Nigeria on UK list of countries to face 10-day £1,500 isolation

 British Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, will any moment from now publish a list of up to 30 'high risk' Covid countries where returning travellers will be forced to quarantine in hotels for 10 days.

Nigeria, Brazil, South Africa and Kenya are expected to be on this list according to British newspapers.

The new measure requiring visitors to be isolated for 10 days at a total cost of £1,500 is being introduced following concerns about new Covid variants entering Britain.

Nigerian passengers arriving in Britain will be isolated for 10 days in hotels near airports and pay around £1,500 (about N800,000) for the privilege. The same rule applies to passengers arriving Britain from the other 29 listed countries.

Airlines are expected to assist to ensure full compliance and will be fined if they fail to enforce non-exemptions properly.  

Other 'high risk' countries, due to be published later today may include Portugal, Kenya, Ethiopia, much of South America and southern Africa.    

British officials say these areas have been chosen because of dangerous variants that have emerged there - or because they have rocketing infection and death rates.

Beware, these activities could cost you your life!

Considering the prevailing situation of our country today, these activities are perilous and should be avoided in your own interest:

1.      Allowing your aged mother or grand mum to carry your newborn baby home unaccompanied

2.      Offering to help children not your own to cross a busy street (Sad, indeed)

3.      Offering sweet or biscuits to kids not your own (It’s bad manners to do this, anyway)

4.      Mentioning children in a phone conversation near a school (This is incredible but true. See Punch of today (Metro page)

5.      Carrying empty Ghana-must-go bags around (No kidding. It’s true. A chap was beaten blue and black in Lagos over the weekend. See Punch of today)

6.      Allowing your mentally challenged relatives to roam the street. (This is never good, anyway)

7.      Walking the streets in dirty clothes (Road side mechanics who take public transport in their work clothes had better change)

8.     Calling in an underaged hawker into your home. (A man was nearly killed for this too)

If you know any other not included, feel free to add.

Adenuga gets centenary award for entrepreneurship

Dr. Adenuga Jnr

Chairman of Nigeria's national telecoms operator, Globacom, Dr. Mike Adenuga Jnr (GCON), has been honoured by the Federal Government of Nigeria for entrepreneurial excellence.

Dr. Adenuga was bestowed with the award in the category of ‘Accomplished Contemporary Entrepreneurs’ on Friday night at the grand finale of the celebrations of the centenary anniversary organized to mark 100 years of the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates of Nigeria.

The Federal Government described Adenuga as a distinguished entrepreneur and renowned employer of labour in Nigeria.

Ninety nine other eminent Nigerians were honored at the event in various categories ranging from "Contributors to the Making of Nigeria" to "Heroes of the Struggle for Nigeria's Independence/Pioneer Political leaders", "Pioneers in Professional Callings/Careers", "Pioneers in Commerce and Industry", "Promoters of Democracy in Nigeria", "Heroes in Global Sports Competition", "Accomplished Pioneer Public Servants", "Accomplished Contemporary Entrepreneurs", "Distinguished Academics", "Internationally  Acclaimed Artists, Literary Icons and Journalists", "Outstanding Bravery and Public Spiritedness", "Outstanding Promoters of Unity, Patriotism and National Development" and "Exemplary Service in the Promotion of Peace and Moral Excellence".

The awardees were officially given their awards at the Banquet Hall of the State House, Abuja. 

Nigeria: Dangerous country to be a mother

A pregnant woman

 

By John Awe

The Guardian, Thursday 25, July 2013

Bungee jumping is a crazy sport where people jump off cliffs and other lethal heights with ropes tied to their ankles. You would think that is insanely dangerous, right? Newsflash: bungee jumping is several times safer than delivering a baby in Nigeria! It’s not hearsay; it’s statistically established. There is one death for every 500,000 bungee jumps, whereas there is roughly 500 to 800 deaths for every 100,000 live births in Nigeria.

A few more grim facts to pour a bucket of cold water on Nigerian husbands tonight: 11, 600 women lost their lives during childbirth in the first three months of this year according to the Society of Gynaecology and Obstetrics of Nigeria. Last year the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reported that maternal mortality had been halved in the last 20 years in most regions of the world, but regretted that sub-Saharan Africa, led by Nigeria continued to lag behind.

In May, the United Kingdom's International Development Minister, Ms. Lynne Featherstone, on a visit to Nigeria announced that Nigeria currently accounts for 10 per cent of the world's maternal mortality. This news would absolutely scandalise us as a nation if we weren’t otherwise so busy seeing to the fertilisation of the surviving child-bearing female adults.

And these dreadful statistics are only from reported cases. How many more women die quietly of pregnancy-related complications in their homes, unregistered maternity centres, some dingy rooms of iya abiyes (local midwives) or even in some of the so called private clinics with poor equipment and poorer personnel all over the country? Many would argue, quite justifiably, that nearly as many as the reported maternal deaths go unreported across Nigeria. To provide some insight, WHO’s records for 2003 suggest that two-thirds of the births in Nigeria in that year occurred at home.

