Nigeria at 50: To Celebrate or not to Celebrate?

Tomorrow Nigeria will celebrate fifty years of independence from Britain. At independence in 1960, Nigeria held out great promise based particularly on our human and material resources. This promise has to a very large extent not been fulfilled, and the gap between potential, promise and fulfillment seems to be getting wider. In view of our shortcomings and lack of direction as a nation, does the 50th anniversary of our independence from our colonial masters deserve to be celebrated or not?

Two weeks ago, I was involved in a discussion with some of my Nigerian colleagues in Chicago on what the Association of Nigerian Physicians in the Americas (ANPA) Chicago/Northwest Indiana Chapter should contribute to the Nigerian Independence Organization to make the celebration of Nigeria’s 50th birthday a success. The Nigerian Independence Organization in Chicago is a coalition of several Nigerian civic and professional organizations in the Chicagoland area that has been organizing parades, fanfare and other fun activities to celebrate Nigeria’s independence for many years.

Enyi MD Foundation Raises Funds for Emergency Healthcare in Nigeria

Late Dr. Enyi Okereke, former ANPA Treasurer

When the late Dr. Enyi Okereke traveled home in the fall of 2008, his mission was to provide emergency care to trauma victims and train surgeons at the National Orthopedic Hospital, Enugu. Then the unimaginable happened: Dr. Okereke, who was Chief, Division of Foot and Ankle Surgery at the University of Pennsylvania Health Systems and an Associate Professor in Orthopedic Surgery at the University Of Pennsylvania School Of Medicine, suffered a heart attack during his medical mission. Sadly, he became a victim of the very inadequate emergency medical services that he tried to improve.


Today, a foundation established in his memory, The Enyi MD Foundation, is committed to improving the dire state of emergency healthcare in Nigeria, so that more lives won't be cut short. The Foundation is already having a measurable impact. At the 2010 ANPA conference on July 3, Ms. Moriam Tokunbo Okereke, the Executive Director of The Enyi MD Foundation, presented a generous sum of $10,000 to ANPA for its emergency medical services (EMS) program. 

Meet our Bloggers: Flora Ukoli, MBBS, DPH, MPH

Dr. Flora Aroma Ukoli received her medical degree at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria (1975), a Master in Public Health degree from the University of Glasgow, Scotland (1980), a Master’s degree in epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh, PA, in 1998, and is a Fellow of the West African College of Physicians. Dr Ukoli is a Professor of Community Medicine and joined the Department of Surgery at Meharry Medical College in July 2003.

Meet our Bloggers: Adedeji S. Adefuye, MD, MPH, FRIPH

Dr. Adedeji S. Adefuye is Associate Medical Director for Postmarketing Safety Evaluation at Abbott Laboratories. Before his appointment at Abbott Laboratories, he served as the Director of the HIV/AIDS Research and Policy Institute and professor of epidemiology in the Department of Health Studies at Chicago State University. Dr. Adefuye has over 15 years experience in clinical, behavioral and public health research and practice. He graduated with honors from the University of Lagos College of Medicine in 1984. He obtained his MPH from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in 1999 and was awarded a fellowship of the Royal Institute of Public Health in 2001.

In 2002, Dr. Adefuye was appointed Assistant Dean for Urban Health and Diversity Programs at the UIC School of Public Health where led a team charged with developing programs to address racial and ethnic disparities in health and health outcomes, and the disproportionate representation of minorities in the health professions. Before coming to the US, Dr. Adefuye had served as Associate Medical Director at and Director Clinical Services and Administration at Global Medical Center, in Lagos Nigeria. He has served at various times Director/Coordinator for UNICEF and USAID projects in Nigeria.

Dr. Adefuye has authored and co-authored several publications and received funding from government agencies and foundations. He is co-Investigator on 4-year $1.58 million NIH grant to implement and evaluate a condom promotion education for African American males in Chicago.

Dr. Adefuye serves in many leadership positions including member of the Board of the Black Caucus of Health Workers of the American Public Health Association, Chair of the ANPA Chicago chapter, member of the ANPA Board, member 7^th Congressional District Health Taskforce, and member Community Advisory Council of the Urban Health Program of the University of Illinois.

Tale of two Americas

Two friends growing up as neighbors in Nigeria both left for America, one went to school, did things the right way and struggled while his friend went into a life of crime and fraud. The one who was involved in fraud sent home cars and built a house for his father, while the other one was able to send home some money from time to time. When the good boy came home one day for Xmas, his father asked him whether he did not see all the things his mate had achieved and material possessions he had accrued and said to him, My pikin, no be the same America both of una go? abi you go South America?

