IN the words of Anon, ‘Ordinary people think of spending time: Great people think of using it.’ Isak Dineson summed up his own words of winning this way: ‘don’t count every hour in a day; make every hour in the day count.’

FOR quite a long time now, it is obvious that the activities of the Abia State government have been getting negative publicity, most times fabricated or twisted for selfish and mischievous purpose by a particular national daily owned by a former governor.

THE average un infested Nigerian’s main needs amongst others, is to see government at work, pursuing the provision of his basics that would make life worth living like good roads connecting the rural with the urban, transportation at affordable rate, health facilities stocked and water.

WHILE the killings of Southerners,Yorubas and Northern Christians continue unabated in the North, there is a recognisable systematic effort to locate the perpetrators among the victims or at least to obfuscate the source of culpability for the on-going mayhem. The articles written by Hakeem Baba-Ahmed and Ishaq Kawu in the Vanguard of 11 and 12 January respectively are an example of such attempts.

Though much of the world has never heard of diseases like lymphatic filariasis or schistosomiasis, these and other neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) are a daily reality for many living in Africa and across the world. These terrible diseases affect more than one billion people worldwide, disabling, disfiguring and blinding their victims, and making it difficult for the world’s poorest communities to lift themselves out of poverty.