Inside a mountain in the Arctic, Microsoft is building a backup of open-source software that it says will keep the code safe for 1000 years
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Dear colleagues and friends,
World TB Day, this year, comes at a sobering time – as the world grapples with the COVID-19 pandemic. We stand in solidarity with those affected, those at the frontlines of the fight to combat COVID-19, as well as those who continue efforts to support
those ill with longstanding health problems like TB, HIV and other diseases. However, we cannot forget the millions and their families who battle TB every day and lose their lives to this ancient disease – which remains the world’s top
infectious killer.
As eloquently emphasized by WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in his press briefing on COVID-19 yesterday, “I’d like to remind everyone that although COVID-19 is dominating the world’s attention-there is another respiratory
disease that is both preventable and treatable, but kills 1.5 million people every year – that disease is tuberculosis”
“It’s Time”, the focus for World TB Day this year is therefore on urgently accelerating the TB response to save lives and end suffering, even in times of crisis. This will be essential if we are to reach the targets and commitments made
by Heads of State at the 2018 UN High Level Meeting on TB.
We have made important strides against the TB epidemic to date.
We announced last year, that more people received life-saving treatment for tuberculosis in 2018 than ever before, largely due to improved detection and diagnosis. Globally, 7 million people were diagnosed and treated for TB – up from 6.4 million in 2017
– enabling the world to meet one of the milestones towards the United Nations political declaration targets on TB and the WHO Director-General Flagship Initiative Find.Treat.All End TB jointly with Stop TB Partnership and the Global Fund. This
has been a big win for the TB community.
WHO is working with countries to roll out important guidelines, including a comprehensive package on TB preventive treatment released today, and updated MDR TB guidelines to promote the use of all-oral regimens for patients with drug-resistant TB which
would be helpful – particularly at this point, when visiting health centers is a challenge. Furthermore, WHO has developed a note to guide and urge countries to ensure continuity of TB services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
We are strengthening our collaboration with civil society – more information is highlighted in the WHO Civil Society Taskforce Progress Review released today.
Youth mobilization is being ramped up through the WHO 1+1 Youth Initiative to end TB and the Global Youth Declaration to End TB. Multisectoral accountability is being promoted in countries through our framework and we have finalized a new global strategy
on TB research and innovation, that will be reviewed by the World Health Assembly.
Yet, the gains we have made are at risk – if there is any slackening of commitment and action, especially in times of crisis.
We are at a crossroads and we need to unite forces to take the path of success that will save lives and end suffering.
I was especially heartened today, to see the TB community coming together like never before. We all took our events to the virtual realm due to COVID-19 lockdowns. The WHO Online Talk Show held this afternoon, had a powerful line up of speakers that included,
TB survivors and advocates, civil society, high level government representatives, heads of agencies, researchers and partners. As of this evening we have surpassed 10,000 views on YouTube. I also participated in townhalls organized by Stop TB Partnership.
Our joint efforts have indeed ensured a continuing spotlight on those affected by TB, and clearly shows that no matter what the barrier, we can surpass it if we work together.
I am proud to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with you all virtually – and recommit to champion End TB efforts till we reach the finish line.
It’s time to deliver on our promises and ensure no one is left behind.
It’s time to End TB!
Dr Tereza Kasaeva
Director
Global TB Programme
World Health Organization
In the backdrop of the global battle against COVID-19, WHO organized a special online talk show to mark World TB Day 2020. The talk show had a powerful line up of speakers from among TB survivors and advocates, civil society, high-level government representatives,
heads of agencies, researchers and partners. The video was streamed live on WHO’s Youtube channel crossing over 10,000 views in a few hours. Watch the talk show video
New WHO recommendations to prevent tuberculosis aim to save millions of lives
24 March 2020 News release
Geneva – New World Health Organization (WHO) guidance will help countries accelerate efforts to stop people with tuberculosis (TB) infection becoming sick with TB by giving them preventive treatment. A quarter of the world‘s population
is estimated to be infected with TB bacteria. These people are neither sick nor contagious. However, they are at greater risk of developing TB disease, especially those with weakened immunity. Offering them TB preventive treatment will not only protect
them from becoming sick but also cut down on the risk of transmission in the community. Read more
The full package is available below and at our World TB Day Campaign Page
The WHO Civil Society Taskforce provides a platform for meaningful engagement of civil society, building on the commitment of the Director-General, with emphasis on harnessing the untapped potential in engagement with civil society and affected communities
al all levels. To mark World TB Day 2020, the Task Force has released a Progress Review highlighting key achievements since its formation in 2018.
Access link here
WHO Global TB Programme / McMaster University
The WHO Global Tuberculosis (TB) Programme, in collaboration with McMaster University, Canada, is developing a smart platform to improve access to and use of all WHO recommendations on TB prevention and care. The WHO eTB guidelines platform will facilitate
the adoption, adaptation and implementation (“adolopment”) by countries of recommendations across the continuum of care. This digital platform will provide a variety of users – TB programme managers, healthcare workers including
nurses, researchers, patients and affected communities – with easy access to all essential information about WHO-s current policy guidance on TB.
