Friends of Nigeria Newsletter Selections, Fall 2005

Two Conferences
Do you remember the ploy whereby you would slowly walk away from a market stall so that the seller would call you back and lower the price? This is pretty much what happened, in reverse, at Nigeria’s National Political Reform Conference (NPRC). It took place in July and was President Obasanjo’s belated response to loud calls for reform of the constitution bequeathed to the nation seven years ago by its last military ruler, Sani Abacha.

Delegates from the six oil states of the Niger Delta , the south-south zone, negotiated a plan to raise their current 13% of revenues to 17, at which point they demanded 25, 50, and everything, and, then, unsatisfied, walked away from the conference in time to miss the closing banquet. No one called them back though.

At the banquet, the president was ceremonially presented with six volumes of recommendations that may be headed for limbo. Besides its dubious motivation, the NPRC was flawed in several other respects: no support from the National Assembly, delegates handpicked (by Obasanjo), no impartial monitors, a pre-set and limited agenda, and no guarantee of, or even provision for, implementation.
Apart from the oil revenue negotiations, the only other newsworthy item to emerge from the NPRC was a bombshell of an idea floated by portions of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP, aka “People Deceiving People”). This idea would introduce into the constitution a third term for federal legislators and the president, with, according to critics, the former acting as a “beard” for the latter. As long-time (since the 1940’s) pro-democracy activist Chief Anthony “Pa” Enahoro puts it, “All the money is in 50 huts.” In other words, the presidential system has evolved in such a way that no one without many millions, or access to them, can even run, any more. (Does that sound familiar?) Two terms? Three terms? What does it matter?

Meanwhile, the pro-democrats, both in Nigeria and in the diaspora, have proceeded as if the NPRC were an irrelevance. Pa Enahoro, just turned 82, was the keynote speaker at a July 23rd fundraiser and pep rally held in Flushing, Queens by a Nigerian pro-democratic umbrella group, Pro-National Conference Organizations (PRONACO). This event was the first in a series leading up to a people’s constitutional conference, a Sovereign National Conference (SNC), planned for October in Lagos. Whereas the president’s NPRC was very much a “top down” affair, the SNC will comprise delegations selected by hundreds of groups representing, in turn, as many constituencies in Nigeria as possible: women, the diaspora, political parties, ethnic and professional associations, religious groups, governmental agencies, the security sector, and others. This will be one big palaver!

Two Countries
To follow daily events in Nigeria is to read a tale of two countries, a good and a bad one.
First, the bad. Crime is rampant in most of the 36 states, and Nigeria remains atop the world’s scamming tables. Lethal conflict, in the Delta and elsewhere has come to seem permanent. The causes, in some instances, are local grudges; in others, larger religious, ethnic or political divisions, sometimes sparked by land or water disputes; and, in many cases, some or all of the above. As the three-term idea suggests, many Nigerians are already anticipating the 2007 elections in which the endemic north-south divide and the lingering wounds of Biafra (now the south-east zone) may once again be opened threatening the nation’s existence.

There are also growing fears of radical Islam and consequent disruption of the oil supply, prompting U.S.-sponsored military build-ups across West Africa, increasingly strident alarms from the CIA, and State department travel advisories. Accusations persist that the 2003 election results were rigged. Also vendettas within the PDP itself continue. Finally, the news from Nigeria features daily charges and countercharges of massive corruption, charges to which almost no one seems immune. Consider this farcical tidbit from July 20th’s Nigeria Today Online: “The nation’s graft-tainted former police chief [Tafa Balogun] fell out of a squad car which then rolled over his legs on Wednesday in a bizarre incident after a court ruled he would face a second trial on corruption charges” [for allegedly having stolen and laundered $100 million in three years].

There is ample good news as well. The President presses forward with Herculean efforts to end corruption, appointing new, effective and impeccable officials. Each month, substantial numbers of businesses sprout up, including mobile phone companies that have found a huge opportunity in the failures of land-line services. For several months now, Nigeria has enjoyed multiplied oil revenues accruing from price spikes (to $62 a barrel) caused by bad weather in the refining countries, war and political uncertainty in Nigeria (!) and elsewhere, and huge demand from the Indian and Chinese markets. The economic picture has been further brightened by reduction of Nigeria’s international debt and by a plan to pay it off by 2006. Finally, the nation enjoys ever-growing global prestige keyed by its place at the high tables of African and global confabs.

