Peter Obi, the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate,  has criticised the federal government’s handling of the health sector and called for immediate reforms to improve access to quality medical care for all Nigerians.

Expressing his views as a guest speaker at the 6th Public Lecture of the Board of Fellows, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, held in Awka, Anambra State on Wednesday, Obi pointed out that Nigeria’s Human Development Index (HDI) ranking remains low, even after 25 years of democratic governance.

He emphasised that health, particularly life expectancy, is a critical measure of development.

“When you want to measure this Human Development Index, the most critical measure number one is Health – life expectancy.

“Life expectancy as we know today in Nigeria is among the lowest in the world. We are about 65 years, compared to India at about 70, Bangladesh at about 72, Egypt at about 71, and the Philippines at about 70,” Obi stated.

Obi outlined several issues plaguing Nigeria’s healthcare system, such as the country’s minimal functioning primary healthcare facilities, alarmingly high infant mortality rates, that the majority of drugs are imported, making them costly and frequently out of reach for many Nigerians, and the impediments to local drug manufacturing caused by government support gaps and regulatory obstacles.

The former Anambra State governor criticised the government’s approach to healthcare, stating, that the government does not understand what they are supposed to do to help our citizens.

Obi also highlighted the economic impact of poor healthcare.

“Many people with many illnesses can no longer be able to afford treatment. Nigerians now spend more than their income on food because everything has tripled.”

Obi further called for a complete overhaul of the system, emphasising the need for committed and compassionate governance.

He suggested several solutions including, investing in critical areas of healthcare, supporting local drug manufacturing, designing affordable insurance schemes and lifting people out of poverty to enable their participation in healthcare programs, among others.

“We must dismantle this criminality called Nigeria today and make it a country where people will know that they are elected to serve the people and they focus on doing the right thing,” Obi added.

Taking to his X page on Wednesday, Obi added, “Access to quality medicines remains vital for all human beings whether sick or well, who seek medical consultation, and it is proven that 90 per cent of all medical consultations end in one form of prescription or another. Therefore, the availability of quality medicines remains the key armoury for the fight for well-being, while pharmacists remain the armourer.

“The reason we lack quality medicines is due to the same socio-economic problem affecting production in the country, where regulatory agencies now function as revenue collectors rather than as enablers and access to financing is not available or at an excessive rate.

“There is hardly any health insurance regime in place to guarantee access to those who cannot afford immediate cash payments.

“Excruciating poverty and severe economic hardship have also kept functional healthcare and quality medicines out of the reach of the poor. The only medicine our people take now is prayer,” he wrote.

[Businessday]

The results of candidates of the supplementary Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME have been released by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB.

The supplementary UTME was conducted between Friday, June 21st and Saturday, June 22nd, 2024.

JAMB’s spokesman, Fabian Benjamin, directed candidates on how to check their results.

“To check their supplementary UTME results, candidates are to send UTMERESULT to either 55019 or 66019 through the same phone number they had used to generate their profile codes at the start of registration,” he stated.

Benjamin said the supplementary examination was conducted for 28,835 candidates, who were unable to be biometrically verified during the main 2024 UTME and were unable to take their examination.

A statement by Benjamin said: “Similarly, the other category of candidates were those suspected to have been involved in examination malpractices during the main UTME but who were given a second chance to sit the examination.

“The exercise, which recorded a huge success nationwide, was marked by heightened security measures put in place by the Board to preclude any instance of examination infractions. As such, some nefarious characters, who had attempted to impersonate bona fide candidates were apprehended and handed over to law enforcement agencies for further investigation and prosecution.

“The Board would continue to ensure that no candidate benefits from any acts of infractions through the deployment of state-of-the-art technology before, during and after its examinations.

“Candidates are, therefore, urged, in their own interest, to refrain from engaging in any form of irregularity during their examinations. They are also enjoined to desist from soliciting score upgrades from fraudsters or engage in the mutilation of their result sheets while trying to generate fake result sheets with higher scores.”

The Federal Government has through the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS), relieved a senior officer at the level of Controller of Corrections and two other personnel of their service over alleged misconduct.

In a statement released on Thursday, the spokesperson for NCoS, ACC Abubakar Umar, said the service had conducted a thorough review of multiple instances of unprofessional conduct and improper behaviour exhibited by its personnel.

