=By our correspondent=

The Floral Schools, comprised of nursery, primary and college, have elected new prefects and class representatives for the 2018/2019 academic year.

 Speaking at the swearing-in programme, the Proprietress, Mrs. Kemi Bamidele said that the event is an opportunity to see that the children are exposed early in life into leadership position, adding that parents should assist their wards in embracing quality leadership.

 She said, “What we are doing today is not ordinary. It is time to see the children appointed early in life. Parents should teach them to be good leaders and let them see what it entails to be a good leader. Let them come to school on time, do the right thing at the right time and we shall see them in greater heights in life.”

 In her speech, the Head Teacher, Nursery, Mrs. Tayo Taiwo explained that aside academic qualification, the school also looked at some qualities before choosing the class representatives and electing the prefects.  She said the school teaches leadership and character building and called on parents to help the pupils and students grow better daily in good leadership qualities.

 “Aside academics, we look at character and we want them to know that personality is important and that they are not ordinary. We saw some qualities like patience, tolerance, leadership roles before choosing them and we want parents to please maintain those qualities.

 “We see the stars in them and as parents, let’s nurture them, teach them the word of God, pray for them and pray with them. Teach them to obey authority, parents and teachers. Children, you are going places in life,” she said.

Also contributing, Head Teacher, Primary, Mr. Femi Roberts told the children that leadership position is not part of the fundamental human rights but that they must earn it. “Leadership position is not your right, you must earn it. You must learn to be responsible aside academic prowess”, he noted, charging them to behave and conduct themselves in a manner to meet up the expectation of their appointment and election as class captains and school prefects, respectively, and that the leadership qualities they possess should be manifested beyond the school environment.

 Similarly, the Chairman of the Election Committee, Mr. Sunday Bankole declared that the election was free and fair. He said the children campaigned and presented their manifestos before emerging winners in respective positions.

 “These children are great. What we are doing today is not just fun, parents should guide the children. We had ballot boxes and papers for the elections, the pupils voted and we have the results. There was a rerun for two candidates and this also helped the pupils in understanding leadership.  You should not be angry if you do not win the post you vied for, but every one of you is a winner and you all are prefects,” he said.

 Barrister Olufemi Abodunde, who conducted the swearing-in exercise, the urged the elected prefects to be consistent and have sense of duty.

 Meanwhile, speaking on behalf of the prefects in the primary section, the Head Boy, Romilogo Falobi, thanked the teachers and parents for their supports and the pupils for believing in them. “I want to thank my parents for their support. I thank my teachers for teaching me leadership. And on behalf of other prefects, I thank the pupils for voting for us. We will do our best to make the school better”, he said.

The African Freedom of Expression Exchange (AFEX), a network of prominent media and freedom of expression organizations across the continent, has condemned the October 2, 2018 gruesome murder of renowned Saudi journalist, Jamal Khashoggi, in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, saying a country that indulges in such barbaric behaviour ought to be ostracized by the civilized world.

In a statement signed by Felicia Anthonio, issued on October 29, 2019 from its Secretariat in Accra,  AFEX called on the United Nations to demonstrate its commitment to the safety of journalists and ending impunity for crimes against journalists by taking decisive action against Saudi Arabia which, “despite the overwhelming evidence of official complicity in the murder of the journalist, has engaged in bare-faced denials, duplicity, peddling falsehoods and then grudging admission laced with half-truths.”

Chair of AFEX Steering Committee, Mr. Edetaen Ojo, said: “There can be no acceptable excuse or justification for the failure of the United Nations to take action against Saudi Arabia for this heinous state-sponsored crime against a journalist at a time when the international community, led by the UN, is trying to implement a series of measures to address the problem of crimes against journalists and end impunity for such crimes. A failure by the UN to sanction one of its members whose agents were responsible for this gruesome murder would rightly raise serious questions about its commitment to the safety of journalists and ending impunity for crimes against them.”

According to Mr. Ojo, “Given the evident use of Saudi Government resources to facilitate the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the involvement of multiple Saudi officials in the crime, including the initial efforts to cover it up, we have no faith any investigation conducted by Saudi Arabia or its ability to bring all those responsible to justice. Its continued refusal to disclose the whereabouts of the journalist’s remains is evidence that the country is still unwilling to come clean and make a full disclosure.”

He therefore called on the UN to launch an independent international investigation into the murder to establish the extent of involvement of various officials within the Saudi government, including who issued the order for the killing of the journalist and all those who played a role in the incident.

