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In July some
African First Ladies met at a summit called ‘Forum of African First
Ladies against breast and cervical cancer’ in Accra, Ghana. According
to them, the reason for the summit is to draw the attention of leaders
in the region to what they described as, ‘‘the growing burden of
women’s cancers, especially cervical and breast cancer-in the world’s
poorest nations,’’

The ladies are
wives of presidents and heads of state and include – Ernestina Naatu
Mills (Ghana), Djibo Saalu Fati (Niger), Momsa Matsebula (Swaziland),
Tobeka Zuma (South Africa), Zainab Yayah Jammeh (The Gambia), Janet
Museveni (Uganda) and Thandiwe Banda (Zambia).

At the meeting
they all decried the rising wave of breast and cervical cancers among
women on the continent where studies have shown that the two diseases
are the commonest and leading causes of death among women.

In a statement at
the end of the summit they lamented, ‘‘cervical, breast and other
women’s cancers take a tremendous toll on women’s health in developing
countries. Over 80% of all cervical cancer deaths occur in developing
countries where girls and women do not have access to prevention
services such as education, vaccination and lifesaving pre-cancer
screening and early treatment. Breast cancer, once relatively unknown
in developing countries, is rising rapidly, often appearing in women 10
to 15 years earlier than in developed countries.’’

This observation
needs proper and detailed attention and one study after the other in
the last two years has endorsed this fact: It is no longer an ailment
of the West or of those accustomed to that lifestyle.

We agree with that
enlightenment on cancer issues is very poor in Africa and there is a
crying need for our health authorities to step up education on the risk
factors that predispose our women to breast and cervical cancer.
Because many do not know what they should do or how to check themselves
for signs the ailment is allowed to fester and patients only report at
hospitals at a point when the case has become terminal.

At the Ghana
summit the ladies pledged to mobilise their diplomatic and public
health leaderships to ensure women’s cancers feature prominently at
this month’s United Nations General Assembly Development Summit on the
Millennium Development Goals and at the United Nations High Level
Summit on non-communicable Diseases (NCDs) scheduled for September next
year. They also stated their plan to work with other international
agencies to help champion and focus on these challenges of bringing to
the fore the need to see cancer as a threat to the health of women and
the populace in general.

To our mind, the
important thing is not for the United Nations to discuss it at its
summit, the home front is where the real action is. By now the seven
first ladies who attended the Ghana summit have returned to their
bases. What they do with and how they push the Accra commitment forward
is what should be of concern. Too often summits are held and
declarations made are soon forgotten. This should not be.

As much as we are
wary of the use to which the office of first spouse, let us not forget
that Liberia made history by electing Ellen Johnson Sirleaf president,
has been put in some parts, our hope is that this initiative will not
be allowed to become another avenue for vainglory and little else. It
is far too serious and much too important.

It is regrettable
that some initiatives to combat cancer have been launched with fanfare
in the past and have not survived beyond the razzmatazz of the launch.
A case in point is the billions of naira that was donated to Mrs. Turai
Yar’Adua, wife of the late president, for her much hyped International
Cancer Centre, which was to be built in Abuja. As of the last count,
land had been allocated for the project and a board constituted to
oversee the running of the centre. However, shortly after the launch
Mrs. Yar’Adua’s attention was understandably diverted by her husband’s
sickness from which he never recovered.

We believe that since the money was collected from government
ministries and companies it is important for purposes of accountability
for an account to be rendered and if Mrs. Yar’Adua is no longer
interested in carrying out the project it should be handed over to
another group or agency that can. This is the only way this project can
be of benefit to the majority of Nigerians and make the Accra
declaration a reality for all.

Everywhere you turn its all talks about politics
and nothing but. It is not a bad thing but the politics that has taken
over the land is not politics of development or ideas. It is about who
gets what office and how to retain power.

Governors have abandoned governance to play
politics of 2011. Those of them that have served the maximum two terms
are looking into what roles they can play after their terms and thus
extend their political careers. These roles follow a narrow range from
wresting a Senate candidacy or something higher to jockeying to become
a political godfather, or have a say in who becomes president. In sum
politics has become an end in itself.

