11082020 - Insecurity: Defend yourselves, Catholic bishops tell Nigerians

30 — Vanguard, TUESDAY, AUGUST 11, 2020
The German EU Council Presidency – COVID-19
and the need for a stronger EU-Africa partnership
By BIRGITT ORY
THE COVID-19 pandemic has shifted
political priorities around the globe. All
of a sudden, people around the world face a
global health emergency with deep economic
and social ripple effects. For the government
of Germany the recovery from COVID-19 has
become a political priority both at home and
abroad.
In Nigeria, Germany works closely with
government agencies and engages with local
communities at the same time. In this
endeavour, the German Embassy Abuja
recently initiated a project focused on
providing free face masks and hand washing
stations to local communities in Nigeria. This
project was officially launched in two
communities in the FCT on August 3.
Masks have been sourced sustainably from
fabric off-cut and produced by female tailors
from disadvantaged groups, improving
communal health and creating local income
opportunities. The materials carry the logo of
the current EU Presidency, which Germany
assumed on July 1 for the next six months. Our
message: the recovery from COVID-19 is our
joint responsibility.
That rings true for Europe’s engagement with
Nigeria and Africa at large. For the year of
2020, Europe and Africa have set themselves
an ambitious agenda for an ever stronger EU-
Africa Partnership. The new President of the
European Commission, Ms. Ursula von der
Leyen, made her
first official visit
outside the EU to
Addis Ababa
underlining the
EU’s strong
commitment to
advance the
partnership.
Europe and Africa
For Europe’s
partnership with
Africa, the present
crisis has
reinforced our
determination for
closer cooperation
are united by a
shared understanding of an effective
multilateralism and a rules-based
international order, where the global
challenges of our time are addressed
collectively: peace and security, climate
change, sustainable growth, digitisation and
migration – to name but a few.
When COVID-19 struck at the beginning of
this year, it revealed in drastic ways how
interconnected we all are. While the rapid
spread of the pandemic has impacted all of us,
it has not affected us in similar ways. It has hit
Africa particularly hard, causing severe
economic, social and humanitarian damage.
For Europe’s partnership with Africa, the
present crisis has reinforced our determination
for closer cooperation, guided by a sense of
shared responsibility and solidarity. In a joint
Financial Times op-ed, Chancellor Angela
Merkel and other African and European
leaders have stated firmly: “Only a global
victory that fully includes Africa can bring this
pandemic to an end.” As Germany has
assumed the Presidency of the Council of the
•Distribution
of face
masks and
reusable bag
bearing the
logo of the
German EU
presidency
European Union, Africa is at the heart of the
EU’s global response to COVID-19, echoing
the United Nations’ call to ‘build back better’.
As ‘Team Europe’, we stand with our
neighbour continent to respond to the
immediate priorities of African states, societies
and people in need in this crisis. In making a
strong commitment to ‘Team Europe’,
Germany has taken extensive steps in the fight
against COVID-19, for example, by helping to
build resilient health systems and mitigate the
economic and social impact for people in
Africa. Amongst other bi- and multilateral
commitments:
• Germany backs the World Health
Organisation, WHO, in its coordinating role
in the fight against COVID-19 by increasing
its annual commitment for 2020 to over •500
million (incl. •250 million for the WHO’s
Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan),
making it the largest donor;
• We are expanding our cooperation with
the African Union’s Africa Centre for Disease
Control and Prevention, CDC, in order to
advance diagnostics and disseminate
information;
• We support the European Commission’s
Coronavirus Global Response initiative and
the WHO-initiated global ACT platform to
develop and ensure an equitable access to
COVID-19 vaccines, tests and treatments.
Germany’s commitments amount to a total of
•908 million which includes •230 million for
CEPI and an additional •100 million for Gavi,
the Vaccine Alliance;
• Within the G7 and the G20, we have
strongly advocated for a moratorium on debt
payments for least developed countries and
secured additional credit lines through World
Bank and the IMF.
