The United States government, through the US Agency for International Development, is providing $9 million in humanitarian assistance to bolster disaster response efforts in North-East Nigeria.

This was contained in a statement by the US embassy in Nigeria and made available to our correspondent on Wednesday.

Through the United Nations’ International Organisation for Migration, the funds will provide emergency shelter, water and sanitation, psychosocial support services, and cash to populations affected by floods from the ongoing rainy season across Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe states.

In addition, the funds will provide critical life-saving assistance to populations affected by other natural disasters such as fire or climate-related shocks.

In 2022, Nigeria witnessed the worst flooding in more than a decade, which affected 4.4 million people, displaced over 2.4 million people, and killed over 600 people.

As the United States Mission to Nigeria announced in October and December 2022, the U.S. Government provided $6 million in life-saving aid to support the people affected by last year’s devastating floods.

The statement reads, “This included $1.75 million to the International Federation of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Societies in partnership with the Nigerian Red Cross Society; $2.5 million to the International Organization for Migration; and $1.75 million divided among Save the Children, FHI360, and Intersos.

“These agencies used the funds to reach more than 225,000 people in seven highly affected states with critical aid.

“The assistance included emergency shelter repair kits, water and sanitation purification tablets to protect against waterborne diseases, hygiene kits to promote safe and healthy practices, and multipurpose cash for families to purchase what they need to recover,” the statement said in part.

In its 2023 Seasonal Rainfall Prediction, the Nigeria Meteorological Agency indicated that earlier than the normal onset of rainfall this year could put 4.2 million people at risk of flood-related impacts.

In light of this, the new $9 million U.S. Government assistance will bolster community preparedness and strengthen vulnerable people’s ability to cope with the impact of natural disasters.

The USAID Mission Director, Dr. Anne Patterson said, “The United States will continue to stand with the people of Nigeria to mitigate the effects of climate change and address the impacts of more frequent natural disasters. We have a long history of providing humanitarian assistance across the country.”

From 2021 to 2022 alone, the United States provided over $356 million in lifesaving, multi-sector assistance to people most affected by conflict and food insecurity.

[Punch]

On Monday, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu welcomed 45 out of 48 Ministers, with just three more to complete his bloated cabinet. Hours before their inauguration, some Ministers-designate swapped offices. Should we call that cabinet reshuffle or what? Or is it another sign of the ill-preparedness of the president to govern, as some critics have suggested? While it is damn too early to categorically affirm such a thing, the morning, as they say, shows the day. So, the president must watch it. He needs to put his acts together. Too many unforced errors make even the best of tennis players lose a match.

As I watched the Ministers take their oath of office last Monday, my heart went to the immediate past two-term governor of Kaduna state, petit Nasir el-Rufai, who was dropped in controversial circumstances. Some reports said he was not cleared by the Directorate of State Security (DSS) in what some other sources described as high-wired politicking within the Tinubu presidency. Sources said that a cabal has already coalesced within the less-than-three-month-old Tinubu administration and that it is this cabal that orchestrated the DSS report that unhinged el-Rufai’s ministerial ambition. Reports also have it that preparations and permutations for the 2027 and 2031 presidential elections are already in top gear. Some other sources said the fear of any eventuality in the presidency (God forbid bad thing!) is also already receiving serious and urgent attention from those who are eager to position themselves to reap bountifully from it – if it happens. So, any would-be opponent must be put at an arm’s length.

It is difficult to say at this point which is true but one thing that is certain is that there are usually competing forces and centres of influence and power in any administration. The Tinubu administration will not be different. At different times, one centre will be dominant and will use that advantage to clip the wings of others and establish its suzerainty. At other times, depending on shifting alliances and circumstances, a dominant group may miscalculate or be unhinged by forces beyond its control and lose relevance and have its power and influence whittled down and another cabal group may overrun it. So, those that were dominant yesterday may become less relevant today. The powers-that-be yesterday, the untouchables, may become featherweights who are easily disposable today. Yesterday’s assets may become liabilities today. Such is the way of politics and politicians!