On balance, then, where does the country stand? Clearly, Nigeria today is a country of massive opportunity for progress and massive danger of disintegration. Where does this leave the Friends of Nigeria? I suspect that friendship means as many things to our graying band as it does to anyone else. At any rate, we should pay attention in October when the SNC will be grappling with all the problems and trying to determine how this nation can best face its future.

Since the death of Abacha in 1998, Nigeria seems to have reached a new watershed every two or three years. Pa Enahoro remarked to me that if France can still keep Europe from regaining the unity it lost with the fall of Rome almost two millennia ago, we should be a little patient with Africa. That’s the long view.

Note: Once again, I have kept track of Nigerian news via print and online sources, and I have consulted my informants, Olly Owen and Bronwen Manby from the human-rights movement, and Professor Peter Lewis of American University. I also attended the PRONACO meeting on July 23rd, then spoke with Pa Enahoro on July 31st –RS.•
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Lagos As Seen Through Expatriate Eyes

By Kathleen O’Brien Jowers

I arrived in Nigeria in June of 1967 and was amazed at the beauty and simpleness of this third-world country. My husband and I met in Lagos while working for McDermott International, Inc. He worked out of Lagos at the offshore site.

The Marina, Lagos as it was in 1968

I was living at the Ikoyi Hotel because the Biafran War made it unsafe to live in an apartment. We would be sitting on the veranda of the Federal Palace Hotel eating pizza and drinking beer, and all of a sudden you could see and hear gunshots fired from a small plane...not at us but into the bush. I was working for the President of McDermott International-Africa, and on my first day, all of the electricity went out in the hotel, so the young girls in the beauty parlor sat me in the sun and fanned my hair dry—it was so surreal. My first impression was the absolute beauty of the night sky—the stars were so clear. However, it took several months to get over the initial shock of the undernourished babies in the street with their soulful eyes. There was an American community in the area from the oil companies, and I made friends with several USAID workers.

Victoria Beach, Lagos in 1968.

Chief Bologa (Nigerian tribal leader) was a friend of the office, and he was very tall and robust. He would visit the office in full Nigerian dress and always talked to me at length. He gave me a present of a monkey when I left Nigeria. I had it shipped to New Orleans, La. and eventually gave it to the zoo.
Unfortunately, during my stay the area was heavily regulated by soldier checkpoints, and the office would not let me drive by myself, so they appointed a local driver. McDermott had an office in Beirut, so I was able to travel to Kenya and Cairo en route to Beirut during my year in Nigeria.
I think you leave part of your soul in Africa. I loved that year. I left in June of 1968.

Kathleen O’Brien Jowers is the mother of Stephanie Jowers, Morocco (02-03), Director of Membership and Strategic Relations, National Peace Corps Association, Washington, DC.•
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We are pleased to report to FON members that our first year of connection to the British VSO organization with support for two volunteers in Nigeria not only achieved the goal of $1200 per volunteer, but exceeded it. This report was submitted to the FON board at the Washington meeting in July, as well as our recommendation of continued VSO affiliation and support for this coming 2005-6 year.

“We want to thank the 64 members and friends of FON who contributed a total of $3,836 during our first fiscal year, ending August 1,” said FON President Greg Zell (06) 62–64. “Each $1200 we contribute goes towards the sponsorship of an individual VSO volunteer in Nigeria—a terrific way to pass on our years of service of many years ago to the next generation of vounteers. Please be as generous, if not more so, for the second year of this project and remember that your donations are tax deductible.”

“The money collected contributes directly to the cost of flights, accommodation, training and living expenses,” says Emma Hayward, Corporate Partnership Director from the London VSO office. Unlike Peace Corps, VSO is a nongovernmental organization based in the U.K., The Netherlands and Canada. VSO fields some 2,000 volunteers in eastern Europe and the developing world.
Most of us have not been ‘in the field’ in Nigeria for a long time, so that access to current impressions is a satisfying return.

In our correspondance, Hayward provided a quick glimpse of her just-completed trip to Sri Lanka.
“Thanks for asking about my trip to Sri Lanka. It was a fantastic experience and a beautiful country—invaluable for a clearer picture of how VSO works in the field and the day to day issues faced by volunteers. Of course the country has been horribly scarred by the tsunami but I was struck more than anything by the pre-existing problems resulting from decades of civil war. Fortunately VSOs’ work in this area equipped them well to adjust programmes quickly to help people affected by the tsunami.”

“The success of our FON-sponsored VSOs is proof that volunteerism is alive and well in Nigeria and may indeed motivate Peace Corps Washington to resume service in Nigeria,” said Zell. “The stories we hear from our adopted volunteers are not only nostalgic but are importantly a heartening sign of encouragement that we can ‘keep the lorries rolling’ ”.

