FOI Act and the corruption war

A national newspaper recently published the report headlined “Nigerians need more anti-corruption agencies – Mark”. The report quoted the Senate President, David Mark as saying “we have never said we want to merge the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission.

“We believe keeping as many as possible will stop corruption. The more the agencies, the better for the fight against corruption. If one fails to find out, the other will find out,” Mark said. This sounds naive of the nation’s number three man, who is very vital to the process of living, legislation and law in Nigeria. As such he should be very well informed on at least important issues.

It should be told the senate president that with a million anti-corruption police in Nigeria , the fight against corruption cannot be successful if the masses are not co-opted into it.
He should know that one of the desirable implications of the passage of the Freedom of Information bill into an act, which he is stalling now, would be fishing out and plugging corruption sources.

If he claims not to know, he should have sought the advice of those who know better and stop presenting a façade. The questions that Mark should have asked before making the comment above are :“what conditions support the free run of corruption in a country?” And through what mechanisms can those conditions be disabled?”

He should also have asked “what are the roles of the civil society in eradication of corruption?” But for not seeking answers to these important questions which are vital to a thorough and successful fight against corruption, I take it that Mark knows the answers.

However, I want him to know that one major facilitator of corruption is the culture of secrecy in government. Secrecy in government gives corruption and oppression a brace with which it overwhelms any nation where it has taken a hold on.

However, one of the best remedies to such a condition in any nation is the legislation on Freedom of Information Act which opens up the government and makes participatory democracy possible.

It should be told Mark before he vacates the senate without seeing the Freedom of Information bill at the National Assembly sail through that the civil society has been found very competent to check corruption where empowered to do so.

Where the FOI Act exists, organisations print out periodic information about their operations and compulsorily create information access awareness in people according to the provisions of the Act.

Through that awareness, the civil society, being launched into a participatory democratic environment could discover and do the work where a thousand crime fighting agencies would fail if assigned the enormity of the work.

A glaring instance of the power of people’s fight against crime is the Nigeria Police. How many criminals have they nabbed on their own without information from the people closest to the criminals? Without a FOI Act, it is very hard to fight corruption.

Ijendu Iheaka
nduakamadu@yahoo.com

A job for NAFDAC

The testimony of sister Dupe in our church that an injection made her daughter to run mad for one day before God delivered the little girl reminded me that the work of the National Agency For Food And Drug Administration And Control (NAFDAC) is not getting to the grassroot. This may be due to the method adopted in which jaw breaking English words like Pharmacovigilance is being used instead of a simple language that would easily be comprehended.

The lady said the child who was knocked down by fever was taken to the hospital and after examination, the doctor gave her injection. She added that few minutes after they got home, the child started behaving funny, an action that could be likened to madness. She took her back to the hospital where she was placed on observation and also called the pastor who came to pray. In the evening, the "madness" disappeared hence the testimony. However, an investigation by the doctor revealed that the baby reacted to vallergan (Trimeprazine tartrate) injection, and the so-called madness stopped when the effect on the baby finished.

Another case study was the case of a couple who dragged themselves to our office. The wife seemed to be doubting her husband’s faithfulness on the basis that sometime he came home from his base with swollen pennis and bruishes all over it. She asked him if he had slept with a woman who might have infected him with the "disease". The innocent man vowed that he never betrayed her but that he often had the reaction after taking malaria drugs. Our investigation also revealed that the young man might be reacting to any of the "sulpha" group like septrin (sulphamethaxazole), fansidar (sulfadoxine), metalkelfin (sulphametopyrazine).

I also learnt that spontaneous abortion can occur if a pregnant woman takes any of the sulpha drugs (septrin, fansidar) within the first three months of pregnancy. Others may have swollen faces and limbs as reaction to the drugs.

The body-itching effect of chloroquine is the most common today. The penicillin anaphylatic shock is known but not common. Therefore, as NAFDAC officials try to eliminate fake drugs, they should also try to monitor the good but dangerous drugs.

NAFDAC should organise programmes on television where drugs and their effects would be highlighted so that our people will know the sources of their problems instead of blaming them on witches, infidelity,etc.

Besides, the medical personnel should be magnanimous enough to ask for the history of their patients in order to know what to administer.

Adekoya Abimbola,
97, Market Street,
Coker, Lagos.