This jockeying for positions is not restricted to
the state level. It is perhaps even worse at the federal level. Since
Goodluck Jonathan assumed office on May 6 after the death of President
Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, governance at the federal level has been in
abeyance. What has taken the centre stage since then has been the
question of whether Mr. Jonathan is going to contest or not. He has not
officially declared his intention but all indications are that his
first deliberate foray into elective office will be for the top post.
The president’s political journey thus far has depended on an
auspicious ticket, from deputy governor to governor and from vice
president to president. His ministers and aides have all taken leave of
their duty posts and are busy hobnobbing across the country currying
support for their principal’s ambition.

There is nothing wrong in seeking to contest,
either at the state or federal levels, but we all must survive these
elections and carry on our daily lives before and after 2011. As things
stand now most of the office holders are busy using government
resources to campaign to the disadvantage of other candidates. The
first casualty of this is governance, at federal and state levels.
Attention to administration has taken a nosedive as officialdom focuses
on politicking.

At the state levels governors are no longer
concentrating on the task of delivering dividends of democracy to their
people. Things that should engage the attention of those saddled with
the onerous task of governance are left undone. A case in point is the
cholera epidemic, which is sweeping across some states in the northern
part of the country. The latest is that the other parts of the country
are not going to be immune from the epidemic.

Other affairs of state have also been relegated to
the backseat as road construction and other infrastructures that should
be put in place have been abandoned until after the elections. The
result is that as no one is paying attention to these facilities, plans
to maintain them have fallen apart. Roads are riddled with crater holes
leading to avoidable accidents and loss of lives.

Last week Thursday President Jonathan was in Lagos
to launch his roadmap for power. His arrival at the airport was turned
into a political carnival. The roadmap created a road jam. Major
highways in the city were shut down for several hours leading to a
complete traffic gridlock that irritated a metropolitan electorate
already on a short fuse.

Why should a whole city be shut down just because
the president was visiting to launch a grandiose plan that may not see
the light of day? Haven’t we passed this road before? The Olusegun
Obasanjo administration after eight years spent over $16 billion for
the same thing. What did we get in return?

The general feeling is that the elections are
coming and politicians need slush funds to campaign. It is regrettable
that the electorate as always is at the receiving end of this renewed
absence of governance that has taken over the country. It is important
to stress at this juncture that this should not be the case. We should
expect to be deafened by examples of what has been achieved and what
more will be promised if we vote …

While we understand that elections periods are usually characterised
by a lull in serious government activities, those in power should not
allow this to deter them from their primary duty because at the end of
the day the Nigeria is the loser when there is no purposeful
governance.

He lied, went
behind her back and had multiple affairs with many women with no regard
for the home they had built together or the impact it would have on
their children. He went totally against the vows he made in front of
friends and family and in the eyes of God. So she decided to walk away
because trust, that bedrock upon which her marriage stood had been
irrevocably broken.

And now she is the
bitch, vilified and demonised. I am talking about Elin Nordegren, the
much-maligned wife of golfing king, Tiger Woods. After maintaining a
very dignified silence throughout the sordid sex scandal she gave an
interview to People Magazine in which she talked about the emotional
difficulties she faced when she found out her husband was cheating.

For Woods fans
particularly the Nigerian ones, this was too much. So on Facebook and
other social media websites, abuse of all sort has been heaped on
Nordegren’s head. Some of the more colourful phrases used to describe
her include “ f***king bitch, stupid woman, bloody nanny, gold digger
and whiner.” Her crime according to them is that she refused to
forgive. After all they argue she was just a nanny when Woods married
her and now she is walking away with a fortune. It seems Nordegren’s
refusal to play the “ dutiful” wife who stands by her man makes her a
horrible person. In all this only a handful of commentators even made
reference to the behavior that precipitated the divorce – Woods’ serial
cheating. Even those people insisted that their commentary on Nordegren
had to be isolated from their commentary on Woods’ behavior. As one
commentator put it, that is “a topic for another day”. The commentator
didn’t see the irony in trying to pass judgment on Nordegren’s action
in isolation from the behavior that led to it.

Throughout these
discussions, one theme that kept re-emerging is that Woods married the
wrong girl. He should have married a black girl or even better, a
Nigerian woman. The implication was that if that were the case, he
would still be married. Nigerian women were ‘ strong’ some
commentators said and therefore capable of forgiving these sorts of
transgressions and indeed do so on a regular basis. It is almost as
if Nigerian women have a gene that makes it easy for them to tolerate
cheating.

