Maurice Iwu: Breaking Grounds, Chasing Legacy

Professor Maurice Iwu should be a household name to many a Nigerian. But that will be for a reason fundamentally different from the area where he has established an iconic reputation, globally. To many Nigerians, Iwu is known mostly for his period at INEC where, as chairman of the Commission, he supervised the 2011 federal elections that produced Goodluck Jonathan as President of Nigeria. In line with the saying that uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, he took all the flaks for the shenanigans of Nigeria’s desperate politicians who either did everything to win or would lose sorely after they would have been schemed out by their partners in political jerrymandering. Paradoxically, not many recall that it was under Iwu that INEC initiated many of the laudable steps for which INEC is being commended today. These include Continuing Voter Registration CVR, Biometric Registration of Voters, Electronic Voting and the Electoral Institute.

What many never realised is that managing Nigeria’s national elections, though very significant, constitutes a miniscule proportion of Professor monumental contributions to knowledge and the evolution of critical thinking in the field of alternative medicine in particular and national development in general.

A professor of pharmacognosy, Iwu through continuous research and teaching has helped to place the indigenous search for autarky in medicine on the front burner of national attention, continental relevance and global reckoning. The first scholar to develop a compelling compendium of African medicinal plants, through his company, Bioresources Ltd, Iwu not only trains Africans in a fast-developing genre of medical intervention but indeed holds the …to many medical preparations. Areas affected include detox preparations, immune boosters etc.

Recently, the highly respected Stanford University, USA, named him among the top two percent resourceful scientists in the world, a feat that may not resonate with Nigerians as they daily bother with the challenge of living in a climate of unremitting insecurity and acrimonious political engagements. True Vision followed up on the mention, for the significant reason that it coincides with a tumultuous era in global health concern and for the fact that, indeed, Iwu was Chairman of the COVID-19 Committee set up by Governor Hope Uzodimma for Imo State. He fielded questions from Associate Editor, Simeon Ogoegbulem on the significance of the recognition and other issues of interest in Nigeria’s healthcare delivery system. It is a compelling read.

You were among the top two per cent scientists as recently released by Stanford University. How do you feel, being counted among the best in the world?

I feel humbled. I never expected such recognition. I am a professional scientist; that is what I do for a living. I have not seen the list but by the number of people who sent me congratulatory messages, I realized that I was in such a list I felt further humbled. I was also surprised that from this part of the world, I was the only non-university based scientist. That for me is a big surprise. That for me is also a surprise especially when you check in terms of what happens in other parts of the world, in America particularly, you will find out that research work is done mainly in the industries. That is actually why their economy is booming because there is a translation of research to products and services. And that is why I felt honoured that my name made the list. 

It appears that the list on Nigeria is dominated by researchers in public institutions. Does that suggest that not much significant research takes place in the private sector? 

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Not much research takes place in the private sector and that s really sad because we have built a disconnect between research and development, then production which is third aspect of it. I have a situation that my little organization has a higher concentration of scientists when compared to other people in the same pharmaceutical industry, whereas the pharmaceutical industry is science based. So, what then happens is that we are still in the quaternary aspect of pharmacy; namely buying and selling of pharmaceutical products and that is not pharmaceutical services. The actual call is how we translate research work to goods and services. You saw what happened with the Covid Vaccine.  AstraZeneca came up with the vaccine but when you look behind it is Oxford, when you look at what happened with Pfizer vaccine, behind it is Biontech-Pfizer. All that is industry-based. AstraZeneca took work from Oxford University, perfected and had more focus on the private sector and industry. That is the kennel of research, that ability to translate basic knowledge into applied knowledge and that is the key to development.  Though the list shows a good outing for Nigeria, yet the country is still battling with basic health challenges. This appears to be contradictory.  That is the point I am making. If you go to PubMed citation index for example, just type Covid/Nigeria scientists, you will be surprised that there is no cutting edge science that Nigerians did not contribute. Not even one. But it is that ability to translate that research to goods and services. And I tell you, it is not the fault of the scientists. The Nigerian scientists are doing what they know how to do best, namely; being able to discover knowledge, being able to teach that knowledge and being able to consolidate or being able to amplify that knowledge base. That is their work and they have done that creditably well. But that small element of translating research to development and production and applied knowledge of solving human problem is missing. That is the role of boundary organizations. There are a lot of that boundary organizations in the United States and they attract venture capitals, they go seek out funds to translate these researches to goods and services. It will surprise you to know that my research outfit here in Nigeria were supported mainly by the contract work we are doing for America. Because it is a global village, they want a specific problem solved, we then do it. But you saw what happened when we came and said that we have a cure for Covid. Nobody gave us the support to say, let us try them out. But in America and other developed world, it is the other way round. Once you have something that is out of the ordinary, they investigate you and have a cynical attitude towards knowledge. It is a mindset. Underdevelopment is not just about technological advancement, it also a state of the mind, not being able to recognize such feats. That tells you that there is no problem with Nigerians, it is the problem with Nigeria. 