The first set of recommendations on TB preventive treatment were released on this new platform on World TB Day.
24 March 2020 News release
Geneva – As the world comes together to tackle the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to ensure that essential health services and operations are continued to protect the lives of people with TB and other diseases or health conditions. Health services,
including national programmes to combat TB, need to be actively engaged in ensuring an effective and rapid response to COVID-19 while ensuring that TB services are maintained. Read more
Ksenia Schenina
Ksenia Schenina
24 March 2020 Photo story
On World TB Day 2020, the theme – “Its time” – stresses the urgency to end the TB epidemic. TB survivor and advocate, Ksenia Schenina, talks about her struggle with the disease, the persistence of stigma and the role that remembrance can play
in fighting it. Through her TB memorial project, she aims to remember those who passed away from this terrible and ancient disease. “We do it to show what kind of people they were – what kind of things they liked, what kind of music
they listened to and what their favorite movies were; if they liked fishing or dreamt of a flight to space,” she says. Read more
To end TB, we must invest in research and innovation
24 March 2020 Commentary
If the world is to get anywhere near ending TB, a disease that killed more than 1.5 million people in 2018, something significant needs to change.
TB remains the world’s leading infectious killer and yet, in the last 50 years, only three new drugs and regimes have been developed to combat the disease. “What we need is more research and more tools in the pipeline; better diagnostics,
more effective vaccines, and safer, shorter drug regimes,” explains Dr Tereza Kasaeva, Director of the World Health Organization Global Tuberculosis Programme. Read more
Maria Emily C. Ballesteros
Watch this story of Emily, a nurse managing the tuberculosis (TB) program of the City Health Office in Tuguegarao City. Her dream for Tuguegarao is to one day see zero TB cases and that no one dies from this infectious disease. Nurses and healthcare workers
play a critical role in TB prevention and care. It’s time to invest in them to improve healthcare for all. We thank all the nurses, midwives and healthcare workers working to #EndTB! Watch the video
New research tool supports scale-up of digital technologies to End TB
24 March 2020 TDR news item
National anti-tuberculosis efforts are increasingly involving digital technologies, such as mobile applications to support treatment adherence and electronic surveillance systems that enable real-time monitoring of a country’s TB situation. Read more
World TB Day 2020: It’s Time for solidarity
24 March 2020 HIV/TB news item
At this unique time in history when the world is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic, the WHO Department of Global HIV, Hepatitis and STI Programmes stands in solidarity with governments and communities as they seek to maintain health services
and continue to address the needs of patients suffering from HIV and tuberculosis (TB). Read more
New, shorter treatment to prevent TB to be rolled out in five high TB burden countries
24 March 2020 news item
Three-month regimen expected to prevent TB in those at highest risk of developing the disease, including people living with HIV and children under the age of five
Today, the Aurum Institute and its partners, as part of the IMPAACT4TB project, announced that five high-burden TB countries will roll out a new, shorter drug regimen (known as 3HP) to prevent TB. The announcement comes as countries around the world mark World TB Day, which takes place every year on March 24th. Countries that will initially provide the new regimen with funding from Unitaid, U.S. PEPFAR and the Global Fund include Cambodia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe. More than 120,000 patient courses of 3HP will be delivered by the project to 12 countries in 2020. An additional 1 million patient courses are expected to reach low- and middle-income countries by the end of the year, through the combined support of Unitaid, Global Fund, the Stop TB Partnership’s Global Drug Facility (GDF) and PEPFAR. Read more
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Residents of Obasanjo Hilltop GRA, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, Ogun State, have rejected the proposed siting of an isolation centre in the area.
The residents, in a letter to Governor Dapo Abiodun, stated that siting an isolation centre in a residential area would put the health of the people under risk.
Mr Fola Adeola, businessman, politician and founder of Fate Foundation, had donated his private residence and property in Abeokuta for use as isolation centre for COVID-19 patients.
Apart from Adeola, ex-Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo, as well as other persons have donated facilities to the state government to use as isolation centres.
The residents of Oke-Mosan stated that though they appreciated the kind gesture of Adeola, using the building as isolation centre would endanger their lives.
The letter reads, “We are particularly alarmed as individuals and as a community that a non-resident owner of an abandoned property by name Mr Fola Adeola has purportedly donated his property in the estate to be converted to isolation centre for the purpose of victims of COVID-19.
“The community is comprised of retired and aged residents and other vulnerable individuals whose health and well-being would be most negatively affected by the potential conversion or siting of isolation in the neighbourhood.
“We wish to state categorically that this complaint is not and should not be seen as a deliberate step to discourage a most charitable disposition of the donor to public health issues and related social concerns.
