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Cholera outbreak kills 97 in north
Related to country: Nigeria
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Local government officials say cholera outbreaks across Katsina, Zamfara, Bauchi and Kano states in northern Nigeria have killed 97 people in the past two weeks, making it the worst outbreak in the north for several years, according to an official from National Primary Healthcare Agency (NPHA) in Abuja.

More than 60 people have died in Zamfara state in the past two weeks, according to Tukur Sani Jangebe, Zamfara’s state commissioner for religious affairs.

“It is quite alarming and it is quite unusual for northern Nigeria. If up to 100 people have died from cholera in just two weeks, you can only imagine how many more are affected by the disease,” an official from the government-run NPHA who requested anonymity.

National government officials have not yet publicly stated if the outbreaks across the separate states are related, or provided figures on the number of affected people.

Jangebe said the death toll may be higher as reports of new infections are still coming in.

In Katsina state in the villages of Makadawa and Kagadama, 20 people, mostly women and children, have died while 30 others have been hospitalised according to local government chairman Masur Usman Murnai. Another nine people have died in Nabardo village in Bauchi state since 13 September, with 40 more affected, according to Garba Sale, a primary health care coordinator. Kano State’s health commissioner Aisha Isyaku Kiru said five people have died of cholera in the state within the past week.

Dirty water

Across northern Nigeria, heavy rains have washed dirt, rubbish, sewage and other contaminants into ponds and open wells in affected villages where the majority of people get their water, according to Sani Ibrahim, an epidemiologist at Kano state’s Bayero University.

“Torrential rains have been recorded this season and have washed lots of dirt into ponds and open wells. This is in contrast with last year where we had scanty rainfall and no recorded cholera outbreaks,” he said.

Response

In Katsina state, Murnai said local officials have been running an awareness campaign to urge people to pay close attention to household hygiene and to boil all drinking water.

Health coordinator Sale said in Bauchi state a health surveillance team has been sent to Nabardo village to analyse and disinfect drinking water sources.

In Zamfara state, the local ministry of water resources is trying to find ways to provide clean drinking water to affected communities to halt the spread of the deadly disease, according to local commissioner Jangebe.

But Halliru Salisu, coordinator of a network of Muslim groups in the state, says local government officials were slow to admit the cholera crisis and slow to respond.

Cholera is a bacterial intestinal tract infection that leads to vomiting and diarrhoea, and if untreated, can be deadly.

In March 2008, at least 35 people died of cholera in the towns of Markurdi and Oturkpo in southern Nigeria.

September 24, 2008 | 6:33 AM Comments  0 comments
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Bloody week in the Niger Delta
Related to country: Nigeria
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Even by the usual violent standards of Nigeria’s conflict-ridden, oil-rich southern Niger Delta region, it has been a bloody seven days, with dozens of civilian casualties and many more wounded or displaced, according to local observers, in clashes in Rivers state between the military and rebel fighters.

The clashes – reportedly the heaviest in two years in the region – were sparked on 13 September when government security forces allegedly razed the villages of Soku, Kula, and Tombia, in Rivers state while looking for Farah Dagogo, a member of rebel group Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND).

Civilians caught in crossfire

“I got distress calls from the affected areas saying two of the villages had been razed to the ground, and there was an urgent need for medical teams to go there, but it was not possible for us to go.” said Chika Onah with the Nigerian Red Cross (NRC) in Port Harcourt.

Ongoing insecurity has cut off access to parts of Rivers state, making it hard for disaster workers to count how many of the estimated 20,000 inhabitants in the three towns have fled, according to NRC.

Nevertheless, civilian casualties are high. “There is no way the civilian population will not suffer in this kind of attack.”

Sofiri Joad Peterside, a human rights campaigner said, “These were aerial strikes without clear targets. What we are calling for right now is an independent assessor to determine the extent of civilian vulnerability to all these strikes.”

He said the violence hit civilians directly. “The centre of the violence was full of civilians. We live in riverine areas and in every riverine area, you have a forest where people go to pick seafood, and you have a community.”

But Nigerian army spokesman, Emeka Onwuamaegbu, said the military did not carry out a full-scale offensive. “We are applying minimum force in tackling the situation…we cannot go all out to kill our own people. Can we?”

