African Elites who Seek Treatment Abroad are now Grounded.

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The coronavirus pandemic could narrow one gaping inequality in Africa, where some heads of state and other elite jet off to Europe or Asia for health care unavailable in their nations. As countries including their own impose dramatic travel restrictions, they might have to take their chances at home.

For years, leaders from Benin to Zimbabwe have received medical care abroad while their own poorly funded health systems limp from crisis to crisis. Several presidents, including ones from Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia, have died overseas.

The practice is so notorious that a South African health minister, Aaron Motsoaledi, a few years ago scolded, “We are the only continent that has its leaders seeking medical services outside the continent, outside our territory. We must be ashamed.”

Now a wave of global travel restrictions threatens to block that option for a cadre of aging African leaders. More than 30 of Africa's 57 international airports have closed or severely limited flights, the U.S. State Department says. At times, flight trackers have shown the continent's skies nearly empty.

Perhaps “COVID-19 is an opportunity for our leaders to reexamine their priorities,” said Livingstone Sewanyana of the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, which has long urged African countries to increase health care spending.

But that plea has not led to action, even as the continent wrestles with major crises including deadly outbreaks of Ebola and the scourges of malaria and HIV.

Spending on health care in Africa is roughly 5% of gross domestic product, about half the global average. That's despite a pledge by African Union members in 2001 to spend much more. Money is sometimes diverted to security or simply pilfered, and shortages are common.

Ethiopia had just three hospital beds per 10,000 people in 2015, according to World Health Organization data, compared to two dozen or more in the U.S. and Europe. Central African Republic has just three ventilators in the entire country. In Zimbabwe, doctors have reported doing bare-handed surgeries for lack of gloves.

Health experts warn that many countries will be overwhelmed if the coronavirus spreads, and it is already uncomfortably close. Several ministers in Burkina Faso have been infected, as has a top aide to Nigeria’s president. An aide to Congo's leader died.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness and lead to death.

“If you test positive in a country, you should seek care in that country,” the head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. John Nkengasong, told reporters Thursday. "It’s not a death sentence."

In Nigeria, some worried their president might be among the victims. Long skittish about President Muhammadu Buhari's absences from public view, including weeks in London for treatment for unspecified health problems, they took to Twitter to ask why he hadn’t addressed the nation as virus cases rose.

Buhari's office dismissed speculation about his whereabouts as unfounded rumor. When he did emerge Sunday night, he announced that all private jet flights were suspended. The international airports were already closed.

While the travel restrictions have grounded the merely wealthy, political analyst Alex Rusero said a determined African leader probably could still find a way to go abroad for care.

“They are scared of death so much they will do everything within their disposal, even if it's a private jet to a private hospital in a foreign land,” said Rusero, who is based in Zimbabwe, whose late President Robert Mugabe often sought treatment in Asia.

Perhaps nowhere is the situation bleaker than in Zimbabwe, where the health system has collapsed. Even before the pandemic, patients’ families were often asked to provide essentials like gloves and clean water. Doctors last year reported using bread bags to collect patients' urine.

Zimbabwe’s vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, departed last month for unrelated medical treatment in China, as the outbreak eased in that country. Zimbabwe closed its borders days later after its first virus death.

Chiwenga has since returned — to lead the country's coronavirus task force.

But some in a new generation of African leaders have been eager to show sensitivity to virus-prevention measures.

The president of Botswana, Mokgweetsi Masisi, initially defied his country’s restrictions on travel by government employees to visit neighboring Namibia for its leader’s inauguration. But he entered self-quarantine and now reminds others to stay home, calling it "literally a matter of life and death.”

South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced he had tested negative, just ahead of a three-week lockdown in Africa's most developed country. Madagascar President Andry Rajoelina has as well.

Other leaders, including Burkina Faso President Roch Marc Christian Kabore and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, have tweeted images of themselves working via video conference as countries encourage people to keep their distance.

While African leaders are more tied to home than ever, their access to medical care is still far better than most of their citizens'.

In Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, medical student Franck Bienvenu Zida was self-isolating and worried after having contact with someone who tested positive.

The 26-year-old feared infecting people where he lives, but his efforts to get tested were going nowhere. In three days of calling an emergency number to request a test, he could not get through.

Associated Press writers Sam Mednick in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, contributed to this report.

Plane Passenger Racked up £231 Phone Bill After Failing to put Phone on Flight Mode.

While most of us think flying is as easy as showing your passport at the check-in desk and taking your seat, there’s a few rules that you really shouldn’t ignore.

Of course, the safety demonstration should always be listened to, but when it comes to your electronic devices, turning them on to flight mode is a necessity.

One plane passenger found out the hard way, when he racked up a £231 bill after leaving his phone in his hand luggage and not putting it on flight mode for the duration of the flight. The man was flying from Ireland to the US with Irish carrier, Aer Lingus, when he put his phone away in the overhead compartment. He told the Irish Times he couldn’t believe it when he received a bill from his phone provider, AT&T, few weeks later, for $400 (£231).

AT&T told the publication that the bill was due to “antennas installed on the plane that operate outside an unlimited international roaming plan”.

They “automatically connect with phones that are not in flight mode and run up charges – even when the phones are not in use”.

There’s also another reason why you should always switch your phone to flight mode. According to a pilot on Quora, not putting your phone in flight mode can make a “bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzzt-bzzt-bzzt” noise in your pilot’s headphones and drain your phone’s battery really quickly. 

“You may have heard that unpleasant noise from an audio system, which occasionally happens when a mobile phone is nearby,” Nikita Schmidt wrote. 

“I actually hear such noise on the radio while flying. It is not safety critical, but is annoying for sure.”

While your phone’s signal is too weak to bring a plane down, it uses more power mid-air searching for a connection with each tower it flies over, and in turn, drains your phone’s battery and gives your pilot a massive headache. Not only is it disruptive to your pilot trying to focus on flying you from A to B safely, it can interfere with your pilot receiving information from ground control. 

So the next time flight attendants tell you to turn that phone on flight mode, you might just want to do it for “common courtesy.”

“By switching your phone to airplane mode you show your appreciation to the people doing their job to get you where you want to be,” the pilot says.

Nigeria Could Teach the West a Few Things.

A trip is often defined by its surprises, so here are my biggest revelations from six days in Lagos, Nigeria. 

Most of all, I found Lagos to be much safer than advertised. It is frequently described as one of the most dangerous cities on earth. Many people told me I was crazy to go there, and some Nigerian expats warned me I might not get out of the airport alive.

The reality is that I walked around freely and in many parts of town. I didn’t try to go everywhere or at all hours, and I may have been lucky. Yet not once did I feel threatened, and I strongly suspect that a trip to Lagos is safer than a trip to Rio de Janeiro, a major tourist destination. (In my first trip to Rio I was attacked by children with pointed sticks. In my second I found myself caught in a gunfight between drug lords). Many Lagos residents credit the advent of closed-circuit television cameras for their safety improvements. 

So if you’re an experienced traveler, and tempted to visit Africa’s largest and arguably most dynamic city, don’t let safety concerns be a deal killer. 

The surprises mount. For all the negative publicity, many parts of Nigeria, especially Lagos, could and should serve as exemplars for religious tolerance. 

The reports of Boko Haram and terror killings are well known, and they reflect the interlocking and sometimes deadly combinations of regional, religious, sectarian and ethnic identities in the country, not to mention extreme inequalities of income and opportunity. Yet Nigeria has about 180 million people and is larger than Texas. The violence is the most frequently reported story in the West, but the underlying reality is far more complex and shows positive features. 

For instance, the city of Lagos is in many regards a marvel of religious tolerance. Nigeria is about 50 percent Muslim and 40 percent Christian, and the area surrounding Lagos is also highly mixed in terms of religion. That may sound like a recipe for trouble, but in matters of religion Lagos is almost entirely peaceful. Religious intermarriage is common and usually not problematic, as is the case in many (not all) other parts of Nigeria as well. Many top Nigerian politicians have married outside their religion, kept two separate religions in the family and enjoyed continued political success.  