This simplistic
analysis of course does not delve into the socio-cultural issues that
mean the average Nigerian woman has very little choice when it comes to
walking away from a cheating husband. Our laws and traditions are
largely skewed in favour of men.

Children belong to the man;
inheritance is not always automatic for women and in many parts widows
do not automatically inherit from their husbands. If there was a more
even playground and women could take some of the wealth they helped
create, just how many Nigerian women would stay? There are too many
who remain in unsatisfactory marriages, with all the tensions inherent
in that union because they have no options, making it impossible for us
to conclude that those who stay are making a willful decision not
determined by economic and cultural circumstances. Evidence for this
can be gleaned from the high rate of sexual infidelity and support for
polygamy, which makes it difficult for women to go against the tide.
There is also discrimination against unmarried women and the stigma
attached to childless women. Increasingly too, and perhaps because of
circumstances, Nigerian women are becoming more materialistic, focusing
on what economic gains they can get from a relationship rather than all
the other things the union is supposed to provide. There are of
course women who decide to reach an accommodation with their spouses
even though they recognize the marriage has failed. Such couples remain
together for the sake of their children, the higher good, so to speak,
takes precedence over personal happiness.

A lucky few are able to
completely salvage their unions after a spouse has cheated. These are
the ones who genuinely forgive. This is also laudable because
forgiveness is important not just in marriage but in every sphere of
human interaction. A few studies have even found that this sort of
turbulence if handled properly can lead to a more meaningful
relationship between the couple.

The point however, is that circumstances vary and people will make decisions based
on their own personal situation, a state of affairs that many a time we
on the outside are not privy to. So those who decide to walk away also
deserve understanding. Speak to anyone who has gone through a divorce,
it is a tough, heart wrenching process that is life changing for all
those involved, from spouses to children to the wider extended
family and friends. It is not a step taken lightly.

Instead of passing judgment, join me in wishing Woods and Nordegren
the best. While her settlement will mean Nordegren won’t worry about
money, she now has the task of building her self -esteem and learning
to trust again; these are no easy feats. As for Woods, he has to deal
with the fact that he helped dismantle a home he worked to build,
disrupting everything but especially the lives of his children whom he
must love dearly. Woods must find a way to forgive himself, if he is to
move on, and that too is no mean feat.

Juan Martin del Potro, Robin Soderling and Tomas
Berdych all stand at least 6 feet 4 inches. Each bombards opponents
with powerful groundstrokes from the baseline. Each moves, when
healthy, with speed and athleticism atypical of men their size.

Each also toppled Roger Federer in a Grand Slam
event in the past year, three defeats on three surfaces – U.S. Open
(del Potro), French Open (Soderling) and Wimbledon (Berdych) –
highlighting the evolution of men’s tennis, a game in which the tall
and mighty once survived on serve alone.

“That’s what you have to do against Federer,” said
Justin Gimelstob, a Tennis Channel commentator and retired pro. ‘`You
have to put pressure on him. You have to put power into his backhand.
You’ve got to match his athleticism and movement. That’s where the
sport is going.

‘’I call those players the new hybrid.”

Pros were once divided more easily into two
categories: big men who pummeled tennis balls but moved clumsily, and
smaller men who played with elegance and artistry, a backhanded way of
saying they lacked a certain power. There were exceptions, sure. Now,
few players hit harder than the 6-foot-1 Rafael Nadal.

But he is surrounded by the evolution, by del
Potro (6-6 and recovering from injury), Berdych (6-5) and Soderling
(6-4), and by the next wave of American talent, players like Sam
Querrey (6-6) and John Isner (6-9). They are elite young pros – or the
makings of an undersize NBA frontcourt.

This trend, an infiltration of taller, stronger
players with athleticism to match, mirrors developments in women’s
tennis and changes across sports. It also forecasts a different game.
Even Nadal recently said that he must play more aggressively to contend
at important tournaments, and he did so in winning the French Open and
Wimbledon.

‘’These guys all have the ability to dictate
whether they’re going to lose a match,“ said Darren Cahill, a retired
player turned ESPN analyst. ”They all hit the ball a ton. They all move
gracefully. Tennis has become more of a big-man game.”