Surge in violence

On 14 September, MEND declared war against foreign-owned oil companies working in the Delta, pledging to destroy oil pipelines and flow stations, and warning companies to evacuate their staff and stop pumping. MEND claims five attacks since its oil war threat.

Rebels have escalated attacks in recent months against oil production spots, according to locals who do not want to reveal their identities because of the region’s volatility.

A government effort to reign in oil smuggling by shutting down 200 illegal oil refineries in the past two months has sparked more fighting, according to the governmental Joint Military Task Force.

The Niger Delta, 70,000 kilometres of mostly wetlands, is home to some 20 million people who sit atop more than 30 billion barrels of top grade crude oil, according to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation.

The region’s oil production has slumped after periodic attacks by local rebels who say criminal gangs and government military forces are siphoning and smuggling oil wealth, leaving behind polluted, malaria-infested, lawless marshlands that have seen little return from oil revenues.

‘If you drink our water, you’ll get sick’

Oil revenue from the Delta will amount to US$66 billion in 2008, according to an August 2008 report by the UK-based Centre for Global Energy Studies, but Delta residents say they see little of this money invested in the delta communities surrounding the oil fields.

Rebel leader Tom Polo in Wari, in western Delta, told IRIN, “We are suffering in the Niger Delta. If you drink our water, you’ll get sick. They [the government] are not doing anything for us. Every day they say oil prices have gone up, but we don’t see any tangible benefits from it.”

He said the government has not given back to local communities. “If you go to other countries that are rich in oil, they build first-class universities in oil-producing communities, but here there is nothing like that.”

Government spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi pledges more development, but says security must come first. “The government takes the Niger Delta very seriously. It is one of the seven key priorities of this administration…we are doing everything possible to improve living conditions in the Delta, but the security forces will continue to check the excesses of all those seeking to exploit the situation to make money through criminal tendencies.”

Red Cross worker Onah says spiralling criminality is hampering efforts to protect civilians. “The issue in the Niger Delta has now gone beyond the struggle for a greater share of the region’s resources. If they [criminal gangs masquerading as militants] can kidnap a one-year old baby or a sixty-year old grandmother, organisations like ours that want to help have to be very, very careful.”

Government tries to quell violence

On 10 September 2008, the Nigerian cabinet appointed a new ministry for the region.
Presidential spokesman, Olusegun Adeniyi, announced the ministry’s plans to “tackle the challenges of infrastructural development, environmental protection and youth empowerment in the region. We believe this is an important step in building confidence about this government’s plans for the Niger Delta.”

In 2000, the government set up a similar Niger Delta Development Commission to relieve poverty in the region, hoping this would end unrest. But the commission lacked funding and astute management, according to most analysts.

Tony Uranta, executive secretary of the non-governmental United Niger Delta Energy Development an When two elephants wrestle, the grass suffers.
d Security Strategy, says the government needs to honour its promises if fighting is going to end- definitively.

Coming out of a meeting with President Umaru Yar’Adua on 19 September, he told IRIN, “It is a mistake to approach the Delta problem as a security problem rather than a development or justice problem. There is a bit of sincerity [from the government] beginning to show but it is still early. Once we see this sincerity in action…there will be changes for the better in the region.”

As the two sides wrangle over oil wealth distribution, Samuel Atori, a Delta native and founder of the Abuja-based Izon Prayer Network, concluded, “When two elephants wrestle, the grass suffers.”

September 20, 2008 | 10:29 AM Comments  0 comments
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Bakassi returnees overwhelm authorities
Related to country: Nigeria
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Up to 100,000 Nigerians displaced from Bakassi in southern Nigeria are sheltering in makeshift camps 10 kilometres away in the state of Akwa Ibom. More keep arriving according to the Nigerian Red Cross, leading local authorities to fear an impending humanitarian crisis.

The influx has overwhelmed Akwa Ibom’s local authorities who are struggling to feed, shelter, clothe and medicate the returnees, most of whom have come empty-handed, according to local journalist Tommy Solomon.

Aniekan Umanah, Akwa Ibom’s information commissioner, warned IRIN “There is no way we can handle things for much longer.”

Umanah told IRIN they have received no assistance from the federal government, and are relying on non-governmental organisations like the Nigerian Red Cross.