Consider the scale and speed of this achievement. Lagos, with a population of about 20 million, is larger than many countries. It is the most commercially oriented part of Nigeria, and it grew so large only in the last few decades, as it attracted entrepreneurially minded people from many parts of Nigeria and other African countries. By one estimate, 85 new residents arrive every hour. That may sound chaotic, but in essence Nigeria has in a few decades created an almost entirely new, country-sized city built on the ideals and practice of religious tolerance. The current president, Muhammadu Buhari, is a Muslim who was supported in his election by many Christian leaders, on the grounds that he would fight corruption more effectively. His running mate served as a Pentecostal pastor.  

The recent history of Nigeria, Lagos in particular, is also a counterweight to some recent Western political trends. Many Westerners today fear resurgent nationalism, as illustrated by the U.K.'s vote to leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump.

In Nigeria, nationalism is largely a progressive force, bringing the country together and allowing nation-building and infrastructure development. However imperfect or backward these processes might be -- Nigeria has at least 270 distinct ethnic groups and 370 languages -- in Nigeria one is rooting for nationalism to succeed. And it’s in Lagos, the country’s largest and most important window to the outside world, where the understanding of the importance of a common and stable national identity has made such progress. 

Many Westerners used to consider much of Africa backward in this regard, but we Westerners are learning again that national cohesion isn’t always so easy. Perhaps the political spectrum in many Western countries can realign itself in a direction analogous to some features of Nigeria, to ally liberalism and nationalism once again. 

Courtesy: Bloomberg.net

Megabus: Travelers Beware!

If you must travel by a “Megabus” (operated by the Coach USA), try to first go through the following check-list:
Is the bus road-worthy?
Are the tires of the bus in good condition?
Are you prepared to wait in one spot forever in case the bus develops a mechanical fault?
If only my daughter had done the above, she would not have been subjected to the stressful and traumatic experience of yesterday.
The young lady had the misfortune of getting on a Megabus at Washington DC on her way to Delaware. Thirty minutes into the journey, the bus developed a fault and for several hours, the passengers were stranded on the highway as they waited “forever” for a mechanic to come fix the problem. In the meantime, the hapless passengers had no water to drink and no food to eat.
The most pathetic aspect of it all was that Megabus or CoachUSA had no contact address or phone number by which the passengers could reach the corporate office of the establishment. The company’s website itself only contained the various ways tickets could be booked and money paid. The customers’ reviews were however a major pointer to the quality of service offered by Megabus. Many of the reviews were absolutely negative with several horror stories
When my daughter finally arrived her destination (Delaware), she was about eight hours late!

The Richard Branson’s Space Tourism.

The Yoruba people in my ancestral homeland have a saying: “When some people are comfortably well-fed, they will start looking for a sharp instrument to pry open their stomachs.”

This is precisely what Richard Branson’s space tourism is doing by providing space trips to some stinking-rich, bored-stiff individuals. These guys are paying bundles of money to go on space trips. However, it’s not just the huge amount of money that is at stake on this silly, ego-boosting trips to space. Lives of the money-rich-road guys and those of their pilots are also on the line.

Last Friday morning, one of such space tourism rockets (a Virgin Galactic) exploded above the Mojave Desert during a test flight. The accident killed one pilot while seriously injuring the other even as he managed to parachute to the ground.

Hear Richard Branson on the ill-fated rocket that crashed last Friday: “We would love to finish what we started some years ago … I think millions of people would one day love the chance to go to space.”

Yeah right! But only those who are rich and dumb at the same time will contemplate a trip to "the space" in those funny-looking things called rockets. This is especially stupid when there are lots of very beautiful tourist attractions all over the world. Yes, there are risks even on regular human habitations across the world. But they are absolutely little when compared to the per-second risks of deaths in the large expanse of clouds in the outer space.



