The World Malaria Day celebration and the efforts to raise awareness on the mosquito-borne disease and examine efforts towards prevention, treatment, control and elimination of the illness is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Guardian reports that today is World Malaria Day (WMD). WMD is a day set aside by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to raise awareness on the mosquito-borne disease and examine efforts towards prevention, treatment, control and elimination of the illness, which according to the body led to 602,020 reported deaths in Africa last year.
The theme of WMD 2022 is ‘Harness innovation to reduce the malaria disease burden and save lives.’ Experts are, however, worried that despite efforts to contain malaria, Nigeria loses over $1.1 billion (N645.7 billion) yearly to prevention and treatment of the disease as well as other costs.
The experts, yesterday, said malaria killed no fewer than 200,000 Nigerians and afflicted 61 million others in 2021. They also said Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo), Tanzania and Mozambique accounted for over half of all malaria deaths.
They, however, said despite the successes recorded with the new malaria vaccine, no single tool is available today that will solve the problem of malaria.
They noted that it would, therefore, take a combination of strategies, including use of existing control and preventive measures, as well as development of new tools, to control and ultimately eliminate malaria.
To this end, the WHO has called for investments and innovation that bring new vector control approaches, diagnostics, anti-malarial medicines and other tools to speed up the pace of progress against malaria.
WHO said despite steady advances in lowering the global burden of malaria between 2000 and 2015, progress has slowed or stalled in recent years, particularly in high burden countries in sub-Saharan Africa, noting that urgent and concerted action is needed to set the world back on a trajectory toward achieving the 2030 targets of the global malaria strategy.
The newspaper says that the Presidency, yesterday, accused opponents of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration of being responsible for United States’ perception about poor Christian-Muslim relations in Nigeria and consequent delay in supply of fighter jets to the country.
In a statement issued by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, the Presidency named Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Hassan Kukah, as one of such opponents.
Kukah and President Muhammadu Buhari’s spokesmen have in recent times been involved in public media arguments on the state of the nation.
According to the statement, Kukah provided quotes from a new book written by former US Ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, which the Presidency observed, is not likely to conclude that Nigeria has improved on any front.
Tracing the history of Nigeria’s request for Tucano fighter jets to tackle the Boko Haram insurgency, the statement said: “In 2015, the then newly-elected Buhari government requested US military support in the form of Super Tucano jet fighters for the Nigerian Air Force. The Nigerian military, security, and intelligence services repeatedly made this request.
“The US administration of the time concurred: the delivery of such jets would help deliver a critical turning point in Nigeria’s struggle against jihadist terrorists across the Sahel.
“Yet, two years later, that jet delivery was rescinded. The reasons are given that unless Nigeria improved its religious relations between Christianity and Islam, then US support would not be forthcoming in this, and many other areas.”
The Sun reports that Dr. Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), says Africa should prepare for the inevitability of a global food crisis occasioned by the Russia-Ukraine war.
According to a statement issued by AfDB on Sunday, Adesina said this while speaking about Africa’s priorities as a guest at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center on Friday.
The bank chief called for an increased sense of urgency amid what he described as once-in-a-century convergence of global challenges for Africa.
Adesina said the continent’s most vulnerable countries had been hit hardest by conflict, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, which had upended economic and development progress in Africa.
He said Africa, with the lowest gross domestic product (GDP) growth rates, had lost as many as 30 million jobs on account of the pandemic.
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Speaking about the impact of the Russia-Ukraine war, Adesina expressed sympathy for the people of Ukraine, describing their suffering as unimaginable.
He said the war’s ramifications spread far beyond Ukraine to other parts of the world, including Africa.
He explained that Russia and Ukraine supply 30 percent of global wheat exports, the price of which has surged by almost 50 per cent globally, reaching identical levels as the 2008 global food crisis.
The Punch says that the Peoples Democratic Party and two other opposition parties have lamented the rising insecurity in the country which has caused the death of 12,250 citizens between January 2021 and March 2022.
According to a report compiled by research group, SBMorgen, and an advocacy network, Enough is Enough Nigeria, 6,102 civilians were killed within the period while 1,055 security personnel were killed.
Further breakdown showed that 571 of those killed were soldiers, 307 police officers, and 193 vigilante members.
Personnel of other security agencies like the Department of State Services, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, Nigeria Customs Service, and Federal Road Safety Corps were also killed during the period.
The report showed that not less than 1,500 citizens were killed in each quarter since January 2021, with the second quarter of last year recording the highest number of deaths at 3,133.
All of these happened under the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), who was elected in 2015 on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.
Reacting, spokesperson of New Nigeria Peoples Party, Agbo Major, who spoke to The PUNCH, said, “This government has failed in its responsibility to provide security for the citizens. In one year, 12,250 citizens have been killed. Those were innocent Nigerians who paid their taxes and were entitled to maximum security. See the way Nigerians are being brought down ceaselessly without the government doing anything about it. It’s the failure of the government.
The newspaper reports that a total of 2,495.3 megawatts of electricity was not utilised nor distributed by power distribution companies in one week, despite the demand for electricity nationwide, industry data obtained from the Federal Government’s power company on Sunday showed.
In the Transmission Company of Nigeria’s latest report on national grid performance: TCN-Discos Interface from April 2 to April 8, 2022, the government-owned firm revealed that some Discos failed to utilise over 2,400MW of electricity during the period despite the fact that they were nominated for the electricity load.
Although the report indicated that some Discos took and distributed excess load than they nominated for during the review week, it was observed that others failed to distribute a huge quantum of electricity daily, amidst the low supply across the country.
The report showed the maximum load nomination by each Disco, their approved Multi-Year Tariff Order allocation, their actual consumption, the quantum of unutilised load by some of them, as well as the excess load taken by others.
Nigeria’s 11 Discos include Abuja, Benin, Eko, Enugu, Ibadan, Ikeja, Jos, Kaduna, Kano, Port Harcourt and Yola, and there have been a series of complaints about the poor delivery of electricity by these firms.
It was observed that on April 2, for instance, a total of 373.97MW of power was unutilised by five power distribution companies, as Eko did not utilise 118.29MW; Ibadan, 169.77MW; Ikeja, 63.19MW; Kano, 13.18MW; and Port Harcourt, 9.54MW.
On April 3, six power distributors failed to utilise 189.84MW. They include Eko, 26.99MW; Enugu, 1.65MW; Ibadan, 44.85MW; Ikeja, 51.66MW; Kano, 48.35MW and Port Harcourt, 16.34MW.
GIK/APA