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Govt blames systemic gaps for misdiagnosis

The Ministry of Health has attributed the rampant cases of diagnostic errors to cognitive biases among healthcare professionals, systemic gaps, limited equipment, and the infiltration of unqualified personnel.

This communication follows reports that the late Omukama (King) Oyo Kabamba Iguru Rukidi IV of Tooro Kingdom had to go to Kenya to receive an accurate cancer diagnosis.

Before this, he had reportedly spent months getting misdiagnosed care in Kampala’s major private facilities, after the diagnostic efforts missed his aggressive cancer.

Dr Charles Olaro, the director general of Health Services at the ministry, while reacting to public fury over reports of rampant cases of misdiagnosis, said Ugandans should not view misdiagnosis as a problem unique to Uganda.

‘Misdiagnosis happens everywhere in the world. In the US, which we take as the high end, diagnostic errors affect an estimated 12 million adults annually,’ he said.

An accurate and timely diagnosis is essential for successful treatment, reducing the cost of medical care and curbing preventable deaths, according to researchers and health experts.

Studies on misdiagnosis are scarce in Uganda, but a 2022 study in five general hospitals in central Uganda by Simon Peter Katongole of the School of Public Health, Gudie University Project, and colleagues, found that misdiagnosis is a big problem.

About one in 10 patients (9.2 percent to be exact) in central Uganda are misdiagnosed, while around 52 percent of health workers have witnessed or committed diagnostic errors, according to the report.

This study was conducted in five general hospitals in Kiboga, Nakaseke, Gombe, Kayunga and Mityana all located in central Uganda.

Dr Olaro explained that if the history or the information provided by the patient is incorrect, then the diagnosis may also not be accurate.

Cognitive biases

He said this is rife among healthcare workers because many of them make diagnoses based on the common diseases they see in that area.

‘For instance, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the first diagnosis people (healthcare workers) made was malaria, not Covid-19.’

According to information from the University of Toronto, cognitive biases in disease diagnosis include premature closure, where medical personnel jump to conclusions before a diagnosis is fully verified.

The other aspect is anchoring bias, where medical personnel lock onto an initial piece of information and fail to adjust as new evidence emerges.

Some medics may also struggle with confirmation bias, where they actively seek evidence that supports their initial conclusion while ignoring or downplaying contradictory signs.

Dr Olaro also said the misdiagnosis can result from ‘systemic failure’, say when a doctor spends a short time on a patient.

‘The other aspect is that you can only make certain diagnoses with certain diagnostic equipment, either imaging or laboratory diagnostics. However, it could be that the doctor does not interpret the scan results correctly,’ he said.

A 2025 analysis report by Munanura Turyasiima from the Department of Standards Compliance, Accreditation and Patient Protection of the Ministry of Health, and colleagues, shed more light on the issue of misdiagnosis.

‘Despite global advancements in diagnostic technologies, Uganda’s healthcare system grapples with persistent challenges. Studies reveal that 52 percent of healthcare workers in central Uganda have witnessed or committed diagnostic errors, with misdiagnosis rates as high as 9.2 percent in inpatient settings,’ the report read in part

The research noted that these errors are exacerbated by cognitive biases, limited access to laboratories, and socioeconomic barriers that delay care-seeking.

‘The consequences are dire: patients endure prolonged suffering, unnecessary costs, and eroded trust in healthcare systems, while providers face moral distress and inefficiencies,’ the report reads further.

Quacks in health system

While announcing the commemoration of World Patient Safety Day, slated for September 17 in Naguru Hospital, Dr Racheal Beyagira of the Ministry of Health said they are struggling with the infiltration of unqualified personnel in the medical field, especially in the private sector.

Dr Beyagira, who is the Commissioner for Standards Compliance Accreditation and patient protection (SCAPP), said they are working on guidelines to address this, mainly in the private sector.

‘The Ministry of Health is coming up with guidelines for services in the private sector.

We have not had them before,’ she said.

She said the guidelines will focus on issues like licensure, registration, training, and the ethical code of conduct for health professionals.

‘The absence of these guidelines powers quack medical practitioners hence the issue of misdiagnosis among others,’ she added.

Catholic Bishops Demand Probe Into SHS Placement

The Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference has called for an independent review of the ongoing Senior High School (SHS) placement exercise amid allegations of bribery, unfair admissions, inappropriate school placements and the growing influence of ‘protocol’ arrangements.

The Bishops said although the Computerised School Selection and Placement System was introduced to promote fairness and equal access, persistent challenges continued to undermine public confidence in the process.