Some sources said that is what has happened to el-Rufai. He was courted and reverenced during the campaign, both for the APC presidential flag and the presidential election proper. He was a beautiful bride. He was also the “ajantala” boy whose dare-devilry helped to whip the then President Muhammadu Buhari and other APC top shots in line to reluctantly support Tinubu’s presidential aspiration. Remember that he even led some other governors to drag the Federal Government and the then CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, to court over their Naira colour change policy. Truth be told, el-Rufai did a lot for Tinubu; whether his reasons are altruistic or not, as some have alleged, I cannot say. It may be that el-Rufai wanted to put Tinubu and his government in his pocket! One thing I am certain about, though, is that the political enemies of el-Rufai had their game plan up their sleeves even when the then Kaduna state governor was gallivanting up and down selling the candidacy of Tinubu; they knew that once the goods are delivered, they will throw the enfant terrible under the bus! Whether this was also the thinking of Tinubu, I cannot now say!

Unfortunately for el-Rufai, he has a reputation that has travelled far ahead of him as an alleged serial betrayer. They said he betrayed Atiku Abubaka who brought him to Olusegun Obasanjo; that he betrayed Obasanjo and also betrayed Goodluck Jonathan; that he betrayed Buhari and would, in time, betray Tinubu. Under his governorship, Kaduna state in general and the south of it became a killing field. Some have said they hold him, his utterances and the policies of his government accountable. In his second term, he discarded the Muslim/Christian ticket and settled for a Muslim/Muslim ticket. Many also fingered him as having something to say about the influx of killer herdsmen into the country. Could these, then, be what his enemies unearthed to have him unhinged? Even at that, he still has my sympathies. He had gathered a team and was already working behind the scene as Minister of Power and Gas before the bombs exploded in his face. What now happens to the assemblage of talents he was already working with? Will the (new) ministers of Power and Gas take them over and continue where el-Rufai had stopped?

I also feel for the Minister-designate for Kano state, Dr. Maryam Shetty, who was dropped at the 11th hour. Congratulatory messages must have started flooding her phone lines. Application letters to be her aide in this or that capacity must have filled a bedroom. “Aso-ebi” to celebrate and committees to welcome her from Abuja back to Kano or whichever is her village must have been set up – only for the rug to be pulled from under her feet! If we understand the case of el-Rufai, what was this woman’s own offence? Sources said her case was elimination by association; that it was hire-wired politicking between Rabiu Kwankwaso/New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and Abdullahi Umar Ganduje/APC. The latter had overhauled the former in the last governorship election in Kano but Ganduje is today the APC chairman. Dr. Shetty is said to have been Kwankwaso’s nominee but Ganduje would have none of it! How can Kwankwaso have the governor and also have the Minister? The same Kwankwaso was encouraged to work for Tinubu during the presidential election and he helped deliver votes to Tinubu/APC. But that now belongs in the past! An aggrieved Kwankwaso has since started hobnobbing with Atiku Abubakar.

Now that most of the ministers are in place, we should see less of knee jerk policies like “subsidy is gone” and floating of the Naira, twin policies that have made life miserable for ordinary Nigerians. With the way the floated Naira is tumbling at the parallel market, despite the effete “shakara” of the government, and its attendant effect on market prices, including that of petroleum products, transportation costs and foodstuffs, Nigerians are wondering whether this government will not be forced to retrace its steps and do a policy summersault. The politicians are on board now; they are in a position, more than the technocrats, to speak to the president in the language he will understand. If a policy is not working, review, rethink and rework it. Laws are made for man; not man for the law.

So far, I am impressed about two things: Tinubu appears to listen and act on public opinion, which was not the case with Buhari. He has acted on criticisms of some of his policies, which is good. He is making efforts to solve the problems that Buhari mindlessly created, even if some of the policies he has enunciated so far may not have had the desired impact. This is far better than Buhari who was laidback, who was piling one problem on top of another without solving any; and who picked his teeth and threw his hand up in resignation while his aides looted the treasury with reckless abandon.