How do we then bridge the disconnect between research and the industry?

It is exactly a leadership issue. Luckily for us, the current minister of science and technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu, who is a scientist himself seems to realize the problem and is working towards having a policy redirection. But the sad aspect of it is that the scientific endeavour is not charismatic. If you say that somebody is a minister for science and technology, people will not even look at the person a second time. But if you say that somebody is the minister of finance or minster of agriculture, everybody will turn. But science and technology is the hub and the key. So, it is a policy issue. For example, Nigeria established six technology universities (I don’t even Know many of such universities we have now), the universities did not make much impact because the secondary level which is deliberate funding of research and development was not available deliberately. And if you want, we can do what the Japanese, the South Koreans and the Singaporeans did. You don’t necessarily have to invent everything but you translate researches into products and services. Remember when the Japanese came into the technological scene, they were being laughed at and people were making joke of them. But now, the same Japanese are in the forefront of technological advancements. The same thing happened with South Korea not long ago. Deliberately, they said this is where we want to go and they have been able to put their money into innovation and creativity. Samsung for example may not have as many patents as Apple but what they do is that they were able to do that translational research and it is very important. I have an organization called the Bioresources Development Group (BDG). What we did deliberately again is that we are focused on biology. What our main focus is that translation of science to research and development and products. That was why all our centres are near universities because you cannot do without universities. We have to tap a lot of symbiotic relationship with the universities. Our first centre is at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (Off course that is where I came from), we have another one in Imo state. And we are doing another one with the University of Lagos. That is how it is done. Science by its nature, is like playing the game of tennis otherwise, it does not develop. If you stay on your own in one isolated place and play it as if you are playing Golf, you will not achieve much. It is a situation on ground whereby, if we recognize the ministry of science and technology as the key ministry for our economic development, not just on short term but on a longer term. That way, those institutions will be better equipped and those arguments between ASUU and government will become ridiculous because you cannot grow and make progress in the 21st century without science and technology.  

You set up the Bioresources Development Group. What is the main focus of this outfit?

BDG was actually an incidental setup. I was teaching at the UNN, then I went overseas to do a postgraduate fellowship. I was a Fulbright Scholar and I got a place at Columbia University. One of the shocking things I discovered was that my professor and boss was having a parallel appointment with Sumotori laboratories in Japan. Sumotori Biological Institute of Organic Research is a manufacturing concern that is into production of beer and other things. Yet the man was teaching at Columbia University in New York. So, you could see the cleverness in what they are doing. So, I noted that and kept quiet. I said so this is the trick. Then when we had a global conference on biodiversity as far back as 1992, it dawned on me the type of problem we are having in Africa which is sustaining our biodiversity. Biodiversity is our biggest resource base and if we do not protect it, then we are doomed.  So, I got a group of scientists and urged them that we need to do something. So, two issues were involved, first that we have to do sustainability science, doing things that make us develop like other parts of the world. Secondly is that we have to do things that will make us leverage on our own resources to solve our own internal problems. The first thing that hit me at that time that I was teaching at UNN was the level of tropical sores that was hitting people at that time. And the very simple thing we did was to take Carica Papaya (Paw-Paw) and use it to heal wounds. The second thing was to look at Bitter kola (Garcinia kola) because of the claim that it does so many things. And we found out that it is an antidote to a lot of poisons. And there was a major poison that is from a specie of mushroom. So, we were able to show that that particular compound that we got from garcinia can block it from being lethal. We then published the work at the time. Between then and now, about 150 papers have been published by other scholars on that concept alone. Like I said, the setting up of BDG was very incidental and one thing led to the other and I had a Visiting Fellowship with the US military. I worked at Walter Reed Army Center in Washington DC. At that time, I had access to equipment and other things. So, I set up the Center at Nsukka to help me extract the compounds that we need to help me work in the US. When I finished my tenure, it became something that I have to sustain. We also collaborated with the University of Jos and university of Ibadan among others. And the whole idea is that BDG realizes that grants come and go and for us to be sustainable, we have to go into manufacturing. So, we set up our own manufacturing centre and started manufacturing products. We also realized that if we started manufacturing things that are based on Western concepts, we may not be competitive because for you to have one molecule or compound, it will cost you much money. And that is why the aspect of drug development is very expensive undertaking, so we started looking back at our own healing remedies. Two years after that, I published a book titled Handbook of African Medicinal Plants in 1994. And 20 years after, the second edition came out and now the third edition is in the works because it became a fundamental basis for people who are interested in doing research on African plants. So that is the history of Bioresources Development Group.

