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Opinion

‘Bad Boy’ Nigeria @ 60 | By: Tony Ogunlowo

Independence Day! It’s Birthday Time as Nigeria turns 60.

The President will  light the candles on the nations cake and cut it (- probably imported from Harrods in London) and there will be a big bash at Aso Rock with past presidents, important dignitaries and foreign ambassadors invited. They will drink, make merry and pose for countless photo sessions.

But is there really anything to celebrate?

No!

The country is in a worse state than it was 60 years ago when the Union Jack came down and Nigeria’s green and white flag went up: a Man doesn’t know where his next loaf of bread is going to come from or whether he’ll even live to see the next day; mass unemployment has created a generation of people who’ll never work for a living; the crime wave is spiraling out of control as is poverty and incessant killings; corruption has taken a front seat and with the current Covid-19 Pandemic nobody can see the fabled light at the end of the tunnel!.

If Nigeria were to be a person it would have nearly lived a full life by now having gone through childhood, puberty, adulthood, middle age and about to enter the blissful age of retirement. That is to say Nigeria should have got over its teething problems by puberty, settled into a steady growth rhythm by adulthood and now at retirement should be a nation everybody should be happy to live in.

But alas, ‘Bad Boy’ Nigeria (- and its inhabitants) has refused to grow up and revels in its alter-ego of a ‘Man-Child’ still acting irresponsibly with no clear sense of direction. Haba! Na only you waka come?

In an attempt to govern ourselves we’ve tried every form of governance known to Man – without success- from military dictatorships to the US- Presidential Style we currently practice. We haven’t tried Socialism or Communism yet because it’s not in our DNA to call one another ‘comrade’, dress and eat like peasants and live in unpalatable hovels. It won’t work unless we adopt the Animal Farm maxim of “ All Animals are Equal but Some are More equal Than Others!”.

Nigeria is probably the only nation in the World that doesn’t have a national airline: Ethiopia we belittle has the best airline in Africa, flying modern aeroplanes that don’t fall out of the sky! What does it take to buy of lease a few planes, slap the national emblem on it and run an airline? In Nigeria that’s a Mission Impossible and recent attempts to revive the national airline have flat lined. That’s probably because they’re still bickering about who’s going to run it: is it going to be Mallam Muslim from the North or Christian Chief from the South? Or how much money they can ‘chop’ from the venture even before it takes off.

We have the largest deposits of crude oil in Africa yet our ancient and crumbling refineries ( – are any of them still working?) can’t pump out cheap petrol and kerosene for the populace to consume: to make matters worse fuel subsidies have been removed and a litre of petrol now costs a fortune. We have to import refined petroleum products – even from countries like Niger who only started commercial oil production in 2011.

Boko Haram and other insurgents are still busy terrorising the land killing and kidnapping hundreds of people at random and sacking villages while the Nigerian Army is powerless to bring their reign of terror to an end. Is it because they are cowering in their barracks or they have no guns to fight?

Still after sixty years building and maintaining simple basic structures such as roads and bridges is alien to our culture. We build them (-if we do!) and forget about them or “Who build that garda?”, as a past military leader once asked. It is the year 2020 and driving from Lagos to Abuja is like a daytrip to Hell! If the pot-holed roads or non-existent roads, rickety bridges and other reckless motorists don’t kill you, you are bound to meet your Waterloo at the hands of marauding robbers, kidnappers – or the police! (SARS are the guilty ones here!).

The minority ruling elite are well-heeled (- and corrupt!); well educated (- well most of them!) ; live in palatable mansions; drive the latest cars (- and may have a private plane or two!); send their kids abroad to proper schools; order cooked pizza from London while the rest of the country wallows in poverty and uncertainty. “Let them eat cake”, they tell the rest of the country – and mean it!

With nothing else to do many are jumping on planes to go abroad – many vowing never to come back home again. Abroad the pastures are greener, the opportunities are unlimited, proper healthcare, police you don’t have to bribe and the chance to live at least a decent life – something you can’t do in Naija (- unless you are ‘connected’) A nation is losing its top brains to institutions and organisations abroad  and the government is doing nothing to stem the flow: there are no incentives to stay other than you’ll earn less than what a cleaner or nurse earns in the U.K (- that’s if you get paid at all!) and you’re not killed by ritualists or cultists or kidnapped by herdsmen! And those who don’t jump ship have to face the humiliating task of finding any kind of job. How many Ph.D. holders work for Dangote driving trucks?

