv) The promotion of gender concerns in water and sanitation projects.
Born to celebrate his birthdays on 9th November, Mr.Joachim Ezeji, an Imo State Nigerian born social entrepreneur, is also currently an author and policy analyst in Nigeria where he lives. Before then he trained as a geologist at the University of Calabar, Nigeria, graduating with a Bachelors (Honours.) degree .While at Calabar he served as the 1996/97 President of the Rotaract Club of the University of Calabar which he capped up with a Rotary International Presidential Citation in February 1997.He later had a Master of Science degree in Water and Environmental Management from the Loughborough University, UK in 2006.
Professional activities:
Joachim’s many years practical experience on household sanitation and water treatment enabled him to coordinate many sanitation and water projects in Nigeria. In 2005 Joachim was among few Nigerians short listed for the National Honours of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, possibly in appreciation of his laudable community development initiatives. He retains core professional competence and interest in utility management, water source development, the productive uses of water, household water treatment, sanitation improvement, applied research and consultancy.
He takes pleasure at attending local and international conferences and symposia to espouse his innovations and community development works. These have greatly enabled him to traverse widely in the United States, Europe and South America as well as many parts of Africa. He has many scholarly publications to his credit and is published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).In 2006 he was among the very few Africans that were invited to speak at the World Water Forum in Mexico.
Joachim takes great interest in creativity and innovative thinking, research and networking. In 2005, he was awarded the Peoples choice most creative idea award of World Bank Development Marketplace in Washington DC.USA, and in 2006 was elected a grant winner by a coterie of widely composed international jury at the same forum. The World Bank grant is to facilitate the scaling-up of the Mor-Sand filter in 7 oil producing communities in Nigeria. That project is currently on-going and has successfully been introduced and adopted in communities in Izombe in Imo State, Owaza in Abia State and Egbema in Rivers State.
The Mor-Sand Filter, a household water treatment device, is primarily Joachim’s innovation. It is an improved adaptation of the age-long slow sand filter. It recognizes and integrates the fact that the combination of coagulation and filtration is very effective in significantly reducing the concentration of microorganisms and hence the burden of disinfection. It markedly differs from the conventional slow-sand filter by its adoption of a Moringa layer in addition to the naturally forming bio-layer in the former. This layer offers coagulation, a traditional first unit process in conventional water treatment that is crucial for the removal of impurities in water. Proper coagulation followed by sedimentation and filtration achieves more than 99% reduction in bacteria and viruses. Since the debut of his innovation in 2005, Joachim has been greeted with a number of international awards from many reputable groups including the World Bank in Washington; The Tech-Museum of Innovation in San Jose California and the Santa Clara University, San Jose; all based in the United States.
Awards and Honours:
Special Invitation from the Right Hon. Clare Short M.P, the Secretary of State for International Development UK, to a Reception to mark the publication of “Making connections: infrastructure for Poverty Reduction” in London, 2002.
The African Development Bank (ADB) 40th Anniversary Innovative Project Competition first prize award, Sept. 2004.
The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), WASH Media Awards, November 2004.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria National Award Nominee, July 2005.
The World Bank, Development Marketplace Peoples’ choice, ‘Most Creative Idea Award’, May 2005.
The World Bank, Development Marketplace Project Grant Award, Washington DC, May 2006.
The Business in Development Challenge (BID) Award, Amsterdam, October 2006.
The Tech Museum Award for Innovation, San Jose California, November 2006.
Projects of Excellence:
• Rural Household Bio-Sand Filter Installations; sponsored by the African Development Bank. A safe water intervention that also included Value Based Water, Sanitation promotion and Hygiene Education in local households. The project started in June 2003 and covered 2,000 households in Nigeria.
• Urban Water Quality Test Campaigns sponsored by the International Water Association and American Clean Water Foundation (Sept. – Oct. 2004-2005). A global educational exercise designed to raise awareness and stimulate interest in the importance of clean water for everyone on the plane.
• Participatory Water and Sanitation Assessment Exercise that involved urban stakeholder teams in Jos, Nigeria. It was Water for African Cities Phase II (WAC II) Project that also had a gender lens (2005).
• Moringa oleifera (Mo) for clean water project sponsored by the World Bank and consists of the cultivation, promotion and marketing of the ground seeds of Mo as an alternative conditioner in water treatment (2005).
• Geophysical surveys and Borehole drilling program in urban, peri-urban and rural parts of Eastern Nigeria, 1998 till date and are sponsored by private owners/users.