In a statement signed by the President of the Conference, Most Rev. Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi, Bishop of Sunyani, the Bishops said the placement exercise must be transparent, accountable and responsive to genuine complaints.

The Conference said 604,567 candidates qualified for placement this year, but only 527,932 had been placed when the results were released.

It acknowledged that placement depended on several factors, including academic performance, programme choices, boarding or day preferences and available spaces. It, however, insisted that the outcomes must be understandable and demonstrably fair.

The Bishops expressed concern over reports of students being placed in schools considered unsuitable for their sex, disability, personal circumstances or location.

They were particularly concerned about cases where students were assigned to day schools located so far from their homes that daily commuting could become expensive, unreasonable or unsafe.

The Conference called for genuine placement errors to be corrected swiftly and for appropriate arrangements to be made for students with disabilities.

It also expressed concern over allegations that parents were being asked to pay money to secure places for their children.

The Bishops stressed that no official, agent or intermediary should demand or accept payment where placement was intended to be free. They called for investigations into such allegations and said anyone found culpable should face disciplinary action and, where necessary, criminal prosecution.

On the controversial issue of ‘protocol’ admissions, the Conference demanded greater transparency, saying the public deserved to know the legal basis, number of places involved, criteria used and persons responsible for such arrangements.

It warned that the placement system could not command public confidence if parents believed that money, political connections or influence could secure places for some children at the expense of others.

Mission schools

The Bishops also renewed their call for the implementation of their decision to reserve 20 percent of annual admissions in Catholic mission schools for Catholic candidates.

They said the decision was reached at the National Catholic Education Forum in Koforidua in 2025 and, therefore, was not a new demand.

According to the Conference, the arrangement would help mission schools maintain a meaningful population of Catholic students who could participate in their religious and moral formation.

The Bishops further called for the long-awaited agreement between the government and the Churches on the management of mission schools to be concluded and signed without further delay.

They said the agreement should clearly define responsibilities relating to admissions, governance, the appointment of head teachers, religious and moral formation, discipline, infrastructure and accountability, while protecting the distinct identity of mission schools.

The Conference also proposed an accessible appeals mechanism, periodic reviews of school categories and increased government investment in infrastructure, teachers, laboratories and learning materials to ease pressure on highly sought-after schools.

It maintained that technology should support justice rather than replace human responsibility and urged the government to build a placement system in which merit, choice, fairness and the best interests of the child determine admission outcomes.

Are Ugandans getting ruder, or are we just noticing it more?

When Yudaya Twase Musisi walked into her first corporate dinner as a young banker in 1998, she was wearing the right dress and holding the right invitation. What she did not have was the right confidence. She stood at the door perspiring, unsure when to drink the water already served at her place setting, wondering whether everyone in the room had received a manual she had somehow missed.

Nearly three decades later, the retired client relationship manager has decided that enough is finally enough. The bad manners she once endured in silence have, in her view, spilled out of private boardrooms and into public life with such force that she has come out of retirement to teach etiquette to a nation she believes has forgotten how to behave. But is Uganda actually getting ruder, or are we simply running out of places to hide our social anxiety?

The bad manners takeover

Twase Musisi, who left banking in 2016 after 18 years of interfacing with brilliant minds and grand dinners, insists the decline is real and measurable. She sees it at traditional weddings where brides and their entourages do not understand what they are wearing. She sees it in corporate spaces where leadership etiquette is ‘lacking at every level’. She sees it among Parliamentarians, among young business executives, and among the customer-facing representatives who are left to handle clients their bosses would rather not face.

‘People of such good manners and character are becoming fewer every other day,’ she says, ‘And those with bad manners are taking over the public space.’

The observation is as old as civilisation itself. Every generation believes the next one has forgotten how to be respectful. What makes Musisi’s intervention worth noting is that she does not come to the subject from a position of inherited privilege or finishing-school polish. She learnt etiquette the hard way, by teaching herself after one too many evenings of feeling small in rooms where she was supposed to feel accomplished.

It is about how you treat people

Her definition of the word is broader than most.

‘Whenever we hear the word etiquette, people think it is about holding the fork,’ she says. ‘And yet it is much more than that, in fact, it is more about how to treat people.’

It is, she explains, the confidence to enter a room, the grace to make others comfortable, and the humility to value people even when you disagree with them. In other words, it is the soft skill that keeps you in the room when your technical skills have already been noticed and filed away.