• Moreover, the German Federal
Government, already the world’s second
largest bilateral humanitarian donor, is
providing •450 million in additional
humanitarian assistance to ensure food
security, water supply and sanitation for the
most vulnerable groups, including refugees
and displaced persons in conflict regions, and
to keep the humanitarian logistical system up
and running.
Without collective action, solidarity and
empathy, it will be impossible to tackle this
global challenge. If we uphold these values in
our joint effort against COVID-19, we can
apply them to many other pressing global
challenges we are facing together. The
upcoming AU-EU Summit is a milestone for
jointly developing a broad and ambitious
political agenda that will deepen our strategic
cooperation in the long term.
During its term as Council Presidency,
Germany will lend its full support to an everstronger
EU-Africa partnership aimed at
building a shared and brighter future for our
peoples.
•Ory, who is German Ambassador to
Nigeria and ECOWAS, wrote from Abuja
TRIBUTE
Adelusi-Adeluyi @ 80: The giver’s hand is on top
By LOUIS ODION
NOT until playwright Sophocles sired
character Oedipus in his definitive Greek
play was human imagination tempted to
consider the fact of pre-ordained parricide.
Pushed by forces beyond his control, the heir of
ancient Thebes ended up felling his own
patriarch in the chilling fulfillment of a grim
prophecy. Several centuries later, a psychiatric
clarity was brought to that ancient puzzle by
Sigmund Freud as Oedipal Complex, to
explain the maze of complexities and
complications in the emotional tie between son
and the father in the family context. According
to the 19th century pioneer of mental health in
the landmark quest to illuminate the dark
recesses of the human mind, the tension that
begins to build just as the toddler becomes
aware of self, if mismanaged, often prepares
the grounds for possible estrangement from the
father later in life.
But in no way could that fatalist - if not esoteric
- characterisation by the acclaimed father of
psychoanalysis be said to apply to the bond
those of us who consider ourselves the proud
children, share with the one we affectionately
call “Daddy” - the very consequential Pa Julius
Adelusi-Adeluyi. Doubtless, pharmacy taught
him the ancient secrets of medicine. But in
choosing instead to engage the Nigerian public
at a much deeper level in the last half a century,
Pa Adelusi-Adeluyi has amply demonstrated
that the duty of care to society is much more
than administering injection or dispensing
medication. He is obviously one of Nigeria’s
surviving doyens of medicine and arguably her
most iconic pharmacist in the past five decades.
In transcending science to make a bigger
career of the art of inspiring the wary, raising
the weak, comforting the traumatised and
reconciling the estranged, Pa Adelusi-Adeluyi
has certainly touched a far greater number
across various disciplines and continents more
intimately than the possible reach of the ethersmelling
lab of medical research and solutions.
Biological
affiliation
There can be no better show of an acute
understanding of the sixth of the “Seven Deadly
Social Sins” Mahatma Gandhi famously
remonstrated against - “science without
humanity”. As the Ekiti prince now joins the
restricted club of octogenarians (born on August
2), little wonder, therefore, that those whose lives
have been impacted positively by him feel
compelled to blow some trumpet, even though
the man would have preferred to mark the
moment in meditative tranquility.
Note, in our society, when the appellation of
“Daddy” is invoked outside biological
affiliation, it is often an emotional submission
to the authority of another and emplacing such
individual on a higher social pedestal. It is
undoubtedly the highest form of cultural
veneration. Of course, it presupposes a hand
that provides daily-bread and direction, a voice
which resonates for compassion and solidarity.
Were a survey to be conducted today, far more
are surely those who fondly address the Ekiti
prince as “Daddy” than his biological brood.
Few, if any, would indeed rival Pa Adelusi-
Adeluyi in contemporary Nigeria in terms of
the turnover of mentees in various sectors. His
own exertion is certainly on industrial scale.
So, unlike the Freudian kid who eyes the
father with malicious envy, our calling the Ekiti
patriarch “Daddy” is by far a gesture of
affection - a worship and appreciation of not
just his ever cheerful and accommodating airs,
but much more of an instinctive mentoring
spirit. His enigma lies not only in the generosity
in donating time to mentor, but also the
humility to befriend those who, by all accounts,
are his distant juniors and inferiors.