• Mor-sand filter for oil producing communities’ project sponsored by the World Bank, and consists of the manufacturing, training of community youths and marketing of these clean water filters in environmentally degraded oil producing communities in Niger delta region Nigeria.
Others:
In celebrating our young and up-ward moving social entrepreneur of the season, NewsPoint Newspapers Nigeria takes pride to reveal that Mr. Joachim Ezeji is currently a Rotarian of the Rotary Club of Owerri.We salute Mr. Ezeji and wish him better years ahead.
The organization has a coterie of objectives that includes;
(i) The promotion of public health through appropriate water, sanitation and hygiene interventions.
(ii) The improvement of access to safe drinking water through household water treatment technologies and other interventions.
(iii) The promotion of the productive uses and management of water as a poverty alleviation strategy.
(iv) The promotion of gender concerns in water and sanitation projects.
Born to celebrate his birthdays on 9th November, Mr.Joachim Ezeji, an Imo State Nigerian born social entrepreneur, is also currently an author and policy analyst in Nigeria where he lives. Before then he trained as a geologist at the University of Calabar, Nigeria, graduating with a Bachelors (Honours.) degree .While at Calabar he served as the 1996/97 President of the Rotaract Club of the University of Calabar which he capped up with a Rotary International Presidential Citation in February 1997.He later had a Master of Science degree in Water and Environmental Management from the Loughborough University, UK in 2006.
Professional activities:
Joachim’s many years practical experience on household sanitation and water treatment enabled him to coordinate many sanitation and water projects in Nigeria. In 2005 Joachim was among few Nigerians short listed for the National Honours of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, possibly in appreciation of his laudable community development initiatives. He retains core professional competence and interest in utility management, water source development, the productive uses of water, household water treatment, sanitation improvement, applied research and consultancy.
He takes pleasure at attending local and international conferences and symposia to espouse his innovations and community development works. These have greatly enabled him to traverse widely in the United States, Europe and South America as well as many parts of Africa. He has many scholarly publications to his credit and is published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).In 2006 he was among the very few Africans that were invited to speak at the World Water Forum in Mexico.
Joachim takes great interest in creativity and innovative thinking, research and networking. In 2005, he was awarded the Peoples choice most creative idea award of World Bank Development Marketplace in Washington DC.USA, and in 2006 was elected a grant winner by a coterie of widely composed international jury at the same forum. The World Bank grant is to facilitate the scaling-up of the Mor-Sand filter in 7 oil producing communities in Nigeria. That project is currently on-going and has successfully been introduced and adopted in communities in Izombe in Imo State, Owaza in Abia State and Egbema in Rivers State.
The Mor-Sand Filter, a household water treatment device, is primarily Joachim’s innovation. It is an improved adaptation of the age-long slow sand filter. It recognizes and integrates the fact that the combination of coagulation and filtration is very effective in significantly reducing the concentration of microorganisms and hence the burden of disinfection. It markedly differs from the conventional slow-sand filter by its adoption of a Moringa layer in addition to the naturally forming bio-layer in the former. This layer offers coagulation, a traditional first unit process in conventional water treatment that is crucial for the removal of impurities in water. Proper coagulation followed by sedimentation and filtration achieves more than 99% reduction in bacteria and viruses. Since the debut of his innovation in 2005, Joachim has been greeted with a number of international awards from many reputable groups including the World Bank in Washington; The Tech-Museum of Innovation in San Jose California and the Santa Clara University, San Jose; all based in the United States.
Awards and Honours:
Special Invitation from the Right Hon. Clare Short M.P, the Secretary of State for International Development UK, to a Reception to mark the publication of “Making connections: infrastructure for Poverty Reduction” in London, 2002.
The African Development Bank (ADB) 40th Anniversary Innovative Project Competition first prize award, Sept. 2004.
The Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative Council (WSSCC), WASH Media Awards, November 2004.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria National Award Nominee, July 2005.
The World Bank, Development Marketplace Peoples’ choice, ‘Most Creative Idea Award’, May 2005.
The World Bank, Development Marketplace Project Grant Award, Washington DC, May 2006.
The Business in Development Challenge (BID) Award, Amsterdam, October 2006.
The Tech Museum Award for Innovation, San Jose California, November 2006.