Finally, a FON member has found the VSO sponsorship project interesting enough to donate enough to sponsor an additional volunteer. Individual or business contributors at this level will receive special recognition for making it possible for FON to adopt further volunteers.•

Lucinda Boyd (05) 62-64
Mike Goodkind (16) 65–67
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The First Letter Home

Gayle Lewis, Wife Of Peace Corps Staff Person, Del Lewis, Writes Home From Benin City

June 28, 1966
Dear Family,
This is my first chance to write since we’ve been here. I’ve had time but no paper. Paper products are very scarce, and I didn’t bring a supply in our accompanied baggage. We do have paper coming in the sea freight. I wish I’d known how scarce it is, I could have packed more. Already, we’ve become mindful of not wasting.

We had a wonderfully smooth flight over. It was a long flight even with stops in Dakar, Senegal; Monrovia, Liberia; and Accra, Ghana before landing at Ikeja airport in Lagos. We arrived in Lagos at 2:30 P.M. The Peace Corps Country Director for Nigeria and the Deputy Director for the Midwest Region met us at Ikeja airport in Lagos.

They put us up at the Lagos Airport Hotel. Our room, a very spacious room with five single beds, was at the back side of the hotel. In order to get to the room we had to walk across a wooden foot bridge which seemed to be over a small canal. Someone suggested that this could be the remnant of an open sewer system that was used before modern plumbing was installed. Speaking of modern plumbing—we were just getting settled into our room when we realized that the toilet didn’t draw new water after a flush. We called the desk for help. The solution was for us to move to another room. It was equally spacious with working plumbing, and we were able to settle ourselves, and have a nap before joining the director and others on the staff and a few volunteers for dinner at the director,s home in Yaba. We were still so tired that we slept from 9:30 Saturday night after returning from dinner, until 11:45 Sunday morning.

We flew from Lagos on Sunday afternoon to Benin City. The plane was a Fokker Friendship with high wings, the windows being below the wings. This was a real treat as we were able to look out and see the terrain as we flew east over to Benin City.

The Peace Corps doctor and his family and several volunteers met us in Benin with a very warm welcome. They took us straight to our new home, literally a new home as it had been recently completed and we were the first occupants. The house is furnished with all the necessities. When we arrived, everything was in order, a lunch had been made, and dinner was cooking. They had really gone to trouble for us and made such an effort to make our transition easy.

We have a three-bedroom house with a large living/dining combination, den, two full baths, kitchen and garage. The kitchen is divided into two parts; one part is called the pantry. We have a gas and electric stove. The electricity goes off frequently so gas is necessary. We will have air conditioning in the boys’ room and our room when the units arrive from Lagos. I’ll send pictures and more detail soon.

Leaving NY/Kennedy airport required more time than we had imagined. Since we have individual passports, we had to fill out five of each form before boarding the plane. Fortunately, we had a large baggage weight allowance so we’ve been able to bring quite a few things with us, such as books and toys for the boys.

We have a yard, about ¾ acre. We have a gardener working now. The Peace Corps family here hired the gardener and the cook thinking that we’d like to have someone to get us going. We can make the decision whether to keep them or not.

There is also a night guard called a “watch night” who comes at dusk and stays until dawn. He is hired by Peace Corps. So far we are pleased with the gardener. He’s already planted grass in back and front and flowers around the driveway circle.

We have a cook/steward meaning he does more than just cook. He helps some with the wash and does the market shopping. He prepared tuna fish sandwiches and soup from a Maggi packet for our first lunch. He also made peanut butter sandwiches for the boys. The peanut butter was in our carry- on luggage thanks to a tip from the Benin City, Nigeria Post report which I read while in PC training in Washington. The cook has a helper who is called the “small boy”.

We may move to a four-bedroom house with a den and three baths. It may be vacant soon, and we’ll probably need the room since there is no hotel here. PC visitors from Lagos will have to stay in one of our homes so it is a good idea for Peace Corps to hold onto the larger houses. And—that house has a telephone, one of the three phones for Peace Corps. There is a phone in the Peace Corps office, and the doctor has one in his home. This had been the house of the regional director who is returning to the States so that is the reason for the phone being there. We haven’t missed having a phone, especially since almost everyone we know is without a phone.

After Nigeria I was West Virginia University’s first full-time foreign student advisor. There was a large contingent of students from East Africa. Some pretty bad mistakes had been made, like housing all the Kenya, Uganda, and Tanganyika students in one section of a student apartment building. On top of that the Morgantown barbershops were segregated. With help from WVU students we integrated the housing and the barbershops.