This tale encapsulates some of the problems we are facing today in Nigeria from Politics for personal gain, kidnapping, sex trafficking, 419 etc. As long as it is more important to display wealth and no questions are asked about the source it is unlikely that any singular solution can solve these problems.I would like to share my thoughts on the scourge of kidnapping which is a relatively new phenomenon in Nigeria. Initially it started out as part of the so called struggle in the Niger Delta and then spread as a tool for political infighting, no deaths were recorded and the governors at that time always seemed to be able to locate the expatriates after ransoms were paid even though they never seemed to prosecute the perpetrators. Somewhere along the way, it became business and now it seems it cannot be stopped.What, however, strikes me is that this kidnapping as business seems to be concentrated in the Eastern States of Nigeria and Edo State. 

Meet our Bloggers: Echezona E. Ezeanolue, MD, MPH, FAAP

Our goal for this blog is to provide readers with an informed commentary on  health issues relevant to Nigeria from a diverse team of ANPA members drawn from different specialties. We are pleased to welcome Dr. Echezona Edozie Ezeanolue as a member of our blogging team. Dr. Ezeanolue  is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. Board certified in Pediatrics and Infectious diseases, his interest in health policy is focused on unintended consequences of health care policy in addition to his clinical and research activities.

Education in Nigeria: A State of Emergency

Worldwide, there is a general recognition of the role of education in shaping the future of a nation. In 2002, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa said “…we have to exert maximum effort to train the necessary numbers of our people in all the fields required for the development, running and management of modern economies. This again must be a national effort in which we should consider the necessary expenditures not as a cost but as an investment in our future.”

It is against this backdrop that I ponder on four headlines in Nigerian newspapers in the past week. In the first of the headlines, the Director General, National Directorate of Employment (NDE), Abubakar Mohammed said that one of the reasons why Nigerian graduates were facing unemployment problem in the country is that they lacked marketable skills. On his part, the National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Alhaji Lai Muhammed said poor level of education is the single militating factor against Nigeria. A career civil servant on the same page as politicians is a rarity in Nigeria’s polity. Does this however mean education will be better valued and given the resources it needs? I don’t think so. The NDE Director General went on to say the agency was being repositioned to impact global marketable skills in the youth for them to be relevant to the needs of the modern economy. Another sweet talk devoid of specifics that we heard too many times. Repositioning hmm or rebranding? Give me a break.

Education is both labor and resource intensive and we can not educate Nigeria’s leaders of tomorrow with outdated books and technology. This much was said by Mr. Segun Onilude, scribe of the Universal Basic Education Board (UBEB) when he identified lack of basic textbooks as being among the reasons for mass failure in the last NECO examination while reacting to the mass failure in English Language and Mathematics in the results of the senior secondary schools examination released by NECO last week Monday. In a scathing headline titled “Exam failure: Endless Shame of a Nation,” NECO’s Registrar and Chief Executive, Promise Okpala, was quoted as saying that about 870,305 candidates from a total of 1, 113,177 who sat for the examination failed to get credit passes in English. Broadly speaking, 79 per cent failure was recorded in the subject, while about 24 per cent or 838,031candidates' inability to make impressive scores in Mathematics.This is more than a national shame; it is tragedy that demands a state of emergency.

Kidnapping of Nigerian Doctors is a Public Health Crisis, says ANPA Members

Nigerian doctors in the US are taking President Goodluck Jonathan to task for being slow to tackle the booming kidnapping industry in the South East part of the country. ANPA members are also expressing solidarity with their colleagues at home who have become the target of the out-of-control kidnapping racket.  According to the Nigerian Medical association (NMA), more than 20 doctors have been kidnapped in Abia State alone in the past one year. Nigeria Health Watch, a blog that focuses on health care in Nigeria, has rounded up several recent cases in which doctors were the victims.

The kidnappers, increasingly emboldened by a seemingly incompetent and flat-footed police, routinely terrorize citizens and have paralyzed economic activities in the once bustling Abia and neighboring states. Perhaps, the most brazen incident occurred last week when gunmen murdered Dr. Stanley Uche, a gynecologist and proprietor of Victory Christian Hospital, Aba, even after allegedly collecting N30 million ransom from the wife. Just a year ago, the then President of the NMA, Dr. Prosper Igboeli and his wife, narrowly escaped the onslaught of a gang of kidnappers who attacked his hospital, also in Abia State.

