<\/p>\n
– \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0By Bashorun J.K. Randle, OFR, FCA<\/em><\/p>\n The Vatican has been putting a lot of pressure on the United Nations to devote the entire General Assembly in New York from 16th<\/sup> September to 29th<\/sup> September 2014 to the poor and their special needs.<\/p>\n Both the Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-moon and the President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim responded promptly and favourably too.\u00a0 The pair did not stop there, they proceeded to jointly visit the poorest nations on earth particularly those in Africa where they were confronted with really abject poverty in:<\/p>\n The strategy they adopted was that the United Nations Secretary-General would identify the \u201cRed Hot\u201d tragic cases and the President of the World Bank would provide the technical back-up as well as funding to alleviate the plight of the desperately poor.<\/p>\n Both were quite pleased with the initial success but just when the project was beginning to gather traction, Ebola crept in and matters were abruptly derailed.\u00a0 What a cruel twist of fate that the worst affected were the poorest nations as if they were not already suffering enough in:<\/p>\n The Holy Father, Pope Francis I has nevertheless remained steadfast.\u00a0 He threatened to boycott the United Nations General Assembly unless the agenda is firmly focused on poverty.<\/p>\n The Pontiff resorted to Spanish to convey his message and anguish to the Secretary-General of the United Nations:<\/p>\n \u201cHay gente tan pobre que lo unico que tiene es dinero.\u201d<\/p>\n (There are some people so poor, that the only thing they have is money).<\/p>\n Pope Francis chose to remind us of another Pope.\u00a0 Being a profoundly compassionate man, the Pope added a quotation from Alexander Pope the 18th<\/sup> Century English poet (1688 to 1744) best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer\u2019s \u201cThe Odyssey\u201d and \u201cIliad\u201d.<\/p>\n Alexander Pope\u2019s \u201cEssay on Man\u201d is a philosophical poem written in heroic couplets and published between 1732 and 1934.\u00a0 The poem is an attempt to \u201cvindicate the ways of God to Man\u201d, a variation on Milton\u2019s attempt in \u201cParadise Lost\u201d to \u201cjustify the ways of God to Man.\u201d\u00a0 It assumes that man (particularly Nigerian!!) has fallen and must seek his own salvation.<\/p>\n I may not have got it entirely right, but permit me to rely on jaded memory (after an excellent lunch with Marcus Brandler at Galvin Bistrot de Luxe at 66 Baker Street, London WIU 7DJ.<\/p>\n \u201cPresume not God to scan<\/p>\n The proper study of mankind is Man<\/p>\n The Bliss of man, could Pride that blessings find<\/p>\n Is not to act or think beyond mankind.\u201d<\/p>\n Alexander Pope\u2019s immersion in Christian and Biblical culture combined with moral vision provided the anchor sheet for his unique style and technical excellence.<\/p>\n Here is a quotation from Wikipedia:<\/p>\n The poem is an affirmative poem of faith: life seems to be chaotic and confusing to man when he is the centre of it, but according to Pope it is really divinely ordered.\u00a0 In Pope\u2019s world, God exists and is what he centres the universe around in order to have an ordered structure.\u00a0 The limited intelligence of man can only take in tiny portions of this order and can experience only partial truths; hence man must rely on hope which then lends into faith.\u00a0 Man must be aware of his existence in the Universe and what he brings to it, in terms of riches, power and fame.\u00a0 It is man\u2019s duty to be good regardless of other situations (or distractions\/adversity).<\/p>\n It remains an eternal masterpiece.<\/p>\n What is most remarkable is that Alexander Pope\u2019s formal education was limited.\u00a0 The Catholic schools he attended in London were illegal on account of the recently passed Test Acts which upheld the status of the established Church of England and banned Catholics from teaching, attending university, voting or holding public office on pain of perpetual imprisonment.<\/p>\n It was rather surprising that when the World Bank Group of Executive Directors announced as \u201cBreaking News\u201d on CNN that it had approved a $105m grant to finance Ebola-containment efforts in West African countries infected with the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease, Nigeria was excluded as a beneficiary of the fund.<\/p>\n At a crowded international press conference to which the \u201cSeventy Senior Elders\u201d from Nigeria were specially invited, the President of the World Bank Jim Yong Kim (previously 17th<\/sup> President of Dartmouth College) declared as follows:<\/p>\n \u201cI would like to personally thank our Board of Directors for responding so quickly to this crisis.\u00a0 This new World Bank grant, which will arrive soon in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, will have an immediate and positive impact on their collective Ebola campaigns.\u00a0 The world needs to do much, much more to respond to the Ebola crisis in these three countries.<\/p>\n The Ebola funds have a long-term regional development impact and it is an important part of a coordinated international response led by the United Nations and the World Health Organization.\u00a0 The World Bank Group will almost certainly mobilize more financing for the three affected countries since the immediate response is still significantly under-sourced for the purposes of curbing the outbreak.\u201d<\/p>\n At this juncture, proceedings were halted in order to allow the President of the World Bank to make a special announcement with the Secretary-General of the United Nations standing right beside him.\u00a0 Their joint statement is as follows:<\/p>\n \u201cWe are grateful to the \u201cSeventy Senior Elders\u201d from Nigeria who have offered to render professional services free of charge.\u00a0 They are ex-KPMG partners who are waiting to collect their gratuity and pension.<\/p>\n We have prepared a project document for the new operation.\u00a0 The new grant is part of the $200 million Ebola emergency mobilization which the World Bank Group announced in early August ahead of the General Assembly.\u00a0 The fund would help families and communities in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to cope with the economic impact of the Ebola crisis as well as rebuild and strengthen essential public health systems in the three worst-affected countries in order to guard against future disease outbreaks.<\/p>\n We wish to assure the elders that the allocation of the Ebola fund is calculated according to the World Health Organization\u2019s roadmap and assessments of relative severity of the epidemic in each country.