MY experience in highbrow Asokoro on Friday, January 19, 2024 was like a nightmare. I had an important appointment and I felt comfortable I was going to be some 40 minutes early. Then it happened: blocked roads in the narrow streets. That was when it dawned on me this was the day the Supreme Court delivered its verdict on gubernatorial elections in some eight states. Now, Asokoro is where the Governors have their lodges in the nation’s capital, and some with their supporters had blocked the roads.

I was, like many motorists, trapped, but just when I thought I had extricated myself, the worse happened: Nasarawa State Governor Abdullahi Sule and his supporters were celebrating further down, and the road was completely blocked. There was no escape. While they celebrated in Abuja, there were protests and bonfires in the state. At the end of the wild celebrations, Governor Sule told the press at the Presidential Villa that those protesting in his state were just “1,000 people (who) are protesting somewhere”.

He told them “… the Supreme Court is the ultimate and is the final, and those who appreciate or respect democracy should leave it right there because protests or no protest will not change anything; the Supreme Court has already passed its judgement”.

In other climes, a man who is to govern a populace divided by votes, would not attack his perceived opponents, rather, he would sue for peace and seek reconciliation. Yes, there is no appeal after the Supreme Court has spoken, but it is also a court of human beings who can be fallible. That the Supreme Court rules in a governor’s favour does not warrant him telling a section of the populace to go to hell.

Three days before, there was another celebration of vanity. Five volumes of a book: Muhammadu Buhari: The Nigerian Legacy (2015 – 2023), and a sixth book by one of his assistants, were launched with fun fare.

Compared to the pre-Buhari days, Nigeria is like a battle field in ruins with hunger and suffering across the country, factories shut, dreams shattered, kidnapping becoming a booming industry and the local currency on sale in the streets. Yet, the chief architect and his chorus boys and girls choose this precise moment, and Abuja – where kidnappers are executing children whose parents are unable to pay ransom – to celebrate their inglorious days in office. While Nigerians are in pains and many families are weeping, the Buharists are celebrating their inanity and gross incompetence. To paraphrase Nyesome Wike’s lyrics: ‘As he dey pain us, he dey sweet dem’. Yes, as Nigerians are in pains, the Buhari gang is celebrating. But no matter how many volumes of falsehood they write and publish, it will not change history which has shown that since independence, the Buhari times have been the worst. This celebration of vanity by the most inept and most incompetent, is essentially a distraction. But like the Holy Book says: vanity upon vanity, is vanity.

It is this exploitation of celebrating vanity that led19-year-old Miss Mmesoma Joy Ejikeme to forge her Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, scores in the 2023 examination. She had four times checked her results on the JAMB portal. Each time she received the same results in her phone showing that she scored an aggregate 249. But she wanted to exploit the euphoria that goes on about the highest scorer in the examinations which usually includes public financial donations and offers of scholarship by state governments and private citizens. So she doctored her result and awarded herself 362 marks- two higher than the actual highest scorer.

When JAMB set the records straight, she challenged the examination body and in the process created a contentious and fractious national debate which dragged in the National Assembly, the Anambra State Government and the general public.

This whole controversy would not have arisen had the country not been enmeshed in unnecessary controversy over who, or what state produces the highest scorer in the examination.

When JAMB and media executives held a stakeholders meeting in Lagos on January 14, 2024, this issue and what can be done, inevitably cropped up.

JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Olarewaju Oloyede, addressed the national malaise of what he called the “Highest Score Syndrome (and the ) Aberration of premature celebration of UTME Score”.

 He said: “JAMB believes it is better to celebrate highest ranked candidates after all other variables are added…Candidates who apply for the UTME do not necessarily possess the required qualifications as a prerequisite for the examination.”

He clarified that the purpose of the UTME examination is not to test the ability of individual candidates in isolation, but to “rank the available candidates in each batch”.

He explained that there are two types of examinations: the Criterion-Referenced Test, a qualifying examination with a pass mark in which each candidate is assessed against a pre-determined standard. The other on, which JAMB is based, is a ranking examination in which there is no fail or pass mark and the availability of space, determines where the line is drawn.

Given this, it is vainglorious to mark success in JAMB examinations as the candidate with the highest score may not be admitted if, amongst other things, he has no basic qualification or does not even meet the minimum age requirements.