Projects of Excellence:
• Rural Household Bio-Sand Filter Installations; sponsored by the African Development Bank. A safe water intervention that also included Value Based Water, Sanitation promotion and Hygiene Education in local households. The project started in June 2003 and covered 2,000 households in Nigeria.
• Urban Water Quality Test Campaigns sponsored by the International Water Association and American Clean Water Foundation (Sept. – Oct. 2004-2005). A global educational exercise designed to raise awareness and stimulate interest in the importance of clean water for everyone on the plane.
• Participatory Water and Sanitation Assessment Exercise that involved urban stakeholder teams in Jos, Nigeria. It was Water for African Cities Phase II (WAC II) Project that also had a gender lens (2005).
• Moringa oleifera (Mo) for clean water project sponsored by the World Bank and consists of the cultivation, promotion and marketing of the ground seeds of Mo as an alternative conditioner in water treatment (2005).
• Geophysical surveys and Borehole drilling program in urban, peri-urban and rural parts of Eastern Nigeria, 1998 till date and are sponsored by private owners/users.
• Mor-sand filter for oil producing communities’ project sponsored by the World Bank, and consists of the manufacturing, training of community youths and marketing of these clean water filters in environmentally degraded oil producing communities in Niger delta region Nigeria.
Others:
In celebrating our young and up-ward moving social entrepreneur of the season, NewsPoint Newspapers Nigeria takes pride to reveal that Mr. Joachim Ezeji is currently a Rotarian of the Rotary Club of Owerri.We salute Mr. Ezeji and wish him better years ahead.
Living On Borrowed Robes
By Joachim I.Ezeji
santajayinc@yahoo.com.
It often amazes me why some people have a high tendency for fake appearances. Some people have the penchant for titles and awards that they can simply do any thing under the sun to advance these tendencies. The following stories may explain these issues better.
I still remember my undergraduate days like yesterday; and that was nine years ago. I remember most especially the events that preceded my election in 1995 as the President of the Rotaract club of the University of Calabar and thereafter. Most lucid in my memory was how consensus was easily galvanized and opposition crumbled to give me maximum support and solidarity vital for a successful service year - the 1996/97.
Just like yesterday, I also remember my effort to get elected into the governing board of the World Water Council (WWC),an event that preceded the fourth world water forum in Mexico in March 2006.I had arrived Mexico very early in March with high hopes of securing a seat in the revered board. This hope was relatively anchored on my being the sole sub-Saharan African present in the Mexico general meeting at that point in time.
I also remember how in 2003 I received a letter of an offer of an honorary doctorate award from an Obinze Owerri based missionary representative of an American University. I had then shared the news with some of my friends, many of them gave a nod that I should go ahead and receive the award, but a few vehemently insisted I reject it because as a young man I could still academically ‘muscle up’ a PhD through due process. They saw the honorary award as being unwarranted and diversionary. To them the motive of the awarding institution was lucre driven. I did finally heed to the minority view and ignored the award in addition to the monetary requirement. Hitherto the senders of that letter have not relented. I have year after year received same letter from same institution and others.
At Calabar, especially on top of the trappings that move in tandem with such a high student office of being Rotaract Club President in a largely cosmopolitan tertiary institution, I came to realize how ephemeral positions could become in life. I also realized what it means to drop names and live on borrowed robes.
I might not have lived on borrowed robes but many of my acquaintances did. Then, many of us took pleasure in renting accommodation in highbrow areas of the ancient Calabar town. Many of us were busy looking and appearing our best on expensive designer outfits. Though these were innocent actions as no mischief were intended, but life after school eased the scales from our eyes. At school we were basically on the payroll of our parents and therefore came up with all sorts of antics to enable us maintain those exotic lifestyles. Some of us were also into many other trades in order to make more money and live like 'kings'. Yes we did live like 'kings' in school. Those of us who really lived well above their social standing became the first casualties especially when job hunts remained unsuccessful years after graduation.
At Mexico, all nationalities were represented. The World Water Council (WWC) board I craved to gain a board seat on, also had two other Nigerian aspirants. Then other Nigerians could not arrive Mexico on time, and as such were absent all through the WWC council meetings and elections. However, and despite their absence, one of them made it into the board. Reason for this victory was simple; the council’s leadership had insisted that people could still be voted even in absentia because they took cognizance of visa and flight difficulties being experienced by delegates from Africa. Elections into the council came via colleges and there were seven of such. Two of those were the NGO College and the other the Utility/enterprises College. Each college had a maximally allotted number of seats. While the NGO College had 5 seats to be contested for by a whopping 35 delegates; the utility/enterprises college had 10 seats allotted it with a mere 9 delegates vying for them. The only winning Nigerian was on that college while the loser two came from the NGO group.
