Windsor Rotary Club (1918) Sharon's Nigeria talk

Our Club is Located in Windsor Ontario Canada

Sharon's Nigeria Trip

There is a democratic system of government, based on the American model. There is, however, a parallel system of influence and power. The south of Nigeria is predominantly Christian, while the north is about 90% Muslim. Each state has an Emir, who is a religious and tribal leader. He is elected by a council, and holds office until death. In most states, the office has been held by the same influential families for hundreds of years, so it is almost like a monarchy. It is also very tribal. There are 3 dominant tribes in Nigeria, but there are 360 tribes in total. The Nigerians told us that the Emirs are wealthy individuals that but votes and thereby but the government. For most Nigerians, a couple of dollars is worth a lot more than the right to vote.

We spent the first two days in Lagos, for orientation. Then our team headed north. We were overwhelmed with images in Kano that we are still trying to digest. It is a desert climate, very warm and dry. Traffic was wild thousands of cars and motorbikes, teenage vendors selling everything from water to phones, and hundreds of goats all shared the roads, mostly unpaved, and full of ruts and potholes with no traffic lights, stop signs, or speed limits. The region is steeped in tradition. It seems bizarre, however, when it looks like a scene from 1001 Arabian nights with people on motorbikes with cell phones.

We were told that the northern cities were safe because of the strict Islamic law. Yet we stayed in a gated hotel with guards in the hallways 24 hours a day; we were not allowed to venture out on our own, or even cross the street without our Nigerian hosts. Commonly when we went out we were accompanies by armed guards. On Friday afternoons were were kept inside because these hours of Muslim worship were the most likely times that violence might erupt.

That gives you a flavour about the environment. Now I want to talk a bit about polio. Polio is a disease that attacks the nervous system. It destroys the nerves that convey messages from the brain to the muscles. When they messages cannot be conveyed, the muscles cannot be used, and they atrophy. This results in crippling, and often in death.

Since 1988 polio has been attacked, worldwide, by a partnership that includes the World Health Organization, Unicef, Care, Rotary International, and many governments. In 1988 there were thousands of cases of polio each year in dozens of countries. This year there have been less than 500 cases worldwide in only a handful of countries. We are winning the battle. The polio story has brought us to a place where we can realistically hope to eradicate it from the world by Rotary’s 100th anniversary in 2005.

Children are immunized against polio in two ways. When the dead polio vaccine is used, it is injected. It is used to immunize most children through a regular course of immunizations in early childhood. In countries where polio continues to be endemic, and mass immunizations are necessary, the live vaccine is used. The live vaccine is administered orally, just two tasteless drops in a child’s mouth. Because it is a live vaccine, it continues to multiply in the child’s digestive system. In young children, under five years of age, the intestine walls are still thin enough for the vaccine to permeate and enter the body, immunizing the child. It also passes through the body, into the feces. It is the feces that carries polio, and the vaccine is spread through fecal matter the same way that polio is spread. This helps to immunize the children who did not receive the vaccine. The World Health Organization has shown that if we can administer the vaccine to 60% of the children, we can immunize the society.

That’s the story of the disease. Let me tell you my story about the elimination of the disease.

We thought we went to Nigeria to administer polio vaccine. For the rest of the teams, that is exactly what happened. For our team, it was a much broader experience.

The day we were supposed to start immunizing, we hit a major roadblock. We were taken to a local government office to meet the village head before entering the village to immunize. We learned that the trained immunizers had been replaced by local favorites to do the work. This was a problem because many of the replacements had not been trained or were illiterate. We met in the official’s office, with him, representatives of Care, WHO, Unicef, two international television teams, including CNN. A young man from Unicef eloquently addressed the meddling by the village chief. It was really all about money. The official wanted his own people on the payroll. He then said that the campaign would have to be delayed a week while new people were chosen and trained. This was not possible, because there would be difficulty keeping the distribution system active for an extra week. Finally, the official relented. WHO send in a team that chose and trained individuals that same day, and the immunizing began again in that area the next day.

This problem is typical of the entire Nigerian society. The Nigerians, themselves, told us that Nigeria is most corrupt country in the world. People from Who, Care and Unicef, who have traveled the world, agreed with that assessment. This lesson had been learned long ago, however, and was being applied to the immunization program in Nigeria.