Let Tinubu tell us what mandate he gave each Minister. We need to know so that, together, we can hold their feet to the fire. So far, all we know is that it seems Tinubu has deleted the fight against corruption from the three-pronged agenda he inherited from Buhari, leaving him with the fight against insecurity and rescuing and reshaping the economy. A man ought not to deceive himself! With Gandu-Dollar as party chairman, Akpabio as Senate president and Tinubu’s own antecedents, Mr. President will be a laughing stock if he tells anyone he will fight corruption! That is not to say, however, that he cannot and should not. Without taming corruption, no policy will work effectively and not much progress will be made. If Buhari was wrong in all things, he got it right when he said corruption will kill Nigeria if Nigeria does not (quickly) kill corruption. Had Nigerians heeded that clarion call and Buhari himself had been made an object lesson, we would not have been in the mess we are in today.

Why Wike stole the show

Former two-term governor of Rivers state, Nyesom Wike, expectedly stole the show at the swearing-in of Ministers. Say whatever you like, it was an indication that the man is popular. His person or politics or both resonate with the people. Every government needs such personalities in its fold. So, it would have been a minus for Tinubu had Wike missed the ministerial list. Should Wike now defect to the APC? I think he should not! Let him remain in the PDP and continue to torture, torment and unsettle them there! So he can also continue to sing his song: As e dey pain them/E dey sweet us/As he dey sweet us/E dey pain dem” Politics, like writing (journalism) is also about entertainment!

In these parts, public office comes with boisterous carnivals, elevated expectations, thrills, and frills. The exigency, delicacy and sensitivity of this office is sometimes lost in bouts of revelries and in the pursuit of temporal nothings. It is an office where a few have made a good name for themselves; it is also a station where a multitude have come tumbling down from grace.

Every administration since 1999 seems to have its own heroes and villains – depending on the leanings or dialectical disposition of the objurgator, disputant or interrogator. The classing of heroes and villains on disparate sides is in the conviction or view of the opinion-holder. One man’s hero is another’s villain; and the other’s villain is another’s hero.

Diezani Alison-Madueke, former minister of petroleum resources under the Jonathan administration, is often held as a villain of that administration. But some people may not agree. In fact, there have been protests by some groups against her prosecution by the EFCC. Here, the voltage of outrage towards any alleged offence by a public officer is measured in ethnic and religious volts. Offences are ethnicised according to the bearings of the alleged offender.

The EFCC alleged that the former minister of petroleum resources pilfered over $153 million; bought N14 billion worth of jewellery and acquired over 90 properties in Nigeria. The agency was able to successfully secure forfeiture orders against some of the properties but was not able to bring her to trial in Nigeria.

On Tuesday, the UK National Crime Agency said it had charged Diezani to court for fraud. The NCA said Diezani is suspected to have accepted bribes during her time as minister for petroleum resources, in exchange for awarding multi-million pound oil and gas contracts. The NCA alleged she benefitted from at least £100,000 in cash, chauffeur driven cars, flights on private jets, luxury holidays for her family, and the use of multiple London properties.

According to the agency, her charges also detail financial rewards including furniture, renovation work and staff for the properties, payment of private school fees, and gifts from high-end designer shops such as Cartier jewellery and Louis Vuitton goods.

Andy Kelly, Head of the NCA’s International Corruption Unit (ICU), said: “We suspect Diezani Alison-Madueke abused her power in Nigeria and accepted financial rewards for awarding multi-million pound contracts. These charges are a milestone in what has been a thorough and complex international investigation. Bribery is a pervasive form of corruption, which enables serious criminality and can have devastating consequences for developing countries. We will continue to work with partners here and overseas to tackle the threat.”

It is, perhaps, Diezani’s long date with destiny.

Abuse of power. This is the cardinal malfeasance of Diezani as alleged by the NCA. The ingredients for abuse of power are always abundantly available. Just one act of indiscretion or indiscipline, and a public officer plunges into the whirlpool of eternal opprobrium.