Okon Eyo, 45, a now homeless fisherman and father of seven has tried to access dwindling emergency supplies at Mbo camp in Akwa Ibom. “We want the federal government to move in quickly and assist us,” he pleaded. “We want to get on with our lives. We don’t want this thing to drag for too long.”

Government help slow to arrive

Nigerians started fleeing Bakassi following the 14 August 2008 ceremony between the governments of Cameroon and Nigeria, which officially handed over administration of the disputed Bakassi peninsula to Cameroon.

According to Umanah, Akwa Ibom received 75,000 returnees over the last two weeks of August. Just when local authorities believed the last returnees had arrived, 20 more buses came in early September. “We were helpless. We had to shelter them in a local school and make arrangements for their food and security. We don’t know when it will end.”

The Nigerian National Boundary Commission, which helped steer the Bakassi handover, pledged more than US$7 million in federal funds to resettle Nigerian nationals from the disputed territory into the neighbouring Cross River state. But none of this funding was slated for Akwa Ibom, according to Florence Ita-Giw, head of the presidential task force on Bakassi returnees.

As a result. many returnees may not be eligible for federal help. The National Boundary Commission also set up the government’s aid package expecting people with family in other parts of the country to return there, according to Tunde Orebiyi, national secretary of the Nigerian Red Cross.

Returnees to Cross River have as yet seen little government help.

Ita-Giw with the national government, counsels patience. “We are working hard to make as many houses ready [as possible] for occupation by the returnees, but it can’t be done overnight,” she told IRIN. The Red Cross’ Orebiyi has warned resettlement can take as long as one year.

Resentment

Some 300,000 Nigerians lived in Bakassi before its transfer to Cameroon. In the process leading up to the handover, authorities had discussed a transitional arrangement allowing joint administration by Nigeria and Cameroon for an initial period to guarantee the fair treatment of Nigerians left behind.

But this was not put in place, according to returnees and journalist Solomon.

“The returnees said most of them were being terrorised by the Cameroonian police and they did not find life easy under the new ruling,” Solomon explained. According to him, the Cross River authorities are investigating reports that Cameroonian soldiers recently killed Nigerians in Bakassi.

Mambou Deffo Roland, chief of the Cameroonian military police, declined to comment on these allegations.

But in a 21 August speech following the handover, Cameroon President Paul Biya assured the safety of Bakassi-based Nigerians. “I reassure them: their safety and rights will continue to be guaranteed, they will be able as in the past, to continue their lives in peace as long as they abide by the laws of Cameroon.”

Some Nigerians took their loss of Bakassi with outrage, accusing the government of betraying them.

An activist in Bakassi, who asked to remain anonymous, said lingering resentment among returnees could escalate into a full-blown insurgency.

The peninsula has suffered attacks by both Nigerians and Cameroonians over the past year, with casualties registered on both sides.

But the Nigerian military is keen to play down such fears. “There is absolutely no security threat,” said Nigerian military spokesman Mohammed Yusuf, “Threats by whom, to whom?” he asked. “Nothing is happening. There is no problem in Bakassi.”

Nigeria and Cameroon have been praised for the peaceful resolution of their border dispute in a conflict-prone continent with colonial era borders.

But for some the pain incurred by the recent re-drawing of the map will be slow to subside. A prominent Bakassi chief Edet Okon told IRIN, “The emotional and sentimental attachment to one’s ancestral home is not something you can do away with in a short period of time.”

September 12, 2008 | 6:47 AM Comments  0 comments
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NIGERIA: Should stopping gas flaring be a priority?
Related to country: Nigeria
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

Environmental experts warn gas flaring by the Nigerian oil industry in the southern Delta region causes acid rain, respiratory infections, skins diseases and land degradation in dozens of local communities, but some environmentalists defend the country’s right to continue flaring.

“Nigeria produces almost 25 percent of the greenhouse gas emissions in Africa from its gas flaring by oil firms in the Niger-Delta,” said Stefan Cramer, director of the Nigeria office of Heinrinch Boll Stiftung, a German environmental NGO, UN-organised climate change conference in Accra.

For decades, gas flaring has been used in Nigeria to separate non-commercial grade gases from the market-worthy crude oil. Nigeria emits 13 percent of the global 150 billion cubic metres of gas flared every year and is the world’s eighth largest oil producer, Cramer said. Most countries generate power with the gas leftover from oil extraction, rather than burn it.
Cramer said Nigeria’s contribution to the global environmental crisis is still insignificant when compared to industrial countries in Europe, Asia and the United States.

