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Monday,Jul 26,2010
Why the Government May Be Wrong on The New ‘Minimum’ Wage
The recent 63.7 percent increase in the national minimum wage, from N11,000 to N17,000 (or is it N18,000?) has gene....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Saturday,Jul 17,2010
Between Octopus Paul And Nigerian Juju Men And Pastors
One of the celebrities thrown up by the just concluded World Cup tournament in South Africa is the German Octopus P....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Sunday,Jul 11,2010
Igboland: When Did Things Really Begin To Fall Apart?
That the level of insecurity in Igboland has reached unacceptable level is no longer news. In virtually all parts o....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Wednesday,Jun 30,2010
Jonathan, Babangida and the Sword of Damocles
In the Sword of Damocles, the Roman politician and philosopher Cicero tells the story of Dionysius II, a king who r....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Wednesday,Jun 30,2010
Letter To “Father No Shaking” On The September 2010 Festival Of Oath-taking In Umuagwu-Aro, Osuh-Owerre, Isi-ala Mbano Local Government Area (LGA), Imo State
Dear Rev. Father, Greetings! I have to address by the above name since it is the name you are commonly kn....
By Odimegwu Onwumere
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Wednesday,Jun 23,2010
Attahiru Jega and the Search for a Nigerian Hero
Nigerians seem to be in constant search for public heroes - competent little messiahs who will not hesitate to put ....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Jun 17,2010
The Return of Mallam Ribadu
Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, the one time strongman of the financial crime buster EFCC, who sneaked out of Nigeria into self....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Jun 17,2010
Too Many Captains…
Two major attributes that have been quite easy to discern about President Goodluck Jonathan are: one, he seems to l....
By Ijeoma Nwogwugwu
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Thursday,Jun 10,2010
Should Suspects Be Paraded?
The above question is generating increasing furore among our intellectuals, and ‘beer parlour’ politica....
By Jideofor Adibe
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Thursday,Jun 10,2010
Nigeria: A Two Party System By Legislation?
Perhaps enamoured by the seeming ease with which two dominant political parties trod the political landscape of, at....
By Joel Nwokeoma
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On HIV/AIDS and Climate Change in Africa
By:
Chika Ezeanya
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The month of December is wont to be a busy one for Africa. The very first day of the month rather than be a day of stock taking on the year’s achievements and of commencement of plans for 2010, Tuesday December 1st will be a day of sober reflection - sorrow even – for the decimation of the people of Africa to the scourge of HIV/AIDS. Exactly five days after that, world leaders will gather in Copenhagen for almost two weeks of deliberation on an issue, which again affects Africa the most – climate change. After the World AID’s Day rhetoric and the beauty of Copenhagen have been taken in by participants, the world will yet again revert to pre-December 1st activities, while the health of Africans continue to deteriorate and the effects of climate change wrecks more havoc on the continent.
HIV/AIDS originated and initially spread outside of Africa, but has wrecked more havoc on the continent; similarly, Africa has historically contributed little or nothing to green house gas emissions, but is the worst hit by the effects of global warming. The latest available statistics show that in 2008, there were 2.7 million newly diagnosed cases of HIV and 2 million deaths from AIDS in Africa alone. The effect of climate change in Africa is disastrous, with even gloomier predictions. The recent flooding in Burkina Faso in the August of 2009 left over 200 people dead and 150,000 homeless, with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of investment swept away. Other countries affected by the flood in varying degrees include Benin, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Senegal, Guinea and Niger. The United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), issued a grim warning that the entire sub-Saharan Africa should expect nothing less in the coming years, but rising levels of disease, famine and poverty, not to factor in the conflict these will induce. The connections are self evident; higher temperatures will favor the breeding of mosquitoes and the diseases they carry, including; yellow fever, encephalitis, hemorrhagic fever, malaria and dengue fever; flooding will wash away the soil nutrients in some parts, while heat will dry out the lands in other areas. Perhaps, the UNEP should have spared itself the huge cost involved in gathering data for the prediction; it is already the case in most of sub-Saharan Africa today.
Just like HIV/AIDS, where Africa has left the initiative for finding a cure to the West, African leaders have again left the bulk of actions on global warming to the West. African leaders have agreed in a pre- Copenhagen meeting to speak with one voice. They will go to Copenhagen with a bill to the West; for causing much death and destruction to Africa, the West will have to pay $50 billion per year in damages to Africa as of 2015, increasing it to $100 billion by 2020 and beyond. Like the demand for reparation, or the numerous pledges forcefully procured from the West to increase aid to the continent, the climate change demand will be totally ignored or very sketchily implemented at best. Africa will keep waiting, crying foul, feeling powerless and victimized as it waits for the West to transfer funds from an already dried up treasury.
Just like HIV/AIDS, the African masses trudge on silent, confused, intimidated, believing climate change to be a discussion of high politics, spoken in heavy vocabulary in the language of the “educated,” indiscernible to the Swahili, Yoruba, Twi or Tswana speaker. Africans keep looking up to their leaders, whose children are neither HIV positive nor whose mansions have been swept away by the flood, nor who live in hunger and food scarcity, as the lake Chad dries up and fishing and farming become impossible.
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