The Prostitute As Assassin
By Reuben Abati


"When any of my customers wants

to have sex with me without

using condoms, I usually

protest. Then we will strike a

bargain and we will do it. He

won't know that he is buying his

death with his own money.

However, there are many who will

never have sex without using

condoms. But I have a way of

dealing with them. When I am

having sex with such men, I

usually shake my buttocks

vigorously so as to burst the

condom, and if the condom bursts

and the man is carried away, he

won't bother about fixing

another condom".

These lines are taken from a

pathetic story in The Sun

newspaper of Saturday, April 18.

They belong to a young Nigerian

lady called Sandra, who has been

served the wrong end of the

stick by a crazy society where

the future is uncertain even for

young girls, and who has chosen

to become an assassin in

protest. There are probably many

others like her whose stories

move us to tears and frustration

and for whom we feel neither

disgust nor pity but sympathy.

Sandra's story holds in one

explosive capsule, many of the

disturbing issues in the

Nigerian society: the insecurity

of lives and property, the lack

of trauma care for victims of

circumstances, the abortion of

hopes, rape, prostitution,

abortion, poverty, the failure

of governance, and the likely

effect of psychological and

social violence on the society

at large. Increasingly,

everyday, Nigerians are

disappointed by society, and in

all ways, they turn upon and

against each other; such

spectacle of man's inhumanity to

man, such display of social

violence. And yet it is common

to hear them proclaim "the grace

of God" in their lives.

Sandra's story is shocking says

Henry Umahi, the reporter of her

story. Indeed it is. Four years

ago, the future lay at her feet.

She was 17, a virgin, and she

had just been offered admission

into the Delta State University,

Abraka, to study Banking and

Finance. Many young Nigerians

love to study Banking and

Finance. It is certainly not one

of those courses of study that

former President Olusegun

Obasanjo considered useless. She

must have dreamt of getting a

job in a bank, with a good

salary to go with it, nicely cut

skirts and the self-confidence

that comes with having made

something out of one's life. But

Nigerian roads are full of

dangers.

She had travelled to Asaba to

visit her elder brother, her

only sibling, who obviously was

willing to pay her school fees.

Two days after, her brother died

in a motor accident. Motor

accident is an easy cause of

death in Nigeria. The roads are

bad. The drivers are reckless.

The vehicles are mostly second

hand, used vehicles from Europe

and North America running on

used and worn tyres that are not

made for the tropics. Earlier

this year, the FRSC reported

that over 1.2 million persons

died from motor accident-related

injuries in 2008 alone! The

hospitals are ill-equipped,

there is no emergency rescue

facility, and concerned passers

-by who usually stop to help,

have no clues about how to deal

with emergencies and save lives.

Nigerians survive on the roads,

by "the grace of God".

"In fact for me", says Sandra,

"life had come to an abrupt

end." But the worst was yet to

come. "Another tragedy befell me

on my way home to tell my poor

mother. Our bus was hijacked by

five armed men. They took the

vehicle into the bush, robbed us

and raped the women. I was one

of those the bastards raped. At

that time I was still a virgin.

I had not known a man. It was a

very ugly experience and it made

me wonder what a cruel world we

live in. It was so horrible, I

passed out during the gruesome

rape. I had pleaded with them,

but they wouldn't let go. Before

the attacks, I was already in

sorrow and tears. It was the

worst thing that could happen to

anyone and it made me form an

opinion about men."

Sandra couldn't tell anyone what

had happened to her. Rape is one

of the biggest problems in

Nigeria, and the unfortunate

thing is that the extant law and

the fear of social stigma make

it extremely difficult for women

who have been so abused to get

justice. Robbery on the highways

is also rampant. Vehicles are

waylaid by armed robbers and

after looting cash and property,

the hoodlums always end up

raping the women. Rarely do the

victims go to the police. Women

are raped in police stations too

by police officers and other

uniformed men.