These misconducts encompass a range of offences such as unauthorized absence, severe negligence in performing duties, involvement in illicit item trafficking, and manipulation of results, among other transgressions.

The NCoS statement reads: “In a letter by the Civil Defence, Correctional, Fire, and Immigration Services Board CDCFIB, a total of 20 personnel have been discharged and acquitted of the various offences for which they were accused, while an officer who was previously suspended was reinstated after the review exercise.

“Three personnel were compulsorily retired, 13 personnel attracted plain warning, while six had their ranks reduced.

“These are in line with the zero tolerance on staff misconduct, a cardinal mantra of the Controller General of Corrections, Haliru Nababa, and targeted toward ridding the Service of unscrupulous elements and misfits, so as to improve professionalism as well as to entrench discipline, ethics and excellence in its officers and men.”

President Joe Biden was supposed to put the nation’s mind at ease over his physical and mental capacity with his debate showing Thursday night. But from the onset of the debate, the 81-year-old struggled seemingly even to talk, mostly summoning a weak, raspy voice.

In the opening minutes, the president repeatedly tripped over his words, misspoke and lost his train of thought.

In one of the most notable moments, Biden ended a rambling statement that lacked focus by saying, “We finally beat Medicare,” before moderators cut him off and transitioned back to Trump.

While Biden warmed up and gained more of a rhythm as the debate progressed, he struggled to land a punch against Trump.

According to NBC news, Trump, unleashing a torrent of bad information — didn’t hesitate to pounce on Biden, saying at one point that he didn’t understand what Biden had just said with regard to the border.

“I don’t know if he knows what he said either,” Trump said.

Nearly an hour into the debate, a Biden aide and others familiar with his situation offered up an explanation for the president’s hoarseness: He has a cold.

Even the Biden campaign acknowledged that the debate would be a critical moment in the election, with officials hoping it could shake up the race to the president’s benefit. Most polls have found the race to be neck and neck, a razor-thin margin that has remained unchanged for months, even after a jury found Trump guilty on 34 felony counts.

Questions about Biden’s age and frailty have dragged down his polling numbers for months. The public concerns are exacerbated by deceptively edited videos, some of which have gone viral, that cut off relevant portions of an event, making it appear as if Biden is wandering or confused. This was Biden’s first opportunity — since the State of the Union speech — to dispel that narrative.

Instead of a new beginning, many Democrats saw it as a moment for panic.

“Democrats just committed collective suicide,” said one party strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns. “Biden sounds hoarse, looks tired and is babbling. He is reaffirming everything voters already perceived. President Biden can’t win. This debate is a nail in the political coffin.“

“It’s hard to argue that we shouldn’t nominate someone else,” a Democratic consultant who works on down-ballot races added.

Biden did ramp up as the debate progressed.

“Only one of us is a convicted felon, and I’m looking at him,” Biden said to Trump. That was one moment that tested really well with internal simultaneous Biden campaign polling at the time of the debate, according to a person familiar.

A Biden aide said that it was “not an ideal start” for the president at the beginning of the debate, but that there was “no mass panic” at the campaign headquarters in Delaware.

Trump, meanwhile, has fended off his own questions over whether he’s diminished by age, including that he struggles to stay on topic and meanders when speaking. Biden has posited that the former president “snapped” after his 2020 election loss and is unstable. Biden, though, had prepped for the possibility of “two Trumps” appearing on the debate stage Thursday, and had planned to try to bait him into revealing “the true Trump.”

The muting of the microphones, a stipulation agreed to before the debate by both campaigns, added a new dimension to the face-off. The two men’s first match-up in 2020 was marked by repeated interruptions by Trump, leading to moments of frustration for Biden.

“Will you shut up, man?” Biden complained in that first Cleveland debate.

“I’m thinking the Democrats are thinking about who the Barry Goldwater is who can walk in tomorrow and tell the president he needs to step aside,” Ben Proto, chairman of the Connecticut Republican Party, said.

In 1974, after key Watergate tapes were made public, then-Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz., went to see President Richard Nixon along with other prominent lawmakers and told him that he would be convicted by the Senate and should step aside— which Nixon did