As the Vietnam war got worse, I was asked to sign on as a charter member of Students for a Democratic Society(SDS). The SDS emerged from the tutoring program we organized for children in the economically devastated coal mining region around WVU. My membership in SDS and participation in the first picket at WVU against the war and a later picket against Robert Byrd did not please the president of the university. He closed International House and put me in a windowless office in an old Navy surplus building, and I did not get a salary increase. The picket against Byrd occured when his claims to fame were that he had been a KKK organizer, filibustered the Civil Rights Act and brought a lot of pork to WVU.

I fled to San Francisco and became active with other Peace Corps volunteers in the Committee of Returned Volunteers. Our purpose was to help end the Vietnam War. Today I am part of West Virginia Patriots For Peace. Each Friday at noon in downtown Charleston, West Virginia, we have a one-hour vigil holding a “Wall of Remembrance” with the names of all the soldiers killed in Iraq. It now takes twenty people to hold the banner.

My Peace Corps teaching experience entitled me to a teaching license in California which was later transferred to West Virginia. After hitch-hiking home via Canada, I was director of the YMCA’s urban outreach program (imagine kids from the projects growing an organic garden). Then for twenty-two years (finally settled down) I taught high school chemistry, physics and physical science in a small rural school not far from my birthplace.

While a teacher, I got active with environmental groups that are trying to stop the coal industry’s destruction of West Virginia mountains. Mountaintop removal coal mining has destroyed 500,000 acres of West Virginia mountains(equal to a one-quarter mile swath from New York to San Francisco) and filled in over 1000 miles of West Virginia streams(longer than the Ohio River).

After retiring from teaching, I walked across West Virginia with Larry Gibson, whose home and family cemetery were surrounded by denuded, decapitated mountains. We carried anti-mountain top removal signs and spoke to community groups and media reporters along the way. Several people joined our walk at different points including West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler who walked with us for two days. (Ken was the only member of Congress to join Martin Luther King in the march from Selma, Alabama. He also walked with Granny D.) My life was changing when I joined the Peace Corps, and the Peace Corps accelerated that change, and I am very glad.

I am most active with the West Virginia Highlands Conservancy. We have an excellent presentation on mountaintop removal strip mining and would be happy to show it most anywhere. Contact me at imaginemew@aol.com. For more information on mountaintop removal visit wvhighlands.org and ohvec.org. And contact me if you would like a bumper sticker that reads ‘I Love Mountains’. The ‘I Love Mountains’ stickers are a counter to the ‘I Love Coal’ stickers given out by the coal companies. My dad’s eye was slit open in a coal mine; for that reason and a zillion others I do not love coal. Join my blog at: http://journals.aol.com/imaginemew/LoveMountains/•Return to top

Warmongering, Undermining or Networking?

A look at the arguments for the option of serving one’s Individual Ready Reserve in the Peace Corps

A recent controversy which blazed across the NPCA’s Group Leaders’ Listserv in August sadly recycles some nineteen sixties biases.

The controversy was triggered after the Army in May promoted an enlistment package encouraging veterans to apply their skills and complete the once usually dormant final years of their military obligation in a service job such as the Peace Corps or Americorps.

Here’s the deal: sign up for only 15 months on active duty, spend another two years in an active reserve unit and then complete the remainder of a standard eight-year obligation in one of many ways—including the Peace Corps.

Most Peace Corps volunteers, and for that matter, most enlistees in the Army, don’t know that technically enlistees are obligated for eight years of service. After discharge from active service and/or an active reserve unit, the government assigns former military to something called the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR). Veterans on IRR status basically go about their lives but are subject to call up if needed. This is not new. IRRs have been around for decades, at least since Vietnam, maybe always. In past years, most veterans (including me) often weren’t even aware that they were subject to call up after their active service obligation. It just didn’t mean anything.
Well, since the 1992 Gulf War, IRR members, especially those with critical skills such as the ability to fly a helicopter, speak Arabic or, er, understand public affairs, have in fact been needed and have been called back to military service by the thousands. IRRs are finally on the radar screen.
And since 2001, the government has offered a program encouraging veterans to use their skills in civilian national service during the final years of their IRR obligation. In 2002, the Peace Corps was explicitly added as a way to do this, but veterans will still need to apply for the Peace Corps and be accepted on their merits.

