EXCLUSIVE: Bill Gates Cancels Trip To Nigeria Over Alamieyeseigha's Pardon
Bill Gates
Culled from Premium Times:
America’s richest man, Bill Gates, has
cancelled his scheduled March 27 official visit to Nigeria, in response
to the controversial pardon granted by President Goodluck Jonathan to
ex-convicts Diepreye Alamieyeseigha and Shettima Bulama, PREMIUM TIMES
can authoritatively report today.
Mr. Gates was due in Nigeria March 27
and 28 to meet President Goodluck Jonathan, state governors and
officials of the Federal Ministry of Health concerning the aggressive
polio eradication campaign his Bill and Melinda Foundation is
undertaking in the country.
That trip, authoritative diplomatic
sources said, has now been cancelled, two days after the U.S. government
expressed disappointment with its Nigerian counterpart for pardoning
convicted money launderers and warned it might cut aid meant for the
country.
“I can confirm to you that Mr. Gates
won’t be coming as scheduled,” one of our sources told PREMIUM TIMES
Monday morning. “The body language of Washington D.C. does not support
his travelling to Nigeria. The thinking here is that the Nigerian
government has high tolerance level for corruption and should
be
ostracized in all ways possible.”
Our sources said Mr. Gates has already
instructed his staff to inform the Nigerian presidency, the secretariat
of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum and the Federal Ministry of Health that
he was no longer coming.
Presidential spokesperson, Reuben Abati,
did not answer or return calls seeking comment. Contacted, the Director
General of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Asishana Okauru, said he would
have to check with his staff whether any such communication had come
from Mr. Gates’ office. He did not answer or return subsequent calls.
Mr. Gates’ office is not opened as at the time of this report as calls
were unanswered.
But checks by this newspaper indicate that the U.S. government has dissuaded Mr. Gates from coming to Nigeria.
“The State Department has advised him
that Nigeria is not conducive for such visit at this time,” another
source said. “We hope that the Nigerian government will get the message
and return to the path of sanity.”
The controversial pardon granted Messrs
Alamieyeseigha and Bulama had on Friday sparked fierce diplomatic row
between Nigeria and the United States, with the Americans threatening
to punish Nigeria over Mr. Jonathan’s action and Nigeria accusing the
Americans of meddlesomeness.
“We see this as a setback for the fight
against corruption, and also for our ability to play the strong role
we’ve played in supporting rule of law and legal institution-building in
Nigeria, which is very important for the future of the country
obviously,” State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, had told
reporters in Washington.
“We have made clear to the Nigerians
that this puts a question mark on the kinds of work that we’ve been
trying to do with them.”
The U.S. is the world’s top donor. In
2012, it spent about $226 million on health and governance programmes in
Nigeria. And about $600million has been requested for 2013, according
to U.S. government data. That is apart from what American private
foundations such as Mr. Gates’ spend on Nigeria’s government and
non-governmental organisations.
Mr. Gate is the biggest foreign
supporter of the campaign to eradicate polio in Nigeria and has worked
consistently with the Nigerian authorities since 2009 over the matter.
His foundation has developed a six-year strategy through 2018 that will
help combat polio in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan and has set aside
$1billion per annum for the purpose.
The bulk of that money is meant for
Nigeria which currently has the highest cases of polio in the world.
Mr. Gates’ efforts has seen improvements which helped Pakistan reduce
the number of polio cases from 198 in 2011 to 56 in 2012; and
Afghanistan from 80 to 35 during the same period.
The situation in Nigeria worsened during the same period, increasing from 62 in 2011 to 119 in 2012.
Mr. Gates last visited Nigeria in
November 2012. During that visit, his foundation entered into a
four-year alliance with the Dangote Foundation which promised to provide
funding, equipment and technical support to the Kano state government
to strengthen polio immunisation.
He had scheduled this March’s visit to
consolidate that alliance, meet with President Jonathan, state governors
and other stakeholders with a view to generally revving up the war
against the pandemic.