What is the relationship between BDG and other research institutions and the academia? 

We do have a relationship with them. As I said earlier one of the things that we do is that we see ourselves as boundary organizations. We try to promote interaction between government agencies and the academia on one hand and we also try to promote interactions between universities and the industries on the other hand. We have sponsored a lot of academic programmes, but more importantly, we have what we call Herbfest   whereby, every year, we bring top notch scientists to come and share their knowledge and experiences in herbal plants. Those who have products are also encouraged to come and exhibit their products. There is also a segment that is dedicated to teaching. We have handled some workshops which have produced monumental successes in the sense that we have been able to train people in the area that we believe that there is a gap in the value chain of medicinal plants. For example, we have trained people on ability to identify plants which is called taxonomy because if you do not know the plants you will not be able to work on them properly. We have also done training for people on standardization of medicinal plants.

How do you standardize those plants and make them uniform at all times otherwise it will become folktale. We now have training for people on the cultivation of medicinal plants. By running these workshops, we bring people together, both the academia on one hand and the industry on the other. So far so good. We have a commercial wing called Intercedd Health Products (IHP). This is named after one of our centres, at Nsukka called the International Center for Ethnomedicine and Drug Development. The idea is to transform traditional medicine to modern scientific research and development then to finished medicine. IHP are products from the centre and it is here in Abuja. We have moved one step forward now that we are trying to develop a product from mushroom. This product is going to be used for cardiac problems. We are developing it in partnership with Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC). So, what we are doing now is to make the mushroom to manufacture a product for us. And it is a very common mushroom called Osu which is used in cooking and children play ball with it.  The centre is ready, we have just ordered some machinery and equipment. The environment is not conducive but that is not enough excuse for us not to do anything. We are partnering a lot of government agencies and making things happen. We are not there yet, but I think we are on our way.   

How can the missing link between the works institutions like yours do and other industry can be closed?