“It is essential to request that the facility be used or deployed for allied services such as storage and other non-hazardous uses.
“It is in view of the foregoing that we most humbly appeal to Your Excellency to use your good office as the Executive Governor of Ogun State to cause immediate stoppage of the use of the facility as “COVID-19 isolation centre” due to potential health-related disaster that it might cause to vulnerable residents and generality of the community.”
Nigeria currently has 111 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and two recorded deaths.
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The Nigerian Government has evacuated staff of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control stranded in the Republic of Congo.
In a statement, Nigeria’s Ambassador to Republic of Congo, Deborah Iliya, commended the government and Ministry of Foreign Affairs for deploying an aircraft to airlift the stranded personnel back to Nigeria.
According to Iliya, the NCDC staff had travelled to Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, to undergo a special capacity building course by the World Health Organisation in order to expand their knowledge of Coronavirus management.
The statement reads, “The medical team had been stranded following the closure of air and land borders by the host country ostensibly for similar situation.
“In the same vein, the ambassador, on behalf of the Government of Nigeria, has commended the government and good people of the Republic of Congo for the singular act of solidarity and standing on good relations by the temporal opening of her airport to facilitate the departure of the team on March 26, 2020.
“This act has in no small measure further strengthened the bilateral harmony that exists between the two countries.
“This trying moment calls for unity, support for each other and forging a common front against Coronavirus and all that stands against peace.”
At the moment, Africa has 4,480 confirmed cases of Coronavirus and 135 deaths, with 97 infections and one death coming from Nigeria.
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As expected, the Vice Chancellor’s response on the barrage of lies that Babalakin tried to peddle about the suspension of the 51st convocation of the university, elicited anger and rage from a faceless and dishonest ‘Concerned Stakeholders’ and a group of delinquent non-academic staff making scrupulous releases requesting for the Vice Chancellor to proceed on leave, because, for them Babalakin has an intimidating resumé and commands national respect.
A cursory look at the individuals issuing these publications will tell exactly why they have taken such an undistinguished position. Interestingly, they could not use the SSANU platform which they have tried tirelessly in the pass to desecrate. The team is led by Mr Adetomiwa Adekola, who was impeached as SSANU Chairman on account of his financial recklessness and dubious land scheme he purchased for SSANU members. He is assisted by a rag tag, Mr Babatunde Oseni, who the SSANU electoral committee disqualified from contesting election into any SSANU executive position on account of his terrible records of service in the university.
What sort of stakeholders are these? Whose interest do they actually represent? Certainly not the interest of any known group in the university, but that of their paymaster who is hell bent on destroying the university.
Their position is not only laughable but also pedestrian and lacking in any form of logical reasoning. How can anyone contemplate the exit of a Vice-Chancellor who has achieved so much in two years, even under the worst of conditions? Maybe these fellows need a reminding that it was the selflessness and ingenuity of Prof Oluwatoyin Ogundipe that brought the University of Lagos to number one in Nigeria and eighth in Africa. The university during his Vice Chancellorship has attracted about N8bn in research grants. He created the much needed atmosphere for students to develop their entrepreneurial skills. Under Prof Ogundipe’s watchful eyes, the students and staff have won several international laurels and have become globally relevant. The renaissance of the research culture in the university is largely attributed to the Vice-Chancellor’s zeal to make UNILAG a research-based university. His tenure has given the University more international visibility and global respect. It is not surprising that even Mr Adekola and his cohorts rightly referred to the Vice Chancellor as a “scholar and administrator of repute.” This is particularly so because he singlehandedly won a lot of research grants as a scholar; and to the admiration of many, he has held various key administrative position in his over 30years in the services of the university. On the flip side we have a Pro Chancellor who has done everything in the last three years to give the university bad image and publicity.
Think for one minute, if Prof Ogundipe is the problem, why was Mr Babalakin also at logger heads with Prof Bello? If there is anything we should do at this material time, it is to praise the Vice-Chancellor, Prof Ogundipe, who in two years turned the fortune of the university around. Calling for him to take leave is pathetic and signs of the failings of the Pro Chancellor.
On the part of the Registrar, his Council Resolution Part 2 is a very interesting revelation. The reasons are not farfetched. He made a fair but failed attempt to divert the minds of the public away from the issue that made the university a subject of ridicule in the last three weeks – The suspension of the 51st convocation of the university. Mr Babalakin’s grand intention was to show the university management how powerful and highly connected he is by cancelling the convocation at the detriment of over 13,000 graduating students and then turned around to blame the Vice Chancellor and NUC. But the ploy failed woefully. The public saw clearly what went down, at least the letter from the Ministry of Education puts it pretty clear that the event was suspended at the instance of Mr Babalakin who claimed the ceremonies did not receive Council’s blessings.