When soldiers raided Odi a few

years ago, after sacking the

community, they asked the women

to line up and they raped them

one after the other. The Punch

newspaper published the

photographs but there is no

record of any soldier being

punished for rape. These days,

the newspapers are full of

reports of rape: old men abuse

young girls, campus cultists

rape female students and female

lecturers, fathers rape their

daughters. The ones who get

caught blame the Devil. The

country is full of the devil's

agents. Unless rape is properly

criminalized by protecting the

interest of the victim, the

problem is bound to persist. The

highways also need to become

more secure.

Sandra couldn't "bring herself

to tell anyone what happened,

not even her mother", because

she didn't want to be

stigmatised. She couldn't seek

help, because there are no

counseling centres provided by

the state. Then all of a sudden,

she discovered that she was

pregnant. She finally had to

confide in her mother. She also

chose to abort the pregnancy:

those who insist that abortion

is anti-God should read her

story. She had no choice. Then,

after the abortion, she

discovered that she had been

infected with the dreaded HIV.

With her brother dead, there was

no way she could take up the

offer of admission into

university. With the HIV-

infection, she felt her world

had come to an end. From being a

virgin and a prospective

university student,

circumstances had conspired to

turn her into a failure, all

within six months.

When one of her friends later

suggested that she could go to

Lagos and become a commercial

sex worker, she readily agreed.

Her goal: "to make money and to

infect men with HIV". And so she

says: "for three years now, I

have been distributing the stuff

and it makes me really happy.

Men are evil; they deserve no

mercy. To hell with the men of

this world". By the reporter's

calculations, Sandra would have

infected about 4, 640 men with

HIV in the last three years, at

the rate of four men per day.

These are men who do not want to

use condom, or those who fall

victim of Sandra's buttocks-

wriggling tactics.

Is Sandra the devil-incarnate?

Is she suffering as they say

around here, "from home

trouble?". What is known is that

she thinks all the men of this

world are evil. If she was sure

that the armed robbers who raped

her were later arrested and made

to pay for their crime, perhaps

she would have been satisfied

that justice had been done. She

believes that the world is cruel

and she is willing to promote

that cruelty further. Should we

blame her? A few years ago, the

story was told of a self-

respecting lady who was raped by

armed robbers. She couldn't

stand the shame. She reportedly

committed suicide. Sandra is not

willing to die, rather she has

become an assassin: punishing

menfolk for the crime that five

of their kind committed. Imagine

the number of other women and

men that would have fallen

victim through Sandra.

Even in her unhappy state, she

had cause to smile recently when

two soldiers decided to rape her

at Tarkwa Bay. She said she not

only enjoyed the moment, she

"was shedding tears of joy".

"The only thing that I regret is

that they stole my money and

handsets". What a story. Human

lives no longer mean anything to

her. For her, money and a

handset are more important. And

"any man that comes her way is

an enemy".

And she tells her story with

utmost glee. Her story speaks to

the failure of government. It is

the responsibility of government

to inspire confidence in the

justice system, so that

aggrieved persons may seek

justice formally rather than

resort to jungle justice and

self-help. Sandra's protest is

not only directed at men, but

also at the Nigerian state which

has been unable to protect men,

women and human rights and

provide equal opportunities for

all.

This is also a story that should

be circulated among all men who

keep multiple partners,

including those who do not

patronise prostitutes, but who

like to play around all the

same, buying death with their

money. Those who argue that

abstinence and fidelity to a

single partner is the best way

to minimize the risk of HIV

infection through sex should be

excited by this story. "AIDS no

dey show for face," says one

advert on television. Sandra's

picture is published in The Sun

newspaper, with her face blocked

out to protect her identity, but

the visible outline of her body,

gait and gap-tooth suggests that

she must be quite attractive.

Who would ever suspect that she

is an assassin on the prowl? And

how many ladies are like her and

even men too, looking for ways

of spreading HIV?