Faced with hopelessness many are forgetting that “Get Rich quick or die trying” is meant to be lyrics in a rap song and not a mantra a great many Nigerians live and swear by: so kidnapping, armed robbery, embezzlement or sacrificing your granny or brother for a money ritual are not honest ways to make a fast buck.

So after 60 years of independence Nigeria has managed to wangle its way into the infamous club of failed nations, hardly something worth celebrating: it’ll be like a younger me coming home from school with ‘Fail’ on my report card and thinking my parents will throw a party to celebrate.

Grow up Nigeria@60!

Tony Ogunlowo is on Twitter: @Archangel641 or visit http://www.archangel641.blogspot.co.uk

 

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 Health, Opinion

Opinion: COVID-19 and HIV: so far it seems the outcome is not what was feared| By: Morgan Morris

Based on official figures – which may be somewhat under reported – COVID-19 has not been as devastating in South Africa as initially feared.
 
Back in March and April this year case numbers on the continent were still modest. But predictions and projections were sombre. There seemed to be consensus that African countries had weak public health systems and few testing facilities, and containment and social distancing were going to be problematic in poor communities.
 
More specifically, local and international organisations pointed to the fact that these areas typically have the highest incidence of immuno-compromised individuals. Experts feared that the tens of millions with HIV and tuberculosis would be disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
 
That did not bode well for South Africa, where well over seven million people are believed to have HIV. The immune systems of these individuals are notoriously weak, often unable to fight infections. Fears were that COVID-19 would be devastating to this community.
 
Those dire forecasts have, so far, not been realised. Around half of the COVID-19 cases on the continent were from South Africa. The country’s COVID-19 cases were around 653,400 as of mid-September. Some 15,705 people are estimated to have died from COVID-19; a tragic number, but not nearly as many as predicted by some. Early predictions were that symptomatic cases of COVID-19 in South Africa could surpass a million by July with 30,000 deaths by November 2020.
 
These comparatively “low” numbers have come as a surprise. Many possible explanations for this modest-by-comparison outbreak are being floated.
 
Some insights into previous outbreaks of human coronaviruses may be useful in this regard. My laboratory recently reviewed what is known at this stage – and what is still unknown – about co-infections of HIV and coronaviruses.
 
Human coronaviruses
There are currently seven known human coronaviruses.
 
Of these, the four most common and still circulating are reported to cause about 10%-30% of all common colds globally. Fortunately, research shows that they cause no more than mild to moderate cold symptoms. In rare cases, these human coronaviruses can cause more serious respiratory disease in children, the elderly, the immuno-compromised such as people with HIV and people with underlying illness. But, as far as we know, deaths as a result of infections from the “common” human coronaviruses are quite rare.
 
Then there are three more pathogenic or life-threatening coronaviruses. The first among these to appear among humans is the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV), which causes severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which killed around 10% of the just-over 8,000 people who were infected.
 
The next was the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which causes the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) that killed an estimated 34% of about 2,494 people known to have been infected.
 
And now there’s the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus behind COVID-19.
 
We have learned that there are a number of factors linked to severe disease and death from SARS-CoV-2. These include advanced age; being a male; and the presence of other pre-existing medical conditions including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and kidney disease. This doesn’t mean that the young and women are immune to the disease. They can catch the virus, and pass it on to others.
 
Of particular interest in South Africa is the risk of COVID-19 and HIV co-infections.
 
The HIV and CoV interactions
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a lack of published academic work on HIV and coronavirus co-infections. This is, in part, why the spectre of COVID-19 running amok in countries with large numbers of people living with HIV – like South Africa – raised anxiety levels. Particularly because, as early as the late 1980s, coronaviruses had been shown to be agents of opportunistic infections in immunocompromised hosts, and were linked to diarrhoeal disease among AIDS patients.
 
But otherwise, there were few known associations between HIV and coronaviruses. I know of only one reported case of an HIV-positive person infected with SARS during the 2003 outbreak. This person recovered fully from SARS.
 
During the same period, another study reported on a connection between HIV and SARS. In this case, 19 HIV-positive patients shared a hospital ward with 95 patients confirmed positive for SARS. Somehow, none of the HIV-positive patients became infected with the SARS-CoV. Six of the 28 medical personnel who worked in the ward were infected. At the time, researchers began speculating that antiretroviral treatment was offering patients with HIV some protection against the SARS-CoV. But, since SARS-CoV disappeared so quickly from the human population, this was not positively established.
 