In the face of the horrible statistics, it takes the stoic fatalism of Nigerians to keep the maternities and neonatal clinics bustling with activities every day, all year round. To many, the statistics are distant and even unreal; just cold figures. But like the American journalist and author, Paul Brodeur, once famously remarked, statistics are human beings with the tears wiped off. These numbers actually represent needlessly wasted mothers, daughters, daughters-in-law, aunts and sisters of living people. They represent dashed hopes, destroyed destinies and deeply-seated sorrow and pain in many hearts scattered across the country.

To those whose relatives, neighbours, friends and colleagues have recently swelled these statistics, the import of Brodeur’s remark will ring home more stridently; as those who very nearly become part of the statistics themselves. Belonging to the latter category is one Mrs Cordelia Ifechukwude, whose story was reported in the media a couple of weeks ago. Ifechukwude had a protracted labour in a private hospital in Alakuko, a suburb of Lagos. The baby ultimately went into distress and none of the nurses on duty noticed. It ultimately died and the mother’s womb was infected. The lady was in the throes of death when her husband decided to rush her to Ayinke House, General Hospital, Ikeja, where her life was saved.

Ifechukwude’s case illustrates how very easily an otherwise healthy pregnant woman can lose the battle for life in many of the hospitals in Nigeria today. There is nobody ensuring that anyone who opens a hospital is qualified or equipped to do so. Long term hospital cleaners and auxiliary nurses have been known to open medical practices in Nigeria with no one to challenge them until they commit blue murder, literally. It is only then that there is a circus of government officials, medical authorities and policemen, threatening fire and brimstones on quacks.

Even where a doctor has the competence to open a private practice, shouldn’t there be a body to go round regularly to ensure that they have basic equipment and competent support medical personnel at all times? In Ifechukwude’s case, for instance, the hospital owner was said to be a qualified doctor, who had a regular employment elsewhere in Lagos, with the result that he was hardly available to monitor his patients. In his absence, the nurses held court, and some of them, according to Ifechukwude, were so crude that they believed assisted delivery entailed aggressively pressing the protruding belly of the mother to force the baby out.

Sad still is the fact that when there are cases of blatant medical malpractices against some of these hospitals there are no visible repercussions that others can learn from. Ifechukwude, for instance, alleged that she filed a petition with the medical council to no avail. The hospital was only in the news again after a fresh scandal was blown open by another patient. All these factors make private hospitals in Nigeria a dangerous gamble for women seeking to deliver babies.

The public hospitals are by far safer in Nigeria. For one thing, the chances of being delivered of a baby by an iron bender are quite remote. For another thing, even when you are unlucky to have an inexperienced house officer handling your case, there is always a roaming professor or senior consultant, with a dozen medical students in tow, who comes in at the nick of time to save the day.

 

Of course the public hospitals have their own problems. They are obviously underfunded, overstretched and over-burdened; probably the same reasons for which they tend to breed a rich specimen of impatient, grouchy, and nasty medical personnel. The nurses particularly treat the patients and their relatives as though they were some of the ailments the hospitals were set up to cure. And by some queer arrangements the nastiest of the nurses get sent to the neonatal wards. It would shock many to know that in this day and age pregnant women admitted for delivery still have to sit on straight-backed chairs overnight in the absence of bed-space in Lagos General Hospitals. They call it ‘sit-out’; their colleagues in other climes would no doubt call it shameful. But many women are opting to endure this and be alive to hold their babies than take a gamble with their lives in the practically unregulated private medical practice space in Nigeria.

How hard can it be for a government to supervise the quality of care being rendered to its citizens? How difficult is it for government to ensure that the public hospitals have the basic amenities to dispense care to the citizens? How difficult is it to set up a few world-class public hospitals that women in sub Saharan Africa can flock to for safe delivery of their babies? Why is it that no state governor has made a priority of having such a hospital till date? The Lagos State Government deserves some commendation for building new General Hospitals, but if pregnant women are still being turned back or having to sit-out for lack of bed space, it is clearly not doing enough.

Anyone who could have done something to prevent Nigeria from getting to this sorry pass has blood on his hands. So do all those who can do something now, but choose not to. It is a crying shame that a matador being ushered into an arena with an incensed 600kg bull stands a far better chance of emerging alive than a pregnant woman being wheeled into the labour room of a hospital in Nigeria.

- http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php/columnist/128016-awe-dangerous-country-to-be-a-mother

Nigerian sentenced to death for drug trafficking in Malaysia

A Nigerian is counting down to the day of his execution after a Malaysian court today sentenced him  to death for trafficking more than 14 kilos (31 pounds) of marijuana over the land border with Thailand.

The court said there was little doubt Moses Chinedu Nwosu, 50, was guilty of the crime — punishable with death by hanging — after the drugs were seized from him on the night of March 25 last year, Bernama news agency said.

 The accused testified the drugs carried in a black bag belonged to another man he was travelling with from the Thai border to the northern Malaysian town of Alor Setar, Bernama said citing the judgment.

