Recent events around the globe suggest that the scene of the battered planet is rapidly changing. Tragic and humourous events succeed one another rapidly overwhelming the inauguration of potential victims and astute observers alike.

It is an indisputable fact that the explosion in technology has revolutionalised the relationships between nations and people around the globe. This is demonstrated in the easy, quick and cheap access to news, information, aid-material and financial to victims of disasters practically anywhere, anytime around the globe.

A United Nations publication-Human Development  Report of 1999 once observed: People who leave around the globe are linked more deeply, more intensely, more immediately than ever before. Indeed this provides an ample opportunity for litany of concerns among vast swaths of humanity about the environment, welfare, humanitarian support for victims of natural disasters, wars, ethnics, religious crises as well social injustices. Besides, it explains the new global neighbourhood which is manifested in the movement of people, support and ideas around the globe with greater speed as never before.

Men and women of good-heart move in to show their love for humanity by providing humanitarian support to victims of floods, storms, landslides, droughts, earthquakes, tsunamis, religious war and ethnic violence. The most recent of these disasters has been the case of Haiti. An Island nation with a long history of deforestation laced with dismal socio-economic and development conditions. In 2004, Haiti captured the attention of the global press when  torrential rains caused massive mud slides that claimed thousand of lives. Six years later, it was hit by a major earthquake with a death toll of over 50,000. To the Haitians and the rest of the world, it is a trail of tears, shock, sorrow, sadness, despair, destruction, despondency, blood and ultimately death.

To the survivors, obviously it has exacted profound psychological toll on them. The country cannot afford to look beyond her borders for succour and encouragement just as the world cannot afford to demonstrate her goodwill and sacrifice to convince Haiti that globalisation is not a mirage. The international aid community must close in to mitigate the consequences of this disaster on Haiti.

This has compelled churches especially in Nigeria to offer special welfare offerings for earthquake victims and survivors. A country with a long history of corruption, people must establish a nexus between every activity and financial benefits.

The sad truth therefore is that most of these welfare offerings  end up in Pastor’s fabulous account. It is now a vogue for every church to collect welfare offerings for victims of earthquake in Haiti. Unfortunately, there is no proof of whether what is realised gets to the target victims. Beyond this, men and women of humanitarian outlook start a career overnight. This is a career of soliciting for alms and material support for disaster victims in motor parks, markets, Bus stops inside the buses, streets and other public places.  Most of these self-appointed fraudsters  with irresistible communication skills compel unsuspecting members of the public to part with their hardearned money in the spirit of support and sympathy for quake survivors. They monitor both local and foreign events to know when vacancies exist by way of disaster. They help both local and foreign media to propagate events and highlight on the humanitarian angle of such event. Ideally, there is nothing wrong with soliciting for alms for victims of disasters but it is inhuman, immoral, irresponsible and criminal when such alms end up in private pockets.

The world cannot be immuned of disasters and these career fund solicitors cannot change their modus operandi and intensions, it will not be futile efforts therefore to regulate their activities through a legitimate body. Such regulatory frame-work will not only check criminality but also encourage more donors and guarantee their confidence that what is given gets to the victims . It could be recalled easily that huge sums of money were raised in Nigeria during Obama’s campaign in the United States, it took the intervention of EFCC to save the two digits million naira from ending up in private pockets. Such sharp practice is an affront to humanity and a blot on national escutcheon.

Showing support in time of need is a potential way of improving global solidarity and reinforce the words of late Martin Luther King of blessed memory that all life is interrelated. We are all caught up in an inescapable network of mutuality tied into a single gament of destiny.  whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly.

The only way we can show genuine grief for victims of both human and natural disasters is to commit whatever alms, material and financial support  we collect from the public to their welfare. Anything short of this can be interpreted to be a charade.

Agi is a Post- Graduate student, UNN.