22032019- INEC holds make-up polls in 17 states, FCT tomorrow

32—Vanguard, FRIDAY, MARCH 22, 2019
When nature came calling
WE may not be able to
prevent nature in the form
of cyclones and other disasters
from calling uninvited because it
is like the wide chested gorilla
that insists on being your son-inlaw
even when you did not give
him your daughter in mariage.
However, given advances in
science, in almost all cases, it is
possible to track and monitor its
movement and make
preparations to limit its effects,
including loss of lives.
In this case, we knew about
Cyclone Idai two weeks before it
made its more devastating
landfall. Its monitoring began on
March 1. On March 4, it made its
first landfall which killed 66
persons in Mozambique, injuring
111 and destroying 5,756 homes,
while affecting 15,476 other
homes.
On March 9, the cyclone
gathered strength as a Tropical
Cyclone 18S. Two days later, it
was in motion with winds of up to
175 kilometres per hour. On
Thursday, March 14, it peaked at
195 kilometres per hour, before
making a landfall late that night.
Tragically, despite our
knowledge of Cyclone Idai,
Africa was still generally
unprepared for this second and
more devastating landfall. So in
Mozambique, the initial death
toll is 202 with at least 400,000
people rendered homeless.
President Filipe Nyusi said:
“Everything indicates that we can
register more than 1000 deaths.”
The United Nations says over 2.5
million people need immediate
assistance.
After Mozambique went under
the floods, Zimbabwe had one to
two more days notice that the
cyclone was headed there. Despite
this, Mr. Zacharia Chinyai of
Chimanimani town, Zimbabwe
who lost 12 relatives said the
cyclone took residents by
surprise: "We heard news on the
radio (about the flooding in
neighbouring Mozambique), but
we never thought we could also
be victims. ... No one told us it was
going to be this devastating."
Chipo Dhliwayo, 30, and her
family were sleeping when their
home collapsed. She lost her
daughters, Anita, 4, and Amanda,
8, leaving her injured six-month
old baby as her surviving child.
Dhliwayo narrated: "Trees, rocks
and mud were raining on us. I
grabbed my son, my husband took
Anita and we ran to a hut, but that
also collapsed. Anita died
there….I lost so much that I wish
I had just died."
Zimbabwe’s initial death toll
was 98 with over 100 persons
missing. Its Minister of Local
Government, July Moyo said:
"Some of the peasants in
Mozambique were calling some
of our people to say: 'We see
bodies, we believe those bodies are
coming from Zimbabwe."
Perhaps the Zimbabwean case
is the most inexcusable; how come
the government was unable to
mobilise and carry out
emergency evacuation given the
notice it had? Having failed to do
so, why was it not prepared with
emergency aid to move in
immediately after the expected
flooding? The government’s
excuse that its meteorology and
Civil Protection Unit, CPU,
agencies had issued warnings to
people in areas to be affected to
If the
Zimbabwean
government was
on duty, I have
no doubt that
most of the lives
lost, would have
been saved
move to other zones, is
dumbfounding.
There is nothing to indicate that
the warning circulated
sufficiently, otherwise the victims
would not have been surprised by
the cyclone. Who will be told
about the date of such a
devastating landfall, and will go
to sleep with his entire family? The
government cannot claim that the
people refused evacuation. This
is precisely so, because there was
no evacuation plan put into
motion.
Apparently, the President
Emmerson Mnangagwa
government just went to sleep in
Harare, waiting for news of the
extent and effect of the
devastation. If the Zimbabwean
government was on duty, I have
no doubt that most of the lives
lost would have been saved.
This is not about being a poor
country or burdened by any
embargo; it is about a sense of
responsibility and being effective
as a government. Cuba is a poor
country with an Americanimposed
embargo since October
19, 1960. It has no four-wheel
vehicles to go through floods,
helicopters to rescue crowds, and,
very few Cubans own cars.
Despite these, when on August 30,
2008, the Category-4 Hurricane
Gustav swept through it at 195
kilometres an hour damaging
100,000 homes and causing
billions of dollars in damage, not
a single Cuban died!
Ahead of the more devastating
Hurricane Ike which virtually
leveled the country, the
government evacuated 2.5
million people. When four people
died in that hurricane, the
Cubans were horrified; how can
they lose four whole souls? What
is lacking in Africa is a leadership
like that in Cuba, that takes
governance serious, is committed
to development and sees every
life has too precious to be lost.
Humanity - including some
African countries especially
around the affected nations - was
quite fast in responding to the
disaster. United Nations agencies
flooded the areas and its
Emergency Fund released $20
million.
Bodies like Doctors Without
Borders were quick in their
response as was the European
Union which made an initial
pledge of $3.97 million. But not
so our continental body, the
African Union, AU. It took five
days for the distinct voice of the
AU to be heard. This was after the
Malawian Representative to the
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body, Ambassador Mhimango
Edward Chirwa had briefed the
AU Commission Chairperson,
Moussa Faki Mahamat, who then
announced a pledge of $350,000
to the three devastated countries.
It was also at that point the AU
said it had decided to send a
mission to assess the situation.
Africans are clinging to roof and
tree tops, dying by the minute, and
our continental body is deciding
five days into the disaster to send
an assessment team! Wednesday
afternoon, I went on the official
AU website, there was no mention
of the disaster; the latest report
there was that of its Electoral
Mission to the February 23
elections in Nigeria. Nothing
about mobilising Africans to
respond, or a Disaster Fund to
which we can contribute.
Africa, in comparison with most
parts of the world, is lucky in
terms of natural disasters like
earthquakes, cyclones, wildfires
and tsunamis. We are also the
least prepared. We tend to leave
things to chance and rather put
all our trust in religion, hoping
that alone will see us through.