The Sun newspaper should not

stop at telling her story,

efforts should be made to bring

help her way. Civil society

groups working on HIV/AIDS

issues should seek her out, and

help to wean her from her chosen

"mission to kill". She also

obviously needs psychiatric

help. But more importantly, a

lot still needs to be done to

enlighten Nigerians about the

reality of HIV/AIDS. Until Fela,

the Afro-beat maestro died of

HIV-related complications and

his family chose to disclose the

cause of death, many Nigerians

regarded HIV/AIDS as Western

propaganda. After a few years of

so-called general awareness,

Nigerians have now gone back to

their old state of denial. There

are Nigerian men who continue to

insist that they will never use

condom or that it is unnatural

to stay with one partner.

"How can a man be eating the

same thing everyday?", they

query. "Do you know anybody who

is living with HIV/AIDS.?

Everywhere you turn: AIDS AIDS,

AIDS but I don't know anybody

who has died of AIDS. Look more

people are dying from malaria

and heart attack", one fellow

once argued. I have heard people

declare cynically that "man must

die of something." When you

point to national statistics and

the HIV sero-prevalence, they

readily tell you that those

figures have been manufactured

by NGOs and government agencies

in order to attract foreign

funding. And these are supposed

to be educated Nigerians.

And so they fall into the hands

of the likes of Sandra, with a

fine face, murderous condom-

negotiating skills and the heart

to kill. And the tragedy

spreads. What does the law say?

Is she insane? Or she should be

recommended for arrest, but she

would probably end up sleeping

with an entire police station,

spread more HIV, and walk free.

African governments have been challenged to commit to invest 10 percent of their national budgets to agriculture, to overcome the global food crisis. If this is applied, it will be a step towards meeting the first Millennium Development Goal of halving poverty and hunger by 2015.

The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) estimates that at least $14 billion (Shs23.8 trillion) per annum is needed to address this challenge. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the annual additional investment is estimated to be about $5 billion (Shs8.5 trillion).

Mr Joachim von Braun, IFPRI director general in his remarks about the 2008 Global Hunger Index report released ahead of the 'World Food Day' which is marked on October 16 said: "Priorities for action at the national and global level must address the immediate food needs of poor people priced out of food markets".

"At the same time, national governments and the global community should begin to correct previous failures in agricultural policy by investing in agriculture and food production, setting up reliable systems for assisting the most vulnerable people in a timely way, and establishing a fair global trading system and a conducive investment environment," Braun said.

He added that the strategic way forward must be facilitated by international cooperation and guided by strong global governance architecture of agriculture, food, and nutrition.

"To substantially improve food security in the 21st century, changes need to be made now," he added. In Uganda, this financial year, government has earmarked a total of Shs50 billion as credit guarantees for banks that lend for agriculture.

Government also provided tax exemptions to encourage enterprises to go into agricultural processing in rural areas and tax exemptions were provided to encourage investment in the construction of hotels, hospitals and educational institutions.

To address the current food crisis and improve the long-term functioning of the world food system, IFPRI recommends productivity and research, which undertake fast-impact food production programmes in key areas and scale up investments for sustained agricultural productivity, including agricultural science policy and appropriate finance.

Another recommendation is nutrition and social protection, which expands emergency responses and humanitarian assistance to food-insecure people and invest in social protection for nutritional improvement.

In terms of markets and trade recommendations demand elimination of agricultural trade restrictions and facilitate rule-based and fair global and regional trade openness; change biofuel policies; support market-oriented regulation of speculation, and implement innovative virtual grain reserve policies.

The 2008 Global Hunger Index (GHI) says sub-Saharan African countries have the highest level of hunger in the world, with Niger, Sierra Leone and Liberia experiencing "extremely alarming levels of hunger," however, this is still an improvement over 1990 levels.

The study, released on 14 October by anti-hunger non-profits the US-based International Food Policy Research Institute, Ireland's Concern Worldwide and Germany's Welthungerhilfe, compiled the most recent country data available - from 2006. It calculated the rankings based on the percentage of malnourished people, under-five underweight children, and under-five child mortality for 120 countries where hunger is a concern.