Gimelstob noticed the change before he retired in
2007. In a recent interview, the 6-5 Gimelstob described taller players
like him as ‘’big and slow“ back then. The 6-3 Boris Becker, nicknamed
Boom Boom, was once regarded as a hulking force on tour, but he would
not stand out for size alone today.

‘’The boys are so powerful off of the baseline
now that they don’t have to come to the net to finish points,“ Becker
said. ”That’s the reason we went to the net. To finish the point.
Nowadays, even the big guys can hit winners four feet behind the
baseline.”

But that explains only part of the evolution. As
far back as when rackets switched from wood to graphite, purists have
fretted that power would take over tennis. Artistry ultimately won out
for years.

Becker, like many, said that more recent advances
in string and racket technology were also influential. Extra spin
helped shots once seemingly headed for the fence land safely within the
lines. As Cahill conducted a recent interview, Berdych walked down the
hallway at the Rogers Cup in Toronto

‘’Look at how big he is,“ Cahill said. ”He can
stand behind the baseline and take huge swings. With that ability,
players can unload on shots you never could have 20 years ago, 15 years
ago.”

As Federer said in Toronto, serves of more than
200 kilometers an hour (about 125 mph) once registered as big. Now they
are normal.

Average second serves, meanwhile, have increased
by about 25 mph, in Federer’s estimation. Returns have therefore also
gotten faster, and with fewer players approaching the net, placement
has become less important.

Racket technology, Federer added, allows for different angles, shorter and more varied for shots smacked at maximum speed.

All of which, Federer argued, lowered the margin for error.

‘’Guys are hitting the ball bigger than ever,“ he
said. ”I’m very good, but I don’t have the margins like maybe exist in
women’s tennis that you can just come out and dominate an opponent
every single time. That just doesn’t happen in the men’s game.”

Paul Annacone, the coach who started working with
Federer recently, described him as a forward thinker more than willing
to adapt. He pointed to the championship Federer secured in Cincinnati
and his ‘’commitment and belief.”

Cahill even argued that the serve-and-volley style
considered a tennis dinosaur in some quarters would eventually return.
Such is the cyclical nature of all sports, including this one. Others
advocate simpler rackets and strings, a limit to evolution.

Perhaps tennis’ next superstar will stand tall and serve big and play with a Federer-like elegance.

‘’There’s still room for flair and artistry and
playing a game that’s going to confuse people,“ Cahill said. ”Federer
has proven that, time and time and time again. Even with the new string
technology, which has been around for 10 years. He still won 16
majors.”

Regardless, the next wave has arrived. Call it the hybrid generation.

© 2010 New York Times News Service

It is becoming more
and more frightening to grow old in a country where elderly people are
treated like rags and sometimes as spiritually dangerous creatures.
Indigenous traditions in Africa and elsewhere invite us to honour the
elderly and make provision for their upkeep. Old age is understood as a
blessing from the maker, a reward for some good work, though sometimes
re-explained as an opportunity given to individuals to mend their ways
before it is too late.

In whichever way
old age is conceptualized, the fact remains that it is considered a
great abnormality for a community to lack the elderly. In recent times
life expectancy in Nigeria seems to have fallen and one can find the
most elderly in a local community being just 55 years or even less,
people shrug their shoulders and snap their fingers, saying the
situation is much like a curse. A community that lacks the elderly
lacks a store of wisdom and wealth of experience for.

In spite of the
growing tendency to look towards new ways imposed by modernity, there
are always occasions to turn to the elderly to seek advice on how to
handle challenging situations. In a modern Nigerian society that is not
sure about how to use the past, or that is uncomfortable with memory,
have the elderly not become stereotyped as witches and wizards whose
presence is a danger to the progress of the very children and grand
children they have always craved to have? Have their children and
grandchildren not abandoned them, believing that if they get closer,
these elderly ones would take ex their younger souls in exchange for
theirs?

What about the
government of the day? How friendly are its policies to the senior
citizens of the country? How much attention is paid to how housing,
environmental planning and social activities affect the well being of
the hoary-haired among us? The attitude of the government to the
elderly at best seems to be that of indifference.