The alumni and stakeholders who were tired of Babalakin’s repressive leadership style took to the social media to express their dissatisfactions and frustrations. The #saveMyUnilag trended for days on Twitter and Facebook. For many, it was crystal clear what the agenda was – a show of power. As Simon Kolawole succinctly puts it in his write-up, Babalakin the Bully, “…[Babalakin] he has gone too far by his latest power show which has forced Unilag to suspend its convocation…his ego fight at the expense of the graduating students and their families is ungodly.”
Secondly, the Resolution threw up a host of issues which he claimed was discussed at the Council meeting. One of such was the ‘Greek gift’ of 40 Hectares of land at Ogudu being proposed by the Pro Chancellor. First question to ask, is this not the same piece of land in dispute with the state government for many years? Little wonder the property has no title documents or survey. This is aptly validated by the Registrar’s statement that “it was resolved that steps be taken to retrieve the title documents and that Council should be updated” Haba! Now that he could not get contracts from Unilag, Babalakin has resulted to swindling Unilag staff of their meagre salary? It is important to urge Unilag staff to be vigilant and “shine their eyes” on this land matter o!!! Don’t forget the issue of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway contract given to him, he did not do the job, yet collected huge sum of money to even accept to let go of the contract. Not even the road in Ondo State.
Nigeria is yet to know when Babalakin will fully handover MM2 to government as we are not sure if he will not again change the end of concession date as he did previously. Besides, even if they come up with fake papers for the land, the purported land is located in a swampy environment and a professor who earns the highest salary in the university will struggle to put up a foundation for any building there.
Pages 3-6 of the resolution was largely on financial matters. This Council led by Babalakin should be ashamed of its conducts! Throughout last year, the University was on a standstill over allegations that a sum over N4bn was misappropriated, embezzled, squandered, lavished and stolen by the university management. In fact, the song on Babalakin’s lips was “catch am, catch am, thief, thief, thief, catch am, catch am, robber, robber.”
The same Council, led by same Babalakin, in less than a year, is now publishing a resolution that money is no longer missing, albeit, the University Managements (past and present) have saved far too long and too much to the tune of N9bn in the TSA account of the university! Then the Council goes on to propose a lavish spending of the savings meant for the DLI building, School of Foundation Studies building, College of Medicine and School of Postgraduate Studies building. How can you make money saved for more than five years for capital projects available for spending?
Babalakin is definitely set out to destroy the 25-year strategic plan that the Vice Chancellor swore to up hold, in one sweep! Babalakin has not facilitated any building to the university and yet he wants to share the money saved in the university development account by more than three Vice Chancellors to construct educational edifices for the great citadel of learning. Our dear Pro Chancellor needs to take a cue from what his counterpart in Obafemi Awolowo University is doing.
As any right discerning person can already see, Babalakin is trying hard to play the welfare game to divide and rule the staff of the university, further entrenching the acrimony, bad blood, discord and division that he already created in in the university. He is also struggling hard to divert attention away from the convocation issue. This is the biggest shame of leadership.
It is distasteful that the UNILAG Council matter has suddenly become a gutter matter that any individual can pick up on the streets of Lagos. Let us advise Council to stop wasting resources in printing resolutions. The next Council meeting should hold at the Main Bowl of the Sports Centre where all members of the university community, alumni and press can witness the plenary.
For many of us who are watching gleefully, the management of the university must be praised, in spite of all the grandstanding and unnecessary brinkmanship, the university rose to first in Nigeria and eighth in Africa.
No body and no lies can change what we already know, Babalakin cancelled the University of Lagos 51st convocation four days to the event.
On a lighter note or perhaps as a matter of national importance, the Pro Chancellor, Mr Babalakin was alleged to be in London on 11th March for Justice Oguntade’s birthday, he subsequently denied traveling to London but confirmed he was in Germany on medical trip. Whether London or Germany, since hi
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An investigator with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Adamu Usman Yusuf, has disclosed that the contract leading to the trial of a former Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission, Tuoyo Omatsuli, was genuine.
He told Justice Saliu Saidu of the Federal High Court in Lagos that the authenticity of the contract was confirmed by the NDDC in its response to an enquiry sent to it by the anti-graft agency.
Yusuf made the disclosure while testifying in the on-going trial of Omatsuli and three others over alleged N3.6bn fraud.
The EFCC investigator had earlier in his examination-in-chief told the court that investigations by his team revealed that about N12bn was paid to a firm known as Starline Consultancy Services, which was engaged by the NDDC to recover three per cent statutory allocation from oil and gas companies operating in the Niger Delta.
He said a document received from the NDDC revealed that Starline was paid 10 per cent of the money recovered as its commission.
However, while being cross-examined by Omatsuli’s lawyer, Prof Amuda Kannike (SAN), the witness was asked to throw more light on the contents of the NDDC’s document on the contract that led to the charge filed against Omatsuli.
Responding, the witness said, “NDDC’s response to our request for the award of contract to Starline Consultancy Services said that the contract was genuine.