An editor asked if Mmesoma who, having lost at least a session, has not been punished enough which may require JAMB lifting the three-year suspension on her. Professor Oloyede thinks that she is actually lucky not to have been sent to prison.

The Mmesoma case does not mark the introduction of vanity into the university system. In the late 1970s there was a vice chancellor who ranked his local traditional title as high as his professorship. In public outings, he would announce his name, follow up with his traditional title, including the name of his town and end with: “…and by the Grace of God, the Vice Chancellor, University of…”

What JAMB is teaching us is to lay emphasis on substance not the vainglorious. It is also demonstrating this and how public institutions can be relevant by ever extending services to the public. This includes making relevant books available free on-line and supporting people with disabilities by issuing for free, application documents to all categories of people with such challenges. Also, in order to provide a level playing field for all candidates, it is providing all blind candidates audio books.

These may seem like common sense, but it is not common with governance. If it were, those who have brought the country down to its knees would not take centre stage revelling over their tragic rule like a rapist celebrating a conquest.

Most people do not know or remember that, strictly speaking, there were and remain no official results for Nigeria’s 2007 presidential election. Organised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the vote itself occurred on April 21, 2007 under Maurice Iwu, a professor whose academic discipline coincidentally was alchemy. His main qualification for the position of Chairman of the INEC was that he was close to President Obasanjo’s fixer, Andy Uba.

The results began trickling in the following day. Under Nigeria’s Constitution, a winner of a presidential election must secure the highest number of votes in addition to winning a minimum of 25% of the votes in at least 24 of the 36 states of the federation. What this means is that it is impossible to declare a lawful result in a presidential election until the results in at least 24 states have been computed.

The recently departed legal scholar Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, recalls in his 2009 book on Judicialism and Good Governance in Africa, that two days after the vote, on April 23, 2007, INEC Chairman, Maurice Iwu “excusing himself from the collation of results exercise in which he and the party agents were engaged at the INEC headquarters, left the room and announced the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate the winner on the basis of results electronically transmitted to him from 13 states while the results from 23 states were still being  awaited”. Ondo was the 13th state whose result computation Iwu abandoned to announce the fictional outcome.

In announcing the results, Professor Iwu “neither gave the figure of the total votes cast nationwide nor the percentage scored by each of the candidates. There was also no state-by-state breakdown of the result announced.”

On the face of the record, the results declared by Maurice Iwu’s INEC failed to comply with the minimal requirements for certification of results in a presidential election. Even today, 17 years later, no one knows or can give the state-by-state breakdown of the results in the 2007 presidential election.

This was only one of the many problems with that vote, which occurred in the aftermath of the rejection by the National Assembly of President Obasanjo’s effort to grant himself a prohibited third presidential term. Following that event, Obasanjo appeared desperate to ensure that the election returned his hand-picked successor, Umaru Yar’Adua.

The ballot papers used in the election were not serialised, which made it impossible to control for ballot contamination. Following the vote, INEC indulged in what judges subsequently described as “abracadabra”, in many places producing entirely fictional results for what an election tribunal described as “elections that did not hold.”

This set the stage for the election petition by the leading opposition candidate in the 2007 election, Muhammadu Buhari of the All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP, against the man whom Maurice Iwu had announced as winner, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. In his petition, Muhammadu Buhari asked the presidential election petition tribunal to find that the election and results announced by Maurice Iwu had failed to comply substantially with the Constitution and the Electoral Act. Central to Buhari’s case was the absence of serialised ballot papers which, he argued, enabled ballot stuffing and ballot contamination on an unprecedented level. 

According to section 146(1) of the Electoral Act of 2006, “an election shall not be liable to be invalidated by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of this Act if it appears to the Election Tribunal or court that the election was conducted substantially in accordance with the principles of this Act and that non-compliance did not affect substantially the result of the elections.” Having lost on a split decision at the election petition tribunal, Muhammadu Buhari’s appeal to the Supreme Court turned on the question of what “the principles of this Act” meant.

In deciding the controversial contest for the Anambra South senatorial district in 1983 between Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu v Dr. Edwin Onwudiwe, the Supreme Court had considered the meaning of a similar provision in the Electoral Act of 1983 and explained that “the essence of democratic elections is that they be free and fair and that in that atmosphere of freedom, fairness and impartiality, citizens will exercise their freedom of choice of who their representatives shall be by casting their votes in favour of those candidates who, in their deliberate judgment, they consider possess the qualities which mark them out as preferable candidates to those others who are contesting with them.”