Perhaps the
unfortunate idea is that these elderly ones do not contribute much to
society, that they are rather a liability. With the exception of the
efforts made by religious groups, one does not see any significant
community welfare programmes designed to cater for the psychological,
medical, or physiological well-being of elderly people in a 50-year old
country where elected politicians spend billions on entertainment,
buying several fleets of cars and airplanes.

We seem to live in
a society that prefers eternal youth and which sees the elderly as
signifiers of what it does not want to be.

As a beginning
“nation” we are to be excused as learners and we keep promising that we
will learn. Give us time. Give us the chance to burn and then resurrect
from our ashes. Give us the chance to take ourselves to Hell before
getting to Heaven. Give us the chance to bury our elderly ones first
and then come back to follow the rest of the welfare-oriented world.

Nigeria at 50 is
nothing but “Oke wie aji o buru akakpo oke” (The rat that renews its
hair becomes a midget rat). It will never grow up or grow older. It is
satisfied with being akakpo oke! Even when it is 2000 years old as
akakpo oke, it will still prefer playing in the sand like a toddler,
asking to be given more time to grow up. As a country that prefers to
be eternally young, why would it bother to have laws or policies that
help to ensure that the rights of elderly are not violated?

In public places
like banks, post offices, does one ever see separate queues reserved
for the elderly, to prevent such occurrences as sick or tired ones
slumping and dying? Even when out of frustration such elderly ones try
to jump the queue, does one not hear very inconsiderate remarks about
how this “old baba” or “old mama” does not want to respect him or
herself? A callous and insensitive crowd that we have become, we hardly
think about how we would want to be treated if we were that old and
made to wait in a long queue.

Very soon the 2011
elections will take place in a country that is 50 years old but would
have wished it were 50 years young. That akakpo oke country will issue
the very elderly folks it does not cater for with voters cards and ask
them to queue up for hours to vote in an akakpo oke president or
governor or senator, or other distinguished akakpo oke politicians of
the nth republic. The votes of the elderly count too, but against them.
Some will definitely slump and die where akakpo oke politicians have
brought them to use them as stools to stepping into the saddle of a
future that cannot run as fast as its past.

Indeed, growing old in a country eternally young is a very regrettable encounter with citizenship.

The last time a Democrat sat in the
White House, he faced a nonstop witch hunt by his political opponents.
Prominent figures on the right accused Bill and Hillary Clinton of
everything from drug smuggling to murder. And once Republicans took
control of Congress, they subjected the Clinton administration to
unrelenting harassment – at one point taking 140 hours of sworn
testimony over accusations that the White House had misused its
Christmas card list.

Now it’s happening again – except that
this time it’s even worse. Let’s turn the floor over to Rush Limbaugh:
“Imam Hussein Obama,” he recently declared, is “probably the best
anti-American president we’ve ever had.”

To get a sense of how much it matters
when people like Limbaugh talk like this, bear in mind that he’s an
utterly mainstream figure within the Republican Party; bear in mind,
too, that unless something changes the political dynamics, Republicans
will soon control at least one house of Congress. This is going to be
very, very ugly.

So where is this rage coming from? Why is it flourishing? What will it do to America?

Anyone who remembered the 1990s could
have predicted something like the current political craziness. What we
learned from the Clinton years is that a significant number of
Americans just don’t consider government by liberals – even very
moderate liberals – legitimate. Barack Obama’s election would have
enraged those people even if he were white. Of course, the fact that he
isn’t, and has an alien-sounding name, adds to the rage.

By the way, I’m not talking about the
rage of the excluded and the dispossessed: Tea Partiers are relatively
affluent, and nobody is angrier these days than the very, very rich.
Wall Street has turned on Obama with a vengeance: Last month Steve
Schwarzman, the billionaire chairman of the Blackstone Group, the
private equity giant, compared proposals to end tax loopholes for hedge
fund managers with the Nazi invasion of Poland.

And powerful forces are promoting and
exploiting this rage. Jane Mayer’s new article in The New Yorker about
the superrich Koch brothers and their war against Obama has generated
much-justified attention, but as Mayer herself points out, only the
scale of their effort is new: billionaires like Richard Mellon Scaife
waged a similar war against Bill Clinton.