The digital age has complicated the picture. Twase notes that people now voluntarily reveal private information that damages their social standing, because the information age arrived without an accompanying manual for digital etiquette. Social intelligence, she argues, is not keeping pace with social media. You do not have to be loud to make a point, but loudness has become the default language of online discourse, and that volume is leaking into offline spaces.

Ubuntu in a global village

She is careful, however, to distinguish between global etiquette and what she calls the African perspective. In the global tradition, confidence means looking someone in the eye and smiling. In the African tradition, looking an elder in the eye can be read as aggression. Ubuntu, she reminds us, is our heritage. The guest is ushered in and escorted out. The poorest neighbour asking for salt or fire is treated with dignity because communal living demands inclusion.

This raises an uncomfortable question that Musisi’s crusade must eventually confront. Are Ugandans losing their manners, or are they losing a specific set of cultural codes that once governed how we treated one another? The corporate dinner that intimidates a brilliant banker may not be evidence of national rudeness at all. It may simply be evidence that the rules of one world have not been taught to people raised in another.

Musisi is aware of the tension. She insists that her teaching adds an African perspective to continental etiquette rather than replacing one with the other. But she is also unapologetic about the standards she wants to enforce. Arrive on time, not too early. Respect the dress code. Thank the host. These are little snippets, she says, that make a whole lot of difference.

The room where it is worst

The most vulnerable space she identifies is not the boardroom or the wedding reception. It is Parliament, where decorum should be institutional but is, in her assessment, appalling. She also worries about women who have been ‘left behind for a very long time’ and need what she calls leadership etiquette for women, because true elegance is not about wealth or status but about the ability to make others feel comfortable.

If there is a silver lining in her diagnosis, it is that she believes etiquette can be taught, and that children and teenagers are the ones who will change communities. But the clock is ticking. The longer a generation goes without being taught how to hold people, the more likely they are to treat the world as a room they have already been locked out of.

Perhaps Uganda is not getting ruder. Perhaps the spaces where manners matter have simply expanded beyond the narrow corridors that once contained them, and a nation is fumbling its way toward new codes of respect without anyone to guide the transition.

NDLEA Dismantles Another Meth Lab, Arrests Mexican

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has arrested a Mexican drug kingpin allegedly linked to a transnational methamphetamine cartel and dismantled another industrial-scale laboratory in Ebonyi State.

The suspect, identified as Arturo Carrera Loaiza, was arrested on August 19, 2026, while attempting to flee Nigeria through the Lagos airport, the agency disclosed on Tuesday.

The NDLEA Chairman/Chief Executive Officer, Brig. Gen. Mohamed Buba Marwa (retd.), who spoke through the agency’s Director of Media and Advocacy, Femi Babafemi, at a media briefing in Lagos, said the arrest followed months of painstaking investigations into a wider criminal network behind several clandestine drug laboratories uncovered in the country.

Marwa warned that Nigeria would not become a safe haven for transnational drug cartels seeking to relocate their operations to the country’s forests and rural communities.

He said, ‘Nigeria will not be allowed to become a haven for transnational drug cartels seeking to relocate their laboratories from other jurisdictions into our forests and rural communities.’

The NDLEA chairman said earlier investigations by its Special Operations Unit into the arrest of a Mexican methamphetamine expert, 56-year-old Jose Villa Ochoa, at a forest laboratory in Oyo State, led to the identification of Loaiza as the alleged recruiter of foreign experts into Nigeria.

Ochoa and four Nigerian collaborators were arrested on June 17, 2026, at a clandestine methamphetamine laboratory in the forested Tapa village, Ibarapa North Local Government Area of Oyo State.

According to him, Ochoa positively identified Loaiza from a photograph obtained by investigators working with international partners.

Intelligence reportedly showed that Loaiza entered Nigeria on June 10 alongside another Mexican national, Jose Ceballos Perez.

He said Loaiza, during interrogation, claimed he had been invited into the country by a Nigerian contact identified only as ‘Henry’ under the guise of a restaurant business venture.

He reportedly denied knowledge of methamphetamine production or involvement in the Oyo laboratory.

However, investigators allegedly recovered photographs showing him wearing a blue laboratory coat and standing amid equipment consistent with methamphetamine production.

Trader Arrested With 37 Slabs Of ‘Indian Hemp’

A 49-year-old trader, Issaka Mohammed, has been arrested by the Tema Regional Police Command for allegedly being in possession of 37 slabs of compressed dried plant material suspected to be Indian hemp.

The arrest was made by the Ashaiman District Police on Saturday, September 12, 2026, at about 11:30 p.m., following intelligence received by motorbike patrol officers about a suspected Indian hemp dealer operating at a ghetto behind the New Tulaku Cow Market.