The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled the study of HIV-coronavirus co-infections.
 
My laboratory recently published an overview of studies that looked at COVID-19 infections among more than 11,000 HIV-positive individuals. The risk associated with coinfections is still a matter of debate. But the estimated COVID-19 prevalence reported in various studies does not suggest increased rates of hospitalisation or mortality in HIV-positive patient populations. Clinical characteristics and disease outcomes were comparable to those described for the general population with COVID-19.
 
The reasons for these infection and mortality rates are still unclear. But scientists have come up with several interesting hypotheses.
 
One is that antiretroviral treatments have anti-CoV properties and offer some level of protection against COVID-19 infection. Another is that the weakened immune system of people with HIV stops it from “overreacting” to the presence of the coronavirus. In this way it averts the elevated inflammation that is being associated with COVID-19. A related argument has been made that because the helper T-cells have been deactivated in HIV-positive patients, the response of the immune system is tempered, again limiting the risks of excessive inflammation.
 
A more intriguing hypothesis suggests that the original HIV infection changes the host cells so they no longer offer a favourable environment for other viruses. This phenomenon is called “viral interference”. And it’s been argued that some cold-causing viruses have stopped at least one flu pandemic in Europe in its tracks in 2009.
 
Moving forward
Concern over HIV-positive patients is understandable. But current data from the COVID-19 pandemic – and past experiences with SARS and MERS – suggest that they do not form an at-risk group. This raises the question of whether HIV serves as an immunological shield against more severe forms of the new disease.
What has been quite apparent from the start is that old age and co-morbidities such as obesity, hypertension and diabetes are more telling considerations in both general infections and HIV/SARS-CoV-2 co-infections.
 
Based on what we now know, should a second or even a third wave of COVID-19 be forthcoming, state and health officials should consider a more strategic and targeted approach to containment.


Morgan Morris, a freelance writer for the WHO, amongst others, and filmmaker based in Cape Town, contributed to this article.
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Credit: Afolabi Sotunde—Reuters
 Features

Nigerian physician Dr. Tunji Funsho named one of TIME’s Most Influential People in the world.

TIME named Nigerian physician Dr. Tunji Funsho to the 2020 TIME100, its annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. The full list and related tributes are available now at time.com/time100, and Dr. Funsho’s TIME100 profile is available here (https://bit.ly/3ky8pZg).

The list, now in its seventeenth year, recognizes the activism, innovation and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals.

Dr. Funsho, a cardiologist based in Lagos, Nigeria, is the first Rotary member to receive this honor for the organization’s work to eradicate polio, having played an essential role in ensuring Africa’s certification as wild polio-free in August of 2020.

“I’m honored to be recognized by TIME for my part in ensuring that no child in Africa will ever again be paralyzed by wild polio, a disease that once disabled 75,000 African children every single year,” said Dr. Funsho. “Eradicating the wild poliovirus in Africa was a team effort that required the cooperation and dedication of governments, partners, Rotary members, hundreds of thousands of health workers, and countless parents who chose to have their children vaccinated against polio.”

As the leader of Rotary’s Nigeria National PolioPlus Committee, Funsho has worked alongside Rotary members throughout the country to raise awareness about the importance of polio immunization, encouraged governments and public figures to support polio eradication, and served as a vocal leader and advocate for Rotary’s fight to end polio in Africa.

Dr. Funsho works closely with Rotary’s partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI): the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance. As a member of Nigeria’s Presidential Task Force on Polio, he has coordinated immunization and advocacy campaigns with the Minister of State for Health and the Inter-Agency Coordination Committee for Polio Eradication. He has also worked closely with the Sir Emeka Offor Foundation, the Dangote Foundation, the Traditional Leaders Council and the Federation of Muslim Women’s Association of Nigeria.

In August 2019, Nigeria reached three years without a case of wild poliovirus. Nigeria’s progress, led by Rotary, its GPEI partners and local and national governments, was the result of decades of sustained efforts, including domestic and international financing, the commitment of hundreds of thousands of health workers, and innovative strategies to immunize children who previously couldn’t be reached due to insecurity in the country’s northern states.