In 2007, however, Justice Niki Tobi writing for the majority of the Supreme Court walked back these principles, complaining instead the notion of “principles” governing elections was “vague, nebulous and large” as well as confusing. Reducing the entire exercise to a farce, Justice Niki Tobi, himself a former law professor and dean of a leading law faculty, blamed his inability to offer clarity in the principles governing democratic elections on “my lack of adequate knowledge”.

Making no pretence to anchor its holding in the Electoral Act, the Supreme Court held that a petitioner in a presidential election petition bears the burden to show “not only substantial non-compliance but also the figures, i.e. votes that the compliance (sic) attracted or omitted.” Put another way, the petitioner in an election petition has the burden of proving not just a negative but also of assigning a numerical value to its consequences.

On the question of non-serialisation of ballot papers, therefore, the court disingenuously claimed that it had no proof that the non-serialisation favoured one side or disfavoured the other.

A minority of the court, comprising George Oguntade, Aloma Mukhtar, and Walter Onnoghen, dissented, taking the view that “it is important that at the conclusion of an election, an unbiased observer should be able to see that the election was free, fair, transparent, and that no room had been left open for malpractices to occur. If deliberately or through inadvertence, those in charge of the elections had left room for anyone to doubt the integrity of the process in the election, then it is my view that the fundamental principles of the election have been compromised.”

In the end, however, the majority view prevailed and the Supreme Court validated the 2007 election structured to enable ballot stuffing and which announced a winner without a lawful result. The refusal of the Supreme Court to affirm any principles applicable to elections effectively reduced Nigeria’s elections to a demolition derby of illegality. In validating that result the way it did in 2008, the Supreme Court empowered judges to re-write election laws into meaningless pieces of artifice.

Invited shortly after the decision in this case of Buhari vs. Yar’Adua to deliver the distinguished lecture at the Nigerian Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, NIALS, in front of an audience, including the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Professor Ben Nwabueze, SAN, accused the Supreme Court of indulging in “perverse and narrow legalism” and of abdicating its responsibility of judicial decision making to a tyranny of “considerations of political expediency.”

This was a major landmark in the evolution of the supreme confusion that saddled the country with the judicial debacle in the most recent cases concerning Plateau and Kano states. The resort by the Supreme Court to publicly slapping down the Court of Appeal in these cases cannot be seen as progress as long as it fails to acknowledge its role in condemning Nigerians habitually since 2007 – in the words of Professor Nwabueze – “to be ruled by a government that has no claim to legitimacy.”

A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

…Patients lament, skip medications, seek alternative treatment
…Experts worry, propose urgent solutions

In Nigeria, falling sick can be challenging in normal times but seeking treatment is currently a double blow as the financial implication has become increasingly unbearable for many Nigerians.

The cost of basic drugs, such as antibiotics, analgesics, anti-diabetics, and key medications for chronic conditions, has doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in some instances, leaving many patients struggling to access the healthcare they desperately need.

The alarming rise in drug prices, its impact on healthcare access, and the urgent need for solutions have become overriding to ensure that falling sick does not become a financial death sentence.

Hardest hit by the exponential surge in prices of drugs are the poor, notably those on the minimum wage and below, those without steady sources of income, and particularly those without reliable health insurance, like Idowu Akinyemi, a single mother.
When Idowu, who is living with diabetes, went to purchase her insulin, she was shocked to discover the price had gone up for the second time within a fortnight.

“The last time I purchased my insulin, it was around N3,000, but now when I went to check at the pharmacy, it is over N5,000, almost double,” lamented Idowu who noted that with each passing month, the cost of her insulin climbs higher, forcing her to choose between medication and feeding her children.

Dokun Bolarinwa, diagnosed with high blood pressure, said he had been on regular treatment, but noted that the soaring price of his medication was gradually forcing him to default in adherence to the guidelines of his treatment.

“I’m a retired civil servant with no stable income. Over the past few years, I have been managing my condition with family support and goodwill, but these days, things are tough. I’m already skipping certain medications because I cannot afford them, and if care is not taken, I may be forced to abandon treatment altogether.