According to the Head of Public Affairs for the Tema Region, ASP Dede Dzakpasu, the police proceeded to the area and intercepted a sack in the possession of the suspect.

‘A search of the sack led to the discovery of the thirty-seven slabs of compressed dried plant material suspected to be Indian hemp,’ the statement said.

The exhibits were counted in the presence of the suspect and retained for evidential purposes.

Suspect Issaka Mohammed is currently assisting the police with investigations and will be put before court.

Atiak massacre survivors struggle to heal 30 years later

At around 5am on April 20, 1995, a group of about 300-armed Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels allegedly raided Atiak Trading Centre, Atiak Sub-county in the current Amuru District.

The rebels, allegedly led by its former deputy chief Vincent Otti, rounded up hundreds of unarmed civilians before executing some of them.

The civilians were accused by the rebels of refusing to support the liberation struggle to oust President Museveni.

The attack left at least 200 people dead, including 40 students of Atiak Technical School.

The rebels also abducted dozens of young people to carry the loot and forcefully recruited them as fighters and sex slaves.

Three decades later, some of the survivors are still carrying shrapnel, bomb splinters, burns, and painful scars, as well as grappling with post-traumatic stress disorder, after losing their loved ones during the bloody attack.

Although Ms Beatrice Arach was 40km away from the scene, she still carries a fresh memory of the incident that claimed the lives of her relatives and friends.

‘At that time, I was a student at Sacred Heart Secondary School (in the current Gulu City) when the rebels raided the trading centre and killed many people, including my own relatives,’ she recalled.

Whereas Ms Arach’s mother, Judith Auma, a renowned midwife and a ruling National Resistance Movement (NRM) party political mobiliser at the time, survived, she and her husband, Mzee Burimwaka Misaki (former police officer and farmer) from Atiak Sub-county, were reportedly key targets in the attack.

She said Auma was previously invited for an urgent meeting in Gulu Town to resolve a family matter before the rebels struck the area.

The invitation saved Ms Arach’s mother’s life. ‘The rebels looted my mother’s clinic. They later attacked other homes and shops within the trading centre. My uncles’ children were also killed in the process. Other relatives were abducted and taken to the bush.’

Ms Arach’s son survived narrowly after one of the rebels’ fighters inquired about his skin colour.

‘The rebels inquired about her whereabouts before they swept through the trading centre; my son’s skin complexion became a subject of interest for the rebels. He had light skin, and the rebels spared him,’ she said.

Atiak, now a booming trading centre, lies on the Gulu-Nimule Highway located approximately 40km, North of Gulu City.

‘We learnt about the tragic incident in the morning. Although there were reports that the rebels were planning to raid the training centre, there was no concrete evidence. So, everyone was caught off guard,’ Ms Arach added.

After the massacre, Ms Arach’s mother turned to grassroots politics. ‘My mother became one of the strongest political mobilisers in Amuru District. She wanted women to get their voice heard by participating in politics and change policies that are against their agenda.’

At one point, Auma met President Museveni and then Vice President Dr Specioza Wandira Kazibwe, who visited the massacre scene and also started helping the fear-stricken community to overcome post-traumatic stress disorder after the attack.

However, after 31 years, whereas Ms Arach still believes her son and mother were spared by the rebels by a stroke of luck, she is yet to heal from the scars. She added that President Museveni’s pledges to her family have not materialised, more than a decade later.

‘My father was the police officer in charge of the police training school in Masindi and a very close friend to the President. At one point, the President promised to support his family with a tractor and other farming equipment in appreciation for his role in the liberation struggle,’ she recounted.

Her support for the NRM party as one of the key mobilisers in the region alongside then State minister for Northern Uganda Betty Bigombe put her life and that of her family at risk because majority of the northern population was against the government. ‘Once they failed to find my mother, who had travelled to Gulu, the rebels brutally killed my maternal grandmother, Paula Oyella Olaa.’

At the funeral of the late Oyella, a few days after the massacre, then Vice President Kazibwe represented Mr Museveni, during which a pledge of farming equipment, among others, was made.

‘My parents had high hopes for these pledges and entrusted that the follow-up should continue even after their death. However, being a first-born to both my parents, ever since I lost them, I have always asked myself, will the President clear the unfulfilled pledges, or will he continue to fulfil pledges even when he retires?’ Ms Arach wondered.

Just like Ms Arach, who has been struggling to cope with her family loss, Mr Nelson Okello, one of the survivors now living in Atiak Town Council, said he has been nursing pains after a splinter got lodged on the left side of his head for three decades.