On 25 August, the African region was certified wild polio-free. This historic announcement means that five of the WHO’s six regions, representing more than 90 percent of the world’s population, are now free of the wild poliovirus. The virus is now endemic in just two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Rotary’s nearly 32,000 members in Africa have played a critical role in helping the region achieve its wild polio-free status by holding events to raise funds and awareness for polio, and working with world governments and national and local leaders to secure funding and support for polio eradication.

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Corona Virus pandemic
 Opinion

Opinion: Issues in ensuring COVID-19 vaccine compliance | By: Derek Yach

An effective COVID-19 vaccine could help us emerge from isolation and end the social distancing required during this pandemic; but it will only work if people are willing to be vaccinated.

We conducted a survey in June of 2020 that addressed whether people’s willingness to use a COVID-19 vaccine and adopt other preventive healthcare measures was associated with trust.  The survey was conducted in nine countries: China, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, South Africa, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A thousand individuals were surveyed in each country, and the responses were weighted to the most recent census data.

While an average of 86% of the respondents had increased the number of times they washed their hands in April and May of 2020, an average of 21% said that they would not get vaccinated. These figures were highest in Sweden (31%) and South Africa (30.6%), but were not much better in the United States (28%) and Italy (23%) (Figure A). Unfortunately, many of these levels barely reach the cusp of vaccine coverage needed to achieve population-wide herd immunity against COVID-19

Sources show that the public is most concerned with vaccine effectiveness and the risk of vaccine side effects. Worry about side effects has historically had a big influence on vaccine acceptance. In the UK, concern about reported neurological complications from common childhood vaccines lowered the vaccination rate from 81% in 1974 to 31% in 1980, leading to a resurgence of pertussis that resulted in over 100,000 cases . In 2018, 20% of respondents to the Wellcome Global Monitor survey in the UK said they believed that the risk of vaccine side effects was fairly high or very high

Interestingly, our survey showed that respondents who said they would get vaccinated had more education than those who said they would not get vaccinated. These results were highest in the U.S. and Sweden (Figure B). This may mean that people with more education have more information, but this correlation will need to be further explored before it can be explained.

Dr. Bruce Gellin, U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Health and Director of the National Vaccine Program in the Department of Health and Human Services, has said that the foundation that underpins vaccination acceptance is trust [9]. Our survey explored respondents’ trust of both their national government and the medical profession (Figures C and D). With the exception of China, India, and Indonesia, most respondents had relatively low levels of trust in their national government, but most of the respondents said they trusted the medical profession. Trust in both entities, but especially in the medical profession, was generally higher among those who said they would get vaccinated. These findings emphasize the importance of having medical professionals lead messaging about vaccine safety, effectiveness, and benefits.

A recent piece in the Journal of the American Medical Association [12] on flu vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic stated that strong, unified messaging is essential to vaccine compliance. The article cites the CDC’s call to action that urges physicians to make every effort to get their patients vaccinated and acknowledges that physicians and healthcare professionals are the most trusted source for accurate information on vaccine risks. The role of medical professions in preventing larger public health crises that could overwhelm the world’s healthcare resources cannot be overestimated.

We suggest that healthcare professionals partner with their national governments and international healthcare experts, such as the World Health Organization, to create consistent, accurate messages about the benefits of vaccination for COVID-19. These messages should use simple language that people with no more than an elementary education can understand; acknowledge peoples’ fears about vaccine side effects and cite accurate, verifiable data on side effect risks; and state whatever data is available on vaccine effectiveness. This will ensure that the greatest number of people will get vaccinated as soon as a vaccine is ready leading to a potential end to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

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 Sports

Lionel Messi tops Forbes’ highest-paid football players 2020 list.

Barcelona taliman, Lionel Messi has topped this year’s football rich list, according to Forbes. 
The Argentine who wanted to leave Barcelona this summer will get $92 million for the remaining year of his contract. His total yearly earnings for 2020 including endorsements has been put at $126 million.  Juventus forward Cristinao Ronaldo comes second on $117 million while Paris Saint-Germain’s Brazilian forward Neymar and teammate Kylian Mbappe, come third and fourth with  their earnings put at $96 million and $42 million respectively.
Barcelona icon Lionel Messi tops Forbes' high-paid footballers of 2020 list
Liverpool’s Egyptian forward Mo Salah is on the fifth spot at $37 million, Paul Pogba sixth at $34 million. Also included in the top ten list are Barcelona forward Antoine Griezmann ($33m), Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale ($29m), Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski ($28m) and Manchester United goalkeeper David de Gea ($27m).
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 Lifestyle

Modern children and where to find them: 79% of Nigerian parents do not track their children’s location.