Having concluded our outing in Mexico, all delegates had to return home. What happened? The only Nigerian who got elected into the board came home to assume a larger than life posture in Nigeria. He wrote to the Federal Government telling them that he is the WWC Governor for Africa.
Even as the Obinze outfit continues to thrive, nobody has really bothered to find out if a genuine relationship actually exists between the school and the USA outfit. The Obinze Award thrives because many of our people, both the educated and the illiterate are now gullible, and could do anything to show off even on an unmerited accolade.
Nigerian Universities are also caught in this trap. Innovative and creative fundraising are now on exile. Raising money through the cheapest route is now the order of the day as honorary doctorate degrees are freely awarded to the highest bidder. The same also obtains from our royal or traditional institutions and even some organizations with a social mission.
Awards and honors are made with trappings of lucre as the major underpinning. What do we have today, all sorts of characters masquerading as Drs, High-Chiefs, Dames, Sir, Lady and Chiefs etc. To me it was a great relief when the then Hon. Minister of Education Mrs.Oby Ezekwesiri inaugurated a committee to review all such honors made by Nigerian universities over the past few years. I did not know how successful the committee ended its work. But that courageous effort could not mark the end of such bizarre awards. The National University Commission (NUC) should go a step further and nip the excesses of many missionary PhD awarding institutions in Nigeria with false claims to external affiliations.
I make these emphases because of the debasement it inflicts on our educational system and the Nigerian polity. Could you imagine that recently a wife of a local council chairman was awarded a PhD by a village based missionary outfit. This lady now wears garland all over the city. She paid money, big money to secure this questionable award, and NOT because she deserved it. A case of both receiver and giver being questionable. The woman and her husband had both lived in the USA and could not qualify beyond the basic nursing certificates. During their term as council chairman (and the wife as Wife of the chairman) they ran the worst tenure in the life of the council. Their tenure had a legacy of elevating looting and incompetence to the apogee. Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing humanitarian can be linked to their tenure, yet an award of high esteem has been given to the wife.
As leaders of tomorrow, university students and their organizations must also check their quest for money. It is this quest that keeps pushing them around public officers to decorate crooks and rogues who today dominate Nigerian politics as politicians with awards they least deserve in return for money. The result is the perpetuation of mis-governance and its other consequences. But how long will this last. How exactly do we check this festering malady and debasement of values?
santajayinc@yahoo.com.
It often amazes me why some people have a high tendency for fake appearances. Some people have the penchant for titles and awards that they can simply do any thing under the sun to advance these tendencies. The following stories may explain these issues better.
I still remember my undergraduate days like yesterday; and that was nine years ago. I remember most especially the events that preceded my election in 1995 as the President of the Rotaract club of the University of Calabar and thereafter. Most lucid in my memory was how consensus was easily galvanized and opposition crumbled to give me maximum support and solidarity vital for a successful service year - the 1996/97.
Just like yesterday, I also remember my effort to get elected into the governing board of the World Water Council (WWC),an event that preceded the fourth world water forum in Mexico in March 2006.I had arrived Mexico very early in March with high hopes of securing a seat in the revered board. This hope was relatively anchored on my being the sole sub-Saharan African present in the Mexico general meeting at that point in time.
I also remember how in 2003 I received a letter of an offer of an honorary doctorate award from an Obinze Owerri based missionary representative of an American University. I had then shared the news with some of my friends, many of them gave a nod that I should go ahead and receive the award, but a few vehemently insisted I reject it because as a young man I could still academically ‘muscle up’ a PhD through due process. They saw the honorary award as being unwarranted and diversionary. To them the motive of the awarding institution was lucre driven. I did finally heed to the minority view and ignored the award in addition to the monetary requirement. Hitherto the senders of that letter have not relented. I have year after year received same letter from same institution and others.
At Calabar, especially on top of the trappings that move in tandem with such a high student office of being Rotaract Club President in a largely cosmopolitan tertiary institution, I came to realize how ephemeral positions could become in life. I also realized what it means to drop names and live on borrowed robes.