Meanwhile, the right-wing media are
replaying their greatest hits. In the 1990s, Limbaugh used innuendo to
feed anti-Clinton mythology, notably the insinuation that Hillary
Clinton was complicit in the death of Vince Foster. Now, as we’ve just
seen, he’s doing his best to insinuate that Obama is a Muslim. Again,
though, there’s an extra level of craziness this time around: Limbaugh
is the same as he always was, but now seems tame compared with Glenn
Beck.

And where, in all of this, are the
responsible Republicans, leaders who will stand up and say that some
partisans are going too far? Nowhere to be found.

To take a prime example: The hysteria
over the proposed Islamic center in lower Manhattan almost makes one
long for the days when former President George W. Bush tried to soothe
religious hatred, declaring Islam a religion of peace. There were good
reasons for his position: There are a billion Muslims in the world, and
America can’t afford to make all of them its enemies.

But here’s the thing: Bush is still
around, as are many of his former officials. Where are the statements,
from the former president or those in his inner circle, preaching
tolerance and denouncing anti-Islam hysteria? On this issue, as on many
others, the GOP establishment is offering a nearly uniform profile in
cowardice.

So what will happen if, as expected,
Republicans win control of the House? We already know part of the
answer: Politico reports that they’re gearing up for a repeat
performance of the 1990s, with a “wave of committee investigations” –
several of them over supposed scandals that we already know are
completely phony. We can expect the GOP to play chicken over the
federal budget, too; I’d put even odds on a 1995-type government
shutdown sometime over the next couple of years.

It will be an ugly scene, and it will
be dangerous, too. The 1990s were a time of peace and prosperity; this
is a time of neither. In particular, we’re still suffering the
after-effects of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, and we
can’t afford to have a federal government paralysed by an opposition
with no interest in helping the president govern. But that’s what we’re
likely to get.

If I were Obama, I’d be doing all I
could to head off this prospect, offering some major new initiatives on
the economic front in particular, if only to shake up the political
dynamic. But my guess is that the president will continue to play it
safe, all the way into catastrophe.

© 2010 New York Times News Service

While I was away in
the South East I was pleased to get an sms from my good friend Volker
Treichel that he is back in town. Volker had been Chief Economist of
the World Bank in Nigeria for several years. A German national, Volker
understands the Nigerian political economy rather well.

Towards year’s end
last year he had spearheaded a study on Growth and Employment in
Nigeria. His basic message was a simple but alarming one: the economy
is trundling along okay, but the people are not.

This message was
reinforced at last week’s seminar on the new Growth and Employment Pact
initiative where finance minister Olusegun Aganga reiterated the
government’s determination to mainstream job-creation within the
country’s economic growth paradigm. The minister noted that the economy
had been growing at an average of 6 percent during 2005-2009 even as
unemployment has continued to rise.

According to the
National Bureau of Statistics, unemployment increased from 11.5 percent
in 2005 to 19 percent in 2009. With our current estimated population of
145 million,

this means that
27.5 million Nigerians are without jobs; a figure that is more than the
total population of Ghana (23.35 million) and Mozambique (22.38
million). If one also considers the sober fact that an estimated 94
percent of the employed are in the informal sector, then one gets a
grim picture of our national tragedy.

To be sure,
unemployment is an increasingly worrying trend the world over.
According to Angel Gurria, Secretary-General of the Paris-based OECD,
unemployment in the richest countries has risen from an average of 5
percent to the current 9.9 percent. Within the 27-member European
Union, the jobless stand at 23.06 million, a figure that significantly
less than Nigeria’s. What is more, in the advanced welfare democracies,
every unemployed citizen has access to social benefits.

In Britain, this
would include a free council flat and a monthly allowance of £400
(120,000 naira). A Scottish friend who was visiting at our home
recently told me that some of his unemployed nephews and nieces have
virtually no incentive to work, since their welfare benefits are only
marginally lower than what is on offer on the lower-skilled jobs market.

Contrast this with
Nigeria, where there are no welfare benefits to speak, within an
economy that Nobel laureate Paul Krugman would describe as one of
“diminished expectations”.

Over the past
decade, the billions of dollars of inward investments that we have
witnessed have been predominantly in the oil and gas sector, telecoms
and banking – sectors that do not generate a great deal of jobs.