There are two approaches to closing the missing link. One is total government policy intervention. When I say government, it must not be federal government. A state government can declare that it wants to be known for science and technology innovations. Some of our states are as big as some countries. So, a state can make it a major issue.  It is like if you have motor parts issues, you look towards Nnewi. A state can therefore declare that they are going to face science and technology and run with it. But the one that is more sustainable is the private sector driven approach, where people see science as a business, not just as a hobby or academic exercise but as a business. What it then means is that scientists will deliberately invest. It has happened in Nigeria before. I remember in the 1970s, the late Professor Njoku Obi’s works were actually funded by Arthur Nzeribe. So, if science and business come together, that is when it will be sustainable and it leads to development because, business is profit oriented. The business will be able to pick those viable innovations, those translational research that can lead to product and development. When that happens, you then know that that particular society has really arrived. I worked with a US agency and one of the things they do is that the government, through an agency, can develop whole research that cost billions and through the Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CREDA) with a private agency, give to them at just one dollar. We are talking about a research that has gulped billions. Try it here, you will be accused of fraud. What reason will you give why government should give you free money in Nigeria because our level of development has not gone that far. The person will be haunted down and based on that, a lot of scientists will not accept out of fear, but that is how it is done all over the world.  You have endowments: before people die, they will part of their estate to a university and set up a Chair in that university. It does not happen here. Does it mean we don’t have rich men here? We do but the point is that they have not seen science and technology as a business. I am not trying to lambast anybody but it was laughable that when we had Covid-19, we wrote to state governments for them to fund the clinical trials but none of them responded, not even one reply. We went ahead to fund the research on our own and the same people are using the products. It was only Imo state government that came and were using what we call Immune Fortification Therapy based on three known products that have direct immune boosting properties. We packaged it in a triplicate manner and were given to those who are vulnerable so that they do not succumb to the Covid. Even now, for example, what people are more interested in is access to products developed by other people and not how do we develop our own products. It is a mindset issue and has nothing to do with our scientists. Our scientists can compete with any of their contemporaries anywhere. It has to do with our ability to translate knowledge into products and services. The other aspect is to recognize science as a business and the biggest multiplier of wealth. If for example, there is one product that Nigeria has produced and recognized globally, our whole land here will not be enough to cultivate it because the demand will be so much. A good example is the antimalarial product from Artemisinin plant. In China, it is a major industry, every available space is used for its cultivation including Vietnam because it is a business crop that the biomass (the quantity that you have to cultivate) to get that simple compound is a lot because the compound only exists in less than one per cent of the biomass, to treat one person. So, you can imagine the quantity that you have to cultivate. In our own case, BDG has four farms across the country, we have one each in Kuje, Abuja, Benue, Uzo-Uwani in Enugu and in Okigwe in Imo state. Yet, we are not anywhere self-sufficient that we still buy from farmers. What we are good at is finished products. Another thing that will surprise you is that when it comes to drug development, we have three components. We have active masticating ingredients and ACPNs. ACPNs are the things used to cover the active ingredients. They are not active compounds, but they are used to give the drugs form. There is no single active masticating ingredient produced in Nigeria, not even one. Not even Aspirin or Paracetamol. But when a group like ours decided that we could produce three of those compounds, tested internationally, nobody asked us any question, nobody cared. That is one of the lacunas we have in the system. As I said, excuses will not solve the problem. What we are doing within our lifetime is to see how we can solve as much problem as we can, using our own resources and hoping that, over time, others will see that it is a viable business. So, there is a binary approach, binary in the sense that the government has to play its role. The current minister of science and technology is doing a marvellous work but we are not there yet. He needs to be supported more. He needs to be given grants more. He needs to do what others do. And what is it that others do? Globally, government institutions give grants to universities and organizations to undertake research. Government owned research centres take 20 per cent of the grants while 80 per cent goes out to universities and other institutions. The government research centres thus play more of a supervisory role and collector of innovations to solve national problems. The second aspect is the business sector. Science is business. It has to be seen from this point of view. Our businessmen should learn to see it that way. The foundation or underlying factor is education. If there is no proper education, there cannot be the application of science and technology. When all these are done, people will key into it and we can have a 25 year plan and within the 25 years, we can transform this country totally into a different place. When we look at how long we have had this current democratic dispensation, we have had enough time to transform this country. Those who know however are not able to do anything because the system we operate is faulty.

You served as chairman of COVID-19 Task force in Imo state. What was your experience like and what were the challenges you faced?

