Occupational Health with emphasis on Nigeria.

Occupational Health with emphasis on Nigeria.
Definition
Occupational health is the sum total of all activities and programmes that are engaged upon, aiming to attain and maintain the highest level of health and safety of all genre of workers in all occupations. Through the approach of disease prevention, general safety assurance including the manipulations of the work environment to make it conducive to the average man’s physiological make up.
Occupational health is also defined as the promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupations by preventing departures from health, controlling risks and the adaptation of work to people, and people to their jobs. (ILO/WHO 1950).
THE RATIONALES OF OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH
1. In 1950, ILO/WHO laid down the following rationale for occupational health: The promotion and maintenance of the highest degree of physical, mental and social well-being of workers in all occupation.
2. The knowledge of occupational health involves that people in certain jobs are exposed to varied factors and elements inherent in their job and job environment, which may precipitate hazard, accidents, diseases, disability and death.
3. It will expose workers to hazard related to some works and their prevention/control measures in order to be safe and healthy while at work and after work.
4. The protection of workers in their employment from risks resulting from factors adverse to health.
5. The planning and maintenance of the workers in an occupational environment.
6. The adaptation of each man to his job/work.
7. Early rehabilitation and maintenance of the working capacity of the workers.
8. The knowledge will expose public health workers, employers, trade unions and the general public to the importance and relationship of work top health, that of work environment to health, that of attitude/practices/behaviour at work to health, that of machine/equipments/tools to health.
9. The knowledge will promote and maintain the mental, physical and social well being of workers on every occupation.
10. Advising on planning and organization of work and working practices including the design of workplace, and on the evaluation, choice and maintenance of equipment and on substances used at work. In so doing, the adaptation of work to workers is promoted.
Historical background of occupational health with emphasis on Nigeria.
Historically, very little attention and concern were shown for the promotion, protection and maintenance of the safety and health of the workers prior to 1900. However, on a global level, history revealed that health safety, welfare of employees was not existent during the early and dark ages. Society’s attention toward manual labour was disdainful so much that no efforts were made to control the working environment and to provide a healthful comfortable place in which to work. This was so because only slaves did various jobs. The 18th century era brought Industrial Revolution. This time brought with it, mass production of tools, machines/equipments. As a result, from time to time, accidents and injuries started occurring.
This escalation of industrial growth brought about many work problems. People accepted work related illness and injuries as part of the job and lived shorter lives, frequently dying in their 40s and 50s. No connection was made between their work condition and their health.
Their employers attributed their poor health and death to the workers poor conditions at home or their personal habits towards work.
The physicians then were uneducated on the relationship between work and health, so they blamed industrial related diseases to other causes. The first scientific study on occupational hazard was done in early 1900s by the public health service. This necessitated the importance of occupational health service in factories, industries and other work places.
The Examining Board of Liverpool Infirmary introduced the first occupational health service in 1900. The main purpose of the service was to look after the slave dealers carrying black slaves from Africa to Britain Exploration of Africa continued even after the rehabilitation of slave trade. The Royal Niger Company increased trading activities along the coast and waterways of Nigeria leading to granting the company The Royal Charter (Grant) in 1855 empowering the company to administer the territories under the treaty and Act of Parliament. The company organized its own health service, which looked after the workers but the managements in particular. The United Africa Company (U.A.C) invented the service. When the charter was revoked in 1899. U.A.C and John Holt (both British) companies grew into large multinational companies. The occupational health service by then was mainly curative and limited to expatriate employees. In the same 1899 the Royal Naval Patrol and later the Royal West Africa Frontier Force was commissioned to enforce the abolition Act of 1844 and to protect the British commercial interest in Nigeria. All the territories in Nigeria were confiscated and administered by the colonial office.
Lieutenant Colonel Lugard (Late Lord Lugard) being the Commander-in-Chief of the force in Nigeria then asked for the formation of health Service to cater for the health and welfare of soldiers dying because of malaria. Such service embraced both curative and preventive medicine. The medical corps was separated during the 2nd World War to cater for the members of the armed forces alone. This led to the creation of a Public Health Service that became the nucleus of National Health Service at present supervised and administered by the Federal Ministry of Health.
By 1930, some government owned establishments like the Railways and Coal mines started giving some occupational health services. There was also awareness concerning occupational health legislation.
In Nigeria, the endless quest for industrialization was the need to boost the economy. In doing so produced wastes and hazards that are injurious to health and life of the people who are to enjoy the economy. Industries threatened the existence of man e.g. petroleum mining, cement, textile, timber, soap making, mills, breweries, black smiting etc.
Hazard from these industries produced diseases, fire accident, air/water pollution, noise and other forms of environmental degradation like
a. Lead poisoning
b. Phosphorus poisoning
c. Manganese poisoning
d. Anthrax
e. Silicosis
f. Toxic jaundice
g. Benzene poisoning
h. Hypertension in sedentary workers
i. Aniline poisoning
j. Emphysema in mining industry.
Key Occupational Health developments in Nigeria include-
1941: Workman’s Compensation Ordinance was introduced. This was
replaced by Workman Compensation Service of 1987.
1942: Department of labour was created
1945: The labour Code of Ordinance was enacted and replaced by Labour
Decree (later Act of 1974)
1951: Ministry of Labour was created etc.
To be contd.............................................................