But where are other former senior government officials accused of similar offences? There will always be the principal villain in any story. So, it is pertinent that public officers take heed lest they become the guilt-sponge of any administration.

Abuse of power. Abuse of office. This is a slippery slope where many public officers fall.

Godwin Emefiele, suspended governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, is accused of abusing his power as the head of the apex bank by veering into politics. Although Emefiele denied that he intended to contest for the 2023 presidential ticket, the undertow of his resolve was obvious.

Emefiele’s ‘’naira-confiscation policy’’ in the build-up to the elections has been alleged to be a political gambit. Citizens and businesses endured untold hardship and suffering owing to that policy.

In February, the DSS filed charges bordering on terrorism financing against him. In June, he was taken into custody and charged to court in July. Fresh charges have now been brought against him. The charges border largely on abuse of office.

But was Emefiele working alone? Was he pulling the strings all by himself? Where are those whose bidding he was doing? Where are those he was working with? Where are those he was working for. Emefiele’s torment should be a cautionary example for everyone.

It is important for public officers to be wary and maintain the highest level of discipline and integrity, recognising the fact that they could become the principal villain or the repository of the sins of any administration. Any wrongdoing could culminate into becoming the cynosure for the misdeeds or perceived transgressions of any administration.

A Federal Capital Territory High court has struck out two separate fundamental rights enforcement suits by two siblings of the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, against the Attorney General of the Federation and the Department of State Services.

The two brothers, George Emefiele and Okanta Emefiele, had separately approached the court, seeking an order of perpetual injunction restraining the secret police from inviting, intimidating, harassing, and arresting or detaining them on any matter relating to the ongoing investigation of the suspended apex bank governor by the DSS.

At the resumed hearing of the cases on Wednesday, counsel for the applicants, Grace Ehusani, informed the court that the applicants separately filed a notice of discontinuance of the case, though she did not give any reasons for the application.

On his part, counsel for the DSS, Ibrahim Awo, urged the court to dismiss the case, instead of striking it out as requested by the applicants’ counsel.

He added a cost of N2 million should be slammed against the applicants in favour of the respondents.

Counsel for the AGF, Maimuma Lami-Sheru agreed with Awo’s request.

Ruling, the presiding judge, Justice Emmanuel Okpe, struck out the cases and ordered that no cost should be paid by the applicants.

The National Universities Commission says the implementation of the Core Curriculum Minimum Academic Standards will begin by September 2023.

The CCMAS document is expected to guide institutions in the design of curricula for their programmes while bringing necessary innovation into the content and delivery of their programmes towards achieving the overall goals of education and training in the country.

Speaking at the stakeholders’ colloquium on CCMAS in Abuja on Wednesday, the acting Executive Secretary of NUC, Chris Maiyaki, said the document would reposition Nigerian universities to be among the best-rated in Africa.

Maiyaki said that CCMAS would make up 70 per cent of the curriculum while the university decides what to include in the remaining 30 per cent.

According to him, the implementation will help sharpen the future of the education sector.

”The role and development of the CCMAS is to ensure commitment in advancing of our education and our great nation.

“NUC is primarily dedicated to ensuring quality and global competitiveness of Nigerian universities as well as the graduates we produce.

“The development of the CCMAS went through a painstaking process by bringing experts from our universities comprising of professors, regulatory bodies, Nigerian Economic Summit Group and all stakeholders.

“The CCMAS reflects global initiative that will equip graduates with knowledge and wherewithal that will advance the development of the nation,” he said.

The Minister of Education, Prof. Tahir Mamman, encouraged universities to make optimal use of the 30 per cent university senate’s input.

Mamman advised universities to ensure that learning outcomes, skills as well as soft skills were acquired, irrespective of the core discipline.

He said that the skills must be readily applicable to the environment of the university, the country in particular and the global community in general.

“There is no better place and time than now to develop a strategy that will guide tertiary institutions particularly universities in their mandate to provide appropriate manpower for the country,” he stated.

