$50Million Polio Loan: Matters Arising!
By Adekunle Theophilius
For a while,i have been monitoring the progress of the Nigerian ship on
the high seas of development and prosperity with binoculars, compass and
associated gear! I have ominously observed the rudderless of the direction,
haphazard nature of the sail and comatose nature of the ship!, i wondered if
the captain and crew have any iota of idea of how to run and manage the ship
effectively and the fact that the ship is already navigating on quandary
ocean,retrogression sea and the rivers of extinction! Inarguably, the ship is in
dire straits!
The nexus with the above?, well whenever the West looks down on us, the US
makes bland statements like the one recently made by Senator Feingold
lumping us with the likes of
Somalia, Sudan, Congo, Zimbabwe,the Middle East
does not give us our dues and even our African brothers snigger derisively at
us, despite our much flaunted epaulet as the Giant of Africa, do not blame them,
it is because we do not respect ourselves, we make a mess of ourselves and we
espouse ideas and actions incompatible with our purported status and
conceptualized potentials!
This brings me to a recent statement in Dutse, Jigawa state where the
Minister for special duties, Ambassador Ibrahim Kazaure declared the intention
and inexplicably defended the resolve of the Federal Government to collect a
$50Million loan to battle Polio! How can Nigeria be collecting polio loan(
whether foreign or local)?, isn't it unfathomable and unimaginable?,
isn't it the height of denigration, inanity and absurdity? How can a country
that made billions of dollars from crude oil sales in the past ten years resort
to this kind of flimsy loan for such domestic issue?. Why do we like ridiculing
and making a mockery of ourselves in this country?.
In the first place why should we even have polio cases when less endowed and
literate nations have eradicated polio?.To add insult on injury our
minister is gleefully announcing to the world that we are borrowing
$50million!. Why should we secure loan to buy ordinary polio vaccines
when we are not some backwater country? What happened to our oil revenues? What
kind of signals are we sending to the global community? Why must Nigeria despite
our chutzpah and resources still be among the only four countries in the world
with polio cases? Are we really the Giant of Africa?
I think the Federal Government's ill advised move and the Minister's
statement has further dimmed our sun in the comity of nations and among the
world's peoples!.I wonder why the federal government should approach and
collect the loan and matching grant from international development partners in
the first place?, trust those partners, definitely they will always give us but
with disguised disdain and sleight of the hand! Is this the best step or
appropriate direction to tackle this issue?.Just when did it even become the
function of a minister for special duties to focus on health issues when we have
two health ministers? is this not an example of our legendary square peg in
round holes and hollow solutions to salient issues?.
With this kind of approach, should the present comatose state of the health
sector and the deplorable condition of the country surprise anyone?, That
despite earning more than $250Billion dollars in the past ten years. the
standard of living, life expectancy, quality of life etc of Nigerians has been
on a free fall within the same period! How can we have such a huge severe
deprivation in
health by the proportion of people who are not expected to
survive the age of 40? How can Nigeria have a huge proportion of people
without access to improved water source and children under the age of five who
are underweight? How can majority of Nigerians not have access to qualitative
health care in this day and era? What did we use all the huge resources and
revenue earned for? Quoting Fela, how can a country be making huge money and the
people of the country will not see either the money or what it was used for?
What kind of self inflicted morass and socio-economic quagmire have we gotten
ourselves into in this country?, why is it that little things that we can and we
should be able to do effortlessly have become Herculean
for us?, why is it that basic necessities that other smaller and less endowed
countries take for granted are beyond our purview and reach despite our
magnimous array of intimidating
manpower, material, mineral and financial
resources? Why is it that we are curiously and uniquely lethargic, stagnant and
nonchalant in most things that pertain to our socio-economic,political and
psychological well being and progress?. When we cant get simple things done
despite all we have why wont countries like Ghana, Burundi,Lesotho,Malawi and
Guinea ridicule us?
I just developed serious migraine and need to get to the nearest pharmacy or
clinic!
Adekunle Theophilius is a Italian based Mastercode scholar
klexoz@yahoo.co.uk