Nigeria not to blame
Christian Teriete, a spokesman for the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), said the African continent emits around 40 billion cubic metres of carbon every year, which he says is “negligible” when compared to Europe, Asia and the US.

It doesn't make sense for Nigeria and South Africa to reduce their emissions while the industrialised nations... do not make any effort
“It doesn’t make sense for Nigeria and South Africa to reduce their emissions while the industrialised nations [which] are largely responsible for climate change do not make any efforts to reduce theirs,” Teriete said.

Ewah Otu Eleri, head of the Nigerian International Centre for Energy, Environment and Development agreed Africa’s emissions are negligible and their reduction should not be used as a tool to deprive the continent of development.

“Emissions reductions should not be used as a ploy to create obstacles on our [Nigeria’s] way to development. The developed countries should help us with low-carbon technology.”

Failed attempts to outlaw flaring
Nigeria outlawed gas flaring in 1979, planning to completely eliminate it by 1984. In February 2008, the government approved the trapping and converting of gas flares to economic use, expected to earn about US$500 million annually, according to Nigerian energy officials.

Nigeria’s government has shifted the deadline to end gas flaring to the end of the year, but Nigerian environmentalist Eleri said he does not think the government has committed itself to a firm flare out date.

September 5, 2008 | 5:06 AM Comments  0 comments
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Sickle-cell disorder killing 100,000 infants a year
Related to country: Nigeria
Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

At least 100,000 infants die from the sickle-cell genetic disorder in Nigeria every year, and the country still has the highest incidence of the illness in Africa.

“From available statistics, 100,000 infants die from sickle-cell disease in Nigeria annually, making it the number one sickle-cell endemic country in Africa,” Sadiq Wali, president of the Nigeria Sickle-cell Foundation, told IRIN.

“Based on World Health Organization [WHO] indices, Nigeria accounts for 75 percent of infant sickle-cell cases in Africa and almost 80 percent of infant deaths from the disease in the continent”, Wali said.

According to the WHO, 200,000 infants are born with sickle-cell in Africa every year, with Nigeria accounting for about three-quarters of these births. Sixty percent of the 200,000 will die as infants.

Sickle-cell disease is an incurable genetic disorder widespread in sub-Saharan Africa and among descendents of Africans worldwide. Sufferers have no visible symptoms, but periodically experience severe pain and are also highly prone to anaemia because the blood cells break down after only 10-20 days, rather than the usual four months.

A person can only inherit sickle-cell disorder if both parents are carriers of the genetic trait, and then there is a one in four chance of giving birth to an affected child. WHO says that in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, up to 2 percent of children are born with the condition. For more on this see Africa: Little help for those who suffer from blood disorder.

“This genetic disorder alone accounts for 8 percent of infant mortality in Nigeria which calls for urgent attention”, Wali said.

Around four million Nigerians are estimated to suffer from the disease, while 25 million others carry the genes which they pass to their offspring.

Link with malaria?

According to the WHO, sickle-cell is particularly prevalent in areas of high malarial transmission.

“The mutant sickle-cell gene confers a survival advantage against malaria which explains the prevalence of the disease in Nigeria where malaria is endemic,” explained Ibrahim Musa, a Nigerian medical expert based at Kano general hospital.

Carriers of sickle-cell are less prone to being infected with malaria, which attacks red blood cells. However, those with sickle-cell disease are more vulnerable to malaria because of their weakened health, experts say.

Although sickle-cell in infants is curable through bone marrow transplants, lack of expertise and the high cost of the operation makes preventive measures the best option, medical experts say.

“This is why we advocate genetic counselling by intending couples before marriage to determine the status of their genes”, Nigeria Sickle-cell Foundation’s Wali said.

“People should go for a genetic test in the same way they determine their HIV status before marriage as the most effective way to protect their children and curtail the disease”, he said.

Sickle-cell contributes to 9 percent of deaths in children under five in West Africa, and up to 16 percent in some countries. Sickle-cell has a heavy impact on children: malaria is the leading killer of under-fives in Africa.

August 21, 2008 | 8:28 AM Comments  0 comments
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