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has prohibited street vending in Abuja saying that street traders, including those selling corn, contribute to crime and instability in the city.

The former governor of Rivers State made this announcement during a meeting with the management staff of the Federal Capital Territory Administration and Federal Capital Development Authority, urging them to prioritise doing what is right.

“The important thing we must do is to ensure that Abuja is back to what it ought to be. I moved around Abuja and found out there is total darkness in most of the places.

“What we need to do is to ensure light comes back as soon as possible,” he said.

Wike ordered the immediate cleanup of Abuja adding, “If you are in charge of sanitation, I will call you at any time of the day.”

He warned that he would not hesitate to remove any official who is not meeting his standards of cleanliness. He also stated that motor parks would not be allowed to operate in unauthorised areas.

He added, “Street trading is prohibited. People selling corn will drop their waste indiscriminately and these are the things that cause insecurity. Criminals come to buy and use the opportunity to spy and give information to criminals. It is imperative we clear street hawkers.

“Development control is a serious crisis area we have to stop. Why are there illegal structures and shanties everywhere? We will demolish any illegal structure. No matter how highly placed, the structure will come down,” he reiterated.

A Shari’a Court in Kaduna State on Wednesday ordered that a 22-year-old man, Inuwa Ahmad, be given 35 strokes of the cane for stealing a cell phone and building materials worth N130,000.

The judge Malam Anass Khalifa, who gave the order also sentenced the convict to six months imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to theft.

“The court was lenient to you because you did not waste the court’s time before pleading guilty.

“The court will reduce the 50 strokes of cane intended to 35 strokes hoping it will serve as a lesson to you not to steal again,” he said.

Earlier, Ahmad had pleaded for leniency saying he stole because the money his brother gave him after he worked for him was not enough to meet his daily needs.

The Prosecution Counsel, Insp Sambo Maigari said Malam Abdullahi Shuaibu, the complainant reported the matter on Tuesday at the Rigasa police station.

The police added that the convict was a serial offender.

The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike has approved the demolition of slums in Garki, Jabi and 28 other areas which have earlier been surveyed by the Federal Capital Development Authority before this administration.

According to the FCTA, the demolition will affect about 6,000 buildings which have been marked in an effort to rid the territory of shanties and illegal structures.

The FCTA said the demolition will affect 30 areas across the Federal Capital Territory.

Naija News recalls that on Monday, Wike vowed to restore the master plan of FCT, saying that all illegal structures would be demolished and that his administration was ready to end land speculations.

Wike said: “We will take back our land and give to those who want to develop, and you must sign that you must develop at so and so time.’’

However, the Director of the FCTA Department of Development Control, Muktar Galadima said a new survey will be conducted.

“We would find time to go back and conduct a new survey,” noting that the last survey carried out was in February, 2022.

Areas marked for demolition according to information which has been authenticated by the FCTA are:

1. Apo Mechanic Village

2. Byanzhin.

3. Dawaki

4. Dei Dei.

5. Durumi.

6. Dutse.

7. Garki.

8. Garki Village.

9. Gishiri.

10. Gwagwalada.

11. Idu.

12. Jabi.

13. Kado Village.

14. Karmo.

15. Karshi.

16. Karu.

17. Katampe.

18. Ketti Village.

19. Kpaduma.

20. Kabusa.

21. Kpana Village.

22. Kubwa.

23. Lokogoma.

24. Lugbe.

25. Mabushi.

26. Mpape.

27. Nyanya.

28. Piya Kasa.

29. Jikwoyi

30. Galadima

A core mandate of the Civil Service Commission, as an agency of Government, is the recruitment and deployment of officers with requisite qualifications into the civil service.

A major plank on which the commission seeks to realize its vision of building a core of highly focused, disciplined, committed and patriotic civil service is the advertisement of vacancies for the ultimate and equitable recruitment of the best applicants into the service.

This process ensures that recruitment is advertised for equity, competitiveness and that only the best are recruited and deployed accordingly, based on vacancies and needs of MDAs.

