Armed Men Kill Expatriate in Port Harcourt (Reuters)
Suspected armed robbers shot dead a Lebanese businessman in the southern Nigerian city of Port Harcourt in the Niger Delta, the local police commissioner said on Friday.
Felix Ogbaudu said the robbers locked the apartment block's security guard inside his post and entered the Lebanese man's house, took some of his belongings and shot him dead. He said it happened at about 3 a.m. (0200 GMT) on Friday.
Ogbaudu said armed robberies were commonplace in that part of the city but it was unclear why the attackers had shot the man, who had a private furniture-making business. No one else was harmed.
Kidnappings of foreigners are frequent in the oil-producing delta and many abductions have taken place in Port Harcourt, but it is unusual for expatriates to get killed.
Port Harcourt is the main city in the delta. It has become increasingly dangerous since early 2006, when militants demanding control over oil revenues stepped up a campaign of attacks on the oil industry.
The militants have attacked oil facilities and kidnapped oil workers, cutting Nigeria's exports by about a fifth and prompting thousands of expatriate workers and their relatives to leave the region.
But numerous criminal gangs have used the unrest as a cover to abduct foreigners for ransom or carry out armed robberies. The delta, including Port Harcourt, is also plagued by violent youth gangs called "cults" who frequently clash for reasons that usually remain obscure.
HIV & The Niger Delta (This Day)
When the news of the discovery of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) and the resultant Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) broke out in the mid 1980s, most Nigerians never gave it a second thought. Even when the disease was found to have led to the death of several East and Southern Africans, many still claimed that HIV and AIDS were a mere whiteman's coinage and disease.
But today, some two decades after, the killer disease has taken an awesome toll on Nigerians, and even killed neighbours next door, and rendered many, especially children, orphans. That infection, which was a whiteman's disease in 1986-87, has now become a vanquished misery to many families in Nigeria, particularly amongst people of Niger Delta, where its prevalence rate has been high. The states of the South-south are already hitting epidemic proportion in the spread of the virus as a result of favourable socio-economic conditions in the region. Now, the people are at crossroads and a workable solution has to be found to immediately curb the whirlwind and save our beloved brothers and sisters from the pandemic. The figures are indeed, alarming, and concerns are rising. In the South-south zone, Akwa Ibom has the highest prevalence rate of 8.0 per cent, with Cross River following closely with 6.1 per cent (showing a drastic reduction in the last five years from 8.2 per cent), while Rivers ranks third with 5.4 per cent. In the same vein, Edo is rated fourth with 4.6 per cent, Bayelsa ranks fifth at 3.8 per cent while Delta comes last with 3.7 per cent.
A deeper x-ray of the statistics sadly reveal that rural communities in the zone are effectively competing with urban centres in the spread of HIV and the concentration of AIDS cases. In Akwa Ibom, for instance, HIV prevalence rate in rural areas has overtaken the number in urban centres with a 9.3 to 7.3 ratio, just as rural communities in Bayelsa State have toppled the towns with a 4-point lead to 3.7 for urban centres.
The case of Rivers is not an exception either, as the rural mass already has a 5 per cent prevalence rate, just a little below the 5.5 per cent rate for urban centres. Cross River State also has a 5 per cent rural spread of the virus against the cities's 6.7 per cent, Edo maintains 3 per cent rural prevalence rate compared to urban centres' 5.3 per cent while in Delta, 2 per cent of the rural poor are already infected against the present 4.5 per cent rate for the cities.
A careful analysis of the distribution pattern in the zone shows an unequal network of centres when compared to the prevalence rate in each state of the South-south. For instance, both Edo and Cross River states have three ART centres each while Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Bayelsa and Delta states have one site each.
This situation becomes more disturbing when it is realized that there are now 210 ART centres across the country (using current NACA figures). With all the centres in the cities, it becomes crystal clear that the rural dwellers have immense problem of access to the available centres for the direly needed treatment, care and support services. This has made it expedient for government and other concerned agencies to put strategies in motion to establish ART centres in the rural communities to check the spread of the pandemic. And these centres are needed mostly in the rural communities in the South-south, albeit, the Niger Delta, where the spread of HIV/AIDS has been rising systematically.