“The House Committee on NDDC also played a crucial role by performing their oversight function in the execution of the contract.”
Further hearing in the trial has been adjourned until June 8, 2020.
The anti-graft agency had on Monday re-arraigned Omatsuli alongside Don Parker Properties Ltd, Francis Momoh and Building Associates Ltd before Justice Saidu on a 52-count amended charge of alleged N3.6bn fraud.
In the charge, Omatsuli was said to have procured the third and fourth accused (Momoh and Building Associates) to utilise a total sum of N3.6bn paid by Starline Consultancy Services Ltd into an account operated by fourth accused.
The prosecution said that they ought to have known that the said sums formed part of the proceeds of their unlawful activities including corruption and gratification.
The offences, which were allegedly committed between August 2014 and September 2015, were said to have contravened the provisions of Sections 15(1), 15(2), 15(3) and 18 of the Money Laundering Prohibition Act 2011, as amended by Act No 1 of 2012.
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The most powerful person in Aso Rock, Abba Kyari; who is the chief of staff to the president, has tested positive to Covid19. No government official can reach President Buhari without him. There is a ripe suspicion that the kitchen cabinet might have been infected. Likewise in Europe, the most powerful person, Angela Merkel the chancellor of Germany, has been quarantined. While Trump and Boris Johnson took the same path in trying to ignore the pandemic, their governments are in deep crises of the damages and exposures their neglect has caused the citizens.
As I type, the fear of corona virus is the beginning of real wisdom as governments are now banning even churches and mosques from gathering. The Nigerian federal ministry of health has announced 42 cases so far. And even the mass of working people who have hitherto doubted our thieving class so far, are now more wary and precautionary over their immediate safety without relying on the failed health institutions. People seldom shake hands now. Corona waves na the way to greet now! That corona virus has turned a corruption racket is what will be duly discussed another day.
Industries are closing down as Wall Street falls like pack of cards. US President Donald Trump is shouting “cuts” for the working class and bail-outs for industries and big business. Whereas, Socialist presidential aspirant Bernie Sanders is calling for “healthcare for all” as well as pay for all US citizens staying at home during the pandemic days. The globalised trend of the corona virus needs a global understanding and lessons of how the world is being ruled everywhere. The way US rulers have failed to care for the poor and invest in proper and compulsory healthcare for all but private pharmaceutical companies who make healthcare a commercial quantity that only the rich can afford, is the same way Nigerian rulers failed to build hospitals and kept allocating between 4 to 6% budgetary spending on education while them and their children spend billions on medical tourism. Also, Boris Johnson’s UK government is renting “beds at hospitals.” This is unlike Spain that has nationalized its healthcare!
The price of crude oil has fallen globally. The global stock exchange has crashed as workers can no longer go to work and make great wealth for their casino. Coronavirus has superceded SARS with its speedy spread and effects globally. So the world economic crises have been, for the first time, propelled by a health crisis. What can the Left and the revolutionaries in Nigeria make out of this global crises that could leave no island untouched?
Naomi Klein, the author of the classic ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism’ has come up to warn that “if you’re a hard-core free-market economist, you understand that when market fails it lends itself to progressive change much more organically, than it does (when) the kind of deregulatory policies emerge. Political and economic elites understand that moment of crises is their chance to push through their wish list of unpopular policies that further polarize wealth…”
I argue that while the government in Nigeria has reduced the cruelly expensive cost of petrol by just #20, and there is lipservice to building new hospitals, there is a larger probability of massive corruption as the federal government has already declared #2trillion intervention fund. Why we the working people have to very much care is because the same elements who created the crises (whichever ways) would end up profiting largely from the crises. This just as many military officers and politicians are billionaires courtesy the Boko Haram war.
The interplay of methods of these corruptive accumulations on one hand, and the trajectory of working class resistances is critically assessed weighing up why and how the working people were at the loosing ends at the 2008/9 global economic crises that made the Central Bank under the Soludo/Sanusi bail-outs policies made the criminal banks even richer than before. Though a few bank MDs and top officers were detained on “hospital beds” and such other “ajebutter” prisons; no bank owner was even questioned.
The fact that both the US and Nigeria are rich governments that have bad healthcare policies, discussing social infrastructures as class struggle under this system of “primitive accumulation” needs to be knocked up as perspectives to guide millions who want an end to crises and build another world that would be for all and not a tiny thieving few.
A CLASSLESS PANDEMIC
The corona virus has shown that the gap between the rich and the poor is just an artificial creation. The nature of humans is more communal than competitive. Plenty of the rich mouth the fact that we are all equal, but some are more equal than others. This virus is a threat to all and shows that the world can organize together and defeat any virus that attacks it. Crises like this shows that there is no policy that is pro-rich that can save society. Most of the capitalists who rule our world have been saying that government cannot help all and cater for the needs of majority. They tend to tell us that getting “healthcare for all” is rocket science. Corona virus has proved that all that is wrong!