However, a counter-productive malady, not consistent with the Commission’s vision, seems to have recently crept into the commission as the nation is witnessing cases of illegal recruitment or employment into the service.

Illegal Recruitment or Employment, broadly speaking, refers to the illegal, unauthorized, and clandestine procurement of fake employment letters, purporting to have emanated from the Commission, to applicants, and subsequent deployments to Ministries, Departments and Agencies, by persons not unauthorized to do so.

It is to be clearly noted that illegal recruitment is different from the criminal sale of advertised vacancies or the ghost worker syndrome.

Whereas the ghost worker syndrome is the insertion of fake names into government payroll by unscrupulous personnel, mostly on the basis of financial gains, illegal recruitment implies the illegal offering of employment letters purported to come from legitimate authorities (thus, conferring employment to one) by people not so authorized.

The criminal sale of genuine and possibly advertised vacancies, by those entrusted with one level of employment or the other, is loosely termed job racketeering.

Regrettably, this debilitating syndrome has so permeated the Ministries, Departments and Agencies that virtually no ministry seems to be insulated from this ugly trend. Indeed, it has become a national challenge.

It is therefore not surprising that speaking with journalists in July, ahead of the 2023 Civil Service Week, the Head of Service of the Federation, Dr. Folashade Yemi-Esan, announced that the Federal government had discovered 1,618 civil servants with fake employment letters.

The Head of Service announced that these civil servants with fake employment letters were detected after the introduction of control mechanisms to address loopholes identified in the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Personnel Information System (IPPIS).

Acknowledging this menace, the Head of Service declared that ‘prior to the introduction of the current mechanisms put in place to drive the implementation of the IPPIS, the system was bedeviled with considerable leakages and wastes as well as the incessant infiltration of ghost workers.’

Unfortunately, whereas the introduction of the IPPIS was meant to curtail and ultimately, eliminate illegalities in the civil / public service, in terms of human resource and payroll, human factor in its application seem to be jeopardizing this noble objective of government.

It is painful that employees of government are capitalizing on insider abuse to undermine the efficiency of the IPPIS and to perpetrate unwholesome activities, resulting in cases of ‘salary paddings’, ghost names in government payrolls, among others that are currently being investigated by government agencies.

Ironically, the issue is not new. For example, as at December 2021, a particular Ministry of the Federal Government alone weeded out a total of 1,020 of such illegally employed staff with over 300 employment letters further sent to be authenticated by the Federal Civil Service Commission. No doubt, many of the later would have turned out to also have been illegally procured!

Usually perpetrated by a syndicate, at a price, the dangers of illegal employment and its cost to the nation can hardly be quantified:

First, while the syndicate may not necessarily exist within the commission, the institutional credibility of the Commission is at stake with its attendant backlash on the quality of the Civil Service.

Also, the quality and capacity of those illegally recruited into the Service cannot be guaranteed with its negative impact on the service since there were no clear cut criteria or standard for such illegal employment.

These recruitments, sometimes, with backdated employment dates, not only bloat the personnel payroll and cost of MDAs, create redundancy and malingering in the service but have become a catalyst for inefficiency, indolence and indiscipline in the service as well as a threat to service delivery.

More worrisome is that sometimes, the syndicate ensures that personnel data of such illegal recruits are promptly captured in the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS) thereby compromising the Information System and creating a deep drainpipe in the nation’s treasury.

It is on this basis that the Head of Service was reported to have lamented that IPPIS Desk Officers were central to this menace as activities in IPPIS have not been exonerated in this national malaise.

At the moment, a House of Representative Adhoc Committee is investigating alleged employment racketeering and other malpractices in MDAs. Issues relating to IPPIS and its operators have featured prominently in the investigation, to the extent that officers named have been summoned to appear before the committee.

No doubt, the House of Representative’s effort is one, among so many others, meant to address the problem.