The study indicated that the hunger snapshot "offers a picture of the past, not the present," because of the two-year data gap.

Since then, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) has measured a more than 50-percent increase in food prices; the price of rice, a staple in most of sub-Saharan Africa, has quadrupled worldwide.

Only Burkina Faso was listed among West African countries as a net exporter of cereals.

Liberia

Liberia's Deputy Information Minister for Public Affairs, Gabriel Williams, told IRIN the index means little for Liberia since the study gathered data from the country's years of civil conflict and economic collapse, and did not cover the most recent post-war gains: "This does not represent the reality on the ground. Within the past two years, the economy is growing and the government is making efforts to ensure full sufficiency."

Williams said President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf launched a campaign in 2007 - called "Back to the Soil" - to increase agricultural self sufficiency.

Niger

Niger had the highest level of hunger in the region. Though its score improved since 1990, this was not enough to inch it out of the study's "extremely alarming" hunger group. But the UN World Food Programme's deputy country director in Niger, Gianluca Ferrera, told IRIN in August the country's global acute malnutrition rate has decreased from 15.3 to 10.7 percent between 2005 and 2008 due to improved treatments for malnutrition.

Sierra Leone

The rank of the third West African country in the "extremely alarming" group, Sierra Leone, stayed the same during the period of the study, which overlapped with the country's 11-year civil war that ended in 2002.

Cyril Lahai, Sierra Leone's FAO representative, told IRIN the government is doing as much as it can to fight hunger, with limited resources. "There are factors that impede the fight, including the high cost of agricultural inputs for farmers to grow their own food, which leads to low levels of crude production. The government is trying to modernise the country's agricultural system and move it into commercial production."

Lahai said the government is looking to complete the transformation within the next five years. "There is hope for the country. I have hope."

Standing in the midst of a freshly planted maize field, Bright Osei Kwaku recalls that last year he more than doubled his output with the help of improved seeds, fertilizer and advice on farming techniques. Altogether, his two to three acres yielded about 15 100-kilogramme bags of maize, compared with just six bags the year before, when he had no such support.

Many other young Ghanaians have either left agriculture or dream of doing so. But Mr. Kwaku, now 25 years old, thinks he can stay on the land. "I will continue to farm," he told Africa Renewal. "I got income and food. I got enough from the farm."


With world food prices rising, it is a good time to push for higher production, argues Isaac Kankam-Boadu, the agriculture and environment facilitator of the Millennium Villages Project in Bonsaaso, a cluster of poor and remote settlements in Ghana's Ashanti Region. "The high food prices are an opportunity," he says. "The farmers can earn more money."

Last year, Mr. Kankam-Boadu reports, Bonsaaso's maize farmers managed to quadruple their yields from an average of about one tonne per hectare (two and a half acres) to four tonnes. Besides boosting their own incomes, the farmers contributed about a tenth of their crop to the area's new school feeding programme, which helps many of the area's children.

Millennium Villages

Such linkages are at the heart of the Millennium Villages Project. The first Millennium Village was launched in 2004 in Sauri, Kenya, as an integrated development initiative. Besides Ghana, the project soon expanded to also include villages in Ethiopia, Malawi, Mali, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Tanzania and Uganda. The sites were selected on the basis of their poverty indicators and to represent Africa's different ecological and climate zones. Altogether, more than 400,000 people now live in villages chosen for the project.

The idea grew from research and policy deliberations of the Millennium Task Force, directed by the UN Secretary-General's special adviser on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Jeffrey Sachs. The MDGs, adopted by world leaders in 2000, strive to drastically reduce poverty and deprivation around the world.

Expanding access to clean water is one of the goals of the Millennium Villages Project.

The Millennium Villages approach is based on two central ideas: The first is that simple and inexpensive changes in nutrition, health, water, sanitation, education, women's status, agriculture, communications, roads and electricity can lift rural Africans out of severe poverty. The second is that a combination of community mobilization, government support and external aid can fund these efforts for only about $110 per person per year. Most of the Millennium Village projects are being implemented by the UN Development Programme (UNDP).