Meanwhile, many Nigerians are debating as to the cause of corona virus, and why it has drawn more attentions than malaria that kills about 800 everyday and child mortality that murders about 300 women daily. These debates became rife when Ibrahim Magu; head of the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) asserted that “corona virus is caused by corruption.” His position, while quite misleading, is correct to the point that the virus is actually caused by the greed of man in unsettling the animal and forest lives. Most of the viruses live in the wildest of forests but humans go in and destroy their habitats. These make the virus homeless and have to migrate to live with humans.
The corona virus has also made the Nigerian politicians to have no escapist lives again. Most of them used to go abroad for medical tourism. But there is nowhere to run to now! This is why revolutionaries must use this chance to support striking doctors and demand for free, functionally standard and compulsory healthcare for all. We do not want a situation where the ruling class would use state wealth to build defence and cure for corona virus, only for the rich, instead for all. We must avoid repeating case of the last economic meltdown where what we could see is socialism for the rich and leave the poor uncatered for. This is why we must all reject the paltry #20 that was reduced from oil price as well as condemn the full devaluation of the naira. These policies will make the rich eat their cake and have it. Petrol price should be reduced to at least #45 while naira should be strengthened. The time to consider the #RevolutionNow demands of an “economy for the majority” is now!
2008/9: A FLASHBACK
When the 2008 global economic meltdown stormed Nigeria, the rulers ordered “technocrats” to adopt the Obama measures in bailing out the banks and their thieving managers. After prosecuting five CEOs of Afribank, Oceanic, Finbank, Intercontinental, and Union bank, The CBN went ahead to put #460bn as bail-outs for the banks after recovering just #70bn. The CEOs lost their posts for giving out #700bn loans without collateral. The loans portfolio of the bank, according to CBN, is #2.8tn. The richest guys in the country were involved in this public racket and were never touched. A good instance is Aliko Dangote who had a loan worth $15m with Oceanic Bank but got elected to replace Ndi OKereke as Nigerian Stock Exchange president. The same person has the monopoly of trading in rice, salt, sugar, textiles, and vegetable oil. The same persons who created the crises in the same place got rewarded after the crises. This is what Naomi Klein is warning about. For the rich, socialism is never good for the majority. The rich, in the time of corona virus and other disasters, want bail-outs but never for the working people. Just as Omoyele Sowore noted; “when crises arises, capitalism retires and socialism becomes the messiah!
We must start asking for Cost of Living Allowance (COLA) from the federal government. Every Nigerian must each be paid at least #100,000 monthly as the corona virus effect billing. We should also demand a standard hospital per 5 streets with the doctors and nurses paid appropriately!
THE TRUMP/BUHARI DISORDER
President Buhari’s address to Nigerians has failed to address the pandemic. Trump’s tweets are of the same mental disorders like those of the ministers and officials of Buhari’s government. Trump boasted that the “virus is under total control…The market will take care of itself,” he had to recant after the Dow Jones Industrial closed with its worst one-day decline since 1987; “The market will be very strong as soon as we get rid of the virus.”
“But even as he was doing so, Trump maintained that he hadn’t said the virus was “under control,” which is something he has most definitely said on many occasions — along with other attempts to play down fears” CNN noted.
Garba Shehu and other spokespersons of President Buhari have also been speaking from all sides of their mouths. They first downplayed the effect of the virus by revealing that malaria has been killing hundreds…Until they made some allocations of about $1.2trillion to the virus effects. The question remains the goals of the government. Many Nigerians do not trust the same government that has never given as much as 8% budgetary allocation to healthcare since the Buhari regime came into place, just like the PDP governments before it. While the president is one of the most sick, he prefers to betray electoral promises and visit private hospitals in the UK for months instead of building standard public health care.
Working people in US,UK, and Nigeria should look beyond their reactionary rulers and make real political demands that will make sure the same rogues who cause the crises don’t come back to claim to be the super heroes of the same crises. The case of Ebola and Lassa in Nigeria are classics in this regard. While Nigeria was lucky to get over the Ebola case with the sacrifice of health officials; Lassa fever has killed thousands so far loosely tackled because rodents most likely cannot enter luxury houses.
Nigerians should be aware that both Buhari and Trump are exponents of crazy capitalism and prefers to give false answers to real threats and would only be falsely apologetic later. We must understand that the rulers are neither interested in our well being nor our future. Their fear is that the virus should never become for all. They prefer crises for just the masses. But oga corona no mind. This is why despite Trump trying to call it Chinese virus or Buhari trying to boycott addressing the country, nothing matters to the working people than having a healthy society. Arms in arms, we will have to care for one another and defeat the most dangerous virus ever in the history of the world!
OPIUMS ON THE CROSS
Pastors in Nigeria, aside the ban on public and mass gatherings, are seriously on trial! Many a youths are asking what their “God” would do in this time of corona virus to save the followers from untimely deaths. The first pastor to become so fearless had predicted that he would go to China to cure the virus. But by the time the Italian became the first case in view; the pastor got admitted in a hospital for unknown reasons.
