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A Rejoinder to Adalat Yusuf’s: The Collapse of Daily Trust’s Health Interactive Column, Our Triumph By Dr. Sani Aliyu
Between Adalat and Magashi: silence is the best answer to a fool….
I read with interest the above article written by Yusuf Adalat on Dr Magashi’s current problems with Daily Trust over his health interactive column. I find it strange that a person who claims to be an academic and expert in a scientific field will stoop so low as to engage a fellow professional in a public fight in a socially disgraceful and uncouth manner.
I hasten to add that although I am a medical professional, I have never met Dr Magashi. I am not defending him and I believe he is quite capable of defending himself anyway. Furthermore, I have seldom agreed with his write ups, both in terms of content and level of scientific discourse. In the few occasions when I have bothered to read his articles, I have found them to be substandard and shallow. His opposition to the polio vaccination has also been one of blind faith and unreasonable stubbornness, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Nevertheless, this is a young and aspiring professional whom I believe has done far more than his current generation of peers in educating the lay public and increasing the profile of public health in a part of the world where health services are virtually non-existent. For this reason, I found Mr Adalat’s article as myopic, ethnically tainted and malicious. I do not understand the reason for such viciousness. Is there something else he has against the young doctor, or is this just part of Mr Adalat’s grievance against the Fulani as a race? What relevance has Dr Magashi’s tribal affiliation got to do with his style of writing and competence? Does Mr Adalat realise that by insulting Dr Magashi’s culture and ethnic identity, he is only tearing up the few remnants of credibility left in an article that already stands out as gibberish and self-serving? He is fortunate that he is writing in a country such as Nigeria where civil rights and the right to expression cannot be differentiated from racial/ethnic slurring. My advice to Mr Adalat is to tread cautiously if he really wants his career to progress. He lives in Abuja and therefore works in a part of the country where more than half of the local population shares similar values to Dr Magashi. If you have an axe to grind with a particular individual, it will be more responsible to face your foe in a private arena and save us the embarrassment of listening to your ill-thought rantings. Mr Adalat’s article has only succeeded in pushing the profile and respect the public have for Dr Magashi. I am certain that Dr Magashi has gained more support from among his senior colleagues following this article than he would ever have hoped for. He can only be grateful to Yusuf Adalat for this!
I am also surprised that the author has come out publicly to acknowledge what some of us have always suspected with the current national craze for public health/NGOs. These bodies appear to be have been set up purely for money making purposes, although I agree that a few of them are doing a pretty good job, particularly in the HIV field. If Dr Magashi was offered a mouth watering deal by Mr Adalat and he declined, then that only puts him at a higher moral ground than the author and can only increase his public prestige. I am certain that if Mr Adalat’s international sponsors realize that their funds are being distributed by people like him for the purpose of influencing and corrupting public policy makers, they will not bother to renew the current funding arrangements they have with him.
Finally, the Daily Trust editorial board has a right to decide who writes in their paper, but they also have a responsibility to their local population. We have a lot of respectable and competent public health professionals in the north (despite Mr Adalat’s insinuations to the contrary) who can match their southern counterparts. This is the time for such people to come out and save us from the clichés of people like Mr Adalat, the noisy few who pedal their credentials and call themselves experts for the purpose of making a living. To Dr Magashi, I congratulate him for surviving this long in a jungle of savages and for finally achieving credibility among his peers and colleagues the hard way. I will advice him to pursue further education in his chosen field so that when he does come back to writing articles again, tribalists like Mr Adalat will not call him a small boy. As the white people say, knowledge breeds confidence and experience breeds trust. We all wish him well.
Dr Sani Aliyu Cambridge, U.K 29 March 2005
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