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Malaria Scourge: Fashola Calls For Total Eradication

Sep 2, 2008 - Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), Tuesday called for concerted efforts towards the eradication of the Malaria scourge in Nigeria saying what the country needed now was the technical support to eradicate the scourge rather than contain the disease.

Governor Fashola, who spoke while receiving a team from the Department for International Development (DFID) led by its Country Director for Nigeria, Mr. Eamon Cassidy, said what the country, and indeed the Continent of Africa, needed at this time was an impactful programme that would bring an end to the scourge.

“Considering the number of people we have to deal with, I think our focus should be to develop a technical knowledge of how to eradicate Malaria rather than containing it using bed nets, special nets and pharmaceuticals,” the Governor said adding that the pertinent question should be “how did South America and others in Asia get out of Malaria”.

Calling for the commencement of research into the means to eradicate the disease, Governor Fashola, who pledged his readiness to sponsor such a research, said he had already detailed the State Commissioner for Health to go to Colleges of Medicine around the country, beginning with Lagos, to begin to fire the minds and imaginations of professors towards the initiative.

“I am willing to sponsor such a research on how to eradicate Malaria in Nigeria and Africa. It is not enough anymore to offer support for containment, there should be long term programme to eradicate the scourge. We started with Chloroquine and translated to bed nets. These palliatives rest on short and medium term solutions. What we need is a long term solution”, the Governor said.

He further declared, “The time has come for us to find lasting solution to this scourge. I hear the number of people killed each year by this disease is greater than those killed by the AIDS scourge. We need to find a lasting solution so that we can give back life to Africans. We have taken steps in this direction. I expect to see very definitive effects from our initiatives”.

Speaking on Accountability and Feasibility in governance, Governor Fashola explained that these were measured in Nigeria and Africa not in terms of the huge budget and balancing of account on paper but rather on concrete and visible projects which impact directly on the life of the people.

“In Africa, there is development deficit in so many areas of life, therefore, the esoteric level and standard of accountability and feasibility in Europe and America is not measured the same way here. It is how the money impacted in the lives of the people, it is measured in how many jobs are created, how many schools and functional hospitals built”, the Governor said.

Citing the Greening programme of the present administration, the Governor said the programme had created permanent jobs for 328 people and casual jobs for 2126 people while a supply chains had been created for 425 suppliers within 14 months of the administration.

Thanking the DFID team for the support the organisation has given to the State, Governor Fashola expressed joy at the visit which he said came at a time when the State was preparing for the Local Government Elections.

“Considering the critical role the Local Governments play in the life of our people and, therefore, the success of our government, your visit could not have come at a more auspicious time because we dwell on the philosophy that the prosperity of our Local Governments is the prosperity of our State”, he said.

Earlier in his opening remarks, Mr. Cassidy had thrown light on the various programmes carried out by the DFID in the State saying that because of paucity of funds the Department was always selective in choosing where and what it works on.

According to him, the DFID has a long history of engagement in Lagos adding that it has been going through a period of transition with the Strategic Local Government Programmes (SLGP) winding down giving way to successor programme which according to him are getting underway.

Accompanying Mr. Cassidy on the visit was the South-West co-coordinator of DFID, Mr. Joseph Umoabasi.