Initial funders included the government of Japan, which gave more than $9 mn, and the US-based financier and philanthropist George Soros, who gave $5 mn. On 13 March, the Japanese government decided to extend its assistance by an additional $11.4 mn.

Japan's assistance to the project is part of that country's wider programme of support for Asia-Africa cooperation, known as the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD). The fourth conference was held in Yokohama, Japan, on 28-30 May, and was attended by Ghanaian President John Kufuor and nearly 40 other African heads of state (see article). Near the top of TICAD's agenda was achievement of the MDGs, which is also central to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD), Africa's own blueprint for economic, social and political progress.

From school meals to cell phones

The Millennium initiative came to Bonsaaso in March 2006, initially in 10 localities. By the end of that year the project had expanded to 30 communities, covering some 400 square kilometres and affecting more than 30,000 people. The area was selected because many residents were very poor, malnutrition was common, there were few health services, many children did not go to school and numerous other indicators of human development lagged.

Rather than focusing on just one or two sectors, the project's designers want to show that poverty can be attacked across a wide front. If successful here and in other countries, says Sam Asare Afram, the Millennium Village manager in Bonsaaso, the project could provide a "model" for the continent.

Although the project is only two years old, communities in Bonsaaso are already enjoying real results. Rita Adjei, head nurse at the health clinic in Watreso, says that the new anti-mosquito bed nets mean that fewer children get malaria, although diarrhoea is still a serious problem caused by a lack of clean water and sanitation. She points to a bank of solar-powered chargers for cell phones, donated by Sony Ericsson. Once the Bonsaaso area comes under better cell phone coverage, Ms. Adjei and her assistant nurses will be able to quickly obtain better information and advice for their patients.

Nana Dapaah Siakwan, the traditional chief of Aboaboso, estimates that enrolment in the local primary school has increased from 200 to 500, largely thanks to the school feeding programme that began in March 2007. There also is a new health clinic. Until it opened, seriously ill patients had to be carried many kilometres along forest paths to a distant clinic-on a tabletop, since there was no stretcher, explains the chief. Now, he adds, "We have seen the benefits."

Mohammed Salifu, a cocoa farmer, produced nine 64-kilogramme bags in 2007, up from just four the year before, simply by following the advice of an agricultural extension officer sent to Bonsaaso by the Ministry of Food and Agriculture. With new seedlings of a higher-yielding and faster-growing variety of cocoa, he hopes to do even better this year.

Bigger cocoa and food harvests will bring new challenges, however. The abysmal state of the roads within Bonsaaso and with other parts of Ghana makes it hard for farmers to get their crops to market. But Chinese road contractors hired by the government are busy at work, and the project has acquired two five-tonne trucks to help transport produce. Developing physical infrastructure is not one of the MDGs, notes Ernest Mensah, a project facilitator. "But if you want to eradicate poverty," he adds, "you need infrastructure."

Avoiding dependency

Critics of donor-aided development projects in Africa point out that they often tend to make the beneficiaries dependent on outside assistance, and frequently collapse if that money eventually dries up. The Millennium Villages Project does rely on significant inflows. On average, about 60 per cent of project financing comes from donors, 30 per cent from national and local governments and the rest from the communities themselves.

In part, the project is designed to convince donors to provide more financing over the long term, by demonstrating concretely that aid can be used effectively to reduce poverty. A careful tally is kept of every dollar spent in Bonsaaso and other Millennium Villages, not only to avoid waste and inefficiency, but also to demonstrate to donor governments that simple interventions can make a real impact. "They don't know how practical the solutions are," says Mr. Sachs, referring to donor agencies. "They don't realize that at very low cost - just a few dollars - you can save children's lives."

By showing that external aid can indeed be effective in Africa, Mr. Sachs and his colleagues hope to convince the major industrialized countries to live up to their commitments. The 2005 summit meeting of the Group of Eight industrialized countries, for example, pledged to provide Africa with about $50 bn in aid annually by 2010 - still about twice what donors are giving so far.