Veterans who serve in designated programs will USUALLY be exempt from a military call-up AFTER they have completed not only their active duty service but also a typical two-year active reserve obligation and have been independently accepted by a service program.

Some critics on the NPCA listserv have strenuously opposed this effort to recruit highly qualified individuals for reasons that at the end of the day simply sound paranoid and even elitist. Listserv critics have said giving veterans an incentive to engage in peaceful national service would taint the Peace Corps and even put other volunteers at physical risk from irate host country nationals, who would somehow view this connection as an effort to militarize the mission of the Peace Corps.
Other reasonable voices on the listserv have seen the effort to recruit veterans to the Peace Corps as a positive use of highly skilled individuals. This program can be seen as a fine way to create connections among those who come to national service via the military with those who have come from other paths.

There are some ambiguities in how veterans on IRR status may be deployed, driven largely by the ever-changing national situation. But several aspects of the program appear clear: 1) IRR members who are not called up are civilians subject to the rules of their civilian employer, school, community, etc. 2) Statutory rules separating the Peace Corps from military recruitment remain in force.

A crucial point is that the firewall continues to exist. Veterans who want to serve in the Peace Corps must apply and they go through the same application procedures as anyone else. If anyone has serious doubts about the program, potential errors in personnel procedures are the place to look for problems—not on the front end where individual applicants are at risk of being tainted because of their previous military service.

Will this linking of national service send some military enlistees eventually into the Peace Corps? Is it so wrong to tell your host country friends that you wanted to serve in the military perhaps to learn some critical skills—so you could serve in a more peaceful and possibly more challenging Peace Corps role?

Would it be a tragedy if Nigerians questioned whether a deferment from military obligations was a motivating factor in joining the Peace Corps? This never seemed to cause major problems in the nineteen sixties when most male volunteers were clearly deferred while they served in Nigeria.
And would such a program really place other volunteers at increased risk? That shouldn’t happen if the volunteers are mutually supportive and don’t feed the prejudices of a minority of host country nationals who look for every opportunity to engage in negative propaganda. A mutually supportive, effective Peace Corps in-country team can go a long way in dispelling suspicions about themselves and the United States generally. This has been a Peace Corps tradition for nearly a half-century.
PCVs shouldn’t taint motives of fellow volunteers who preferred to finish an eight-year service contract as Peace Corps volunteers instead of facing possible additional military service. In the nineteen sixties, when many of us served in Nigeria, we were all aware that Peace Corps service deferred or cancelled the possibility of being drafted into the Vietnam War. Was this not on the agenda of many effective, successful volunteers from that era? Were all of us in danger because our hosts might have been aware that service in Nigeria served as a possible draft loophole—intentional or not?

Does there need to be a firewall between the military and the Peace Corps? Absolutely. There already is, and we need to be vigilant to ensure it is maintained. But unless we renounce our American citizenships, we will need to live with the fact that as volunteers we came to our stations with a variety of philosophies, skills and experiences—including military service. It is divisive, elitist and counterproductive to single out veterans who chose to help teach or serve in an agricultural cooperative instead of patrolling in a Humvee. That’s not the team-building, inclusive and innovative Peace Corps I remember.•
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Goverment College Kaduna in 1964.

It was huge—telling my dad his youngest of five was leaving for Africa in a month. He was in a good mood; the Kennedy administration had just appointed him to a U.S. Attorney position in Denver. Then it came to me, the Kennedy connection! Because of Kennedy we both had new and exciting adventures ahead.

1964: Nigeria 8 arrived on New Years Day. New. Everything was new and fascinating in Nigeria, and I loved it. Then I began the arduous task of preparing lessons with few resources. I had to do more than lecture to those energetic schoolboys who stood politely every time I entered the classroom at Government College, Kaduna. Night after night I burned the midnight oil. ‘Lesson Plan Kate’ fellow volunteers called me, but wasn’t I there to make a difference? Change the world? At the impressionable age of 22, I didn’t realize the world was about to change me, stimulate incredible personal growth, and influence my future.

1966: There was a Peace Corps ring to the National Teacher Corps mission “to make equal and adequate education a reality for all American children.” Furthermore, the NTC paid New York University for its participants’ master’s degrees, and I already knew my way around the Big Apple because Nigeria 8 had trained at Columbia University. In late summer, I joined fifty RPCVs for another great adventure. We taught in the mornings and engaged in social work in the afternoons.

Katy with some of her senior students at Government College Kaduna.