I might not have lived on borrowed robes but many of my acquaintances did. Then, many of us took pleasure in renting accommodation in highbrow areas of the ancient Calabar town. Many of us were busy looking and appearing our best on expensive designer outfits. Though these were innocent actions as no mischief were intended, but life after school eased the scales from our eyes. At school we were basically on the payroll of our parents and therefore came up with all sorts of antics to enable us maintain those exotic lifestyles. Some of us were also into many other trades in order to make more money and live like 'kings'. Yes we did live like 'kings' in school. Those of us who really lived well above their social standing became the first casualties especially when job hunts remained unsuccessful years after graduation.
At Mexico, all nationalities were represented. The World Water Council (WWC) board I craved to gain a board seat on, also had two other Nigerian aspirants. Then other Nigerians could not arrive Mexico on time, and as such were absent all through the WWC council meetings and elections. However, and despite their absence, one of them made it into the board. Reason for this victory was simple; the council’s leadership had insisted that people could still be voted even in absentia because they took cognizance of visa and flight difficulties being experienced by delegates from Africa. Elections into the council came via colleges and there were seven of such. Two of those were the NGO College and the other the Utility/enterprises College. Each college had a maximally allotted number of seats. While the NGO College had 5 seats to be contested for by a whopping 35 delegates; the utility/enterprises college had 10 seats allotted it with a mere 9 delegates vying for them. The only winning Nigerian was on that college while the loser two came from the NGO group.
Having concluded our outing in Mexico, all delegates had to return home. What happened? The only Nigerian who got elected into the board came home to assume a larger than life posture in Nigeria. He wrote to the Federal Government telling them that he is the WWC Governor for Africa.
Even as the Obinze outfit continues to thrive, nobody has really bothered to find out if a genuine relationship actually exists between the school and the USA outfit. The Obinze Award thrives because many of our people, both the educated and the illiterate are now gullible, and could do anything to show off even on an unmerited accolade.
Nigerian Universities are also caught in this trap. Innovative and creative fundraising are now on exile. Raising money through the cheapest route is now the order of the day as honorary doctorate degrees are freely awarded to the highest bidder. The same also obtains from our royal or traditional institutions and even some organizations with a social mission.
Awards and honors are made with trappings of lucre as the major underpinning. What do we have today, all sorts of characters masquerading as Drs, High-Chiefs, Dames, Sir, Lady and Chiefs etc. To me it was a great relief when the then Hon. Minister of Education Mrs.Oby Ezekwesiri inaugurated a committee to review all such honors made by Nigerian universities over the past few years. I did not know how successful the committee ended its work. But that courageous effort could not mark the end of such bizarre awards. The National University Commission (NUC) should go a step further and nip the excesses of many missionary PhD awarding institutions in Nigeria with false claims to external affiliations.
I make these emphases because of the debasement it inflicts on our educational system and the Nigerian polity. Could you imagine that recently a wife of a local council chairman was awarded a PhD by a village based missionary outfit. This lady now wears garland all over the city. She paid money, big money to secure this questionable award, and NOT because she deserved it. A case of both receiver and giver being questionable. The woman and her husband had both lived in the USA and could not qualify beyond the basic nursing certificates. During their term as council chairman (and the wife as Wife of the chairman) they ran the worst tenure in the life of the council. Their tenure had a legacy of elevating looting and incompetence to the apogee. Nothing, I mean absolutely nothing humanitarian can be linked to their tenure, yet an award of high esteem has been given to the wife.
As leaders of tomorrow, university students and their organizations must also check their quest for money. It is this quest that keeps pushing them around public officers to decorate crooks and rogues who today dominate Nigerian politics as politicians with awards they least deserve in return for money. The result is the perpetuation of mis-governance and its other consequences. But how long will this last. How exactly do we check this festering malady and debasement of values?
Water Security for prosperity
By
Joachim Ezeji
There is no doubt that the socio-economic development of Nigeria as well as those of many countries, particularly those in Africa is largely dependent on how much they are able to harness their water resources to ensure access to food security.
Water scarcity in Nigeria, nay Africa particularly those for agriculture does not derive from a physical lack of water resources, but due in part, to a lack of adaptive capacity on the part of core stakeholders like the government, engineers, scientists, universities and farmers etc to manage the available water, and the lack of political will by government to make requisite investment in the sector.
Two typical contrasting scenarios are good examples in this context. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has about 60% of the total water resources of Africa, but has only 52% of its population having access to potable water. Libya, a desert country, has not got water because of the Sahara desert. It barely rains in Libya, but the government in Tripoli has been able to mine water from the depth of the ground (about 500 meters) and conveying it over hundreds of kilometers. While the DRC case shows a lack of political will for socio-economic development, those of Libya is a clear manifestation of political will.
