Today will be my last contribution as a columnist for the Daily Trust. It all started in July 2010 when I came to spend one month ‘sabbatical’ in the newspaper from the United Kingdom where l lived, worked and ran a publishing firm, Adonis & Abbey Publishers (www.adonis-abbey.com).
At the end of the period, Mannir Dan-Ali, who was then editor-in-chief of the newspaper, asked if I would like to write a column for the paper. I enthusiastically agreed. I was at that time writing a column for the Daily Independent.
Mannir also made me a member of the Editorial Board of the paper, and when a slot on the back page became available (after I had been writing for the paper for a few months), Mannir also offered it to me. I remain very grateful for the opportunity and the platform.
It has been a very pleasant relationship, and though I became ‘notorious’ for late submission of my articles, in the ten years or so I have been writing for the paper, I believe the column failed to appear not more than three or four times. It has been a labour of love all the way. However, as the cliché would say, nothing lasts forever; so today I take my bow from the column to concentrate more on my other interests.
In the last couple of months, I have been thinking seriously of either taking a very long break from the paper or moving to another platform altogether for new inspiration and experience. A few days ago, a letter came from the new editor-in-chief of the paper, Naziru M. Abubakar, informing me of restructuring in the paper in the wake of COVID-19, which he said would affect the column. I actually felt relieved when I received the letter because it literally took for me a decision I have been struggling to take for months.
Once again, I remain grateful for the opportunity to write for the paper. Not once did the paper try to censure me even when my political and philosophical inclinations seemed to conflict with the paper’s suspected preferences.
Though I bow out today from this column, my writings will continue on the online newspaper, The News Chronicle (www.thenews-chronicle), and possibly on other platforms, perhaps, with less regularity than hitherto. Aluta continua!
Re: ‘Madagascar’s COVID-19 solution and perils of soldiering for African cures’: Dr Abalaka Replies
In the above article, which was published last Thursday, July 23 2020, I referenced Dr Jeremiah Abalaka as one of those who made bogus claims of having found a cure for HIV/AIDS and used the race card to win some sympathies for his claim. Dr Abalaka took a very strong but polite exception to my portraiture of his HIV vaccine claim. Below is his response (edited for space):
“For years, I have been a regular reader of your ‘THE THURSDAY COLUMN’ in DAILY TRUST newspaper. I have, over time, developed deep respect for the quality of factual and analytical contents of many of your articles.
“I was in the first set of graduating medical students from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in June 1972. I was the best graduating medical student in my set. During my 5-year medical training, I had distinctions in chemistry, physiology, biochemistry, community medicine, surgery, obstetrics & gynaecology, and paediatrics. I also passed with distinction the postgraduate certificate course in immunology from the University of Ibadan in September 1974. I did not achieve my academic qualifications using fraud or quackery, Prof.
“I was filled with sympathy for you after what you wrote about me in your article under discussion. Please note that I have never lived or practised anything in Enugu.
“When you know the facts, I think you would be terribly disappointed with yourself for writing false and prejudiced statements about me and my safe and effective vaccines (preventive and therapeutic) against 3 rampaging pandemics caused by viruses: HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), HBV (Hepatitis B Virus) and HCV (Hepatitis C Virus) without giving me a hearing. Your article completely ignored the time-tested altruism to hear the other side.
“You wrote at length about the video of one Mohammed Farouk about me but failed to even mention that I produced a video response to his deliberately false assertions.
“Nobody sent any ECOMOG soldiers to me for treatment. If you had simply asked the liar Mohammed Farouk to give you his hospital registration number for you to cross check, you would have known that he was just a paid loudspeaker for his sponsors and paymasters. Contrary to his false assertion that my vaccine infected him with HBV, my vaccines cure and prevent HBV!
“It may interest you to note that many have been cured of HIV, HBV and HCV with my innovative and safe vaccination treatments.
“As far back as 2004, the international Journal “Vaccine” published a report of my work. In that report, I released the relevant details including the hospital numbers, ages and sex of all those that had been cured of HBV, HCV and HIV by my safe and innovative therapeutic vaccinations.
“When the Obasanjo Government issued a blanket ban on all the 26 or so claimants of cure of HIV in Nigeria on 20th July, 2000, I was the only claimant who sued The president and Nigeria’s Attorney General at the Federal High Court over the ban of my vaccines. If Obasanjo’s Government had just a little modicum of intelligent reasoning that government would have realised that the only one claimant of cure that sued the government must have had something the government had missed, but alas, poor collective intellectual reasoning has always been the bane of Nigerian governments up till today. I tendered before the court, evidence of the efficacy and safety of my innovative vaccines.
“During the trial and upon NAFDAC’s application to the court for it to be one of the defendants in the suit, the trial court made NAFDAC the 3rd defendant in the matter. It may interest you to note that none of the 3 defendants in the suit (The President of Nigeria, The Attorney General of Nigeria and NAFDAC) called any witness to testify on their behalf!
“In its well-considered judgment in November 2014, the court found that I had proved my case and that the banning of my vaccines was arbitrary, unconstitutional, null and void.
“New discoveries in science and medicine are always the result of innovative thinking against the dogmas of the day, as is well illustrated by the case of airplanes. The scientific experts of the late 1800s and early 1900s held that it was gravitationally impossible for anything made of iron to fly. It took the ingenuity and innovative thinking of just two bicycle repairer brothers to make mincemeat of that dogma.
“A practising Surgeon, I came unto the scene of a rampaging HIV pandemic in the late 80s, studied the situation critically with my little knowledge of medicine and immunology and saw clearly that the medical and scientific worlds had gone completely astray in their approach to developing safe and effective HIV vaccines.
“I decided to join the fray in a solo effort to develop HIV vaccines to protect myself as a surgeon from the rampaging HIV for which the rest of the world still says, albeit falsely, that there are no effective and safe vaccines, either prophylactically or therapeutically.
“After 7 years of my research in which I used myself as the guinea-pig (the HIV hardly infects other animals), I did not only hit the bull’s eye but got additional rewards of safe and effective remedies against two other still ravaging pandemics, HBV and HCV.
“The international Journal *“Vaccine”* published a report of my work in September 2004 accompanied by an editorial, which if you read, will likely make you weep not only for yourself over what you wrote about me in your article but for the curse under which Nigeria and its leaders continue to live, beating about in the bush with corruption, banditry, insurgency, kidnapping etc. all over.
I invite you to arrange a meeting with me at any place of your choice for further rubbing of minds if you are interested. I will be grateful if you publish this response in your columns, Prof.”
Dr. Jeremiah O. A Abalaka
0812 734 0836 (WhatsApp chats only)
Jideofor Adibe: Email – [email protected]
Phone: 705 807 8841 (text messages and WhatsApp only)