The strategic foundations forged gave impetus to the formation of the National Action Committee on HIV/AIDS (NACA), now National Agency for Control of HIV & AIDS, and the setting up of the various state implementing bodies -SACA as well as those of the local government areas, LACA. As coordinating and implementing platforms for HIV & AIDS policies and programmes in Nigeria, these bodies have battled with donor and partner organisations including some corporate bodies to redress the menace. But given the number of HIV/AIDS victims, the number of ART sites and the dearth of professionals in the sector, it is clear that the burden on government is overwhelming.
It is against this background that other players in the Nigerian economy have intervened in one way or the other to reduce the impact of the spectre on the national psyche. One such example, is the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC), which has bought-in on all national policy frameworks for tackling the HIV & AIDS pandemic in Nigeria , particularly in the Niger Delta region.
One of the ways through which the company has contributed, as a responsible corporate citizen of Nigeria, and indeed, the Niger Delta, is the adoption of an organisational workplace policy on HIV/AIDS for staff in line with government's strategy. This is in addition to active participation of the company in the annual World AIDS Day celebrations, the sponsorship of media-based campaigns on HIV & AIDS, organised sessions for 10,000 students and 250 teachers, drama and distributed notebooks branded with HIV/AIDS prevention messages, organized seminars/workshops and sensitization fora on the scourge for staff, health workers, faith-based and civic society groups, host communities, among others. Besides, SPDC has also sponsored Shell AIDS School .
But beyond all these, SPDC has taken a quantum leap in its intervention strategy by investing in initiatives to complement government's efforts to scale up access to ART through the upgrading and equipping of five of the 27 health facilities to provide HIV and AIDS care, treatment and support services to PLWHAs in the Niger Delta. Conceived under the Niger Delta AIDS Response (NiDAR) project, the initiative targets Otuasegha Cottage Hospital in Bayelsa, Erhoike Cottage Hospital in Delta, Oben Cottage Hospital in Edo , Owaza Cottage Hospital in Abia and Edagberi Cottage Hospital in Rivers. The project will also strengthen Okolobiri General Hospital as well as Federal Medical Centre, Yenagoa, all in Bayelsa, to deliver HIV comprehensive care services to victims.
The goals of SPDC, Dr. Babatunde Fakunle, corporate community health manager, SPDC, said are to strengthen the human resource and capacity of the affected health facilities to provide high quality and comprehensive HIV and AIDS care services as well as establish strong linkages of the various components of HIV and AIDS care services within the facilities and other available HIV & AIDS programmes in the states.
Dr Fakunle said at the maiden NiDAR Project Stakeholders Roundtable in Port Harcourt, last month that the deliverable benefits of the new intervention strategy, include the provision of access to HIV/AIDS services to over 50,000 people in the first year alone while serving as a catalyst for the development of HIV/AIDS strategic response framework for the Niger Delta. He also listed other benefits to include increased access to HIV/AIDS -related information and prevention activities, reduced HIV/AIDS transmission, improved healthcare delivery and overall quality of life for host communities as well as PLWHA, and to further boost relations between SPDC and communities in the region.
The community-level response strategy is seen as the first of its kind in the country's effort to sustain integrated care, treatment and support services for HIV/AIDS victims. The NiDAR Project, Fakunle noted, is part of SPDC's bold step to "support FHI and the various state action committees on AIDS" and other specialized NGOs to improve "access of the communities to comprehensive and quality assured HIV/AIDS care and treatment services". He said this will increase the number of ART centres as well as check the prevalence rate in the rural communities in the Niger Delta. This, again, shows SPDC's leadership in responding to the needs of the people of Niger Delta.
In his presentation at the roundtable, the corporate community health manager highlighted three key objectives and deliverables of the forum, which include to adequately inform key stakeholders in the fight against HIV/AIDS on the scope and operations of the NiDAR project; to garner the support of key players at community, state and national levels for effective implementation of the project; and to agree on workable/practicable modalities for achieving qualitative results as set out by the project.