‘I don’t know how I survived, but God saved me that day. But my challenge has been how to get specialised medical treatment. If the doctors can remove the piece of metal from my head, I will have peace,’ he stated.

Appeal to the government

The survivors who spoke to Daily Monitor are urging the government to facilitate their specialised medical treatment, such as skin grafting and psychosocial support, and also call for economic support to support their full recovery and normal life.

Mr Fred Okot, the chairperson of the Atiak Massacre Survivors’ Association (AMSA), said survivors need grants and livestock so that they can become self-sufficient.

‘We no longer need food aid. We want oxen, ox-ploughs, goats, cattle and capital for economic empowerment. Some of my members need urgent medical support because they still have splinters and bomb fragments in their bodies. Others are now old and need to keep animals,’ Mr Okot noted.

He said some of the survivors are now old and need to be supported: ‘We need to support them. We need to support their children with technical skills so that they can live independently.’

In April 2011, President Museveni pledged Shs50 million to the survivors to help them become self-sufficient. He also pledged to support Atiak Technical Institute with a new truck to aid their transport.

While this Shs50 million pledge was fulfilled in October 2013 for the 200 AMSA members, Mr Gilbert Olanya, the Kilak County MP, has for a long time noted that individuals who survived the massacre are still living with scars and other war-related injuries.

Mr Olanya said if the central government had equipped all the health facilities in the Acholi Sub-region with specialists and modern medical equipment as part of the response to the recovery process, the survivors would not have carried the burden for this long which had sometimes led to stigma and suicide due to depression.

‘The government should build special clinics in Acholi Sub-region so that the individuals with bullet wounds and other injuries who have been impoverished by the war do not have to travel long distances to access such specialised services,’ Dr Olanya noted.

According to Foundation for Justice and Development Initiatives (FJDI), a local Gulu-based NGO working with war survivors, the majority of the survivors are struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

Mr Norbert Dacan, the head of office at FJDI, said some of the survivors have since died due to natural causes and the injuries they sustained during the attack. He said many years have gone by without the survivors receiving specialised treatment for their injuries or receiving financial aid.

‘Each of the survivors needs about Shs5 million for him or her to engage in meaningful activity. He or she needs a boda boda to generate money to pay for medical bills and school fees,’ he noted.

Mr Dacan added that although President Museveni gave the survivors Shs50 million, the money was not enough.

‘If they are to divide the money, each person would get only Shs25,000. That money cannot do much. It cannot help them to recover from their trauma, nor can it make them acquire a walking tractor to open up a 10-acre piece of land for cultivation,’ he stressed, saying each survivor should get at least Shs5 million, including those who are not AMSA members.

It is estimated that there are 3,000 survivors of the 1995 LRA massacre, although some have died over the years. By press time, the government and local authorities have yet to establish the actual number of survivors who are still alive.

Mr Geoffrey Osborn Oceng, the Amuru resident district commissioner (RDC), said the government is doing everything to support the survivors and their households recover from the traumatic experience.

He cited the Shs50 million support to survivors and Shs200 million towards the rehabilitation of Atiak Technical School.

The RDC added that some of the survivors who qualify benefited from the Parish Development Model (PDM) and other government-funded programmes so that they can rebuild their lives as well as join the money economy.

About the massacre

The 1995 attack by LRA rebels left at least 200 people dead, including 40 students of Atiak Technical School.

The rebels also abducted dozens of young people to carry the loot and forcefully recruited them as fighters and sex slaves. There were about 3,000 survivors, including Ms Beatrice Arach.

Kufuor Hosts Gambian Politician

The leadership of the Economic Freedom Fighters – The Gambia (EFF-Gambia), led by His Royal Highness (HRH) Prince Ebrahim Sanyang, has paid a courtesy call on former President John Agyekum Kufuor in Accra as part of his consultations on democratic governance and national development.

Prince Sanyang, who is seeking political power in The Gambia, said the visit was to tap from the wisdom and experience of the former Ghanaian leader, who is widely respected for entrenching democratic stability and economic reforms during his tenure from 2001 to 2009.

The meeting, held at the residence of the former President, focused on Ghana’s democratic journey, leadership, economic management and lessons The Gambia can adapt as it seeks renewal. Sources close to the meeting disclosed that former President Kufuor welcomed Prince Sanyang and his entourage and shared candid counsel on what it takes to build a stable and prosperous nation.

While details of the closed-door discussion were not fully disclosed, it is believed the former President emphasised the importance of strong institutions over strong individuals, respect for constitutional term limits, tolerance for opposing views and peaceful transfer of power – values that have defined Ghana’s democracy.