Also, the mosques are closing shop. Even many are contemplating drinking alcohol to help in preventing corona virus. Despite the fact that many a churches and mosques become well attended public places, the belief in better life and a prosperous world without danger have been the egg tacts around the building of these beliefs. Saudi Arabia has stopped religious visitations. Government everywhere is banning all worshipping junctures. If these bans have been summoned by political demands of the left, it couldn’t have sailed through but the struggle is being marshaled by a pandemic. Bernie Sanders was seen as too extreme but most of those pro-establishment strollers must be shitting in their yanshes now!
Karl Marx was very clear that “religion is the opium of the masses, the soul of the soulless.” The realizations of the fact that the immediacy of the problems of society can only be derailed if the people think that there is an umbrella or belief that can make some magic. With corona now, even the state that employs religion is not apologetic in banning its public activities. Sadly, many priests still in shock as to a possible demarketing have kept on lying to their congregations. A viral video shows a pastor saying “coronavirus cannot enter Nigeria where there is corrosive anointing;” so cocky in ignorance. Such public ranting must be condemned.
CONFUSION BREAK BONE; NAIJA HEALTH IN CRISES
When the deposed emir of Kano, former CBN governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, was banned to Awe in Nassarawa State; the town has two (2) doctors to two hundred thousand (200,000) people. Such is the metaphor of health care in Nigeria. Most doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel have migrated to other climes in an unprecedented brain drain. As Yusuf posited “7 out of 10 Nigerians live on less than $1.25 (~500 Naira) a day and they also live in a country where 70% of health expenditures are out-of-pocket payments. Nineteen years after the Abuja Declaration where African Union states pledged to allocate at least 15% of their annual budget to health, Nigeria continues to default. With over 23,584 public primary health care facilities, 8,290 private primary health care facilities and 200,000 patent and proprietary medicine vendors (PPMVs) in Nigeria, yet the country’s health indices and other health indicators continue to remain abysmal without any significant improvement compared to other countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Citizens are condemned to self-care using several unregulated drugs and African raw herbs. The yearly allocations to health care in the budget never rise beyond 6 and 8%. This is despite the fact that Aisha, wife of President Buhari once publicly complained that Aso rock clinic has no syringe! At the Teaching hospitals, one has to pay heavily to get health care as the state has been practicing health care commercialization. The medical equipments are really not there while there are so poor remunerations of medical personnel. Yet, when Ebola came knocking in 2014, the health workers paid the sacrifices.
Corona virus is global and has now halted the medical tourism of the rich class of whom President Buhari is the chief. If not for Covid-19, he would have gone visiting his London doctors for the umpteenth time!
The health workers’ unions have been fighting for a better system for years. This has been led by the Joint Health Staffs Union (JOHESU) and the Nigeria Medical Associations (NMA.) JOHESU has led enormous strikes and pickets but the neo-liberal policies of the ruling class keep ignoring these strikes. As I write, doctors in Abuja are on strike. The rulers are now in a quagmire. This is the time for the unions to collaborate with the civil society and revolutionary movements to take up the state and fight for “free health care for all.”
THE EXAMPLE OF CUBA
Fidel Castro’s people are the certified global doctors today!
A small island at the backyard of the United States of North America; Cuba is a state-capitalist economy led by revolutionary socialists. While the state have yet boomed since 1959 as a result of the prevailing capitalist globe, it has been vociferous on social welfarism especially education, food, health, and housing. This has been the minimum with which the Communist Party has been working on since the revolution. With its third president in charge now; Cuba is the country that is now rescuing the world from the genocide of corona virus. The vessel that is wholly affected by the virus has been shipped to the Cuban shore and Cuba has been treating the patients on board. Italy is receiving about 200 Cuban doctors and nurses as the catholic country leads the population of casualties. The Cuban health statistics shows that 98% is living healthily just as education is 98.5%.
Cuba stood by the world on hurricane Katrina; by South Africa against apartheid; by Angola against imperialist Portugal, and now that “God-forsaken communist country” stands by the world with the best of its great medical care against corona virus. This is a lesson that we need to abide by and make the world a socialist island. The current system of “greed and power” is a pandemic. It is ruled by political viruses that live mainly on primitive accumulations of the sweat and blood of the majority. The working class of all lands should unite and fight capitalism to the ruins and replace it with a world led by the people who make the wealth, not those who do nothing but steal the wealth.
IN ALL; THIS PANDEMIC WILL FALL
The struggle for a safer world is in danger of that “common ruins of the contending classes.” Italy, Nigeria, Spain, China, US, and some others have recorded deaths through corona virus. It is currently rumoured that some senators and members of the House of Representatives have contracted the deadly virus. We have 582 deaths in US and 46,145 cases with only 295 recoveries. One death has been recorded in Nigeria with 46 cases recorded. 6,777 are dead out of 63,927 cases in Italy. China has 16,578 dead in 382,570 incidents. Germany has 29,056 with 123 people dead. German chancellor, Angela Merkel has been quarantined. India with over 1 billion population has about 500 cases with no deaths.
