1. The Association of Nigerian Chartered Architects (ANCA) wishes to refer to the Release by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) yesterday, Sunday, 5th April 2020, regarding the reported invitation of 18 medical “experts” from the Republic of China by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
2. ANCA wishes to state in categorical terms the support of our Association and indeed all Nigerian architects about the objections of NMA in their Release.
3. To begin with, ANCA wishes to align with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in commending the heroic efforts of our frontline medical teams in their fight against the COVID 19 pandemic in Nigeria by keeping the death rate as one of the lowest across the world in spite of the makeshift facilities at their disposal and their poor motivation, as reported by the survivors from the Yaba Treatment Centre.
4. ANCA is at a loss why the Federal Government would at this critical time
complicate the commendable work of our medical teams by inviting so-called “experts” from a country whose entry into Italy worsened the situation there.
5. If the commendable work of our medical teams have embarrassed the Western World and would want to repeat the Italian experience here we, architects and indeed every ordinary Nigerian, stand solidly behind the Nigerian Medical Association in rejecting it.
6. We also reject a situation where the Federal Government would make laws to regulate and sanitise a profession, in this case, the Medical and Dental Council Act, and the same government would undermine the Law. In other words, the law maker becomes the chief lawbreaker.
7. What the Federal Government is embarking on is to bring in quacks tagged “experts” and put them in charge of our sick citizens at this critical time of national and global emergency, because in the eyes of the Medical and Dental Council Act, they are quacks. This action of the government has far-reaching security implications for all of us, the citizens.
8. We call on the Association of Professional Bodies in Nigeria (APBN) and indeed all Professional Associations to stand behind NMA in resisting this decision of the Federal Government. Governments undermining the professions has been the stock in trade of our governments and this needs to be reversed.
9. We call on all professional regulatory agencies to advise against that move and advert the minds of their Principals on the importance of respecting the very Laws that brought them into being and save the Nigerian populace from unwarranted, avoidable and unnecessary foreign incursion. This action of government has led to needless loss of our brilliant professional minds to foreign economies.
10. Finally, we call on the Federal Government to provide the right equipment, facilities and motivation to our frontline medical teams to keep the death rate as low as it is and if possible eliminate any death and eradicate the pandemic.
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Signed
Ph. D. Arc. Justus O. Okah-Avae
Chair, BOT
Arc. Moyo Emmanuel Omatsone,
President-in-Council.