The report that  a total of 3,657 civil servants have been taken by the Federal Government before the Independent and Corrupt Practices and related offences Commission (ICPC) for prosecution for failing to get verified on the Integrated Personnel Payroll Information System (IPPIS), is heartwarming.

However, it must be stated that towards halting this national malaise, the Civil Service Commission must, as a matter of utmost importance, ensure that this syndicate is dismantled, all money so illegally received by such personnel recovered, while culprits and their accomplices in this national shame are prosecuted.

It is strongly argued that mere removal of such names from payroll without prosecution will not deter those corruptly feasting from this exercise at the expense of a virile civil service backed up by a sound and fool – proof IPPIS.

Noteworthy is that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) had at the 2021 Public Service Integrity Award brought this to the attention of then President Muhammadu Buhari who vowed to punish such erring and corrupt officials. That commitment by the President didn’t seem to have deterred the perpetrators.

Similarly, then Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige stated that he had raised alarm to the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on the employment racket in his Ministry, leading to the invitation of the ICPC for further investigation.

Therefore, since this anomaly can be rightly said to be known to the State at the highest level, nothing should hinder its frontal attack and ultimate elimination before it weakens the cohesion of the civil service with its attendant damage to governance and service delivery.

Therefore, the Commission must synergize more with ICPC, Office of the Head of Service of the Federation and other relevant agencies to halt this trend, recover all illegal remunerations and payments already received by such illegal employees, expose all members of the syndicate, their accomplices and collaborators for prosecution under relevant laws.

Until this these steps are taken, it does not seem that the illegal recruitment syndrome in the civil service will come to an end.

One of the chilling stories from the United Kingdom last week was of the conviction, by a jury, of a 33-year old nurse, Lucy Letby, of wilfully murdering seven babies entrusted under her care and attempting to kill seven others while working at the Countess of Chester hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. Two of Lucy Letby’s victims were twin brothers, who were born prematurely. They were just days old when Letby tried to kill them in April 2016.

It was said that Letby tried to pass off the harm she wilfully did to babies under her care as no more than the worsening of each baby’s existing vulnerability. The truth however was that in her hands innocuous substances like air, milk, fluids and medications like insulin were weaponized.  She was arrested twice by the police in connection with their investigation in 2018 and 2019 – before being finally arrested in November 2020. She was in her mid-20s when she committed those heinous crimes. One of the hand-written notes authorities found during searches of her home read:  “I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them.”  In another memo she also reportedly wrote, “I am a horrible evil person” and in capital letters “I AM EVIL I DID THIS.”

But Lucy Letby was not an isolated case of those entrusted to help preserve life turning into life takers. Before her were other cases – both in the UK and elsewhere. One of the most celebrated in recent times in the United Kingdom was that of Harold (aka Fred) Shipman. It was said that as a teenager, Harold saw the agony her mother went through while suffering from lung cancer and was quite impressed by the relief offered by morphine. He reportedly became obsessed with opiates from that time such that by 1974 – just one year into his medical practice – he was caught forging prescriptions of Demerol for himself. He paid a small fine for that and served a short period in rehab for drug addiction. He returned to medical practice afterwards as a respected member of his community. But in 1998, the coroner was alerted to the high death rate among Shipman’s patients but there was insufficient evidence to charge him with anything. One Kathleen Grundy however turned out to be his Waterloo. Suspicions were aroused when it was found that Grundy’s will excluded her family members but left a whopping £386,000 to Dr. Shipman. An investigation was launched which led to Grundy’s body being exhumed and autopsied. Not only was heroin found in her, it was also discovered that her medical records had been faked and that her supposed will was written on Dr. Shipman’s typewriter. There were more exhumations of people who had died under Dr. Shipman’s care and further investigations revealed a pattern: he would administer lethal doses of heroin, sign death certificates and falsify medical records to show an alternative cause of death.

In 2000, Shipman was given 15 life sentences for the murder of 15 women by lethal heroin injections between 1995 and 1998.  It was estimated that over the course of his practice, Shipman killed more than 218 patients in this manner, making him Britain’s most prolific serial killer to date. In 2004, he hanged himself in his prison cell, aged 57. Even after his conviction, Dr. Shipman and his wife, Primrose, continued to maintain his innocence and disputed the scientific evidence against him.

