Doctors Without Borders Solicits Local Support to Achieve Global Goals

Dike Onwuamaeze

One of the world’s foremost humanitarian organizations, Medicines Sans Frontieres (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, has stated that it could work effectively only when it could enjoy the support of leaders where it operates.

The MSF made this statement yesterday in Enugu when the its team led by MSF Special Adviser to the Nigerian Office, Professor Simeon Alozieuwa, visited the Chairman of Geometric Power, Professor Bart Nnaji.

Alozieuwa said that local support has become more crucial because of the nature of the operations of the organisation, which won the 1999 Nobel Prize for Peace for its extraordinary efforts in crisis places throughout the world.

He said: “While some other international organisations work in conflict places just to save lives, we not only save lives and ameliorate sufferings worldwide, we also speak out against acts that offend human dignity.”

According to him, the MSF’s policy of “see something and say something, frequently draws the ire of governments and influential groups.”

Alozie recalled that when MSF reported in 2016 that there was a high level of malnutrition in the Northeastern part of Nigeria caused by Boko Haram insurgents that could result in a cataclysmic situation, the Nigerian authorities were not pleased for fear that the report could dent the country’s image.

“However, when a UNICEF detailed report showed the extent of malnutrition”, said Alozieuwa, the government acknowledged the value of the MSF report which was consistent with its policy of speaking out.

He disclosed that working directly with local leaders “has enabled the organisation to obtain reliable information and knowledge on issues of great importance to the people’s survival.”

He added that the MSF called on Nnaji to seek his support because he is still an influential personality in the South-east and the country as well as being known globally “even though you are no longer the Minister of Science and Technology or the Minister of Power.”

Nnaji, in his response, thanked MSF for its star role in alleviating human suffering throughout the globe, noting that “it is eminently deserving of the Nobel Prize it won towards the end of the last century”.

He expressed pleasure that the foremost humanitarian organisation was conceived in Nigeria during the Civil War when its founder, Bernard Koutchner, who was then working on the International Red Cross staff was disillusioned that he and his colleagues could only attend to individual victims of the war but could not report the humanitarian crisis.

The MSF was formed in France in 1971, a year after the Nigerian Civil War ended, by doctors and journalists to bring succor to those in desperate need in conflict areas.

“Interestingly, this critical organization traces its roots to our dear country”, he said, pledging maximum support to it.

Alozieuwa was accompanied during the visit by Karsten Noko, head of the MSF Mission in Nigeria, who is originally from Zimbabwe; Dr. Aissami Abdou from the MSF Operational Centre in Brussels in Belgium who is originally from the Niger Republic; and Dr Ximena Campos Morena, the Deputy MSF Operational Coordinator in Brussels who is originally from Mexico.

Each team member expressed delight to be in Nigeria, especially the Eastern part where their organisation was conceived.

On hand to welcome the MSF guests with Professor Nnaji was the immediate past Commissioner for Information and Public Enlightenment in Anambra State, Mr. C. Don Adinuba, who is now the communication consultant to the Geometric Power Group.