Andrew Agle: A tribute
By Charles Oni
ANDREW Nils Agle, 66, late Country Director of Basic Support for Institutionalising Child Survival (Basics II-Nigeria), a division of the United States Agency for International Development, was the ultimate assimilationist fantasy. By the time he died in his sleep, Friday, August 13, 2004, he had changed the definition of humanitarian service in a foreign land. It remains a mystery why he chose to die the same weekend he completed his assignment in Nigeria, and booked a flight back to the United States.
Agle, sometimes miss-spelt agile represented both meanings. The two words could conveniently coexist as "agile Agle". The public health specialist was arguably a world citizen. He spent 41 years of meritorious service to humanity in the United States and 70 other countries. His mission was to advocate and execute child survival strategies including the empowerment of the locals.
Surprisingly, this harbinger of hope for children in the throes of death spent all his life in the defence of African children, nay Nigerians. When he joined John Snow Incorporation in 1963, life then was simpler and less materialistic. Children in the sub-Saharan Africa however, had smallpox to contend with. By 1964, the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention had just got funding assistance from the Agency for International Development to launch a West African experiment in smallpox control. Between 1969 and 1970, Agle was the arrowhead of the project in Nigeria.
He was a facilitator/director of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) training sessions on EPI/Diarrhoea Disease Control Programmes in the 1970s in Malaysia, Fiji, Algeria, Cote d'Ivoire, Papua New Guinea, The Gambia, Zaire and the Peoples Republic of China. Between 1977 and 1990, he was the leader of the Child Survival Programme at Disease Control Department, Atlanta, Georgia. The 1980s met him in Africa as the Technical Coordinator of Combating Childhood Communicable Diseases (CCCD), a USAID-funded health programme.
Agle was at Emory University from 1990 to 1999 as the Director of Operations for Global 2000 of the Carter Centre, the icon in the global campaign against Guinea worm disease. From that seat, he managed and directed international development activities in health and agriculture in 13 countries in sub-Saharan Africa and a regional programme in six Latin American countries.
The public health extraordinary attained Category One consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council in 1999. He was the Associate Executive Director of the Task Force for Child Survival and Development until the bell tolled for him to move over to Nigeria once more in 2000. His arrival in Lagos in 2000 as the Country Director of Basics II/Nigeria under the aegis of USAID rejuvenated a rigorous and robust campaign against polio, malnutrition, malaria and other childhood killer diseases. From Lagos to Aba and Kano, Agle's handiworks are testimonials to the maxim; where there is the will, there is a way. A major achievement of the project was the empowerment of Nigerian volunteers under the Catchment Area Participation Associations (CAPA) to continue the good work at the exit of Basics II in September. Apart from professional and social mobilisation know-how, some of these associations had been registered as non-governmental associations.
Agle's works were not in vain. A proof that the prophet could even be very popular at home. In 1968, he bagged the United States Centre for Disease Control's Superior Performance Award. WHO honoured him with the Order of the Bi-furcated Needle in 1976. He won the CDC's Cooperative Outstanding Achievement Award in 1979. Between 1986 and 1990, he was member, Technical Advisory Group, Technologies for Primary Health Care Project (PRITECH), within same period; he was member, Technical Advisory Group, Resources for Child Health Project (REACH). In 1989, the United States Public Health Service honoured him with the Superior Service Award. Honours came his way in Nigeria when CAPA honoured him for his outstanding contributions to community-based approach to child survival in Nigeria.
His greatest benefit was his enthusiastic human relations. At USAID's Ikoyi office in Lagos, Agle was close with all the staff. Unlike many lesser beings, he was never carried away by achievement or office. He greeted with warmth, with a small smile on his peaceful face. A debonair, he stares reassuring on your face. For him, a good work is a chord of friendship. No wonder, he succeeded in turning hundreds of CAPA members and consultants into a united voice for safe child health delivery.
Agle is revered for looking at things with absolute concentration and energy. To him work is the antidote to anything unpleasant. The Basics II national manager, Dr. Mrs. Olawunmi Ashiru described his boss's death an anti-climax, harping, "we have lost a gem, it is unfortunate he had to die now when we should be shouting eureka." The Senior Programme Officer, Field Implementation and Strategic Communication, Mrs. Ene Obi drew the same refrain: "I took his exit personally, he was a mentor and father. He was a perfectionist too, I have learnt a lot from him, but see how death snatched him at the nick of time when he would have retired." Dr. Laila Maduekwe, Senior Programme Officer, Field Office, Abia Sate, said: "Andy's death is a mystery. I am yet to fathom why, but somehow it is a reality. We will all miss him".
This kind, perceptive man may not be known to many Nigerians, because of his penchant to work anonymously, he succeeded in touching many lives through his humanitarian services. As Basic II Senior Programme Officer, Lagos Field Office, Mr. Sam Orisasona put it, "not enough can be said of the 66 year-old Andy... he was a wonderful public health historian with a magnetic memory of events, people, places, problems and outcomes across the world." Adieu, man of heart till resurrection day.
Oni teaches Mass Communication at Yaba College of Technology, Lagos
