Revealed: How FG Abandoned Nigerian Ebola Heroes

The Federal Republic of Nigeria is perceived by many as a country that finds it difficult to recognise and honour its real heroes, whether in the academia, sports, arts or other endeavours. Rather than honour them, such heroes are left to wonder what might have been if they were citizens of countries that reward excellence and service.
Yet, it is still alarming that President Goodluck Jonathan, the former president, could send hundreds of brilliant young Nigerians to the jaws of possible death on a critical mission to stem the tide of the deadly Ebola Viral Disease (EVD) in West Africa and elect not to appreciate their gallantry.
Nigerian volunteers who contributed to the African Union interventions in the Ebola hit countries between December 2014 and May 2015 are, unlike their contemporaries from other countries, yet to receive any recognition whatsoever from the government for their meritorious service. But considering that they risked it all (they could have died), just to help Africa defeat the deadly virus, it is actually not out of place nor too late to make amends for this failure to give honour to whom it is due for once.
The heroics of Dr Stella Ameyo Adadevoh, who helped to stop the spread of Ebola in Nigeria and lost her life in the process, is well documented and acclaimed worldwide, but at home, the proverbial prophet still has no honour.  Due to Adadevoh’s and many others’ efforts, Just Ninety three days after the American Liberian, Patrick Sawyer imported the Ebola Virus Disease into Nigeria, Nigeria was officially declared Ebola-free.
Volunteers Weren’t Forthcoming
After Nigeria became Ebola free, the country decided to help with some of its health experts as the FG made the pledge to the African Union that they were going to deploy over 500 healthcare workers to assist other Ebola ravaged African countries battle the menace. This according to multiple sources almost caused the nation embarrassment as doctors refrained from volunteering for the dangerous mission. This led the government to recruit those healthcare workers who worked during the outbreak in Lagos and Port Harcourt as the core of the team. Few other brave health workers joined them afterwards.


Greennews.ng spoke with one of the medical doctor volunteers to the African Union Mission, Dr. Freeman Osonuga on his reasons for volunteering in spite of the attendant risk.  “I only saw it as an opportunity of being a humanitarian because I had done a lot of humanitarian work for many years. I just saw it as a way to save fellow human lives, professionally especially when the continent was in crisis. So, I volunteered like every other persons. We had about three to four days training in Lagos. Then we left for our various countries. It was a chartered aircraft and some of us were dropped in Liberia and others in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone was at the peak of their outbreak then. It was the hot zone of the transmission of the infection. I was deployed to Serria Lone. I was one of the Doctors that worked in the case management – (The Doctors that treated the Ebola patients in the treatment centre).
6 Months After, ‘No Simple Thank You’ From Nigerian Government
Apart from Nigeria, several other countries sent health workers for the same mission and upon their return, rolled out the drums in celebration of their heroes for making their respective countries proud.

In Ghana, President John Mahama honoured the 42 volunteer health workers made up of 41 Ghanaians and one Cuban with the national award, Grand Order (Ordinary Division) at a lavish ceremony. Health workers from Ethiopia and Kenya also got Presidential reception upon their return as confirmed by a disappointed Dr. Freeman.
He said, “In Ethiopia, for example, when the volunteers came back, they gave them red carpet reception from the airport with military parades. Then the Kenyans got presidential reception, they had breakfast with the president and were nationally honoured. We did so well that when we were leaving, the President of Sierra Leone and Liberia gave our volunteers in each of those countries awards. When we came back, there was not even a welcome ceremony or thank you.
“UK had honoured all of their Ebola volunteers. Most of these people only worked for weeks. The UK people only worked for about five to six weeks maximum and they went back to their country. But we were there for six months and some of us worked for nine months in those high risk places on a National assignment. It’s really pathetic. Nigeria is not encouraging us to volunteer more and be more patriotic. It’s a mission that is as deadly as a war zone. And if you die on that mission that is the end of it.”
When asked if he was angry with the government for abandoning them after completing their mission, Dr. Freeman was quick to stress that he held no grudge with the FG, but he was disappointed nonetheless.
He said, “It’s not as if am mad with the Government. I have had a lot of media exposure and they have asked me in all of those places about what the Government was supposed to do and didn’t eventually do. I chose not to talk about it so it’s not that I’m mad with the Government. But the Government just need to do what is right. They send people out on a deadly national mission and they come back with no recognition, it’s really bad.”
Nigeria Her Own Enemy?
The shabby treatment Nigerian heroes receive from its government is largely responsible for the low interest of many Nigerians in patriotic ventures. It is difficult to convince others on the benefits of service to their country when those who do so often return with tales of abandonment and lack of gratitude.  “You can’t treat people like they are worthless and expect the best from them. Do you know what it means to risk your life for your country? I’m not even able to talk about it internationally or even in the Media that the Government sent me somewhere for six months on a National assignment and I came back with no recognition. No thank you, No welcome. It’s a shame and I don’t think I will want to go for such again,” quipped Dr. Freeman.
Time For Buhari To Act
A lot of Nigerians were pleasantly surprised last November when President Muhammadu Buhari announced his uncommon decision to reward the victorious golden eaglets team of 1985 after it was discovered that they did not get the rewards promised them 30 years earlier. This chivalrous act should not stop there as the country’s Ebola heroes remain on the fringes, feeling used and dumped by their country. It will most certainly not be out of place for the presidency to right this wrong by making our Ebola heroes feel loved and appreciated.Thanks for reading