Mr. Ojo stressed that “It is only by so doing that the UN can convince the world that it is truly serious in its efforts, as outlined in various resolutions and plans on the subject adopted since 2012 by its organs and agencies such as the General Assembly, the Human Rights Council and UNESCO, aimed at ensuring the safety of journalists and ending impunity for crimes against journalists. To do nothing would be to give a stamp of approval to impunity!”

AFEX said it was seriously concerned about the lack of outrage coming from African governments over the incident, which gives the impression that African leaders are unconcerned about the act of barbarism that has shocked decent people and governments around the world.

It noted that with the exception of South Africa, which has expressed “concern” over the “disappearance” of the Saudi journalist, no other African government has commented on or condemned the action, while the South Africa itself continues to conduct business with the Gulf state despite allegations that government officials were involved in Khashoggi’s murder.

AFEX observed that African cultures and traditions are founded on the values of truth, fairness and justice, as a result of which it is difficult to understand the basis of the silence of African leaders in this matter.

According to the AFEX network, “besides the requirements of international norms and standards, even under African cultures and traditions, no society would condone the kind of behaviour that Saudi Arabia has exhibited.  All across the continent, the unlawful and unjustifiable killing of an individual such as in the case of Khashoggi would be considered a taboo or repugnant conduct and visited with drastic punishment.”

The Network therefore called on African leaders to have the moral courage to stand for fairness and justice and, accordingly, join the rest of the international community in unequivocally condemning the abhorrent action of Saudi Arabia.

=By Sanmi Falobi=

The Centre for Constitutional Governance (CCG), Lagos has urged Nigerians to ensure that only leaders who mean well for the country and have the capacity to deliver are voted into the various political positions in the fort-coming 2019 general elections.

The Executive Director of the Centre, Dr. Adewale Balogun, who stated this in a press statement noted that that Nigerians have a wide range of choices to choose from and should stop behaving as if they do not. In his words, “there are a good number of candidates being fielded for the various positions by the different registered political parties in the country, so I see no reason why Nigerians should limit themselves”, he said.

In the statement signed by Juli Iregbu, CCG’s programme officer, Dr. Balogun also condemned votes buying and selling, especially as witnessed in recent times and even in the political party primaries. According to him, “vote buying obstructs the democratic process by interfering with the rights of citizens to freely decide who will represent them and their interests, ultimately, it undercuts citizens’ ability to hold their elected officials accountable after they must have bought themselves their mandates.

While also condemning the evidenced lack of transparency and internal democracy in the way and manner the political parties primaries were conducted, he called on INEC to improve in their efforts to ensure that the political parties and their candidates comply with laid down regulations in the Nigerian electoral laws on the electoral process such as the ones against the over-monetization of process and refusal of political parties and candidates to adhere to the stipulated campaigning time-frame as is already been witnessed.

Finally, he appealed to Nigerians, especially the Youth to “shun violence and to work together to support credible candidates with vision, focus and a mentality that is totally disparate to the present politics of business as usual and its attendant greed and colossal pillaging that have sucked majority of the people into avoidable poverty, degradation and lack of say.”

=By Funmi Falobi=

There is no doubt that the primary healthcare systems are imperative toward achieving success in the health sector. The centres are the first point of contact to the people especially at the grassroots in accessing healthcare services in the country. They provide the necessary healthcare delivery for the survival of the rural people, especially women and children.

However, while adequate health system is key to the survival of every society, in Nigeria, Primary Health Care facilities are bedeviled by low maintenance culture, inadequate accessibility to facilities and services, unethical attitudes of health personnel, ill-equipped and poor infrastructural services and human resource gaps.

Bothered by this trend, and in order to have more media reportage focusing on primary healthcare systems and its challenges, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC) organised a media workshop on” Basic Healthcare Funding in Nigeria” for journalists in order to unlocking potential in primary healthcare financing through investigative journalism.

According to Dr. Jibril Bashar, Health Policy and System Development Unit, Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, who was a guest speaker at the workshop, health financing is a shared responsibility in which clients need satisfaction but that due to attitude of healthcare personnel, they are not getting the necessary health outcomes.
Speaking on the topic, “Financing for Primary Healthcare: Harnessing Domestic Funding Opportunities, Enabling Policies and Legislation” he said many people lack financial protection to access healthcare services. He therefore suggested that health care financing mechanism should provide sufficient financial protection so that no individual or household is impoverished because of the need to use health services.