To help guard against local expectations that such outside assistance will continue to keep the Millennium Villages functioning, project planners stress that certain forms of aid will be steadily reduced and that governments and villagers will need to take up a greater share of the cost. The new higher-yielding cocoa seedlings provided to farmers are currently subsidized, notes Mr. Kankam-Boadu. But as farmers earn more from their cocoa sales, by next year the subsidies will begin declining, "to let them know the realities of the market."

Similarly, health care in Bonsaaso's new clinics is free for the time being, to encourage poor villagers to use their services. But, explains Mr. Afram, free care is not sustainable over the long term. Project workers therefore are helping villagers sign up for Ghana's national health insurance scheme.

In various ways, project organizers are encouraging national and local government bodies to expand their presence in Bonsaaso: by building roads, extending electricity connections and sending in more teachers, health care workers and agricultural extension advisers.

Building up community institutions and a spirit of self-help are also vital for long-term sustainability. Local residents regularly participate in the construction of new schools, teachers' quarters, clinics and community centres by providing labour and contributing sand, stones, timber and other construction materials.

The project employs several "facilitators" to help strengthen school management committees, parents' associations, water committees and other bodies, and to engage traditional chiefs, who play a major role in mobilizing people. Stephen Antwi, the project's community development coordinator, told Africa Renewal that community structures will help Bonsaaso keep developing even when outside aid eventually falls. "We'll likely have the capacity for many years."

The African Development Bank (AfDB), the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), and the World Bank today called for an increase in funding and a renewed focus on agricultural water management in Africa, including irrigation, drainage and rainwater harvesting. Representatives of AfDB, NEPAD and the World Bank issued the call after a special session on agriculture water use in Africa held in Tunis at the First African Water Week. The meeting discussed challenges facing agriculture water development in Africa and a proposal for a new initiative aimed at scaling up investments and ensuring a more reliable, broad-based and sustained flow of funds for agricultural water, as well promoting analytical work and supporting sectoral strategies in the field of agricultural water. The Initiative would promote knowledge sharing, dissemination and capacity strengthening. It would launch innovative business lines in support of agricultural water management and sustainable development. It will also foster regional integration, coordination and partnerships, and empowerment of national and regional stakeholders.

According to the World Bank’s latest World Development Report, growth in the agricultural sector in Africa is vital to poverty reduction and to the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). “Strategic public and related private investment in water management will be essential for the intensification of agricultural production and for meeting targets for poverty alleviation, food production and economic recovery by 2015,”said Richard Mkandawire, NEPAD’s Agriculture Advisor. “Reliance on irregular and unreliable rainfall for agricultural production is a major constraint on crop productivity in the region,” Mkandawire added.

The Tunis meeting discussed the agricultural water strategy: Investment in agricultural water for poverty reduction and economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa which was jointly prepared by the World Bank, AfDB, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and International Water Management Institute (IWMI), in response to NEPAD’s desire to implement land and water management (Pillar I) of the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Program (CAADP). The CAADP encompasses among other objectives an increase in the area under sustainable water management in Africa to 20 million hectares, up from less than 7 million hectares at present.

“Developing water resources and rural infrastructure are among the key priority areas of the African Development Bank in Africa. The ongoing agriculture portfolio of the Bank comprises 240 projects covering 28 countries with a total investment of US$3 billion. More than a third of the investment portfolio, ie US$1.37 billion, has been assigned to agriculture water development covering 53 projects and programs, and benefiting 23 African countries,” said Aly Abou-Sabaa, Director of the Agriculture and Agro-Industry Department of the AfDB. “The initiative is timely in view of the rising food prices across the globe and the World Bank is committed to investing up to US$1 billion in sustainable agricultural water projects over the next 5 years”, said John Stein, Acting Director of the Sustainable Development Department, Africa Region, World Bank.