Tony Elumelu at the UN - Progress in Africa will help ease the global migrant crisis. - A Rejoinder

Nigerian banker, philanthropist Tony Elumelu said this in an opinion piece  originally published in Time.com on 29th September 2015. He had also been speaking in the same vein at a United Nations economics and development event in New York, one of many surrounding the 2015 General Assembly.

It is not a secret that Europe has kept Africa underdeveloped by unfair trade and investment practices. The un-Equal Partnership Agreement which is designed to ensure open customs borders for goods and services but closed borders for labour has been proposed to ensure that the terrible statusquo is retained. This writer has earlier described the whole scheme or scam as a "poisoned chalice."

I am surprised that Elumelu with his exposure and intellectual pedigree did not commence his address by giving full credit to Dr Charles Chukwuma Soludo. It is only in Nigeria that development intellectuals and activists deliberately ignore foundations laid by their forebears. The same is sadly true of our government processes. No wonder we stagnate. We keep re-inventing the wheel!

At this stage one would have expected Elumelu to offer new prescriptions and/or amendments to the clear road maps advanced by Dr Soludo and his ilk. To have ignored Soludo completely is a disaster. At the very least, Elumelu should have DISAGREED with his prescriptions. In that way they would at least be talking TO each other instead of PAST each other. Benefits can only accrue from robust debate.

We cannot keep covering the same old ground by repeatedly "identifying" our predicaments. A few days ago I watched a documentary on bictrailer.com detailing the work of US entrepreneur and philanthropist Manoj Bhargava. He stated, and I agree wholeheartedly, that awareness (of a problem) is good BUT is not the same as pursuing and ultimately procuring a solution. He committed his organisation to address just a few. Readers are encouraged to check this out.

ON REFUGEES

Elumelu also wrote, "European countries (who) must offer refuge or other types of protection to asylum-seekers who can show that they are fleeing war or persecution . . . are under no such obligation, however, to those looking to improve their prospects." 

Really? Europe created and continues to create the mess in the first place. On the other hand, it a tough job trying to differentiate between the two classes of migrants. As Soludo rightly pointed out they must share in the burden of stemming and if possible reversing the flow of migrants by bold investment and trade policies going forward. Otherwise the EU should be prepared to deploy the same military that it has shown  reluctance to call up against Russian aggression in Ukraine simply for the futile effort to keep out African economic migrants. They will fail.

"Africapitalism" backed by $100m seed money is a good start, but it is still infinitesimal compared to the missed opportunities, the leakages entrenched in the current structures of trade, thievery, investment and tax avoidance regimes which Europe has perfected over the past six decades. $100m, more like Elumelu's life work, can be cleaned out and it's potentially positive impact undermined by a simple project meeting gone bad. The NLNG Limited contract bazaar is a case in point. Over $180m vanished into thin air.

Yes, Small and Medium Scale Industries have a major part to play in Nigeria's future growth and job creation prospects. However we must be able to get the advanced world to domesticate some of the high end, advanced technology and large industries to soak up the output of the SMSI. Otherwise we will spend the next half century manufacturing plastic flip-flops. That is not the kind of growth we should bequeath our grandchildren. Anybody who cannot undertake or understand a proper analysis  of the failure of say Dunlop and/or Michelin in Nigeria, has no business sitting in where Nigeria's industrial future is being discussed.

If we fail, the northward trek will continue. 

Turing Pharmaceuticals Acquires Daraprim and Hikes Price From $13.50 a Tablet to $750, Overnight - Where do we go from here?

 I wonder how many Nigerians are aware of the landmark event that took place at the Indian Supreme Court on April 1, 2013. The apex court ruled on that day that the Indian drug companies Cipla Ltd and Ranbaxy were in the right for "infringing" on the drug patent of the global giant Norvatis for the cancer therapy Glivec which had hitherto been out of the reach of the generality of patients.