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You Are A Cultist, PDP Blasts Yahaya Bello

Kogi State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the State Governor, Yahaya Bello of practising “voodoism”, stating that his approach to governance was counter-production to the progress of Kogi.
According to the party’s spokesperson, Bode Ogunmola while addressing Journalists, Bello’s 30 days in office has been nothing but “knee jerk approach to governance and poor policy formulation

PDP who lamented that demolition of some roundabouts in Lokoja, the State capital said that the governor was acting on advice of some ‘marabouts’, warning that, “Bello should focus on providing purposeful leadership and leave voodooism to occult practitioners.”
“No state can move forward if its leaders are held back by ancient, unscientific and diabolical practices,” Ogunmola said.

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Nigeria Is Failing To Learn From 1983-85 Economic Crisis – Pat Utomi

Professor Pat Utomi, yesterday, berated Nigerians and policy makers, for failing to learn from the 1983-85 financial crisis, blaming the thinking and approach of Nigerians to the current economic crisis on what he described as the “knowing-doing gap”.
Prof Utomi Utomi who took to his Facebook page to express his concern for the country’s dwindling economy, said:
“When anxieties with the state of the economy rose, as Oil prices went South in 2015, I was struck by how we went from worry to panic and how many actions failed to recognize similar experience from our recent history and more than enough knowledge on what happened before and what was trending in the global environment. That such knowledge was untapped caused me to begin to rethink many things.
“How does Nigeria always manage to lose institutional memory, and what is responsible for the Knowing-Doing gap that seems to prevent us from properly handling routine problems without generating crisis of earthshaking proportions.
“Surely we do not need Harvard Business School Professors Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I Sutton to see that there is a huge Knowing – Doing gap in the policy arena in Nigeria. Pfeffer and Sutton had in year 2000 wondered how come so many firms show significant gaps between what they know and what they actually do. You can see this applies to governments the moment you go to the many talk shops of Nigeria and from there cast a glance at the policy action arena.
“When at one of these events recently someone reminded me of another one a few months before when it seemed a vow to defend the Naira was being taken. He reminded me that I had said pressure on the Naira, with a significant dollar earnings dip, was not the end of the world but that a floating “managed” exchange rate mechanism Bismark Rewane had talked about was appropriate response and also that in addition a clear game plan on how the financing from declining Oil receipts, could be bridged to tide over a temporary challenge by quick borrowing of dollars to shore up supply with other measures to block leakages could boost confidence. I suggested teams of people credible in economic and financial circles, head off to critical global capitals to show where we were going.
“I was convinced that would have stimulated confidence in Nigeria at a time the gap between the nominal exchange rate and our purchasing power parity line was no more than six Naira, as Bismark Rewane pointed out. Had the teams out there telling the world about the new thrust of policy and growth potential in which decline in contribution of dollars from a sector contributing to a small portion of GDP was causing tightness, investment flows will make up for Foreign exchange supply lost, just as a little borrowing could bridge the financing gap and stave of currency speculations.
v“It seems to me that instead of focusing on a clear strategy of short, medium and long term perspective plan anchored diversification of the base of the economy and the tactics to hold off raiders of the currency by inspiring confidence based on plans for the future we slipped into this spurious discussion of symptom called devaluation of the Naira.
“I never could understand why knowledge from 1983-85, in Nigeria, and the Asian financial crisis, failed to inform the passions spewing out or the subject from people with access to people who could better inform them. How about our national institutions that went through similar experiences with external shocks and managing access to Foreign Exchange in the before past. Why did they behave they had learnt nothing before.
“One of the truly enduring explanations of how Nigeria went into de-industrialization from the 1980s, even before becoming fully industrialized is a comparison of Nominal exchange rate divergence from purchasing power parity.
“A review will show that the regions of the world where nominal exchange rates and the Purchasing Power Parity line were a close fit had more growth and prosperity. Between Africa, Latin America and Asia in the 1980 and 1970s South East Asia was that zone.
“What I found even more paradoxical was that those who favour state centrals to drive development and therefore should embrace some of the postulates of the South Korean Economist at Oxford Ja Joo Chang are signing off on the European Union ECOWAS Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA). This is quite curious.
“Lets hope enlightenment descends upon us all, he concluded.Thanks for reading.