But medical personnel turning into undertakers is not only a British phenomenon. In Italy, there was also the celebrated case of the emergency room doctor Leonardo Cazzaniga, 65, and his nurse lover, Laura Taroni. Prosecutors accused the doctor of killing in a “delirium of omnipotence” by administering overdoses of anaesthetic and sedative drugs to his patients”. Police investigated 40 deaths between 2011 and 2014 that aligned with Cazzaniga’s work shift. Remarkably one of the patients was Dr Cazzaniga’s own father. While Dr. Cazzaniga’s defence lawyers argued during his trial that his practices were consistent with standard palliative care, the prosecution noted that one of the victims had died after being admitted with nothing more than a dislocated shoulder.

Dr Cazzaniga was convicted of killing his nurse-lover’s father-in-law and acting in conjunction with her to kill her husband. Taroni was said to have convinced her husband that he had diabetes and deliberately administered lethal doses of insulin to him. In a police wiretap, Taroni was quoted as saying: “From time to time, I want to kill someone. I need it.” While Dr. Cazzaniga was convicted of killing ten people and sentenced to life imprisonment, Taroni was sentenced to 30 years in jail for murdering two members of her family.

One of the famous cases of medical personnel turning into life takers in the USA was that of the neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch.   Born on 3 April 1971, Duntsch completed his undergraduate medical degree in 1995 and also successfully completed an MD-PhD programme in 2010.  He did his neurosurgery residency programme at the University of Tennessee Health Science Centre where he was said to have completed his residency with fewer than 100 surgeries (a tenth of what’s typical) and also reportedly spent a portion of his training in a programme for impaired physicians, largely due to his fondness for cocaine.

Shortly after being hired by Baylor Regional Medical Centre at Plano in Texas, his very first surgery patient was left partially paralyzed, and subsequent patients were equally disabled or maimed by his incompetence and carelessness. In all, Duntsch, who was nicknamed Dr. Death or Dr .D. was accused of injuring 33 of 38 surgery patients over two years. Dr, Duntsch left a trail of injured patients still at more hospitals. He was arrested in 2015 on criminal charges and was in 2017 found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

In systems where the institutions are strong and investigative authorities are methodical without fear of being accused of ethnic or religious witch-hunts if they raised red flags against anyone, many of the bad eggs in the medical and other professions eventually get caught and weeded out. If we have not heard of medical personnel who are serial killers in Nigeria, it is not because they do not exist. Most likely they do but the system that should sniff them out seems rather weak. This is especially so in the rural areas where pharmacies (or chemists) and community health practitioners do not feel accountable to anyone even in faces of obvious neglect. This should be a challenge to the new Minister of Health and the various commissioners of health at the state levels.

That serial killers are also among medical doctors and nurses – who are usually among the most respected members of the society in virtually every clime – brings to mind the words of Johanna (‘Hanna’) Arendt, the German-American political theorist. In his classic work, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963) Arendt tells us that the great evils in history were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths but rather by ordinary, even decent people, who accepted the premises of their ignoble  actions and therefore participated in them on the grounds that those heinous actions were normal. This is the so-called doctrine of ‘normalising the unthinkable’ or routinization of evil. It explains why in tragedies like the Jewish holocaust or the Rwandan genocide, we had respectable people – medical doctors, academics and even the clergy who were implicated as participants or connivers in the gory acts. While betrayal of trusts happens all the time – body guards sometimes kill people they are paid to protect as happened with the killing of  Indira Ghandi on 31 October 1984,  leaders of presidential guards also sometimes conspire to topple the leaders they were paid to  protect (as happened recently in Niger Republic  and  in the coup that toppled Gowon in 1975) and  African politicians often turn against the people that elected them, there is something especially heart-wrenching when doctors and nurses turn against their patients.