The drug patent was about to expire, hence opening the door for much cheaper generics, when Norvatis tweaked with the delivery mechanism and filed for another patent. The aim here was to extend the life of the previous patent thus freezing out the other drug manufacturers waiting impatiently to get into the fray. Cipla Ltd and Ranbaxy ignored Norvatis  and proceeded to make generics to the cheer and relief of long suffering Indian patients, not to mention the  large army of medical tourists from all over the globe. Predictably Norvatis sued. What followed  was a long drawn out legal battle during which the likes of Aventis and GlaxoSmithKline were left shivering uncertainly in the wings. The legal fight ended on April 1, 2013, with the Indian Supreme Court throwing out the challenge. Note that Cipla and Ranbaxy (Montari)have operations in Nigeria.

The battle for Glivec and many other drugs are by no means over and continues on European and US courts and multiple drug administrations. The medical superpowers are currently in damage control mode, to ensure that this virus does not spread any further. It is however very unlikely that Europe and US will go to war over such a matter. That notwithstanding, one can imagine the fear and consternation at the very prospect of Cipla and other copycats selling cheap drugs into the Chinese market, the rest of Asia, Africa and perhaps South America. That is why US and Europe are extremely keen on writing very strict rules in the current spate of global and regional free trade treaties. The interest of the so called third world is hardly ever taken into consideration. Like this low blow by Turing Pharmaceuticals.

At this point it will be instructive to remind Nigeria that nothing in the so called new world economic order comes on a silver platter. We have to fight for every perceived advantage, or even a place at the table. Anyone with any doubt should read Dr Chukwuma Soludo's analysis of the poisoned chalice presented to Africa in the name of Equal Partnership Agreement (EPA) which appeared in The Financial Times of London and most of the leading Nigerian media in early 2013. He has had cause to revisit the issue over snd over again.

Africa remains just an observer in these developments. In many of the sectors and technologies, African countries, especially Nigeria, seem to be blissfully unaware of what is going on and the likely endgame. It is therefore not strange at all that we do not have a properly articulated viewpoint going forward in these matters. The people at Nigeria's Office of Intellectual Property  (NOTAP) probably imagine that their job is actually to take care of the economic interest of other nations and their citizens. A cursory look at China will educate NOTAP about the way to go.

In the health sector we have been so rightly focused on the fight against fake and substandard drugs that we seem to have forgotten to gear up for the next level whereby we domesticate the primary backbone without which we will forever remain compounders and tableters of active ingredients sourced from other climes. That's not what progress looks like.

DARAPRIM

And now this. The future is no longer out there in any nebulous sense but has come crashing down on us with what has just happened to the price of a basic anti-malarial staple like DARAPRIM. A price gouging hegde-fund led group, Turing masquerading as a moral player in the medical field, has recently inreased the price by 5000%.  Apparently this story has not made any blimp on the radar of Nigerian journalists on the medical beat.

We all grew up with cheap Daraprim over the past 50years. Together with treated mosquito nets, Daraprim has been a reliable ally on the prevention front in the battle against malaria.

The second line of defence is actual treatment. Any development that undermines prevention makes the battle to treat and eliminate malaria all the more difficult. I hope that all the collaborators, including our health ministries, the Carter Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and other stakeholders are following this development closely. Thankfully, Mrs Hillary Clinton, a presidential candidate in the current campaigns for the US presidency, has recently lent her support to the effort to rein in the excesses of the global drug companies. It is going to be a tough battle against a determined cartel.

In this last weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal, September 19 - 20, 2015, ahead of the visit of Pope Francis, leading Republican and former Presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich coauthored, with former ambassador Jim Nicholson, an open letter to His Holiness. The duo tried to disabuse the mind of the pope of the widely held notion that there is something inherently rapacious about the current brand of unbridled capitalism practiced in the United States and most of the western hemisphere. When the above story finally broke a couple of days ago about the shenanigans of companies like Turing Pharmaceuticals, it only helped to confirm a most unhealthy trend.   Against this background in the drug industry among others, Speaker Gingrich and his friend obviously have a lot more convincing to do. I wish them luck.