The Indian case is very peculiar in lessons for Nigeria. Public health care in all tiers is free and subsidized for those below the poverty line. The Indian health sector encompasses 18% of total outpatient care and 44% of total impatient care. Middle and upper class use public health care less than those with a lower standard of living
The Covid19 pandemic has exposed big countries like Britain, US, China, Nigeria, and others. The pandemic have also exposed capitalism as an idea that is deficient to the mass of working people. The idea does not care for the majority but the thieving minority. The rich continue to be richer while the poor becomes poorer. We need labour and civil society to work together and reconstitute revolutionary relationships to make sure that working people does not be at the receiving end of this pandemic. We must remember that those who destroy the country must not be allowed to continue with their madness after the covid19. We must demand for #FreeHealthCareForAll!
We must also demand that world-class hospitals are built massively all over the country and we leave the madness of neo-liberalism in the dustbin of ruins. To do these works, we need a movement of the working people dedicated to the revolution that will build a country for all like the Take It Back movement and the Coalition for Revolution (CORE). Socialist organizations like the Socialist Workers and Youth League (SWL) serve as the political tribunes that remind us all on the ideal and alternatives to the rot that is causing pandemics and wars to the world today.
Capitalist presidents that combine neo-liberalism and fascism are in deep shit today as the covid19 has exposed their inefficiencies and monumental social infrastructural dangers. The health of the world is the safety net to our wealth. Why would we allow those who care about the wealth alone to continue to rule us? Why should we continue to allow those who think of only the individual and never the collective to continue to rule us? When Greta Thunberg was leading the climate change campaigns, Donald Trump was scolding her. Bernie Sanders, Jeremyn Corbyn, Omoyele Sowore, Elvo Morales, Bobbi Wine and other revolutionary change-seeking eggheads have all campaigned for another world; the point is for we the working people and all oppressed, in unity and action, lead #RevolutionNow to get a life warranty of #FreeHealthCareForAll!
Nigerians should demand for Cost of living allowance (COLA) of at least #100,000 in order to survive as the country is being locked down. We all must observe hand washing regularly; social distancing; avoid touching of faces, and other sophisticated parts of the body. Government should provide water, gloves and hands sanitizers to all. There is no electricity just as there is very poor housing for the majority of the people. We need the majority of empty house in cities and towns to be massively redistributed. Electricity must be renationalized.
With all unity and actions, we will defeat the yet another genocidal virus. This also tells us that we must choose to build the world for all and not for the few as the threat of grand barbarism stares us all in the face once again. Rosa Luxembourg would be rolling and smiling in her grave as we are condemned to learn from her battle cry: “socialism or barbarism!”
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TOKYO: The Tokyo Olympics were postponed today into 2021, the first such delay in the Games’ 124-year modern history, as the coronavirus crisis wrecked the last international sporting showpiece still standing this year.
Though a huge blow to Japan, the decision was a relief to thousands of athletes fretting over how to train as the world headed into lockdown over the disease that has claimed more than 16,500 lives.
Pressure had been building on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its powerful president Thomas Bach, with some athletes and sporting bodies critical of the time taken to make an inevitable decision.
After a call with Bach, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the July 24 – Aug 9 competition would be rescheduled for the summer of 2021 at the latest as proof of victory over the virus.
“We asked President Bach to consider postponement of about one year to make it possible for athletes to play in the best condition,“ Abe said.
“President Bach said he is in agreement 100%.”
The IOC confirmed that.
Athletes were disappointed but broadly endorsed the delay, given health risks and disruption to their training as gyms, stadia and swimming pools shut down around the world.
US skateboarder and gold medal hopeful Nyjah Huston was frustrated, though, especially given his sport was scheduled to make its debut at the Tokyo.
“When skating finally makes it in the Olympics then it gets postponed,“ the 25-year-old wrote on Instagram, after a delay had begun to look inevitable. “I was feelin (sic) ready too … now I’m going to have to be a year older for this!”
Despite their disappointment, not to mention the logistical headaches and financial losses coming, a poll showed about 70% of Japanese agreed with a delay.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike told reporters the delayed Games would still be branded “Tokyo 2020”.
It was not yet clear whether the 57 percent of athletes who had already secured spots in Tokyo would need to qualify again for the re-arranged Olympics.
The torch relay was being cancelled. – Reuters
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We all know being creative is definitely an asset when you’re an entrepreneur. But… Your greatest strengths are also your greatest weaknesses. And being TOO creative can actually keep you from building the biz of your dreams. So let’s dig into how creativity can actually hurt you in biz…
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