Four of us taught together in Brooklyn at a school with a highly diverse student population. In the afternoons we visited the homes of truant students, obtained food and social services for needy families, and took slum landlords to court for substandard housing. In the evenings we earned credits for a Master’s in Education at NYU. The civil war was raging in Nigeria, and it was the plight of Biafra’s children that engaged me in a bit of social/political activism. In NYC, I joined others in a coalition to keep the children of Biafra alive. We raised money for food and medical supplies by holding dances and organizing rallies at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. We also focused attention on Biafra’s starving and dying children by adding red dye to the U.N. fountain, and when Ambassador Goldberg refused to meet with us, we held a sit-in at the U.S. Embassy for a day. One hour before closing and 15 minutes after the Black Panthers demonstrated with signs and chants of support, we were ushered upstairs to the ambassador’s office.

1969: He was in the war corps (Navy) while I was in the Peace Corps. It was my third year in NYC when my former college beau, Conrad, proposed to me. I accepted, and when he left for another tour in Vietnam, I responded to a job offer in Colorado Springs. I taught junior high social studies; he later taught high school math and drafting; we both taught our adorable son. Thirty-six years later we are still together, and our son flies an F-15 Strike Eagle for the Air Force.

1980: There I was, newly hired in a high school department composed of ten men. At that time social studies teachers were predominately male in the district’s five high schools, and I approached the position with unfounded concern. Working with that talented team of teachers taught me a great deal about pedagogy and the importance of a balanced curriculum. It was all about providing students with multiple resources and varied learning experiences: the same challenges I’d faced in Nigeria. But this time there were resources, and technology promised even more. To acquire computers for the department, I obtained a grant that involved department members in frequent meetings and extra work. This time I earned the title, ‘Attila the Hen,’ but it was all in good humor, and I missed the students and teachers when I moved to administration.

Katy with the National Council for Social Studies Outstanding Service Award in 2004.

1989: As K-12 Social Studies Coordinator for Colorado Springs Schools, my personal mission was to provide teacher workshops, student field trips, curriculum mapping, legislative lobbying, whatever it took to support those with the most important job in our society, OUR TEACHERS. I also enjoyed opportunities to study education systems abroad, further my education, train with National Geographic Society, serve on boards devoted to social studies education, and write and coordinate grants. As grant director of SWAP (South/West Assessment Partnership), a $500,000 bailiwick obtained from Education Goals 2000, my responsibilities increased statewide. The grant took on a life of its own and went on for years. I realized at some point in the 10 years of grants, standards, assessments, and state and district mandates, I’d lost the time and energy to properly support my local teachers. It was time to retire.

2000: Retirement lasted several months. The opportunity to teach social studies methods at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs and currently at Colorado College, returned me to my first professional love, the classroom. There is nothing like it! This time around I can help new teachers tackle the challenge I encountered at age 22 in Nigeria: how to prepare our world’s most precious resource, OUR CHILDREN, to live and thrive in a diverse and ever-changing world. It’s the toughest job you will ever have.•

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Early in 2004, the northern Nigerian states rejected the polio vaccine based on suspicions of contamination with infertility agent(s). Although the region is predominantly Muslim, it is important to note that religion has nothing to do with the vaccination resistance as the media have tried to speculate. The people were not against vaccination but rather against unsafe vaccines. Clinical studies, however, do not greatly influence a people’s perception of safety much as scandals in public health initiatives do. Placed in this context, the people’s polio vaccine rejection was not a surprising development.

As a case in point, there was little or no rancor from the same region during the Smallpox eradication drive of the 70’s. The 80’s on the other hand, ushered in public health issues that were met with mass skepticism. The first National Population Policy, for example, was adopted in 1988. The policy sought to reduce family size from the then average of 6 kids/family to 4 kids/family. It also suggested an optimum marriage age of 18 years for women and 24 years for men, and advocated that pregnancies be restricted to the 18-35-year range with conception intervals of 2 years.

Such a scheme would have been considered a tussle between entrenched African traditions and modernity but for reports of a global population control effort pioneered by the western world. Back in 1974, Nigeria was among several African countries that had denounced the proposed “World Population Plan of Action” tabled at the Bucharest UN population conference. The public however found a U.S. government document, popularly known as NSSM 200 (published in 1974 and declassified in 1989), quite disturbing. Subtitled “Implications of worldwide population growth for U.S. security and overseas interests”, NSSM 200 warned that “...world population growth is widely recognized within the (US) Government as a current danger of the highest magnitude calling for urgent measures.” The study identified 13 “key countries”, (among which was Nigeria) in which “special U.S. political and strategic interests” existed. It noted that Nigeria, “already the most populous country on the continent, with an estimated 55 million people in 1970, Nigeria’s population by the end of this century is projected to number 135 million. This suggests a growing political and strategic role for Nigeria, at least in Africa.”