Ade Ogun who bought a medicated cream for his skin rash was amazed when he discovered the drug had doubled in price a week later.
“I bought a tube of Nixoderm for N500, but when I went back to the the same shop to purchase another one some days later, the price had gone up 100 per cent. It was an unexpected increase,” Ade noted.

Funmi Olaoye, a housewife and mother of an ashtmatic child was also concerned about the high cost of drugs. “My son needs medication for his asthma, but I can barely afford half the dose. It’s a constant struggle,” she lamented.

Among factors contributing to the increase in drug prices are rising production costs, delays in global supply chains and local supply challenges, as well as the declining value of the naira.

400-500% price increase

Findings from a recent survey by SB Morgen showed that over the last four years, the prices of different categories of paracetamol-based analgesics, common cold medicines, such as Actifed, and antibiotics, and antimalarials, rose dramatically.

The report found that between 2022 and 2023, Ampiclox and Amoxil recorded 340 per cent and over 400 per cent increases respectively, while antimalarials such as Lonart DS recorded cost and selling price increases of 110 per cent and 92.3 per cent respectively between 2019 and 2023.

From Vanguard’s investigations, the prices of all routine drugs in Nigeria have gone up astronomically. The most affected categories include genuine antibiotics, analgesics, anti-malarials and a number of prescription and specialized drugs.

A random check of prices in some pharmacies and in the open market in Lagos revealed that prices of all the popular genuine brands of antibiotics, including Ciprofloxaxin, Azithromycin, Amoxil, Ampiclox and Augmentin, have gone up by 50 – 150 per cent since the beginning of the new year.

Experts say accessing affordable insulin is crucial for managing diabetes effectively. However, it was gathered that the rising cost of insulin presents a significant challenge for people living with diabetes.

Insulin prices in Nigeria have been steadily increasing in recent times with ranges, depending on the brand, pharmacy, and location.

Findings show that for insulin, from rapid-acting, intermediate-acting or long-acting, the average depending on the type, ranges between N4,000 and N18,000 per cartridge/vial.

A silent rage of people grappling with undiagnosed or inadequately managed chronic diseases, such as cancer, is also underway as chemotherapy drugs have seen a 300 per cent price increase in recent times, pushing them beyond the reach of most patients.

Access to essential medications as anti-depressants is also restricted as they can cost up to N10,500 per month, leaving many resorting to traditional remedies or simply going untreated.

Data from the Global Cancer Observatory show that over 100,000 new cancer cases are diagnosed annually in Nigeria, yet only five per cent of those affected can afford treatment.

Statistics from the World Health Organisation, WHO, backed by the Nigeria Association of Psychiatrists, reveal that an estimated 20 per cent of Nigerians suffer from mental health issues, but access to treatment is severely limited.

The consequences of the price hike are serious, with many Nigerians skipping doses, rationing medication, or even abandoning treatment altogether due to the prohibitive costs.

Women, children hardest hit

Those bearing the brunt more are the vulnerable groups, including children, pregnant women, the elderly, and those with underlying or pre-existing health conditions and those that require regular medication.

Experts say the consequences of this development could be devastating and could lead to undesirable complications, delayed diagnoses, and even preventable deaths.

The lack of insurance coverage is also there. Most health insurance plans in Nigeria do not cover chronic ailments comprehensively. So in most cases, the patient has to pay out of pocket.

Already, worries about affordability of treatment and drugs from delays in treatment or skipping of doses leading to complications, worsening health outcomes, and even becoming common.

Health watchers blame the development on a combination of factors, including depreciation of the naira, global supply chain disruptions, and increased drug production costs.

Beyond the high drug prices, they warn that left unchecked, the crisis could cripple the already overburdened healthcare system and worsen existing health inequalities.

In a conversation, President of the National Post Graduate Medical College of Nigeria, Professor Akin Osibogun, said scarcity of genuine drugs will likely have significant effects.

“These include poor control of disease conditions due to non-availability of essential medications, such as diabetes, hypertension, and cancer, among others, and this will result in the conditions becoming complicated.

“There will be escalation of costs of making drugs, even more unaffordable by the poor and the underprivileged further widening. There will be increased opportunity for faking of drugs, which may have increased adverse effects on the health of Nigerians and patients may turn to untested alternative treatment modalities.” he remarked.