सिविल वर एंड एफ्फेक्ट्स इन nigeriaसिविल वर एंड एफ्फेक्ट्स इन nigeria

CIVIL WAR AND EFFECTS IN REVIEW (NIGERIA)
AUTHOR: AFUEWELU AUGUSTUS BILLS C. (HON)
After thirty months of a cascading blood bath, the bitterest conflict ever to erupt in Africa ended when the nation of Biafra officially died as the New Year opened in 1970. A tremor of relief shuddered through all of black Africa. Grateful exclamations – ‘thank goodness, it’s over!’ – were breathed through million of lips. The demise of Biafra recalled a basic truth: man has a right to peace and security. Peace and security – meaningful peace and Lasting security – should always be the unfaltering objective of all government. Any government which is blind to this objective fails its citizens and does not deserve support.
Whatever threatens the right of its citizens to a secure and peaceful life must be combated by any responsible government. One measure of leadership is the ability to see such threats and to prevent them from becoming realities. The health of a body politic depends on the capacity of leaders and citizens alike to learn from past mistakes.
What lessons have Nigerians learned from their chequered history since independence in 1960? To what extent has Nigeria matured in its aspiration to greater nation-hood? There is no doubt that the main causes of Nigeria’s post-independence crises – nepotism, tribalism and corruption – still exist today. However, this bleak truth may be brightened by the knowledge that at least one lesson of the war is not lost: the realization of the grave consequences of intolerance and chauvinistic myths, and the knowledge that no one section of the country can seek to impose itself on another without frightful consequences.
The Nigerian Federation is today at another crossroad. We may choose one way or the other. We cannot afford to say, ‘let us forget about the past’. Before arriving to this crossroad we have stumbled along a tortuous path. We must, in picking a new way, draw from our experience. What about that seemingly smooth path that thrust us into a ditch? What about that exhausting pace that tired us so quickly? What about that irrepressible gluttony that exhausted our rations before we went a tenth of the way? What about that beastly passion veiled our eyes to the more honorable and lofty ideals of the world? Should we forget our regrets, our sufferings and our cravings for another chance? Certainly not! Because we cannot afford to forget.
If we should forget the pains caused by the events of our recent history, we must not forget the facts of such pains and the circumstances that created them. Either we will digest the bitter fruits of our history or they will poison us. Anybody who claims leadership of our people owes it to them not to permit another harvest of mistakes.
It is in the light of this that we must come to grips with our present. And it is in partial fulfillment of this need that the combination of events, times and places that came to be called the Republic of Biafra must be made known in order to see what benefit can be derived from that phenomenon. Since the collapse of Biafra, we have been deluged with highly colored accounts of the war. The motive of the authors of these accounts, most of whom had the best of Biafra, has been self-exculpation. With time, however, it will be convenient to write a more comprehensive account of the Nigerian Civil war. This work is intended to hold brief of such account.
Without prejudice to the political and geographical reality of Nigeria today, the terms ‘Biafra’ and ‘Biafrans’ will be used for the sake of convenience and explicitness. It is assumed that Biafra existed as a nation throughout the war.

BACKGROUND
Post-independence Nigeria was beset by a series of crises. These took a dramatic turn with the military coup of 15January 1966 which installed Major-General Johnson Thomas Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, an Ibo, as Head of Nigeria’s first military government. Ironsi appointed military governors to administer the four regions of the federation. One of those appointed was Lt-Col. Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu who was placed in charge of the Eastern Region. In the coup that installed Ironsi in power, Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sarduana of Sokoto and Premier of the Nothern Region, and Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Federal Prime Minister and also a Northerner, were killed. Also killed were four Northern and two Western Senior officers and one Eastern (Ibo). The ethnic distribution of the casualties of the coup led to the allegation that it was an Ibo coup.
A counter coup on 29 July 1966 swept Ironsi from power and installed General Yakubu Gowon, a Northener. Together with Ironsi, thirthy-three officers of the Eastern Nigerian origin, majority of whom were Ibos, were killed. Then followed a series of riots in the North in which thousands of Easterners living there were killed. In retaliation scores of Northerners living in the East were set upon by irate refugees from the North. Subsequently over a million refugees returned to the East from other parts of the Federation. And ‘non Easterners’ were expelled from the East. This more than anything else, polarized the Nigerian crisis into an Eastern Region-Federal Government conflict.
All efforts towards settlement – and they were many – failed. The most prominent of these efforts was the meeting in January1967, of the Nigerian Supreme Military Council at Aburi, Ghana. Some agreements were reached which raised hopes of settling the crises. These hopes were shattered when the government of the Eastern Region and the Federal Government interpreted the agreements differently.
Events so deteriorated that on 27 May Gowon promulgated a decree dividing Nigeria into Twelve States. Three days later, on 30 May, Ojukwu declared the secession of the Eastern Region of Nigeria and the establishment of the Independent Republic of Biafra.
A war ensued between the Federal Government – to prevent secession – and Biafra – to assert its independence. The war which began on 6 July 1967 ended on 12 January 1970 with the defeat of Biafra.

To be continued………………………………………………………………………………..