According to him, “Public spending on health is about $7 (N2,500) per capital in Low Income Countries (LICs), over $100 (35,500) in Middle Income Countries (MICs), and $2600 (923,000) in High Income Countries ( HICs). Nigeria‘s out-of-pocket spending is 95.7% instead of the recommended benchmark of 20%.”
He noted that “Nigeria is 75.7% below benchmark: na dthat while “Nigeria is expected to spend N34,260, government is spending N1,671 for individual in 2018”. He noted further that “Most spending is on curative instead of preventive” and that “Nigeria budgets 5.95% instead of 15% for health.”

“Social health insurance accounts for about 1% of all health spending in LICs, 15% in MICs, and 30% in HICs. With the rebasing of Nigeria’s economy during President Goodluck Jonathan administration, Nigeria is now a Middle Income Country (MIC) and this should reflect in our standard of living. The country is no longer eligible for cheap loans to revitalise Public Healthcare Centres (PHCs)”, he added.

“If we have huge amount for concurrent, nothing will come up but capital expenditure will bring development. Funds are limited, needs are insatiable. It’s not possible to give the ministries all the money they need even in developed countries hence, the 15% benchmark in health,” he said.

Speaking on the maternal mortality rate in the country, he said there is delay in identification, delay in decision making, delay in accessing facility and delay at the facility. According to him, “National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) will go a long way to reduce catastrophe government spending. It will go a long way in sharing the burden.”

He noted further that “Nigeria has to prioritise public spending in health according to its own morbidity, mortality, and availability of funds. A great degree of impact can be made in making accessible health interventions at a low cost through sustainable domestic financing.”

On the state of PHCs across the country, Bashar urged the media to liaise with legislators saying, “We are far from it but there is room for improvement. We have less than 36,000 doctors in Nigeria, inadequate personnel who don’t derive satisfaction at work, but we believe we will get there. We have our challenges but policies are coming up.”

In her submission, Health Editor, Independent Newspaper, Chioma Umeha, called on the media to focus on public education on communicable and non-communicable diseases, nutrition, maternal/child healthcare. “Without PHC you can’t achieve Universal Healthcare Coverage (UHC). PHC can meet 80% health needs of a person throughout his/her life time,” she said.
In his message, CISLAC Executive Director, Mallam Auwal Ibrahim Musa , said that the situation of primary healthcare worsens, as financial and political commitment from the government is lacking and in cases where there have been pronouncements, they have been partially or entirely not implemented.
“The ultimate goal of the project is to promote policy implementation of government’s commitment to primary healthcare in Nigeria. This is so because, the challenges facing primary healthcare in Nigeria are complex and essentially arising from poor legal and regulatory frameworks and implementation, economic and socio cultural challenges.

“Also, a dearth of infrastructure, health personnel and equipment plaque the Nigerian primary health care system. Thankfully, health is on the concurrent list of the government. This only signifies that if indeed the government wants to pay attention to the prevalent health condition it can easily be achieved through serious implantation of health policies and redeeming of pledges at all levels,” he said.

“With your mandate to informing the public, you have the role to investigate these initiatives of the government to ascertain the progress made since its launch and also engage our state governments to ascertain how they are faring in adopting these initiatives in their development agenda,” he urged the participants.

In addition, the Programme Manager, CISLAC, Chioma Kalu , declared that media play important role if the country will achieve revitalisation of PHCs. According to her, “we feel that if we’re going to ask government to revitalize PHC, the media have important role to play; legislators are also very key and we can’t by any chance ignore the media. To bring about change, the media will write and get attention of duty bearers in PHC. Media should be carried along and do their own investigative journalism.”

Speaking on “Unlocking Potentials from Primary Healthcare through Investigative Journalism” she said it is expected of the media and civil societies to speak up on the deplorable state of health centres in the country, bad attitude of health workers and their being overworked, poor payment, crowding by patients, few health personnel.

Focusing on accessibility to health centres, affordability of health services and attendance at health centres, Kalu said, “It’s time we start doing things differently in this country and have ideas on how to change things in the country. Healthcare affects us directly and media should focus on it. Healthcare actually supposed to be provided by the government. The media should play the watchdog role in order to rebuild the PHC.”

Consequently, participants among others, recommended full-fledged community consultation in planning and processes establishing Primary Health Care to enable ownership, attendance and monitoring; strategic community-oriented advocacy in demanding accountability from the policy and legislative realms and strengthened judicial institutions to enable social equity and justice, and appropriate implementation of existing legislation.