In addition, no Nigerian leader—traditional, religious, political, or military prior to 1988 had ever challenged the previlege of personal choice as regards family size. In lieu of this and being that the 1988 Population Policy in Nigeria was largely foreign funded, the policy was met with widespread condemnation. Alhaji Usman Faruk, one-time governor of the North Western State (now Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi and Niger states), in response to the policy, insisted that “the government does not own the Nigerian people” and therefore “cannot say they will reduce us or increase us like we are houses.” He also accused the west for backing population control, concluding that “one of the measures to halt Nigeria’s rise to super power level is therefore through orchestrated family planning and birth control. Every known trick and deceit has been wrapped up in the scheme”.

Even as Nigeria documented its first AIDS case in 1986, the flurry of theories regarding the origin of HIV/AIDS only added salt to injury. The conspiracy theories were quite damaging since they suggested that HIV/AIDS is a man-made disease and an agent for bio-warfare being used to curb a booming world population. The vaccine theories were also quite unsettling. While the African green monkey theory suggested that HIV resulted from a viral jump from the African monkeys to humans, the small pox vaccine theory speculated that the small pox vaccine was responsible for unleashing HIV/AIDS.

Likewise, the polio vaccine theory proposed that the Polio vaccine was responsible for HIV/AIDS incidence. More relevant is that the Polio vaccine had already been engulfed in a controversy surrounding its contamination with a carcinogenic monkey virus (SV40). Among other things, the incident alerted people on the possibility of vaccine contamination. Vaccines safety consequently became enshrouded in uncertainty and vaccination exercises were viewed with suspicion. As for population issues in general, what people would have, at worst, perceived as government intrusion into personal matters exploded into a matter of pride and survival.

The last straw was drawn with the Pfizer drug (‘Trovan’) trial in Kano state (Northern Nigeria). During a meningitis epidemic in 1996, Pfizer treated 100 Nigerian children with the antibiotic Trovan as part of its effort to determine whether the drug, which had never been tested in children, would be an effective treatment for the disease. 100 other children were treated with Ceftriaxone (an antibiotic) as a control. The trial proved deadly. 11 children treated in the trial died while several suffered brain damage, partial paralysis or became deaf. At the heart of the Trovan case were allegations that Pfizer did not explain to the children’s parents that the proposed treatment was experimental, that they could refuse it, or that other treatments were available. Thus, the trial was not only deadly but also unethical. Hence forth, the people’s beliefs in being covertly used as trial material coupled to the long circulating reports of population control were to them, all but confirmed. Not surprisingly, this same Kano state provided the greatest resistance to the polio vaccination program.

The endemic corruption in the country further worsened matters. As distrust of officials deepened, religious and traditional leaders, being the closest to and most trusted (relatively speaking) by the masses, emerged as the only viable powerbrokers for mass projects. The Emir of Kazaure, Alhaji Najib A. Kazaure in a 2003 meeting with representatives of the WHO, NPI (National Program on Immunization (Nigeria)) and UNICEF, for instance, had this to say:
“I am sure the reason you are here today is because you heard that I am in the fore front of those expressing the fears and apprehension that people have about the vaccine for eradication of Polio which you have come to administer on our people. Yes, this is due to the constant questions people are asking us regarding the motive... I have not heard evidence or proof to convince my conscience that what is given to that child is truly poliomyelitis vaccine and nothing else. We wanted to (have) hard evidence but what we are given is only assurances.”

Later on in the discussion, the Emir said: “In all your documents, there is nowhere you mention the side effects of your vaccine, there is nowhere you mention the connection between polio and HIV, there is nowhere you mentioned the connection of polio with other simian viruses... It is not that we are ignorantly against polio immunization, no, but we are basing our apprehension on the questions people are asking us, and they have the right to ask questions... “And those of you saying there is no connection between population control and vaccination are wrong because there is clear evidence that people interested in population control normally incorporate it into their health services…” The Emir denied the group support to continue with the vaccination exercise in the emirate at the end of the meeting.