On the economy, Kufuor is said to have advised the Gambian presidential hopeful to prioritise fiscal discipline, agricultural transformation, private sector growth and transparent management of public resources.

He reportedly cautioned against excessive borrowing without clear returns to citizens in the form of jobs and affordable living costs. The former President is also known for his belief in inclusive governance, where appointments are based on competence and service delivery, not political loyalty – a principle that aligns with Prince Sanyang’s promise of a government organised around outcomes rather than announcements.

Prince Sanyang, for his part, said The Gambia must learn from both Ghana’s achievements and its setbacks. He believes Ghana offers lessons in value addition, financial inclusion, digital systems, tourism, creative economy and leveraging the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) Secretariat in Accra.

He, however, maintains that The Gambia should not copy any country wholesale, but adapt what works to its own scale while building institutions strong enough to correct course.

Prince Sanyang reiterated his vision of a secure, just and productive Gambia where poverty is not a destiny and every citizen has a fair chance to work and live with dignity, with a culture of people before power and service before privilege.

Stuck For Days: Nigeria’s Gridlock Is A Health Emergency

A video is circulating on social media of a woman brushing her teeth by the roadside, rinsing with water from a small sachet, somewhere along the Benin-Agbor road. She has been there for two days. Around her, hundreds of vehicles are queuing bumper to bumper. Engines are off. Drivers doze in their seats or stand outside stretching their legs on a stretch of highway that has effectively become an open-air waiting room. Far away on the Abuja-Kaduna expressway, a separate gridlock has left travellers stuck for up to three days, some reportedly approached by youths demanding informal fees to help clear a path through the chaos. This is no longer an unlucky one-off. It has become a pattern. It deserves to be examined as the public health story that it is, not only a transport or economic one.

Now, it helps to look beyond Nigeria for a moment. The country is not inventing a new problem; it is living through a particularly severe version of an old one. The World Health Organization estimates that close to 1.2 million people die on the world’s roads every year. Road injuries remain the leading cause of death for people between five and twenty-nine years old. Ninety-two per cent of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries, even though those countries own only around sixty per cent of the world’s vehicles. What is happening on Nigerian highways right now closely fits that global pattern. A two-hour drive from Benin to Asaba has stretched into a four-day ordeal for some travellers. These are roads that do the most damage to people with the fewest options.

The Federal Road Safety Corps recorded 9,570 crashes and 5,421 deaths across 2024. In the first quarter of 2025, crashes fell slightly compared with the same period the year before, yet deaths rose by more than eight per cent. Fewer crashes but more deaths suggest the collisions that do happen are becoming more severe. However, the current gridlock crisis on routes like Benin-Agbor-Asaba and Abuja-Kaduna introduces a different, quieter kind of harm. It rarely shows up in official statistics. Nobody dies instantly in a traffic jam. Yet being stuck for two, three, or four days on a highway, with no proper sanitation, no reliable food supply, and no shade carries its own set of dangers.

The truth is that dehydration sets in quickly in the kind of heat those corridors sometimes witness. Children and elderly passengers are especially at risk, partly because they cannot always say clearly how unwell they feel. Anyone managing a chronic condition, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, faces a real risk too. Medication is usually packed for the length of an ordinary journey, not for an unplanned four-day detention on the road. Pregnant women travelling those routes face a genuine emergency if labour begins with no clinic in sight and no ambulance able to move through a queue of stalled vehicles. Some travellers caught in these jams have abandoned their cars altogether and trekked through bush paths to escape the congestion. Prolonged exposure on a stalled highway is exchanged for the risk of walking unfamiliar, sometimes insecure terrain on foot, often with luggage and children in tow.

All of this comes with a mental strain, which deserves mentioning. Sitting in a vehicle for days, uncertain when the road will clear, watching food and money run low while strangers around you grow increasingly tense, is genuinely distressing. That distress does not always end when the vehicle finally moves again. It can show up later as short tempers, poor sleep, and a kind of exhaustion that makes a driver more likely to misjudge a bend once the road opens and everyone speeds up to claw back the hours they lost. Economic analysts have put the losses from a recent five-day shutdown on South-South roads at around five hundred billion naira. That figure says nothing about the perishable goods spoiling in stranded trucks or the medical supplies that never reached their destination.

Reports from Agbor describe it turning into a makeshift night market during the gridlock, with hungry passengers buying whatever food is available, often at inflated prices and with little regard for how it has been stored or prepared. That matters more than it might seem. A simple stomach upset picked up from a roadside vendor can turn a bad journey into a medical crisis when the nearest functioning clinic is hours away in either direction.