Parents have always managed to set geographical boundaries – where their children could go and where they could not – back in time. Nowadays there is another opportunity to monitor the child’s whereabouts – to track the location of them using special software. Yet, according to Kaspersky’s special survey for parents, not many parents in Nigeria realise this.

According to the “Responsible Digital Parenting” survey*, 79% of Nigerian parents do not track the location of their child. The reasons for this vary: 54% have never thought of tracking the location, while 28% do not know how to do it. There is an option to have the software, which lets parents locate their children on a map and set a safe area for them to stay in, installed on their children’s devices. However, 38% of parents in Nigeria claim they do not have it installed on any of their devices.

“Modern times offer a wide range of tools which can help in preventing accidents in real or digital life. It is crucial to know how to use them, what their benefits are, and, actually, use them. Tracking your child’s location can definitely save you a lot of trouble – its advantages lie also in the fact that it allows to control not only digital, but also real life of the child,” commented Andrey Sidenko, Head of Child Safety at Kaspersky Network.

To secure and protect your child both in digital and in real life, Kaspersky strongly recommends following this advice:

  1. Learn more on the topic of children’s cybersecurity: explore modern trends, apps, the way of behaviour that has to be adopted in order to safeguard against dangers (for instance, the basic security rules while on the Internet); update your network security knowledge periodically, use the Kaspersky blog to do this.
  2. Communicate with your child and define the borders which are not meant to be crossed: discuss with them safe locations both real and webpages.
  3. Install a reliable security solution such as  to monitor your child’s activity successfully.

Reference:

* The “Responsible Digital Parenting” survey was implemented in conjunction with Toluna research agency in the end of 2019 – beginning of 2020. 5000 respondents from META region and Baltic states participated in the survey.

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 Business, Features

Digital finance, a lifeline during COVID-19 crisis, can deliver long-term financing of the Sustainable Development Goals

The unprecedented social and economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has put a spotlight on the role of digital finance in providing relief for millions around the world, supporting businesses and protecting jobs and livelihoods.

While the pandemic demonstrates the immediate benefits of digital finance, the disruptive potential of digitalization in transforming finance is immense. Mobile payment technologies have transformed mobile phones into financial tools for more than a billion people. Digital is supporting big data and artificial intelligence in advancing cryptocurrencies and crypto-assets, peer-to-peer lending, crowdfunding platforms, and online marketplaces. Banks have invested over US$1 trillion in developing, integrating and acquiring emerging technologies. In 2018, ‘fintech’ investment reached US$120 billion, one third of global venture capital funding.

Today a new report, “People’s Money: Harnessing Digitalization to Finance a Sustainable Future”, by the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Finance sets out an ambitious, practical Action Agenda. Centrally, it spells out how digital finance can be harnessed in ways that empower citizens as tax-payers and investors in envisaging a digital transformation at scale that better aligns people’s money with their needs, collectively expressed by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The report highlights how billions of people around the world are responding to the COVID-19 pandemic using digital tools to work, spend and socialize. It argues there is an historic opportunity to harness digitalization in placing citizens, the ultimate owners of the world’s financial resources, in control of finance to ensure that it meets their needs, today and in the future.

The Task Force identifies five catalytic opportunities for harnessing digitalization in aligning financing with the SDGs. Together they cover much of global finance:

  • Aligning the vast pools flowing through global capital markets with the SDGs.
  • Increasing the effectiveness and accountability of public finance that makes up a major part of the global economy.
  • Channeling digitally-aggregated domestic savings into long-term development finance.
  • Informing citizens how to link their consumer spending with the SDGs.
  • Accelerating the lifeblood financing for the employment and income-generating world of small and medium-sized businesses.

The Task Force’s Action Agenda is a call to action to businesses, policy-makers and those governing finance to do what it takes to deliver on these opportunities. It spells out not only the ‘what’ but also the ‘how’: investments, new capabilities and governance innovations can get the job done.

The Task Force concludes that harnessing digitalization for the good is a choice, not an inevitability driven by technology. Its Action Agenda points to actions needed to overcome digital risks that, unmitigated, could deepen exclusion, discrimination and inequalities, and separate finance further from the needs of an inclusive, sustainable development.