It was a very wonderful experience in the sense that we worked with a government that was barely one month old before the pandemic struck. The first thing we did was that we had to convince the government that all decisions we had to make should be science based, not based on politics. The World Health Organization (WHO) is a political organization, even though it consists of doctors and all that but it is political. We should not miss that. Some information may come that the government will panic. I will say forget it, let them show us the evidence. I was more or less a nuisance at a time because I was insisting that yes, it is from WHO but I want to be shown the evidence where it is written. That is the beauty of science. There is always a scientific method and once the policies are driven by science it makes your work easier. We then realized that we were taking directives from people line and sinker and that was not correct. We realized that Covid was not new that it had come before. The latest time it came was in 2003 in China. We had what we called Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). We researched on it at that time. By 2014 we had three patents from three compounds. The first compound was called Akiluva from Akilu. Second was a compound we called Astonene an already known compound which we re-isolated. The third was Andrangrossaline, the king of bitters. We had these three compounds with patent given by the federal government of Nigeria. When this came out the second time, it took a while to convince our people that the Chinese had treated this in the past and that this is a new variant of the old pandemic. But the WHO at that time thought that it was a novel coronavirus. It took a while for them to recognize that it was nothing new but it was SARSCOV-II.  The coronavirus family is the same family of flu. I was annoying a lot of the experts by insisting that there was nothing to panic. The hysteria was totally unnecessary. The method of protection in the 1918 epidemic is the same wearing of facemask and we have not improved on that since then. These public health methods were sacrosanct. If you applied them, you were safe until there is a drug. What is depressing though is that there are not so many viral infections that can be cured. Viruses are recalcitrant, we just have to learn how to manage them and weaken them so that they do not kill. When the vaccine issue came out, it was the same story. I am not against the vaccine but it is important we let people know the true story and that the vaccine is an experimental product. They are accumulating data to make it better and better but based on the issue of the coronaviruses, I was saying at that time that one vaccine was not good enough, because the virus mutates very rapidly. People were saying, this is a wonder drug, but after a while they now realize that they have to take the second dose and now they are talking about booster. If you live overseas particularly in Europe and America, they take flu vaccines every year. It does not stop the flu from infecting you or stop the flu. What it does is that it helps you to be able to handle it better. The same thing with COVID-19 vaccine, it does not stop you from contracting or transmitting the virus. What it does, is that it pre-exposes you to the virus before you get the more lethal one. It is not a full virus that they are injecting into you. It is just protein that they believe will stimulate your immune response so that your body will be used to that kind of thing when the real thing attacks. Because of my previous experience in such things, I only insisted to be involved in policy and advisory capacity. I was not involved in the actual running of the health facilities. I had staff who were doing all that. Mine was just the management. It was great. We did handle the situation well in Imo state and to the best of our knowledge, we acquitted ourselves very well. We were able to handle some very bad cases. The product that we developed which I restricted myself from using my base as a clinical trial instead we sent it to Lagos State University. They were the ones testing patients with the product. The product so far has astounded us. We are surprised at its success rate. Because of its inherent ability to be able to prevent cytokine storm, it was able to help people who had other underlying ailments such as obesity and diabetes and even older people. We had a situation where we were having medical tourism to Imo state, of all places. There was an ex-deputy governor in one of the states who was almost dead. He was treated by our doctors with our product and he was able to come around. It was rewarding in that we could see the instantaneous effect of the medicines. People were getting better.

With your closeness to the Imo state government, did you advise them to make investments in that area?

It is a difficult thing because we do not want to have a conflict of interest. We did some position papers and I advised against panic measures. For instance, some states converted stadiums into medical isolation centres. I frowned against that. Instead, I suggested that we strengthen existing infrastructure. For example, the state had a teaching hospital at Orlu. People were saying lets spread it according to zones. I said no, it’s better to concentrate expertise in one location. The current treatment at the time was being handled at Owerri at the Federal Medical Center. The research and referral, if the thing had gone out of hand would have been at Orlu. The reason was that Orlu already had a teaching hospital and secondly, there was no place in Imo State that could not be reached within one hour of each other. The best was thus to concentrate all of the best resources. What will result is that Imo will end up having Medical Tourism as an industry, because Orlu will have state of the art facilities. In Owerri, there is even a private sector driven hospital called La Regions Hospital. It is as good as any hospital you can see in the United States. Then one university is also having their teaching hospital also in Okigwe. We have a situation where we have expertise in all the various parts of the state. Government has brought up the idea to ensure we have a technology-based health sector. Just recently, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) had a partnership agreement with the state in terms of having an industrialization policy that is home-based so that we don’t have grafting. There are many industries that are abandoned in the state. Examples include Avutu Poultry, Ada Palms Farms, and some other palm farms. Let me give you an example of palm. If you extract a small bottle of vitamin A from oil palm, it will fetch you more money than you would get from a drum of oil. We do not want to fall into what I call the Cocoa quagmire. What I mean is that it does not matter how much you make from cocoa, the people who make chocolate are the people who are making the profit. The value chain is at the other end of processing. We are trying to build a facility at Okigwe, what we call GMD facility for Pharmaceuticals, but opposite it, we are working with federal ministry of agriculture to revamp a fish farm that was abandoned several years ago so that we can take some components out of it and turn it into an industrial base. We intend to attract related pharmaceutical companies to the location. The state government is building a university campus. We have invested in a police station there. People who see us think we are doing philanthropy. It was a pragmatic decision to be able to secure the investments we have made around the location. Our role will be to facilitate it. A company is coming in to provide electrical energy on a lease use basis. We are on track. We know what to do. It is only a matter of time. I will make some advice to the government as long as we are conscious of our conflicts of interest. Federal University of Technology is about to have a medical school and the vice Chancellor is shouting about encroachment. It is unfortunate. The land was meant to serve as industry incubators. But there is no single industry there. FUTO was not conceived to be an ivory tower. It was supposed to be a complex made up the academia and the industrial complex. 