 

Nigerians’ Obsession With America.

Some years back, I was on vacation in Nigeria, my ancestral home. And while there, I marveled at the obsessive interest that most of my folks back home have in America. For instance, I observed that almost all the young people, including elementary school pupils, appeared to be daily equipped with the latest news about America. To them, America is not just the pace-setter in every field of endeavor but also the ultimate in nationhood. Even the American currency is fondly called the “almighty dollar”. There is therefore the desperate urge to tailor personal styles and business goals along every trend that emanates from God’s own country.

I noticed that in spite of the year-long Nigerian summer, when my folks are on vacation, nothing at home attracts their interest. Not some of the popular local tourist attractions such as the Yankari games reserve and the Osun grove. And not even the mysterious Ikogosi spring which serves as the confluence for two different streams, one hot and the other cold, and both of unknown sources.  Ironically, these are the stuffs that attract foreigners, including Americans every year.

Vacationing Americans, I argued with friends resident in Nigeria, are known for visits to local attractions such as the Grand Canyon and Walt Disney. Those of them who venture out of their country often do so only to explore natural wonders of optimum interest in other lands. And while the Americans return from each vacation with a fresh outlook, their Nigerian counterparts are all stressed out. This is so because all they do is wander through the American inner cities, usually in the humid heat of summer.  It’s quite mind boggling that anyone will, on annual basis, incur outrageous expense just to see business districts, skyscrapers and the hustle and bustle of a foreign city as if similar structures don’t exist back home.

All through my stay in Nigeria, I listened as my people made frequent comparisons between their nascent democracy and the over 200 year-old American political system. I also noted their habitual cynicism and routine assumptions that corruption and inefficiency are a monopoly of the corporate managers in their home land. When reminded of the scandals that rocked Worldcom and Enron some years back and the current financial indiscipline of such a company as AIG, they only shrugged their shoulders nonchalantly. Not even tales about the dwindling fortunes of several American corporate entities in the wake of the current economic melt down would convince them that human nature is the same all over the globe.

And there is the issue of animals. To those folks back home, America is simply a replica of the biblical Garden of Eden where Man and animals co-habit amicably. On satellite TV channels, Nigerians are ever amused to see deer, squirrels and other animals roam about the American neighborhoods without let or hindrance. This is in sharp contrast to their “cat and mouse” relationship with animals. Over there in Nigeria, animals are smart enough to confine themselves to some far-away, thick jungles. Even favorites among pets and domesticated animals such as dogs, rabbits and goats have to watch their backs lest they end up in the cooking pots of some lurking human predators.

Nowhere however, is the obsession of Nigerians for America so glaring as in the lifestyles of the younger generation. American-oriented funky churches, Hip-hop, rap music, fast food joints, fashion and technological trends are all over the nation’s social and economic landscapes.

Incidentally though, there still exist some no-go areas. For example, counselors and psychiatrists are often rendered idle in such a communal setting where payment for an advice is considered absurd. It comes freely from an experienced parent or older relation with age-long wisdom to share and ready shoulders to offer.

There is also the idea of a man adorned with ear-rings. While this is a popular fad in America, it is anathema to most Nigerians.  The few visiting American-based Nigerian men who dare try to “show off” with ear-rings are often jeered at and stared down with ignominy by the locals. It’s indeed worse when the same man braids his hair. Over there, in the most populous Black nation on earth, it’s religiously sacrilegious for a man to braid his hair.  Besides that, Nigeria is a man’s world. Therefore nothing can be more ridiculous and scornful than a man who looks like a woman. But as they say, one man’s meat is another’s poison. There are some other peculiar habits and orientations that Americans tolerate but which Nigerians consider as taboos and assaults on societal sensibility.

Much as the young Nigerians sheepishly eye every fad from America, the conservative society at large knows where to draw the line. Therefore, just as rice is separated from chaff, so are existing local core values constantly protected from the negative influences of all eroding foreign cultures, American included.