Increased morbidity, mortality, looming

Also reacting, the Chief Medical Director of Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Prof Adetokunbo Fabamwo, said high cost of drugs was undesirable for the welfare of the average Nigerian.

“Nigerian citizens are already impoverished and cannot even afford to buy food to eat, if they are sick and need to buy drugs; in the near future we will have increased morbidity and mortality. So people will not be able to comply with their drug prescriptions. People will get sicker, and some of them may even die,’’ he said.

Also, people with mental health conditions are not also spared, according to a Consultant Psychiatrist at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Yaba, Dr Stephen Oluwaniyi.

He said: “As far as management of those who already have mental health conditions is concerned, many of the conditions are what we call chronic disorders, in the sense that they need to continue with maintenance treatment, taking medications in one form or the other., apart from the cost of transporting themselves to the hospital, they have to pay for medication.

“Now, an individual who has been struggling to spend N2,000 per month to obtain medication now requires to pay like N4,000, You know, a time comes that he or she may not be able to get the medication.

‘’Some of these disorders, once your medications are not consistent, symptoms tend to recur, which means the individual may become further incapacitated, may not be able to experience optimal state of mental health.”

He explained that he or she might not be able to continue to work or be productive in one way or the other.

“So, the high cost of drugs is negatively affecting the treatment of people with mental disorders. There’s no doubt about that. And again, I want to appeal to the authorities to make sure something is done quickly about this trend of medication costs skyrocketing. And that also points to the need why health insurance in Nigeria has to be robust.

“Some of these individuals with mental health conditions are not even working. So, for such individuals, there should be a way of providing for them, probably making some of these medications more affordable. If possible, free,’’ he added.

On his own part, the Medical Director, Federal Medical Centre, Ebute Metta, Lagos, Dr Adedamola Dada, said a lot was needed to be done to address the situation.

“There are drugs available in the country. It’s the cost that has increased, in line with most things that are importation-dependent. And as with everything, Nigerians in the drug business are also taking advantage, seeing that there are limited options and little competition.

“The solution is fundamental, we need to start producing our own drugs locally using high-quality APIs to guarantee drug security, and we also need to eliminate or substantially reduce out-of- pocket payments for health care. These are the things the Federal Ministry of Health is doing now – fundamentally tackling the problem, and soon enough, it would yield results,’’ he said.
Speaking further, Dada noted that when patients were unable to afford their drugs,their condition does not get treated.

He said: “A healthy nation is a wealthy nation. Personally, however, I am not one for all this noise about the cost of drugs, it’s not the only thing whose prices have gone up. I think we should rather exert our efforts and energy at finding a long-term and enduring solution to it, and that’s what Ministers Pate and Alausa are doing now.

“We all need to support them, rather than use the problem as an albatross. It’s a surmountable problem and I am totally convinced that the approach they are taking on this will fundamentally change the game but like all programmes, it will take time.

It’s heart-breaking

But Dr. Aisha Abubakar, a paediatrician lamented: “I see children suffering from preventable illnesses because their parents can’t afford medication. It’s heartbreaking.”

Also worried was Dr. Olufemi Ademola, a pharmacist and pharmacy owner. He said: “We’re caught between our oath to help and the reality that many patients can’t afford basic drugs.”

He revealed that some customers are now buying smaller quantities of drugs as a way of conserving funds and even resorting to buying unregulated street drugs.

Kenechukwu Okoli, another pharmacist is worried about the impact on chronic illnesses, saying “diabetics, hypertensives, even cancer patients say they are forced to choose between medication and other basic needs.”

Seun Adegoke, a healthcare economist, emphasized the need for long-term solutions.

“Investing in local drug production and promoting generic alternatives can bring down costs in the long run,’’ Adegoke said.
On her part, Faith Solomon, a mental health advocate said: “Mental illness is often misunderstood and stigmatised in Nigeria. Even when people seek help, access to affordable medication remains a major barrier. This leaves many trapped in a cycle of suffering.”

Expressing concern for the well-being of Nigerians, health watchers are calling for urgent action to address the issue of high drug prices, even as they urge the government to prioritise healthcare accessibility, intervene in implementing price controls, support local drug production, and strengthen public healthcare infrastructure.

Among solutions proposed include improving access to affordable health insurance, encouraging the use of safe and effective generic drugs to reduce costs, educating communities about the issue and advocating policy changes.

[Vanguard]