Recently some Europeans red–marked some African countries about this new variant of Covid 19. What advice do you have to give?

It is a good thing that they have red-marked us so that it teaches us some hard lessons. One is the fact that we do not have any friends out there. You are on your own when the chips are down and the chips are down. Second thing is for us to build an internal capacity to handle some of these things. It is an unfortunate situation because the variant they are talking about was already out there. What the South Africans did was to do the world a favour by discovering it and giving it recognition. Instead of applauding them for it, they were being victimized. It was totally wrong. Unfortunately, the British came out to say that they did that to buy time. But they bought a wrong time. They soon realized that the measure didn’t help them and the virus was already in their territory.  Some cynical people believed that it was meant to prevent cash outflow from Europe to Africa especially during the Christmas season. Anyway, they realized their mistake and overturned it. This is why I always say that when scientific policies are not created based on science, it is faulty.

Some European countries are already kicking against immunization. In Nigeria, it has been made mandatory, what is your take?

The first time the coronavirus vaccine was developed was in 1940s, the flu vaccine. It was observed that the virus mutates so new vaccines had to be developed every time to tackle the virus. This coronavirus is taking the same pattern. The vaccine does not stop one from contracting or transferring the virus. It only helps one fight it when it eventually arrives. The evidence we have now is that even if you have been vaccinated, you can still catch the new variant and even transmit it to other people whether at a lower rate. The third thing that people are saying is that if one contracts it, the chances of hospitalization is lower and the chances of death is also lower in which case, it helps the individual. What I do not understand is the public health advantage. I am neither an immunologist nor a vaccinologist. But the issue is that there is a scientific method I do not know the science and nobody has convinced me about it. But people believe that it can help. The mandatory nature of it is what I am against. But I know that the vaccines are not sufficient protection against the virus. Let citizens decide by themselves what they should do with their health as long as it does not affect the public health

From first jab to second jab. Now we are talking of Booster Jab, does it mean that we have to learn to live with the virus?

Yes. I think the world should learn to live with it. The West has always lived with the Flu. I do not want to share some suggestions that the West want us to be like them because they have to take the Flu vaccine every year because it is an economic decision. I do not want to believe that. But the truth is that the virus does not go away like that. This is not the first time. Anybody trying to miseducate us that if you take the jab, it will go away is wrong. The sooner we start making the vaccines ourselves, the better for us all. From what is going on now, the virus will continue mutating itself. 

What is your recipe for effective healthcare delivery in Nigeria?

Well, I think when it comes to the issue of personal health, it remains a personal decision. One can chose where he wants to be treated. For me now, if I am sick, the first place I think I should go is Imo state because I am confident because of the structures I know we have in the state. People will always go where they have confidence that they will be treated well. Having said that, the public health education not necessarily infrastructure has to be strengthened. We have to strengthen our public health education, awareness and training. Why we were able to survive the Covid was because of the investments made during the Ebola crisis era. Such investments paid off. Some of those issues that had to do with isolation and contact tracing. The other issue is that we do not need many tertiary health institutions like teaching hospitals and FMCs. Let them be few but well equipped. If people can travel overseas for treatment what will stop them from going from one state to another to access quality health services. Then our primary and secondary health institutions in almost all nooks and crannies of our country.  Health advisers should be put in all the villages where people in the community can run to and seek for health advice. Then, they should be Telemedicine services even in the villages where people can receive medical attention irrespective of the distance. For those of us in the tropics, the challenge has always been environmental health so if we can have good sanitation and water and good air quality.  We should not wait till we have a situation like China or India before we act. We should learn from their mistakes and plan. Government should begin to act fast in collaboration with the private sector. When everyone plays his part, the society will be better for it.