Adaptive capacity in this context is all about the knowledge and capability on water conservation, water storage, land management and rain harvesting etc in order to overcome the variability of rainfall. These are necessary to cover deficit during droughts.
Africa’s failure to grow adaptive capacity to our abundant water resources is manifest in the context of the fact that 5,400 billion of m3 of water is available in Africa but only 4% is currently being tapped for irrigation, food production and hydroelectricity. Also, Africa’s exploitable hydroelectric potential is estimated at approximately 1.4 million giga watts hours/year, which is sufficient to supply electricity for the entire continent but only 3% of this hydroelectric potential is currently being used.
As at today these twin problems of lack of political will; and lack of adaptive capacity are militating against the crucial need for equitable and sustainable development of our water resources to reduce poverty.
There is need for efforts to improve the capacity of all the parties involved in the water sector and also in working with national, regional and international decision makers, so as to forge a commitment to water security. This will guaranty sufficient supply of sustainable water for human consumption and health, agricultural productivity, hydroelectric energy, industrial activity and the protection of ecosystems and the environment.
It should be noted that the development of water conservation infrastructure is a pre-condition for the development of agriculture and guaranteeing food security as well as stock breeding.
According to the World Bank’s 2008 World Development Report, growth in Africa’s agricultural sector is vital for poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A correspondent investment is therefore required because such is capable of spurring knowledge sharing, information dissemination and capacity strengthening.
It would launch innovative business lines in support of agricultural water management and sustainable development. It will also foster regional integration, coordination and partnership, and empowerment of national and regional stakeholders vis avis the realization that Africa have got 60 surface water basins and 38 aquifer tables (AfDB,2008) that are shared among two or more countries.
Joachim Ezeji
There is no doubt that the socio-economic development of Nigeria as well as those of many countries, particularly those in Africa is largely dependent on how much they are able to harness their water resources to ensure access to food security.
Water scarcity in Nigeria, nay Africa particularly those for agriculture does not derive from a physical lack of water resources, but due in part, to a lack of adaptive capacity on the part of core stakeholders like the government, engineers, scientists, universities and farmers etc to manage the available water, and the lack of political will by government to make requisite investment in the sector.
Two typical contrasting scenarios are good examples in this context. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has about 60% of the total water resources of Africa, but has only 52% of its population having access to potable water. Libya, a desert country, has not got water because of the Sahara desert. It barely rains in Libya, but the government in Tripoli has been able to mine water from the depth of the ground (about 500 meters) and conveying it over hundreds of kilometers. While the DRC case shows a lack of political will for socio-economic development, those of Libya is a clear manifestation of political will.
Adaptive capacity in this context is all about the knowledge and capability on water conservation, water storage, land management and rain harvesting etc in order to overcome the variability of rainfall. These are necessary to cover deficit during droughts.
Africa’s failure to grow adaptive capacity to our abundant water resources is manifest in the context of the fact that 5,400 billion of m3 of water is available in Africa but only 4% is currently being tapped for irrigation, food production and hydroelectricity. Also, Africa’s exploitable hydroelectric potential is estimated at approximately 1.4 million giga watts hours/year, which is sufficient to supply electricity for the entire continent but only 3% of this hydroelectric potential is currently being used.
As at today these twin problems of lack of political will; and lack of adaptive capacity are militating against the crucial need for equitable and sustainable development of our water resources to reduce poverty.
There is need for efforts to improve the capacity of all the parties involved in the water sector and also in working with national, regional and international decision makers, so as to forge a commitment to water security. This will guaranty sufficient supply of sustainable water for human consumption and health, agricultural productivity, hydroelectric energy, industrial activity and the protection of ecosystems and the environment.
It should be noted that the development of water conservation infrastructure is a pre-condition for the development of agriculture and guaranteeing food security as well as stock breeding.
According to the World Bank’s 2008 World Development Report, growth in Africa’s agricultural sector is vital for poverty reduction and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). A correspondent investment is therefore required because such is capable of spurring knowledge sharing, information dissemination and capacity strengthening.
It would launch innovative business lines in support of agricultural water management and sustainable development. It will also foster regional integration, coordination and partnership, and empowerment of national and regional stakeholders vis avis the realization that Africa have got 60 surface water basins and 38 aquifer tables (AfDB,2008) that are shared among two or more countries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)