Leadership Quotes

UN Secretary-General, António Guterres said: “Digital technologies, which are revolutionizing financial markets, can be a game-changer in meeting our shared objectives. The Task Force on Digital Financing of the Sustainable Development Goals provides leadership to harness the digital revolution.”

Maria Ramos, Co-Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Finance said: “We have an historic opportunity to accelerate and expand the transformative impact of digitalization. In particular, digital finance, which in this crisis became the lifeline for millions across the world, extends the boundaries of financial inclusion by empowering citizens as savers, investors, borrowers, lenders and tax-payers in a way that gives them choice and power over their money.”

Achim Steiner, Administrator of UNDP and Co-Chair of the UN Secretary-General’s Task Force on Digital Finance said: “Digital finance’s dramatic potential for transformative impact is being revealed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital transfers enable governments to get support to people in need, crowdfunding platforms have mobilized funds for medical supplies and emergency relief, and algorithmic lending means small businesses have quicker access to funds. The speed of the recent spread of these technologies is astonishing, but progress is not automatic. For digitalization to be a true force for delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals, technological advances must combine with sound policy that empowers citizens and enables our financial system to meet the urgent investment challenges that must be overcome to build forward better.”

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 Sports

“Yaya Toure deserves one too”. Fans react as Man City announces plan to honour David Silva with a statue.

Football fans have expressed their disappointment at Manchester City, following the club’s announcement to commission a statue at the Etihad in honour of David Silva, saying Yaya Toure deserved it better. The Spanish professional footballer Manchester City will get a statue at the Etihad in honor of his 10-year career at the club.

The playmaker will also have a training pitch at the City Football Academy dedicated to him, as well as a mosaic celebrating his role in the famous 6-1 win over Manchester United in 2011.

Club Chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak remarked, “David Silva is a transformational player. A quiet leader who has acted quietly and deliberately and inspired everyone around him. From the youngest academy player to his senior team-mates over the past 10 years”. Also, “He has put a stamp on the team, on this club, its history and even the Premier League as a whole. In doing so, he has been instrumental to the beautiful football philosophy you see today. He was the start of it. As with Vincent before him. David’s statue will act as a lasting reminder of the wonderful moments that he gave us. Not only as an incredible footballer but as an inspiring ambassador. Who represented this football club with great dignity at all times”.

The 34-year-old joined City from Valencia in 2010,won four Premier League titles, two FA Cups and five League Cups in his 436 appearances for the club. The statue will be unveiled next year.

Below are some of reactions from fans.

 

 

 

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Corona Virus pandemic
 Opinion

COVID-19: The Decline of Global Remittances Puts Rural Families at Risk | By: Pedro de Vasconcelos

The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the loss of millions of jobs in the developed and developing world. Migrant workers are among the most directly affected. They work in economic sectors adversely impacted by the economic slowdown such as construction, the hospitality industry, tourism, food, agribusinesses, transport and domestic work. This loss of income has ripple effects across the world, putting millions of poor rural families at risk.

The majority of migrant workers are from low and middle-income countries who need to support their families through the remittances they send home on a regular basis. It is estimated that the world’s 200 million migrant workers send money regularly to 800 million family members to help them access food, health and education. Therefore, one in nine people in the world are directly impacted by remittance flows.

In 2019, remittances to low and middle-income countries totalled US$554 billion, with about half reaching families living in small towns and rural villages. However as a result of COVID-19, these flows are projected to make their sharpest decline in history, falling by 20 per cent in 2020 to US$445 billion, as indicated by a recent World Bank (https://bit.ly/3hbFV6P) forecast.

Although in the past remittances have been relatively resilient to external shocks, COVID-19 is different. It impacts senders and recipients simultaneously. Families living in rural areas in developing countries have been severely affected by lockdowns and social distancing. Markets have closed and transport has been disrupted. Small-scale farmers have been unable to sell their produce or to buy inputs, such as seeds or fertilizer. Daily labourers, small businesses and informal workers, who are often women and young people, are among the worst affected.

The UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is tracking the impact of declining remittances on the ‘receiving end’ in developing countries, where typical remittances of $200 to $300 per month on average account for 60 per cent of household income. While the reduction in remittances will not fall evenly across countries and communities, the impact is likely be substantial in rural areas where remittances count the most.

Initial indications from countries that rely heavily on remittances are deeply concerning. Reports ranging from Senegal, Kenya, El Salvador and Nepal to the Philippines and Eastern Europe confirm not only the significant drop in remittances but also the return home of hundreds of thousands of jobless migrant workers to their strained households and communities in rural areas.