None of this is suggesting that individual travellers are responsible for roads, which successive governments have failed to maintain. The Federal Government reportedly paid over one billion naira for repairs to the Benin-Agbor road between 2021 and 2026, and the road failed anyway. The government has also committed hundreds of billions of naira to the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano corridor, yet motorists were still stranded for days in August. The frustration Nigerians feel watching roads repeatedly funded and repeatedly failing is entirely justified. Personal preparation cannot fix a road. That work has to happen at a policy level, and Nigerians are right to keep demanding it publicly. However, while it happens, there are choices within a traveller’s own control that genuinely reduce harm when a journey goes wrong.

Carrying more water and food than a normal journey would seem to require is no longer excessive caution. It is simply practical on these known problem corridors. Anyone on regular medication should travel with several days’ worth, not the exact dose needed for the expected trip’s duration. Families should agree beforehand on how they will stay in touch if a journey runs long, rather than relying on a single phone call that may never come through in an area with patchy network coverage. Checking road reports and social media updates before setting out can mean choosing a longer but clearer route instead of driving straight into a known gridlock. And once free of a jam, resisting the urge to speed matters just as much as any decision made before departure. Fatigue and frustration are exactly the conditions in which crashes happen.

The people trapped for days on the Benin-Asaba road, the Abuja-Kaduna highway and others like them did nothing wrong beyond needing to travel in their own country. Their ordeal is, first and foremost, a failure of planning and maintenance, and that responsibility belongs to those who build and look after these roads. However, until that changes, the small decisions travellers make before they leave home can determine whether a difficult journey remains difficult or turns into a genuine health emergency.

Female Govt Appointees Urge Asantehemaa To Lead Domestic Violence ‘War’

THE ASANTEHEMAA, Nana Yaa Akyaa II, has been urged to use her high and revered office to lead a crusade against domestic violence against women in the country.

Female government appointees, who made the call, said women, the aged and children usually suffer several harmful cultural practices and injustices which must stop now.

Deputy Chief of Staff, Nana Oye Bampoe Addo, who spoke on behalf of the delegation, stated that the Asantehemaa’s influence can help address the above mentioned issues.

‘There are modern wars our women, children and the aged wage daily, including domestic violence, harmful cultural practices, and injustices that come with modern technology.

‘Her Royal Majesty, Nana Asantehemaa beyond being a unifier, your reign is also an arrowhead of bravery for all women,’ she stated at the Manhyia Palace in Kumasi.

Nana Oye Bampoe Addo was speaking when she led a delegation of female government appointees to wish Nana Yaa Akyaa II well on her enstoolment as Asantehemaa.

Continuing, she stated that members of her delegation value and respect the Asantehemaa, therefore they would consistently approach her for wise counsel and direction.

‘We trust that you will be the unifier you have already shown yourself to be, and we will count on your wisdom to help govern well and meet the expectations of the citizenry,’ she stressed.

Madam Bampoe Addo stated that the leadership, wisdom and counsel of the Asantehemaa remain their source of strength in confronting challenges that women, children and the aged face.

According to the Deputy Chief of Staff, members of the female government appointees would team up and work closely with the Asantehemaa to the benefit of the country.

‘We have come to our mother’s feet to begin this journey together, in shared vision and shared mandate. You may count on us as you begin a successful reign as Queen.

‘Your role is enormous, but we trust that Odomankoma and our ancestors will bless your reign with wisdom, courage and fortitude to discharge this divine assignment for Asanteman,’ she added.

The delegation included Nana Yaa Jantuah, Presidential Aide; Rita Odoley Sowah, Deputy Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs; Hajia Shamima Muslim, Deputy Presidential Spokesperson; and Matilda Asare Asiedu, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Ghana.

The others are Pamela Graham, Auditor-General; Daniella Mawusi Ntow Sarpong, Chief Fire Officer and COP Lydia Yaako Donkor, Director-General of the Criminal Investigation Department.

The rest are Obuobia Darko-Opoku, Chief Executive Officer of the Ghana Medical Trust Fund; Gertrude Emefa Donkor, CEO of Ghana Gold Board Jewellery; Felicia Adjei, Kintampo South MP; and Faustilove Appiah Kannin, Obuasi West MCE.

The Asantehemaa, in her succinct remarks, assured the female government appointees that her doors are always opened, and thanked them for the visit.