Our manufacturing
sector has been virtually comatose, with several firms having relocated
to Ghana and other neighbouring countries, thanks to lack of
electricity, the high rate of criminal violence and a generally
inhospitable business climate. With an inflation rate that has averaged
more than 10 percent and with all the prevailing structural bottlenecks
in our economy, things have never looked more hopeless. Our youths are
understandably angry, with an army of unemployed that are large enough
to stage a violent national uprising. We are sitting on a time bomb.

It is an irony that
international development agencies have been more concerned about the
unfolding drama than succeeding Nigerian governments. The UK Department
for International Development (DFID) in collaboration with the World
Bank recently launched the Growth Employment in States (GEMS)
programme. GEMS seeks to boost the productive sector by improving the
business environment so as to accelerate private investment while
creating jobs and boosting incomes.

The two agencies
have contributed a total of US$300 million to the project, which will
initially cover four selected states of Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Cross
River on a pilot basis. Among the sectors to be covered are wholesale
and retail trade, meat and leather, hospitality (hotels and tourism),
entertainment (music, films, Nollywood) and construction and real
estate.

The Growth and
Employment Pact opens up a new window of opportunity to resolutely
address one of our nation’s gravest development challenges. It calls
for action, not rhetoric. We must work across the three tiers of
government to launch a massive programme for the rebirth of the non-oil
sector while boosting jobs and getting our people back to work.

We have to think
outside the box. If we could put aside 200 billion naira every year for
the next 5 years we could take an average of some 1 million youths off
the streets by engaging them in the construction of rural roads, rail
tracks and other such direct labour public works. It would have such a
huge impact on the economy; restoring hope, boosting aggregate demand
and giving a massive push to growth and long-term sustainable
development.

During the 1930s
Great Depression in the USA, President Franklin Roosevelt applied this
public works approach in his New Deal strategy, with impressive
results. President Barak Obama is following the same philosophy, with
modifications. The long-suffering people of Nigeria expect nothing less.

Recent figures from the Federal Ministry of Health
indicate that the death toll from the most recent cholera epidemic to
hit Nigeria has risen to 350.

The numbers are still rising, and the ministry has
warned that “the entire country is at risk.” This latest epidemic has
hit at least eleven states, most of them in Northern Nigeria.

In August 2009, a similar epidemic broke out in Adamawa, Borno, Taraba and Jigawa states, claiming hundreds of lives.

Only a month ago, a Reuters’ news report said that
77 persons had died from cholera in Northern Cameroon, since the
beginning of June.

Reuters quoted an unnamed official of the Red
Cross as saying, back then: “There is the fear that if nothing is done
urgently, the epidemic might expand rapidly with uncalculated
consequences in Cameroon and neighbouring countries like Nigeria and
Chad.” Now it is clear that those fears were not unfounded. The ticking
time-bomb has exploded in Nigeria, and there is an understandable level
of panic in the land.

It is disheartening to imagine that in the 21st
century, Nigeria, with all the billions of dollars from oil at her
disposal, cannot save her citizens from a disease as preventable as
cholera.

In November 2009, barely a year ago, this paper lamented as much in an editorial.

“It is lamentable that despite the huge sums of
money allocated by our government for water supply to every part of the
country, many of our citizens still have to die due to lack of potable
water. The question then is: where does all the money go?” we said.

One year later that question still hangs
accusingly over the land. Where indeed does all the money go? Where do
all the promises by the government go?

Why are we saddled with a government that can only
react to tragedy, but will not do anything to prevent it from happening
in the first place? Following every outbreak of cholera – a scenario
which has now become a fixture on the calendar, such that it would not
be out of place if some state governments included “provision for
cholera” in the recurrent expenditure sections of their annual budgets
– governments fall over themselves to announce emergency measures.

Huge sums of money are released, isolation camps created, press conferences set up, assurances dispensed with reckless abandon.

A short while later, everything is packed up, the government returns to its standard state of slumber, to await the next epidemic.

And cholera is not the only epidemic to regularly hit Nigeria – the Northern part especially.

Meningitis and measles are regulars as well.

While the country succumbs to the menace of
cholera, our state governors appear more concerned with asserting their
powers as stakeholders in the politicking and horse-trading gaining
ground in the build-up to 2011.