The polio eradication drive in Northern Nigeria therefore came at an unfortunate time when mass apprehension had escalated into unyielding resistance against health initiatives. In the foreseeable future, trust and credibility have to be somehow fostered to ensure successful vaccination/immunization projects in the region and in Nigeria as a whole. There is nothing wrong in tailoring life-saving vaccination /immunization programs to fit the socio-historical or socio-cultural garb of the target society. The bottom line is that Polio (or whatever disease we tackle next) is real. It has no respect for borders and it can cripple or kill.•

Kuburah Hameedu is an undergraduate majoring in biology at Temple University. She is from Kaduna. Hameedu is a student of Ed Gruberg (05) 62–64 who is on the biology faculty.

Gruberg teaches physiology and neurobiology, and does research on visual information processing using frogs as a model system.

His wife Ann is an artist who has been doing public murals here in Philadelphia for the last few years. They have two children, a son, Nick, 24 who is writing fiction and beginning in a master’s program in linguistics this fall, and a daughter, Diana, 21, who spent the summer in Mexico working in a community development project in a small village and will be a senior in college this year majoring in political science. They have two children, a son, Nick, 24 and a daugther, Diana, 21.

Gruberg has been back to Nigeria briefly twice, in the early seventies for a visit and in 2000 as part of a team teaching a short course in neuroscience at the University of Benin.

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Started in 2000 by Njideka Ugwuegbu Harry, YTF creates enriched learning communities where technology used appropriately creates opportunities for marginalized people, especially youth. YTF pioneered the digital village movement in Nigeria with the establishment of West Africa’s premier digital village, the Owerri Digital Village (ODV). ODV is a community technology and learning center in Nigeria that has trained over 600 youth in the past four years. Originally funded in large part by Microsoft, the center offers after-school technology and youth enrichment programs that complement the education provided by local schools. Through technology training, increasing numbers of disadvantaged youth have been encouraged to graduate from secondary schools and enrol in universities, many pursuing careers in science, business, technology, or engineering.

The primary beneficiaries of YTF’s programs are young people, ages 8 to 25 years. All YTF programs are experiential in nature and are designed to increase problem solving, critical thinking and communication skills.

Some of the members of the graduating class of the YTF, Owerri in 2004.

According to Harry, some of the most rewarding moments are when graduates decide to return to school. “We once had a 20-year-old young lady who was enrolled in one of our programs at the Owerri Digital Village,” she says. “YTF provided her with a scholarship to attend the program. She was an at-risk youth, had left her parents to live with relatives, had dropped out of secondary school and was an apprentice for a village seamstress. She had no intentions of completing her education. After one week of interacting with other students and receiving encouragement from YTF staff and mentors, she had a renewed outlook on life. Soon after completing the program, she returned to secondary school, passed her senior level examinations and recently began studying pharmacy at a local university.”

YTF first hired someone from the city to manage the Owerri Digital Village. “We soon figured that in order for the community to take ownership and genuine interest in our work, there was a need to take a bottom-up approach, involving the local people from day one,” explains Harry. In YTF’s efforts to establish global collaboration between diverse populations and cultures, YTF works with U.S. and developing world schools to implement innovative technology programs bridging educational, cultural and community divides.

YTF works primarily with communities in the southeastern region of Nigeria, where the social and economic consequences of the Biafra war (1967-1970) can still be seen. The organization is an advocate for developing rural communities, based on the belief that to break the poverty chain it is essential to offer effective programs in rural areas, so that young people have a reason to stay in their communities.

One of the younger members of the YTF concentrates at the task in hand.

YTF’s programs focus on identifying a concrete community need and then teaching young people how to use their education and skills, particularly technology skills, to address the issue. YTF partners with other organizations to deliver the technology leadership component to their programs. Examples of these partnerships include working with another organization that is focused on educating rural youth on HIV/AIDS. The Owerri Digital Village is the information “hub” for these young people. They travel from their villages to the center, where we teach them how to research, document and disseminate information on this disease and others. Another example is where YTF is working with an organization in the Niger-Delta region of Nigeria, an area historically afflicted with “oil poverty”. YTF is delivering a program that helps young people use information and communication technologies to address peace-building efforts.

The Owerri Digital Village is a scalable and replicable model for grassroots organizations interested in establishing similar centers in their rural communities. YTF is developing a community technology and learning center (CTLC) in-a-box model to provide to other organizations working in communities in the developing world with similar requirements.

Since 2002, YTF has hosted 8 international volunteers at the Owerri Digital Village. Between February and August 2005, the village hosted two volunteers as part of the United Nations Information Technology Service (UNITeS) program. After returning home, volunteers can be ambassadors by sharing their experiences with people and organizations interested in the achievements and impact of Youth for Technology Foundation.

For more information, please visit:
http://www.youthfortechnology.org or write to ytf@youthfortechnology.org.

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