’Certificate Forgery’: Court Grants Atiku’s Motion To Serve Tinubu Documents Through APC

The Federal High Court in Abuja on Wednesday granted an application by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Presidential Candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), to serve court documents on President Bola Tinubu through the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Justice Inyang Ekwo granted the request while ruling on an ex-parte motion moved by Atiku’s counsel, O.T. Omotayo-Ojo, seeking an order of substituted service of the processes on the president.

Atiku, the former Vice President, and his party, ADC, had filed the suit praying Justice Inyang Ekwo to disqualify President Tinubu and APC from contesting in the 2027 presidential election.

The plaintiffs alleged that APC submitted a forged National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate of Tinubu to INEC.

The plaintiffs, in the originating summons marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1888/2026, sued the President, APC and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as 1st to 3rd defendants respectively.

They prayed the court to compel INEC to remove Tinubu and APC’s names from the list of candidates and parties for the presidential poll.

Moving the motion, Omotayo-Ojo informed the court that the motion ex-parte was filed following inability to effect the service on the 1st defendant.

The lawyer, through the application, therefore prayed the court for an order effecting the service of the court documents through the 2nd defendant (APC)

Justice Ekwo granted the prayer after the application was moved.

Following information by Omotayo-Ojo, who held the brief of Silas Onu, that the plaintiffs could effect service within seven days, the judge ordered that service should be done within seven days.

He subsequently adjourned the matter untill Sept. 28 for mention.

NAN reports that Onu had, on Sept. 1, told the court that his client was yet to serve the originating summons on President Tinubu personally.

Silas said he requires an order of the court to serve the documents through substituted means.

Meanwhile, Tinubu, APC and INEC had since responded to the suit by filing counter-affidavits and preliminary objections, querying the competence of the suit and praying the court to dismiss it.

In a joint counter affidavit filed on September 9, the president and APC prayed the court to dismiss the suit in its entirty for being incompetent and that the plaintiffs lacked the legal right to Institute the case.

The 1st and 2nd defendants denied submitting any forged certificate to the commission either for the 2023 or 2027 presidential elections.

The duo, through the APC Director of Legal Services, Mr Sanusi Samaila, averred that his clients did not submit Form CF001 to INEC for the 2023 or the 2027 poll as claimed by the plaintiffs.

They stated that the NYSC has never denied issuing National Youth service Corps (NYSC) discharge certificate to the 1st defendant at the end of his service yestate

They argued that contrary to Paragraph 27 of the affidavit in support of the originating summons, no constitutional provision had been breached nor had any injustice been done to the plaintiffs by the 1st and 2nd defendant’s action of submission of the president’s personal particulars to INEC.

Tinubu and APC, also in a written address attached to the application and filed by Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, the senior lawyer raised a number of objections to the suit.

Olujinmi observed that though the plaintiffs’ complaint is an allegation of forgery which is no doubt a crime, he said such allegation must be proved beyond reasonable doubt, citing Section 135(1) of the Evidence Act, among others.

He said it is a settled law that the evidence required to prove that a certificate is forged is a disclaimer from the institution that is said to have issued the certificate, citing a previous Supreme Court decision to back his argument.

According to Olujinmi, without evidence from the institution or body that is purported to have issued the certificate or other document stating that it did not issue the certificate or document or that any part of the certificate or document is not made by it, it would be idle and useless to contend that it is forged.

He said the apex court had also held that ‘in order to prove forgery, or that a document is forged, two documents must be produced viz: the document from which the forgery was (a) made; and (b) the forgery or the forged document.’

The lawyer, however, submitted that in the instant case, Atiku and ADC had produced no evidence from NYSC Directorate, disclaiming issuance of discharge certificate to the 1st defendant.

He stated that the suit is hypothetical and academic in nature and devoid of real facts.

Olujinmi, who described the suit as ‘incompetent, being a pre-election matter, ‘ said the plaintiffs lacked the ‘locus standi’ to challenge President Tinubu’s candidacy of APC.

He prayed the court to uphold their preliminary objection and dismiss the suit.

INEC, in its preliminary objection filed on Sept. 7 by its lawyer, Dr Alex Izinyon, SAN, challenged the competence of the suit on the grounds of statute-bar, want of locus standi, absence of a reasonable cause of action and abuse of court process.

The commission also argued that the plaintiffs failed to comply with the mandatory written deposition requirement under Paragraph 7(1) provision of the Federal High Court Pre-Election Practice Directions (Amendment) 2026.

The electoral umpire equally challenged the impropriety of Reliefs two and three in Atiku and ADC’s originating summons, urging the court to dismiss the suit.(NAN)