One exciting aspect of the NiDAR project is the commitment of SPDC to provide funding for all activities as listed in the proposal document; provision of logistical support for the project management team; renovation and appropriate re-allocation of space in the five cottage hospitals; infrastructural and laboratory upgrading and provision of equipment for the facilities; provision of logistic support for manpower training as well as plans to boost on-going support for procurement of essential drugs, reagents and consumables. These are not all that the SPDC's NiDAR Project promises the people.
Dr Akin Fajola, public health adviser,SPDC, catalogued other special initiatives in the project, among which are the funding of the Bayelsa State Strategic Framework on HIV/AIDS with technical assistance from FHI, plans to set up voluntary counseling centres in five of six SPDC-supported health facilities, provision of HIV/AIDS care services in three facilities, and on-going arrangements to set up groups to support PLWHA. Further steps, he said, are on to conduct HIV/AIDS prevention programmes in target communities, conduct orientation workshops for healthcare providers on social mobilization and community participation in the fight against HIV/AIDS, and design, produce and distribute Information Education and Communication materials.
Another milestone of the roundtable was the formation of a central hospitals advisory committee drawn from each of the participating states and facilities, and SPDC. With these achievements, the concerns of stakeholders on the rising spate of HIV/AIDS in the region's rural areas are half addressed. But more could be done, if other corporate organizations think along that line. This is the best approach!
Police Commissioner is not Throwing a Tea Party for Criminals (The Sun)
The new Commissioner of Police in Lagos State, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, has warned criminals that he is not in the state for a tea party.Addressing officers and men in the command, he said there was no hiding place for criminals.
He said that policemen would be rewarded to encourage them to do their best. Indeed, as a starter, 15 policemen were given letters of commendation and cash reward for their act of gallantry in combating robbers.
According to him, his action was also in line with the first item on the nine-way test resolution of the acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mike Okiro, to operate a transparent and accountable administration. He said: "I want the good people of Lagos State to know of our further determination to protect them. Henceforth, policemen who excel in the performance of their duties will be openly commended as a motivational tonic to ginger them for higher performances."
The CP added that any policeman who does not excel would not get any commendation. He seized the opportunity to reveal that more than 47 suspected robbers were held in six days of his assumption of office. He said 25 assorted arms and 102 ammunition and various magazines of AK47 rifle, two barreta pistols, five pump action guns, one revolver pistol, one max pistol model 1950 and 17 locally made single and double barreta guns were recovered from them.
The bandits were held by the 15 brave policemen from different divisions. Among those arrested was a four-man gang who usually snatched flashy cars from victims in traffic snarl in the Iyana-Ipaja area of Lagos. One barretta pistol and three locally made pistols were recovered from them.
While revealing that he would, from time to time, pay unscheduled visits to police commands to make sure that policemen were on their toes, Abubakar further said: "The inspector general of police has directed and empowered police officers to arrest and prosecute bullion van drivers, unauthorized individuals and companies that use siren to intimidate other road users. Henceforth, violators of this directive will be sanctioned in Lagos State."
According to him, the hide-outs of suspected criminals were raided during the week and 640 suspects held. He said after investigations, 101 were charged to court, insisting that the exercise was a continuous process of cleansing the state of criminals.
Abubakar disclosed that additional 312 street urchins were held within the period under review.
"The command is in a serious discussion with the state government on modalities of rehabilitating majority of the social miscreants."
The new CP also has good news for those whose cars may have been snatched or stolen.
"Recently, 36 stolen vehicles were recovered in different parts of the state. Owners of these recovered vehicles were advised to check newspapers for their locations for collection or crosscheck from the office of the police public relations officer."
The CP said accurate and reliable information on criminals was required for a proactive policing as well as detection of crime. He promised to treat such information with utmost confidentiality.
He added: "My administration will operate an open-door policy where all and sundry will have unhindered access to me on all important issues that will make the command sustain its war on criminals."
He wants people to call these numbers 01-7745705, 01-7745706, 08034420406, 08023335749 and 08060357795 if they have information for the police.
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