When the Governors of the worst hit areas –
Northern Nigeria – gather under the aegis of the Northern Governors’
Forum, it is not to deliberate on the persistent threat posed by
cholera, it is to make silly declarations about “zoning.” What of the
local government authorities, whose primary duties it should be to
ensure the availability of potable water in communities, as well as
that citizens are adequately enlightened regarding the importance of
personal hygiene, since cholera is caused by the ingestion of food and
water contaminated with bacteria. We have come to the conclusion that
our local government authorities might as well not exist; such is the
extent of their abdication of governance that there is no point even
bothering to censure them. They are in most cases no more than huge
drain-pipes on the nation’s resources. Indeed, it may be argued that
the billions currently wasted on them would be better spent shared in
cash to the citizenry.

The health authorities have already wasted no time
in telling us what we already know: that this latest epidemic should be
blamed on contaminated water and a disregard for personal hygiene. But
what Nigerians, and presumably the world at large, would like to know
is this: While other countries struggle — and learn to cope — with
unavoidable natural disasters, like hurricanes and flooding, why does
Nigeria maintain its penchant for creating and perpetuating avoidable
ones?

Do you sometimes in your “alone”
time take your thoughts back to things that have happened in your life? I
believe most people do. Sometimes you think of the interesting things, at other
times you think of stuff that may have annoyed or intrigued you, sometimes even
the downright funny ones that make you laugh out loud to yourself.

Well, I had that “alone” time
recently and this is what popped into my head. Six years ago during my campus
days, I walked into the room of a girlfriend who happened to live in the same
building as me. There were at least four guys and my friend. I greeted the
dudes and sat down. I was not prepared to leave the room just because she had
visitors.

I had been completely bored in my
own room and soon I joined in the discussion at hand. We ‘gisted’ for a while
and soon one of the guys who was called Jyke (short for Ejike) stood and walked
out the room. He came in shortly and asked if I stayed upstairs. When I nodded
in the affirmative, he asked if I knew a certain Enkay.

Again, I said I did. The girl lived
just few rooms away from mine. What Jyke said next did not take me by surprise.
He said ” E get wen I bin dey nail that babe o.”(If you do not get what he
meant, he was saying that he used to be sexually involved with the girl).

When he said that, the dudes in the
room were all interested and started asking questions which would make even you
cringe if I wrote them down here, but please, just imagine the sort of
questions they were asking Jyke and the answers he gave to them, if you can.

I was not surprised by this turn of
the conversation but I was embarrassed. I knew people talked about their
sexcapades to close friends (at least I know one or two who do) but the reason
some make it a topic for discussion with every friend they know, even perfect
strangers eludes me.

Growing up, I knew sex to be an act
practiced by two consenting adults. I also knew that if there was no respect
attached to it, it would not have been a “behind closed doors” act.

But these days, we kiss and tell.
We “nail” someone and shout it out to willing listeners. Where is the respect
then? I spoke to some guys and girls about the reasons for this and got a few
responses.

A friend told me that guys like to
show off to their friends that they still have the swagger. It is an “ego”
thing. If as a guy, your friends know you are not getting any, they will
ridicule you. So when you get some, you make noise about it.

Again I was made to understand that
not all guys boast about their sexcapades for that reason. I heard some guys
even lie about it just so they would come across as some hunk with a swagger.
That is really lame and funny.

The guys I spoke with also made
sure to tell me that not all girls are spoken about like that. They say that
when a guy really cares about and respects a woman, he does not speak about his
sexual moments with her to anyone, even his close friends.

They believe that some women do not
respect themselves and so deserve to be spoken about while some must have made
too much “shakara” so that when a guy finally gets to sleep with her, he makes
sure to tell his friends of his conquest.

While this is behaviour that is
prevalent with the male folk, the females also show off but according to my
friend, they do it in a wickedly subtle way when they want to let their
girlfriends know that the guy (who they believe may’ve been full of himself) is
not “all that.”

One of the guys I spoke to asked me
to stop attacking men because women are worse than men in that they do not even
“nail” and tell, they sometimes “chop” and run… meaning that some girls
actually weave deceptive techniques to get a guy’s money without giving him any
and when they do, run without a backward glance; that my friends, is definitely
a gist for another day.

There may be many reasons for this
act of “kiss and tell” but do you really think any of them is justified?