We spend one day following the Cold Chain. This is the distribution system for the vaccine. It must be kept cold below 55 degrees F. It is manufactured in Paris and Beijing and flown into Nigeria. The central storage is in the capital city of Abuja, because that is where the central government officials reside. This creates some difficulties. It would be much simpler if the vaccine was stored in Lagos, the business and economic centre, and flown out to the various locations. There are few flights from Abuja to all sections of the country, so the vaccine is shipped out by refrigerated truck. Many of the trucks break down, or the refrigeration system doesn’t work. Some of the vaccine is spoiled. It is delivered to a central location in each state, then out to communities, then into coolers for distribution in neighborhoods.

In most parts of the country, vaccine was administered in central locations, particularly schools. In the north, even though school is mandatory, only 2% of children attend. Therefore we had to go into the homes to seek out children and administer the vaccine. Only the women on our team were allowed to enter Muslim homes with the immunizers, and we met with some resistance. Many parents did not want their children immunized. Some mothers wanted their children immunized but did not want us to mark their thumbs with the indelible ink, because they did not want the fathers to know about it. Where people resisted, the village elders visited with them in the evening and tried to get them to agree to the immunization. These people, for the most part, are not educated. They have been told that the vaccine is either to sterilize their children in order to wipe out their race, or to give them AIDS. It takes a great deal of effort to overcome these rumours.

The Emir of Kano has done a great job of helping to overcome these problems. He is considered to be one of the three most powerful men in Nigeria. He is a very successful businessman, is well-educated and well traveled. He granted us an audience, with a great deal of ceremony. He is a strong supporter of the polio campaign, and is working hard at what they call social mobilization to ensure that parents have their children immunized. He fired one of his ministers and banished him and his family from the palace for spreading false rumours about the vaccine. He immunized all of his own 55 children, and many others that live in the area of the palace.

The exercise was a great education. There were 40 of us from North America, Rotary Clubs in Nigeria (which include only 500 Rotarians in total) and 100,000 others working as immunizers, administrators, clerks, or supervisors. It sounds like a huge payroll, but we paid all of our own expenses, the Nigerian Rotarians were volunteers, and the locals earn the equivalent of about $5 for their entire 5 days of work.

We were also the only team that was invited to attend the daily meetings each evening with all of the partners. In our region they were headed up by Dr. Fulsum from the World Health Organization. These sessions were candid and constructive. The problems that arose each day were addressed each day because when you only have 5 days to complete the campaign, you can’t afford to waste any of them. There will be two more NIDs in Nigeria, one in January and one in May. Dr. Fulsum believes, based on his 14 years of experience in polio eradication, that this will be successful.

It turned out our job was to be immunizers, supervisors, observers, cheerleaders, and ambassadors. I was fortunate to be from Canada people loved me just because I was Canadian.

It’s funny how our outlook can change in a very short period of time. Here is an example of how my vision changed. When we first arrived in Lagos, we felt it was noisy, dirty, disorganized, run down. When we returned to Lagos one week later, we felt that the city had cleaned itself up a great deal and had installed some system of order. I guess it is all relative.

The eradication of polio is truly a partnership effort. Part of our job within that partnership is to help raise the funds to buy and administer the vaccine. All of us as Rotarians, are responsible for participating in this project. This little vial of vaccine costs only $20, and is enough vaccine to immunize 40 children. I am asking each of you, as Rotarians, to participate in our Rotary’s project by donating $20 into our little black box as your Christmas gift to the world. You will be giving the gift of a future with no polio. In our country, we don’t experience the ravages of polio today, but many of us remember the disease. Many of us know someone who has had polio, or is now suffering with post polio syndrome. In Nigeria we saw dozens of people crippled by polio, whose future is begging.

My team leader, Norm Veliquette, took a unique approach to raising money for polio eradication. Norm is a past district governor. When he was become a district governor he decided he would learn to walk on his hands, to represent the children with polio who could not walk on their legs. He had people pledge money for each step he took on his hands. He has raised over $75,000. He was older than I am when he first learned to walk on his hands. Your November issue of The Rotarian has Norm’s picture, handwalking at the Taj Mahal, on the last page.

My fondest memory of the trip is waking up each morning to the Muslim call to prayer. It started my day with a moment of reflection in which I reminded myself how blessed I am. was on the best team. When you collect 40 Type A personalities, there are bound to be some issues, but my team grew very close in two short weeks. I had the best roommate in the whole world. Our team got the broadest experience and most extensive education of any team. We had dedicated Rotarian hosts. We even had a private audience with the Emir!

Last Revised: November26, 2002