Tag Archives: Mr. Chima Nwafo

BY CHIMA NWAFO The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) has approved additional tax with greater  impact on the lower income group hit harder by the crippling effects of the coronavirus,  which infection and fatality rates are rising even as medical workers express concern  over the inability of government to contain the ravaging pandemic. But the Federal  Government’s reaction to the plight of the frontline workers articulated during the  warning strike ofthe National Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) does not show  sufficient understanding of the potential danger of the long neglected health delivery  system. On the state of affairs in the distressing healthcare system and the tribulations of  medicalworkers, Adelaja Adeoye told The Guardian: “The poor working conditions  are part of  the reasons they usually abandon Nigeria to seek greener pastures abroad, and this  makes our health sector to suffer.” A health expert noted: “Since the opening of interstate travels and increase in test  center, there has been significant daily rise in number of confirmed cases, admission and  death.The more the positive cases, the more the fix and makeshift facilities are  stretched,  so  also the available health workers. They, too, are human who must take care of their  health and so the absence of ideal or proper personal protective equipment (PPE) will  also hamper their response to work.” This understanding seems to be lacking by both the federal and state  governments given their reaction to the demands of health workers and level of investment in the health-care sector. Elsewhere in the world, in addition to adequate healthcare  system,  governments improve the working conditions of medical staff, including provision of  quality protective personal equipment and other necessary facilities as well as reducing their hours of work to reduce their level of exposure to infection. In the United Kingdom, the Prime Minister leads the campaign to enlighten the  populace on need to protect the life of healthcare staff. Organisations and individuals  engage in fundraising to support health workers. Besides, there were stimulus  packages  and palliatives to all classes of workers, private and public, not only during the  lockdown but for as long as the pandemic lasts. In the United States from where Nigeria borrowed the much abused Presidential  Constitution, the government has not only been providing cash palliatives and stimulus  packages, citizens are even asking for government support to private daycare centres  given the value they place on the life and quality early in upbringing of the child,  which determines their future as adult citizens. Meanwhile, the people oriented US Congress  has already enacted CARES Act, passed in March, which provided $3.5 billion for  child care. That is not all. This subject is of so great importance to Americans that  Patrick  Sisson, a Los Angelesbased writer, did an elaborate cover story on it for  CityLab  newspaper of July 22 (Nigerians are quick to tell you that no one reads newspapers  any  longer, ignoring the fundamental cause: Poverty and Blackman’s contempt for reading).  …

By Chima Nwafo As the fatality and infection figures of the coronavirus pandemic continues on an upward spiral, it was curious to read that the Federal Executive Council has, at last, come up with a Solid Waste Management Policy; even though it was not its original idea.The Federal Minister of …

By Chima Nwafo One Igbo adage translates: A scheduled war does not claim the life of a cripple. But we live in a clime where advance warning makes no difference on any aspect governance. Our leaders prefer to live in denial, especially in the prevailing air of propaganda and the …

By Chima Nwafo The day power brokers realise that the Nigeria project is still a work-in-progress; the country would start a steady move towards genuine socio-economic and political development. But their attitudinal disposition gives ample evidence that they are less concerned about national development as to their individual gains. Last …

For a government led by a political party formed by an aggregation of disparate political groupings, it may not be a surprise that Nigeria under President Muhammadu Buhari has assumed an unenviable leadership in negative indices. Not that things were much better under previous administrations. No, it’s that the situation …

Chima Nwafo From desert encroachment up-North, the deepening erosion in the South-east, the raging flames of gas flaring and unmitigated pollution from oil exploration activities in the Niger Delta to the seasonal flooding in the South-west and entire states of the federation, Nigeria could be said to be floating in …

By Chima Nwafo Given the Nigerian government’s contempt for history public office-holders, particularly presidents and governors, often do not bother about the verdict of posterity. But one of the greatest leaders of all-time, Winston Churchill, was concerned about the verdict of the future. As captured by his private secretary John …

BY CHIMA NWAFO Although water has always featured prominently in Nigeria’s development plans of yore and annual budgets of federal and state governments, yet the pledge of providing potable water to the citizenry remains one of the several unfulfilled election promises by politicians. Even when provided in the rural communities, …

By Chima Nwafo Most Nigerians – young and old, men and women – suffer from Collective Amnesia. Light-hearted folks easily attribute it to the welter of socio-economic problems weighing down on the citizenry due to a succession of self-serving political leadership. Unfortunately, same leaders take advantage of this failure to …

Dead Croaker fishes By Chima Nwafo Sometime in the mid-1980s, I read an American novel where a character is described as a man unable to recognize trouble even when it sits on his laps. Three decades on, one can say that such a character fits snugly into the attitudinal disposition …