The sudden reduction or outright halt in remittance flows could also impact food production in the coming months with the planting season starting in different regions. In Mali, for example, many families in rural areas often cannot buy seeds and inputs for the next agricultural season without regular remittances.

Remittance families and food security: Opportunities for effective action

The economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic could push rural families even deeper into poverty and threaten global prosperity and stability. We need to act now to minimize the impact of the drop in remittances on the food security of rural families. If we take immediate action, we can provide rural people with the means to ensure a faster recovery. Several “win-win” opportunities present themselves:

  • Fast-track innovative business solutions that support remittance families in times of crisis, by promoting fee reductions and by developing products to enable migrant workers to transfer non-financial products through remittance service providers, such as food or medicine, directly to their families.
  • Identify and support income-generating opportunities for the “human capital” of returning workers. Migrants bring home experience, education and new skills. Migrants are risk takers, resilient and entrepreneurial. This crisis calls for creative ways to use their talents as part of the response back home.
  • Encourage financial inclusion among remittance families by promoting the creation and adoption of emergency savings products.
  • Promote the use of digital channels for sending and receiving remittances, and disseminate information about available remittance products and ways to obtain them. By expanding rural access to digital technology, remittances could support rural transformation, bringing new jobs and opportunities back home. Receiving remittances digitally could give rural dwellers access to savings, credit or insurance products can build much needed resilience at family level and benefit the communities around them.

To address a number of the challenges facing rural communities, IFAD is currently leading the UN-sponsored Remittances Community Task Force, a group of 35 stakeholders of different sectors, which will soon issue a series of comprehensive and integrated recommendations: A Blueprint for Action.

Taking the specific concrete actions outlined in the blueprint will improve legal and regulatory frameworks, facilitate private sector solutions and incorporate the active involvement of NGOs, particularly diaspora groups. This will empower remittance families, even during this unprecedented crisis, to maximize the potential development impact of remittances for themselves and the communities where they live, so that future generations might view migration as a choice rather than as a necessity.

Pedro de Vasconcelos is the head of the Financing Facility for Remittances at the UN’s International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD).

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 Opinion

Opinion: Is the Niger Delta Still Part Of Nigeria?

The dance of the absurd taking place in the media space in recent times couldn’t have been had President Buhari not ordered for a Forensic Audit of the Books of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC.

The National Assembly under Senator Ahmed Lawan and Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila seems to be unconcerned about the imminent dangers of a resurgence of youth restiveness in the oil and gas rich area of the country as some Lawmakers with obvious insidious interest have continued to challenge the authority of the President on the all-inclusive probe of the Commission which has been wobbling, twenty years after its creation. The excessive freedom enjoyed by those who have been publicly accused by the supervising Committee of the NDDC has been overstretched as the leadership of the 9th Assembly has either chosen to look the other way or become complicit in the macabre dance.

Since the decision by the President to look into the way billions of Naira have been frittered away through the Commission, the discordant tunes from a few, powerful Lawmakers from the Niger Delta region has become worrisome that the reading public is now suspicious of their involvement in the pathological sleaze that has characterized the Commission while leaving the region underdeveloped and gasping for air, in a manner akin to the African-American, George Floyd who died while begging to breathe.

It is worrisome that in spite of the fact that the National Assembly is led by the ruling party, APC, yet, the synergy expected between the Executive and the Legislature is far from being in existence as it concerns the Niger Delta region, which has consistently sustained the economy since 1956, when oil was discovered in commercial quantities.

Is it not beyond surprising and an effrontery for a group of Lawmakers to challenge the decision of the President in approving an intervention for the people of the region for the purpose of the pandemic? The impudence displayed by these Lawmakers who definitely have something sinister to frustrate the efforts of the Interim Management Committee, IMC, of the Commission and the supervising Minister, Senator Godswill Akpabio is a pointer that all is not well, particularly, when the supposed leader of the recalcitrant Lawmakers is from the opposition party, PDP. Could it be that the Senate President has conceded his powers to his Deputy, who recently, walked into the Headquarters of the EFCC with a letter written by the Clerk of the Senate, albeit on his instruction and requested for the probe and arrest of Buhari’s Minister, even when other Senators were kept in the dark of such an offensive? With the denial of Omo-Agege of his involvement in the scandal, will the Senate President set up a Committee to investigate him alongside the Clerk or simply sack the latter? That is up to him to stand for the truth or let his exalted office be ridiculed by his Deputy and his quest for power!