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Another Missing Teenager Traced To Sultan of Sokoto’s Palace, Relatives Allege

Another 14-year-old girl, Patience Paul is reportedly missing in Sokoto State.
Patience, a primary six pupil of Mohammed Zako Model Primary School, Sokoto, was said to be housed at the palace of the Sultan of Sokoto, her relatives alleged.
Father of the girl, Mr. Paul Adaji, an indigene of Ochobo in Ohimini Local Government Area of Benue State, told newsmen that his daughter had been missing since August 12, 2015.
According to Adaji, who resides in Sokoto with his family, some persons spotted his daughter at the Sultan’s palace.
“We got information that she was in the Sultan’s palace and the last time we went there, we did not find her,” he told Vanguard.
Asked how they knew she was at the palace, he said: “Some people told us that they saw her at the palace. They also used to camp some of them there, that was why we went to the palace to see if she has been taken there.
“Even her friend, who used to be a Christian, was found there. She was taken there and they converted her.
“We will still continue to search for her. We will not give up; we only want the world to help us so that our daughter can be released to us.”
Corroborating Mr. Adaji’s story, his son, Paul Isaac Adaji, gave an account of circumstances that led to the disappearance of his sister.
“Patience is my younger sister. We are based in Sokoto. That is where the issue occurred. My dad is in Sokoto but we lost our mother two years ago. My younger sister was brain-washed from school, Mohammed Zako Model Primary school, Sokoto. She is a primary six pupil.
“The fact is that sometime last year, we noticed she started keeping some funny friends and her attitude started changing. This is a girl that normally likes attending church activities.
“We cautioned her but along the line, she changed. Then again, she started misbehaving. So at that point, my parent and I decided to move her out of Sokoto and return her to Benue State so the rumours of children converting does not happen to us as we do not have anybody to fight for us.
“Unfortunately, what we were scared of later happened to us. Sometimes we will see her returning from school with a veil covering her head. When we inquired, she said it was given to her by her friend in school.
“We cautioned her on several occasions. But we later arranged with my dad to get her back to Benue. Unfortunately, she got to know about our plan to send her back to Benue and obviously informed the people who were brainwashing her and they eventually abducted her.
“When we could not see her, we started serious investigation and along the line, discovered that it was one of our neighbours who actually abducted her.
“We reported the matter to the police. The masterminds of her abduction were invited by the Police. They made their confessions that the girl wanted to join their religion, which was why they abducted her. They said they took her to the Hisbah (Islamic Police).
“At that point, the Police invited the Hisbah and they came and gave their own statement. They said they had taken the girl to the Sultan’s palace. I was hoping that since the police had stepped in, my sister would come home.
“But that did not happen. I reported the matter at the Police Headquarters in Sokoto, but it was transferred to our Area Division. So after the interrogations, the Police said since I reported the matter at the headquarters, their findings will also be communicated to the headquarters.
“Two weeks later, I went to the police headquarters here in Sokoto only for the police to tell us that we should just go and maintain peace. I became inquisitive and wanted to know what the police found that prompted that advice. Bishop Kukah steps in.
“It was at that point that I reported the matter to Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah. He was very angry with us, saying we ought to have reported the matter to him earlier.
“He made some calls and promised to step into the matter. I became restless and worried because the Bishop is a very busy person. We are urging and pleading with all well-meaning Nigerians to help us intervene.
“From what we gathered, from last year up to early this year, she was in the Sultan’s palace, but she has been taken away from there since last month.
“We went there with my other sister to check and they brought a different person to us. From our investigations, she is not the only one because the two girls they brought did not look like real Muslims,” he said.   Thanks for reading.