<\/p>\n Consequently, we shall mobilize $52 million for Liberia, the country with the highest number of Ebola infections; $28 million for Sierra Leone and $25 million for Guinea.<\/p>\n Both the United Nations and the World Bank are fully aware that Ebola-related restrictions on people\u2019s movements are leading to food crises in the quarantined and most affected areas where the three countries intersect.<\/p>\n Indeed in the Mano River region, food insecurity is spreading rapidly.\u00a0 More than one million people in the region are facing a food crisis in the coming months.\u00a0 Furthermore, as the crisis continues to evolve, this threat may spread to other areas due to quarantine or other disruptions in movement of goods and people.\u201d<\/p>\n The frantic efforts of the World Health Organization to contain the Ebola crisis has brought it very much into the limelight simultaneously with the searchlight.\u00a0 It turns out it has other serious challenges to contend with.\u00a0 Not the least of which is the front page publication in yesterday\u2019s \u201cSunday Times\u201d which was broadcast as \u201cBreaking News\u201d last night by Al Jazeera under the headline:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cTHOUSANDS OF DEATHS BLAMED ON STROKE DRUG\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cA clot-busting drug given to stroke patients is being blamed for thousands of extra deaths.<\/p>\n The treatment is being widely used despite original research indicating that up to 10% of patients may be killed because, although it cleared blockages in blood vessels in some people, it promoted uncontrollable fatal brain bleeds in others.<\/p>\n The most recent studies showed 4% more patients died within the first week of a stroke if they were given the latest version of the drug Alteplase, but now there are claims that stroke physicians have been misled about its risks because trial data has been misinterpreted.<\/p>\n Doctors in favour of using the drug argue that it dramatically reduces the paralyzing effects of stroke in one in three survivors.<\/p>\n The issue has been reviewed by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) following a detailed statistical analysis by Roger Shinton, a former stroke specialist at Birmingham\u2019s Heartlands Hospital.<\/p>\n He has been backed by a group of other consultants who have also raised their concerns with Sir Bruce Keogh, medical director of NHS England, and Sir Richard Thompson, president of the Royal College of Physicians.<\/p>\n Every year at least 152,000 people in Britain suffer a stroke \u2013 a bleed into the brain or a blocked blood vessel causing death in 20% of cases, loss of mental functions or partial paralysis.<\/p>\n About one in five victims suffered a blocked artery rather than a burst blood vessel and it is this group that is being targeted for Alteplace treatment.<\/p>\n Shinton is concerned that Alteplace is causing significant numbers of additional bleeds in the head or stomach.<\/p>\n He declined to comment ahead of publication of his findings.<\/p>\n Other senior doctors who support his position said they were afraid to speak publicly.\u00a0 \u201cIt is career suicide to question clinical guidelines for the treatment of anything,\u201d said one.\u00a0 The MHRA said its review of available safety date to be published later this month, \u201cdid not impact on the current licence or indications for Alteplace in treating ischaemic stroke\u201d.<\/p>\n The manufacturer, the German group Boehringer Ingelheim, said the drug had been reviewed in September 2012.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have made all data available to the appropriate authorities and stand by the safety of this important medicine,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Evidently, Nigeria is going to be the main item at this year\u2019s United Nations\u2019 General Assembly.\u00a0 All over New York, there are giant posters and T-Shirts quoting Alhaji Aminu Wali, Nigeria\u2019s Minister of Foreign Affairs:<\/p>\n \u201cThe size of Nigeria\u2019s delegation to the United Nations\u2019 General Assembly last year was 567.\u00a0 I asked that they send me the list of three countries \u2013 Germany, South Africa and Egypt to compare.\u00a0 None of them was up to one-third of our own delegation.\u00a0 If we are going to be honest to ourselves, 80 per cent of the delegates that go from Nigeria do not add value to the United Nations.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cSeventy Senior Elders from Nigeria\u201d are in New York for a very serious purpose and critical mission.\u00a0 But we must first deal with the following story carried in today\u2019s edition of \u201cNew York Post\u201d newspaper on its front page.<\/p>\n Headline:\u00a0 \u201cMAN RAPES TEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER IN BORNO\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cPolice in Borno State yesterday paraded one Idris Ali of Moduganari area of Maiduguri, for allegedly raping his ten-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n The state Commissioner of Police, Adoda Clement, who paraded Ali, said he has already confessed to the crime.<\/p>\n Also paraded was a 22-year-old man, Ahmadu Bajoga Bello, who allegedly killed one Abdullahi Saidu over N200.\u00a0 The suspect, who hails from Wuyaku village in Biu Local Government Area of the state was said to have committed the offence in 2010 and fled to an unknown destination.<\/p>\n \u201cThe suspect, who was arrested on August 31, 2014, made a confessional statement admitting to the offence.\u00a0 He said he committed the crime over a debt of N200, he was owing the deceased,\u201d the commissioner said.<\/p>\n The police also paraded one Bana Kyari of Bolori layout of Maiduguri for allegedly raping a three-year old girl.<\/p>\n The commissioner said all the suspects will be charged to court after investigation is concluded.\u201d<\/p>\n Bashorun JK Randle is a former<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0Nigeria (ICAN) and former Chairman of KPMG Nigeria and Africa Region.\u00a0 He is currently the Chairman, JK Randle Professional Services.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Email:jkrandleintuk@gmail.com<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" – \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0By Bashorun J.K. Randle, OFR, FCA The Vatican has been putting a lot of pressure on the United Nations to devote the entire General Assembly in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31537,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n\n
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