Neglecting the basic saying that
the heavens help those who help
themselves, we become like the
palm wine tapper who has so
much confidence in God’s
protection that he uses palm
fronds rather than ropes, to climb
the palm tree.
As the cyclone sweeps through
the southern parts of our
continent, I wonder whether we
have a disaster management
system, and if so, why didn’t the
AU activate it?
We mourn those killed in
Cyclone Idai, are grateful to the
rest of humanity for its sympathy
and assistance, but how do we
prepare for the next natural
disaster? That is the challenge for
Africa.
Accountability: A powerful deterrence to building collapse
By Tochukwu Ezukanma
IN saner countries of the world, a
workman takes pride in the quality of
his products. Apart from the pecuniary
incentives of his labour, he appreciates his
moral obligation to society to uphold
professional standards in his work, and, for
his credibility, he strives for the excellence
of his outputs for they define his professional
hallmark. On the other hand, due to the
moral and ethical collapse of the Nigerian
society, the workman is indifferent to
societal expectations and his professional
credibility to the point of total disregard to
the quality of his output.
As a result, some Nigerian builders
mortgage professional standards, worthy
workmanship and quality to profit
maximisation, and thus, end up building
structurally defective buildings. But then, it
may be understandable that an
entrepreneur driven mostly by profit
violates professional standards and
circumvents building codes and ordinances
for profit. But what about the government
agency empowered by law to regulate the
builders and ensure that they adhere to
government stipulated construction
standards? In Lagos State, the agency
responsible for these is the Lagos State
Building Control Agency, LASBCA.
The powers and responsibilities of the
agency are enormous: controls and
regulates every phase of the construction
process, and identifies and demolishes
distressed and nonconforming structures. If
this agency is incorruptible and efficient,
there will be virtually no building collapse
in Lagos State. It is the corruption and
inefficiency of LASBCA that account for the
repeated building collapse in the state.
Due to corruption, LASBCA has not been
effective in the demolition of distressed and
nonconforming structures. As such,
although the collapse of a building is
preceded by conspicuous signs that allow
LASBCA ample time to evacuate and
demolish it, buildings still routinely cavein
on their residents, trapping, maiming and
killing people. On March 13, 2019, a threestorey
building, still inhabited by
businesses, residents and an illegal primary
school, collapsed in the Ita Faji area of
Lagos Island.
For long, the building showed glaring
signs of imminent collapse. And, on three
different occasions, officials of the LASBCA
marked it for demolition but it was never
demolished. It was alleged that each time it
was marked for demolition, the landlord
forestalled it by allegedly bribing LASBCA
officials. Finally, the building caved-in, and
20 persons, many of them pupils of the
school, died. In this country of ours that
glories in violence and trivialises human
life, we are inundated with figures of human
death that it is beginning to lose its enormity
and gravity; it just has a statistical ring.
But then, “statistics are like bikinis, what
they reveal is important but what they hide
is essential”. The statistics (20 deaths) hid
poignant and tear-jerking narratives that
attended the Ita Faaji tragedy. A father was
lamenting the death of his three children.
For two weeks, they stayed home because
he could not pay their school fees. Then, on
that ill-fated day, he got their school fees
ready and sent them back to school. As the
building collapsed, all his three children
died. It was his birthday, and this 10-yearold
boy refused to go to school. He wanted
to stay home and romp around in
celebration of his birthday. But his parents
objected; reluctantly, he went to school. He
died in the building collapse. On receiving
the news of the death of her two children in
the building collapse, a young mother
stepped out of her house, bought poison, took
a portion of it and died. Statistics hid the
personal trauma, anguish and sorrow of
The antidote to this
macabre routine is
accountability on the
part of the
government
those that lost their love ones. It failed to
reveal the personal agony of each life
irretrievably shattered by that preventable
catastrophe.
The preventable catastrophe was not
prevented because of the corruption, greed
and disdain for human lives of the Nigerian
society. A society that, in its convoluted
religionism, becomes progressively selfish,
corrupt, fraudulent and murderous as it
becomes increasingly religious. It would
have been prevented, if not that venal,
voracious, conscienceless officials of
LASBCA, repeatedly took bribe and reneged
on the demolition of a fatally defective
structure that imperiled the lives of many,
including children.
As usual, the governor visited the site of
the disaster, displayed genuine concerns,
ordered investigation, etc. But, in the
characteristic Nigerian modus operandi,
the hoopla that attends this tragedy will die
down after a few weeks, and it will all relapse
to business as usual. And, as usual,
government officials will continue with their
ingrained habits of accepting bribes from
builders to approve shoddy constructions,
and landlords to avoid the demolition of
dangerously, defective structures. Invariably,
buildings will continue to collapse and kill
and maim the innocent and unsuspecting.
The antidote to this macabre routine is
accountability on the part of the
government. Accountability demands that
the chairman of LASBCA and the state
Commissioner for Education take personal
responsibilities for the corruption and
dereliction of duty of their subordinates, and
resign, and individual officials, in the
agency and ministry, whose actions and
inactions led to the Ita Faji calamity, should
be severely punished: arrested, prosecuted
and jailed.
Secondly, the bereaved families should
sue for damages, demanding billions of
naira. Those to be sued include the state
Ministry of Education, LASBCA, the
landlord and the school proprietor.
Although nothing can retrieve the dead or
totally relieve the trauma and anguish of
the bereaved, it is extremely important that
government officials, builders and landlords
learn the hard way that they will be held
accountable for their actions and their
consequences. This will be a power deterrent
on their corrupt activities, irresponsibility
and moral remiss that, in the past, resulted
to building collapses in Lagos.
•Ezukanma, a commentator on national
issues, wrote from Lagos.