By Olukorede Yishau
Let us call her Aliyah. She is on the bed, her body hot like oven, her breathe short, her eyes struggling to open, her mouth bitter and repelling food. She, like many, is down with malaria, one of the world’s deadliest diseases.
Nigeria records many malaria casualties, daily, yearly. The malaria crisis is worsened by merchants of fake drugs. In the early 2000s, statistics showed that over 40 percent of anti-malaria medicines in circulation in the country were counterfeited. It dropped in 2005 to 15.7 percent. But three years later, it rose to an unprecedented 64 percent. It has not quite reduced significantly.
For instance, Lonart, a popular anti-malaria drug, once lost 40 per cent of its market because of counterfeiting. At one point, the company launched a DS Mobile Authentication Service (MAS), through which consumers can detect counterfeited Lonart.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) World Malaria 2020 report showed that Nigeria tops the malaria case chart in Africa at 27 per cent, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (12 per cent), Uganda (5 per cent), Mozambique (4 per cent) and Niger (3 per cent).
These five countries accounted for about 51 per cent of all cases globally.
The report also identified six significant challenges hindering Nigeria from reaching a zero malaria status, such as drug resistance and treatment failure, poverty, insecticide resistance, lack of sensitive field tests that can detect low levels of parasitemia, global warming, and climate change, as well as sustainable funds.
The severity of the malaria malaise was behind the United States President’s Malaria Initiative (US-PMI). Being a health challenge, the war against malaria and other diseases requires well-equipped hospitals as well as well-groomed and motivated professionals. Sadly, we all know the state of many of our health institutions, including the teaching hospitals. These institutions need support. In billions of naira. Even dollars.
For a sector already suffering the effect of years of abandonment, the COVID-19 pandemic was a major blow. The pressure it exerted on it was the type the sector was less prepared for. And things fell apart, leaving the centre struggling to hold.
Aside from the health sector, our education sector also needs help. Lecturers have been on strike for months, leaving students idle and ready tool for ignoble deeds. The last thing we heard from the government was that it was tired and unsure of how to end the strike that has made a mess of our education.
By now, it should be clear to us all that if we leave the critical sectors of our lives to the government, we will not achieve much. Two sectors that are thriving—Nollywood and the music sectors—are private sector-driven. It is for this reason that I advocate the involvement of the private sector in developmental issues. Call it Social Responsibility!
One company that has over the years shown it is socially responsible is the Nigeria LNG Limited, the sponsor of the Nigeria Prize for Literature and the Nigeria Prize for Science. This company, which will clock 33 later this month, is not just supporting literature and science, it is involved in fighting malaria, in improving the state of our tertiary health institutions, and in providing critical infrastructure, such as the Bonny-Bodo Road.
Records show that it has committed more than $200 million to corporate social responsibility projects in the Niger Delta.
Working with the US-PMI, the firm is working on using Bonny Island, its base, to stamp out malaria in Nigeria. The deadly disease costs the country huge loss in manhours and mortality rate. The anti-malaria movement involves the distribution of treated mosquito net on Bonny Island. The Bonny Island Malaria Elimination Project (BNYMEP) is a five-year project, which started in 2021. United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Beth Leonard, expressed
America’s commitment to it at the launching in March last year.
NLNG Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Philips Mshelbila said the US-PMI donated 273,450 treated nets worth millions of naira to support the initiative.
The NLNG and its partners, he said, worked behind the scenes to provide free treatments for pregnant women and children under the age of five, and build the capacity of service delivery staff and community volunteers on a roadmap to achieving shared goals.
Its interventions in our universities are multi-million dollars in cost. In January, it signed a deal with six Nigerian teaching hospitals nationwide in its multi-billion-naira Hospital Support Programme (NLNG HSP). The hospitals were part of the first phase of the NLNG HSP.
The beneficiaries are Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital (UATH), the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital (AKTH), the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH), and the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital (NDUTH). The cost is some $500,000 per hospital, with a total cost outlay of $6 million.
Through its University Support Programme (NLNG USP), which was in operation between 2012 and 2015, it sponsored the construction and equipment of six engineering laboratories in six federal universities. The beneficiaries are the University of Ibadan, the University of Port Harcourt, the University of Maiduguri, the University of Ilorin, the Ahmadu Bello University and the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
By the time work is concluded on the Bonny-Bodo Road it is building, it would have helped to realise a dream that had been on the drawing board since the 70s. The road, which is 40-kilometre long, has three bridges – a 1000 metre bridge across the Opobo creek, a 640 metre bridge against the Nanabie Creek and a 550 metre bridge against the Afa Creek. It is a tripartite arrangement involving the Federal Government, represented by the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing, and Julius Berger Nigeria Plc, to construct this road, which will connect several communities in Rivers State. It will open up opportunities for rapid socio-economic development of the area and impact lives on Bonny Island, as well other Niger Delta communities like Ogoni, Okrika, Eleme and Andoni. Nigeria LNG is contributing N60 billion to the project.
Lest I forget, the NLNG is both our pride and cash-cow. Nigeria makes the kind of money it gets from the NLNG from only a few other sources. When President Muhammadu Buhari came in, the Federal Government initiated a bailout package for states owing their workers. The bulk of the money which made up the N400 billion package came from the company. As at the time Buhari became president, the company had made over $25 billion from a $2.6 billion investment, paid over $5.5 billion as Companies Income Tax, Tertiary Education Tax, WHT, VAT and PAYE. Regulators’ levies and other fees had cost it over N51 billion.
Former Coordinating Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala described the company as a beacon of hope for a better Nigeria. She described it as the most successful Nigerian company with 49 per cent government ownership, which she described as a distinguishing feature among companies in the public and private sectors.
My final take: Nigeria is too much to be left for the government at all levels. Well-to-do companies, such as the NLNG, sure have to help out, and help out very well. NLNG is playing its part in the area of literature, science and infrastructure. More need to toe its path and toe it well. Tokenism will not help to end the era of malaria keeping down the Aliyahs of this nation.
• Yishau is a newspaper columnist and author of ‘In The Name of Our Father’and’Vaults of Secrets’.