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Ikorodu Abduction: Kidnappers Demand N200m To Free 3 Schoolgirls

The kidnappers of three girls from Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary (BMJS) have demanded N200 million ransom. it was learnt.

The three girls, Deborah Akinayo, Timilehin Olisa and Tofunmi Popoolaniyan all in SS2 were kidnapped from their classroom at about 9:00pm on Monday from their hostel.

It was gathered that the kidnappers contacted Timilehin’s father, Ven. Victor Ayo Olisa, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Lagos Anglican School Management Board.

During the conversation on Tuesday, it was learnt that the abductors demanded N200 million to free the three girls.

Although, there are unconfirmed report that the kidnappers may have reduced their demands to N20 million for each of the pupils.

This development was said to have provoked an emergency meeting between the school’s management, the victims’ parents and security agencies, led by the state Police Commissioner Fatai Owoseni, which lasted till the early hours of Wednesday.

There was heavy presence of security personnel within and outside the school premises yesterday.

We spoke with some parents and former students of the school. They confided in us, saying this is of the many kidnappings that had happened in the school. They blamed the management for treating secuity of the children with kid gloves.

But the school principal, Venerable Olaoluwa Adeyemi who looked very frustrated yesterday, vented his anger on reporters who he accused of sabotaging rescue efforts.

He said: “The girls have not been found till this moment and why do you want me to start addressing the press? Is that the only job we are going to do all day? People are busy searching for the girls while you are busy asking questions.

“All you need do is to join us in prayers. Honestly, you people are not helping matters. In fact, you’re adding to the problem by disturbing what people could have done at the right time.

“The deputy governor was here and we recounted the whole issue in her presence and the press men asked various questions. Both the Assistant Inspector-General of Police and Commissioner of Police have addressed the press but for everybody to be coming here as if this place is a pilgrimage is not good enough.” thanks for reading.

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Senate Reduces JAMB Application Fee To N2,500

The Senate on Wednesday reduced the fee payable to Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to N2, 500.

The upper chamber also extended JAMB entrance examination validity period to three years from one year.

The resolutions followed the submission and consideration of the report on JAMB admission policies submitted by the Chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFUND, Senator Binta Masi Garba.

JAMB applicants’ currently pay N5, 650 to obtain JAMB application forms.
The upper chamber also said that its relevant committees should work to ensure the amendment of JAMB Act to reflect resolutions.

The lawmakers adopted the recommendation of its committee that JAMB fee should not exceed N2,500, while institution and course forms and all other incidental activities around the examination should be free. Thanks for reading.

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We’ll Ensure Safe Rescue Of Abducted Schoolgirls – Ambode

Lagos State Governor, Akinwunmi Ambode on Wednesday said his government will ensure the safe release of the three female students of Babington Macaulay Junior Seminary School in Ikorodu area of the state kidnapped by a group of an unknown armed gang on Monday evening.

The Governor made this known in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Steve Ayorinde. He condemned the unfortunate incident and assured that the Police and other security operatives have swung into action to track down the perpetrators of the act.

His words: “We have not been silent on this unfortunate development. In a delicate security matter of this nature, where young innocent people are involved and management of information demands utmost circumspect, we were convinced that swift and coordinated reaction, guided by intelligence reports on the part of the Police, was a better and more sensitive approach to take, rather than a sensational, panic-stricken reaction,”Governor Ambode said.

According to him, the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Fatai Owoseni, and the Assistant Inspector General of Police for the Lagos/Ogun Command were fully on ground at the scene and vicinity of the incident leading the entire coordinated effort involving every military apparatus.

He said, “We believe in the capacity of the Police to lead this rescue mission. I have had a ceaseless briefing with them since the incident happened and God helping us, we shall spare no effort in securing the safe release of the girls and continue to secure the school and indeed every part of Lagos”.

Governor Ambode noted that the incident may not be unconnected with his recent visit to some parts of Ikorodu where he read the riot act to vandals and criminal gangs on the resolve of the state government to take the battle to their hideouts in a spirited effort to secure the pipelines.

“We believe this is a case of an evil fighting back. But Lagos will neither succumb to threats of lawlessness nor bow to terror. Our resolve is very clear; we will assist the Police and other security agencies in dealing decisively with this one unfortunate case and prevent future reoccurrence. We will deploy the resources at our disposal to safeguard every life and property within our care,” the governor stressed. Thanks for reading.

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