Besieged by the spate of kidnappings and the general insecurity of life, doctors have embarked on limited strikes, protest marches, and public appeals to the government. After Dr. Uche's murder, many public and private hospitals in Abia State were shut down for several days and some doctors have begun to flee the state. ANPA member, Dr. Obi Emerole is troubled by this development, stating that "violent crime has become the number one public health issue in the country especially in the eastern states". Dr. Emerole, who is a cardiologist, worries that the siege on doctors will only exacerbate the already severe shortage of doctors and demoralize the few who risk their lives in the service of their patients. The ultimate victims, Dr. Emerole fears, will be the masses of Nigerian citizens for whom the already poor health conditions will worsen as more hospitals close and doctors flee to safer parts of the country or migrate abroad.

Will Open Access Replace Medical Libraries in Sub-Saharan Africa?

Visiting the library of a Nigerian medical school last year, the empty shelves and outdated journals conveyed a sense of emptiness and decay. The familiar reference books on front-row display were all several editions behind. The librarian took me to a section with rows of desktop computers that were rarely used due to epileptic power supply and lack of internet access. A few working computers shared a slow bandwidth connection.

The library, once the indispensable hub of learning in medical schools has become increasingly irrelevant in some institutions. Lack of funding has caused some libraries to cancel journal subscriptions and eliminate the budget for new books. So, how could medical libraries in sub-Saharan Africa restore their roles as gateways of information, and reestablish their position as an intellectual partner in the sphere of medical education, training, and research?

Help Fund Training of Health Workers, CapacityPlus Urges Diaspora Groups

Faced with severe shortages of physicians, low income countries must build capacity among lower cadres of health care workers who can deliver health services to rural communities. This is the goal of an innovative program recently introduced by CapacityPlus, a USAID-funded global project uniquely focused on the health workforce needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. 

A pilot project has been launched in Malawi to train Clinical Officers who will work in their own  rural communities. Funds raised by Capacity Plus,  through the GlobalGiving network, will be used to pay the $7,500 tuition fees for a four-year program at the Malamulo College of Health Sciences.

Nigerians are Smart, Says Google in an Instant

Just today, Google unveiled a new search tool, Google Instant, that extends the power of semantic search. Now, we can all search "faster than the speed of type". As you begin to type, Google is no longer content with suggesting some terms for you, instead it now shows you what it thinks you are looking for......

 So we took it for a quick spin to find out what folks are thinking when they begin to say "Nigerians are...".

Well, it turns out that the new improved Google is just as smart as....you guessed it, Nigerians, correctly noting that Nigerians are the most educated people in America. Also, Google shows that though Nigerians are unfairly smeared with the false allegation of being 'crook' and 'scammers', they continue to confound everyone by being the happiest people on earth.

Worth the Fight

Nigeria, home to 150 million people, is the most populous country in Africa. Endowed with huge amounts of natural resources, it hardly sits well among the category of "low income countries". Even the relatively large population is a poor excuse for Nigeria's tragic underdevelopment. Its 2008 estimated GDP was $206 billion, the second largest in Africa, behind only South Africa ($276 billion). While the 2008 GDP per capita ($1,401) ranked 18th in the continent, it was still nearly twice that of Ghana, and more than ten times larger than Burundi.

The contrast with Ghana could not be more stark. Facing tough times three decades ago, 1 million Ghanaian citizens fled to Nigeria, whose newly found oil wealth powered the regional economy. However, as Nigeria's leaders began to loot the nation's wealth on an unprecedented massive scale, economic anxiety across the land produced a xenophobic rage that led to the expulsion of Ghanaian refugees in the infamous "Ghana must go" affair of 1983. Ghana licked its wounds and picked itself from up from its bootstraps, while Nigeria continued searching for scapegoats for its many missed opportunities and self-inflicted wounds. In the current UNICEF rankings, Nigeria lags behind Ghana in Infant Mortality Rate (96 vs. 51 per 1000 live births) and Maternal Mortality Ratio (1160 vs. 550 per 100,000 live births, adjusted).

High infant and maternal mortality is, of course, only a symptom of the myriad problems facing Nigeria's health system. Fortunately, the resources for an enduring solution can be found in Nigeria's abundant natural and human resources, including the 5,000 to 6,000 physicians and tens of thousands of allied health professionals in the diaspora.

ANPA is geared up for the fight to improve Nigeria's health system, working with Nigeria's government and citizens, international agencies, and the many friends of Nigeria across the globe. Please, join us. It is a goal worth fighting for.