The desperation to have Akpabio removed and the Pondei-led IMC sacked is purely an effort to ensure that Buhari leaves no legacies in the Niger Delta region. The cry over the mismanagement of funds at the NDDC has been on, over time and was enunciated by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, sometime in 2019 at Delta State. There was a follow up visit to the President by the Governors of the States under the NDDC which compelled the President to give Akpabio the mandate to appoint Forensic Auditors to look into the books, with an Interim Management Committee to oversee the running of the Commission while the audit lasts.

Sadly, those who seem to have been squandering the funds meant to build high grade Schools, Hospitals, Roads and Bridges amongst other infrastructures, are desperate to have Akpabio’s head on the slaughter slab, as millions of Naira have been deployed to different youth groups and a section of the media to further plant negative stories in other to discredit those saddled with this responsibility.

More worrisome is the involvement of high profile and principal officers at the National Assembly in this distracting dance, that one begins to wonder if truly they mean well for the region. What really do they intend to achieve in ensuring that Buhari does not add a stone to projects in the Niger Delta. Is there a fifth columnist working against the President but are pretending to be partners in progress with him?

The effort made by the NDDC to source for international grant of $126 million from the International Fund for  Agricultural Development, IFAD, has been aborted at the point of delivery by this same Lawmakers who wickedly slashed the budgetary provision for the counterpart funding from N1.3 billion to a paltry N100 million in the 2019 Budget of the NDDC! Funds from IFAD meant to massively engage in Agriculture in the region was wished away with the stroke of the pen. Not done with the plot to keep the region perpetually underdeveloped and totally dependent on crumbs from. Federal Allocation, these agents of darkness ensured that the budget of N10 billion for the construction of three Specialist Hospitals in the region was slashed to another paltry N100m! Yet, they prefer that billions of Naira are allocated for non-existent Training programs, Desilting of the Waterways and Medical Tourism overseas that yield nothing.

The 2020 Budget which has since been submitted in 2019 is yet to be attended to. Those who have gathered irrespective of party affiliations, to keep the region in agony at the risk of illegal activities of oil bunkering, environmental degradation and deprivation, and massive pollution of the air and water resulting in the cancerous black smooth and death of aquatic life are not done with their offensive as they question the rationale behind the payment of contractors owed by successive Boards of the Commission.

The recent probe of N40 billion by the two Houses of the National Assembly is only a disguise of their real intents. Why is this probe more important to the supposed watchdogs of the Commission rather than allow for a thorough Forensic Audit? What is the real purpose of the Adhoc Committees of the two Houses in writing the Bureau of Public Procurement to deny the Forensic Auditors access to the nine states to verify the records of the Commission? This is not only suspicious but scandalous by those who claim to be in support of the Presidential Order of the Forensic Audit!

One begins to wonder who is actually ruling the country when a few Lawmakers have effortlessly challenged the powers of the President to seek to know what has been of the monies poured into the NDDC for over 19 years.

For the second highest ranking Senator who flaunts the title of “Leader of the South South” to resort to a petition against a Minister to the EFCC, in order to frustrate the President and leader of his political party, leaves much to be desired! It is clear that the 9th Assembly is not interested in the development of the Niger Delta region.

No wonder the same Lawmakers who claim to have an oversight function on the Niger Delta have failed to query the Presidential Infrastructural Development Fund, PIDF, on the deliberate neglect of the East-West Road which is one of the five critical projects under the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, NSIA. While they are at war with the managers of NDDC, they have left the people of the region to suffer as they navigate from one state to the other through the East-West Road. In spite of a Presidential approval of N100bn in 2018 for the completion of sections 1 to 4 of the road and a release of N19.5bn by the Minister for Finance, three years ago, for the payment of legacy debts, the PIDF under Mr Uche Orji has failed to pay the Contractors, thereby delaying their return to the site and allowing the road to deteriorate.

Without a recent intervention by the NDDC to repair the failed sections of the road, the people of the region would have completely been cut off from the West.

It is clear that there is an orchestrated plot to make sure that the APC controlled Federal Government fails in the Niger Delta region. And who are those responsible for this mess? Obviously, they are not far from us as the fate of the Niger Delta region now depends on them!

Obiaruko Ndukwe is the President, Citizens Quest for Truth Initiative

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