Again, there is something compelling and
enthralling about the aristocratic carriage of
the man under public spotlights, resplendent
with a badge of “Iyi” (Yoruba for honour) earned
undoubtedly from a life-long commitment to
countless charity causes, garnished with the
epaulets of “Lakaaye” (Yoruba for wisdom)
gleaned from rich experience. To say nothing
about his sartorial impeccability - the
trademark all-white ensemble, rimless glasses
and a dimpled smile. More, not many have his
remarkable gift of a flawless command of eight
international languages.
Through him, we learnt the great power in
little things. Being visible without being voluble.
Accessible without being cheap. That there is a
•Prince Adelusi-Adeluyi @ 80
stark distinction between being in the service
of society and indulging in the vanity of a
socialite. It is possible to be sociable without
being vain. Let me illustrate the latter point
by declassifying a secret. Long before the
disruption of COVID-19, some conspirators
had begun to hold nocturnal meetings,
plotting a coup in form of an elaborate
commemoration ahead of time. Among them
was my friend and brother, Azubuike
Ishiekwene. I was conscripted at some point.
We had agreed among ourselves to keep
everything discreet, hoping to make it a big
surprise to our common benefactor.
But even before an action plan could
crystallise at the drawing-board came a
freezing order from the man himself. Till now,
what remains a puzzle to some of us is how
the secret leaked to him. Perhaps, maybe it
was by sheer intuition. The seasoned hunter is
probably able to foretell a mischief even in
the seemingly impregnable forest by simply
reading the lips of its denizens.
Considering how COVID-19 would later
unravel this year with all its forbidding
protocols, Pa Adelusi-Adeluyi’s earlier
restraining order would then appear
clairvoyant indeed. It was as if the old man
saw the pandemic ahead of all of us. The
shrewd elder, it would seem, derives his own
fortification from the sixth sense more than
anything. Even then, his objection to our
proposal was lovingly expressed. To him, any
form of revelry would be utterly meaningless
at a time of great distress in the land, again
Through
him, we
learnt the
great
power in
little things
confirming an abiding
understanding of the third
social sin Mahatma Gandhi
talked about - “pleasure
without conscience”.
Otherwise, why feast when
increasing number of our
compatriots are unsure of
their next meal? Why make
merry and dance wildly in the shimmering
marquee when at several locations across the
country, millions are huddled in makeshift
tents, daily tortured by the anguish over
homelessness inflicted by relentless Boko
Haram terror and cruel banditry.
Rather, he would wish a tranquil atmosphere
for deep national introspection and true
healing. We listened and understood his
concern. Everything considered, yours
sincerely will surely be counted among the
legion of his mentees. In the media industry
alone, the list is endless. Since the torrent of
tributes began a week ago in celebration of
his 80th birthday, media heavyweights like
Sam Omatseye, Dr. Reuben Abati, Segun
Adeniyi, Azu (Azubuike Ishiekwene), Femi
Adesina, Simon Kolawole have individually
given touching testimonies.
Indeed, these renditions have celebrated his
many trophies and laurels in multiple fields
of human endeavour. But it will require tomes
and tomes to document his positive impact
on the lives of so many. I have known him for
close to two decades. Within that period, I
often depended on his wise counsel for
direction at defining moments in my career.
When offered to be Sunday Editor of start-up
Sun newspaper in 2002, he didn’t hesitate in
encouraging me to take the risk of giving up
the certainty of being Deputy Editor of daily
Thisday. His golden words: “Never become
content in your comfort zone. Fortune awaits
the brave and the daring.”
Five years later, he would again encourage
me to resign as editor of the Sunday
newspaper that had become the highest selling
within the Sun group to start National Life
newspapers because “There’s nothing for you
to prove there anymore”.
Continues online .www.vanguardngr.com
•Odion, FNGE, a media executive, wrote
from Lagos