 “However, according to a witness, Moses was seen carrying the black bag… and its key was found in his pocket,” the judge said.

 An Australian nurse and Nigerian man were also charged with trafficking drugs last month, a case which has attracted media attention worldwide.

 Since 1960, more than 440 people have been executed in Malaysia, including two Australians sentenced to death in 1986 for heroin trafficking — the first Westerners to be executed under tough anti-drug laws.

It remains to be seen if Nigerian authorities will rise to the aid of the Nigerian, following the stern warning the senate president, David Mark gave sometime ago that any Nigerian caught infringing the laws of another country would be left to face the music.

As harsh as that may sound, I am with him. If you knew the penalty and still dared them, calmly bear the brunt.

Nigerian couple jailed in UK for beating their kids

Haringey Civic Centre in Wood Green had allowed the sixth child of the couple to stay in their home. It was almost a fatal mistake. Credits: Dailymailonline

A Nigerian couple have been sentenced to seven years in prison each for a decade long campaign of abuse against their six children. They face deportation after their sentence.

The Nigerian couple, who claimed their kids were possessed by evil spirits, beat them with brooms, hoovers and wires and even gave their baby a morphine overdose just days after her first birthday.

The plight of the children was so bad that Coronation Street actress Michelle Collins, who met them at a church lunch, took them to the cinema 'because she felt sorry for them'

Five of the children were finally rescued after their eldest daughter threw a heart-wrenching SOS note out of a window.

But it wasn't until their one-year-old baby was given a morphine overdose over a year later that police reopened the case which led to their prosecution.

But the parents, both 40, who cannot be named to protect their six children, claimed they were victims of a conspiracy - and even alleged Miss Collins was involved in a witch hunt against them and wanted to‘steal’ their children.

One of the youngsters, a baby at the time, had been allowed to stay in the home by Haringey council, who were involved in the Baby P and Victoria Climbie cases, despite the fact the five other children had to be rescued.

Sentencing them to seven years behind bars each, Judge James Patrick described it as 'shocking mistreatment' that they had tried to cover up with a 'web of deception'.

Judge Patrick said: 'No-one who sat through this trial could help but be moved by the fact that these intelligent, charming, fun, lovable children continue to love you despite what you put them through.'

The married couple denied the allegations claiming they were victims of a racist witch-hunt but were found guilty of cruelty to a person under 16.

They argued the children had been 'brainwashed' into making the allegations by the police, the London Borough of Haringey and Miss Collins who they said 'wanted to steal' them, Wood Green Crown Court heard.

But Judge Patrick noted: 'You alleged a conspiracy involving a well-known actress, who had done nothing but show your family generosity and kindness, a member of a housing charity, social workers and foster carers.

'Those who had taken the trouble to support you were repeatedly accused of dishonesty, lying, and conspiracy to rob you of your children when the reality was that both of you were lying - in fact they were simply seeking to give your children stability.'

The abuse came to the attention of police in April 2010 when their nine-year-old wrote an SOS note and threw it out of her bedroom window.

The heart-breaking plea read: 'My mum is the worst mum ever because she can’t cope with five of us, her broken hand and being pregnant. She always leaves me out so I always starve and I am forced to work.

'If I don’t get enough house work done, I am beaten without mercy with the wooden end of a broom. I have scars all over me to prove it. I can’t stay here. I would like a new mum.'

It was found by a neighbour who called the police, and when officers attended the address they found the children living in messy conditions with 'dirty' and 'dishevelled' clothing.

Revealing scars the eldest said her mother had hit her with a cable, a broom, and a hoover and her father had dangled her by her feet down the stairwell of the house, tied her hands behind her back and her legs together 'to get the devilish spirits out', prosecutor Emma Smith said.

Her sister, who was seven at the time, had a stick shaped bruise of her thigh and after a few months in care, she drew a series of pictures showing her dad beating her and her being left home alone and including a speech bubble saying ‘I’m hungry.’

The children were left home alone for hours, sometimes days on end, with the elder kids forced to look after the others.

They had even been forced to lie to a charity and social services that they were living alone with their mother in one room and had no idea who their dad was so they could scam benefits.

Even during the trial the eldest feared she had torn her family apart with her 'devastating cry from the heart in the form of a letter which she threw from the window', the judge noted.

There was an investigation but no further action, and the five children remained in care until the parents once again came to police attention on 28 June last year, when they gave their baby an overdose.

'But for the events of June 28 you would have gotten away with your crimes because of a merciful decision not to prosecute you', Judge Patrick noted.

The couple's sixth child, a baby girl, was also initially taken into care but then returned to her parents. They took her to St Thomas’s Hospital just days after her first birthday last year.

Without treatment she could have died but doctors managed to save the youngster, who it is believed was given morphine orally that morning.

Jurors rejected the parents conspiracy theories.

When they are released they face deportation back to Nigeria- despite pleas from their legal team that they have been 'punished enough' by having their children taken into care.

As they left the court they wailed: 'We are innocent, this is a miscarriage of justice.'