No Boundary With Coronavirus
Before the arrival of Coronavirus in the shores of Nigeria I was one of those one of the very numerous those who saw everything about it to be nothing but BAD and LETHAL. In my emotional thinking, I was, like others with me, 100% right. In fact if anything could be stronger than hatred, that was what Coronavirus deserved from me.
However, recent developments appear to be proving (if they have not yet proved) me (us) wrong. For a country like Nigeria it is not everything about Coronavirus that is BAD and LETHAL as we erroneously thought.
Admittedly coronavirus is a deadly infectious disease that has rendered incompetent the hitherto competent governments of many countries and has claimed tens of thousands of lives the world over. As at today 26/03/2020 virtually every country in the world has been touched. Countries like China, Italy, Spain, France, etc. are already on their knees, unable to stop Covid-19. The Prince Charles of Wales is positive to coronavirus. In Spain, France, Morocco, etc. ministers have tested positive. Back home here in Nigeria we recently heard of a Governor, a Speaker of a State House of Assembly, the son of a former Vice-President, etc. testing positive to coronavirus. The case of the almighty Abba Kyari is no longer news. Many prominent personalities who had contact one way or the other with the above infected patients have gone into self-quarantine pending the outcome of their screening tests. It is only God that knows the magnitude of the spread they have unknowingly engaged in. In a country like Nigeria where people pride themselves in romancing with dignitaries: handshakes, hugging, snapping photographs, dining together, whispering some gossip words and propaganda into their ears, etc. it will be difficult to imagine the scope of the spread. But the fact remains that if you are infected you remain infected till something is done to set you free or till the virus registers victory over you. This now takes me to the unanimously accepted beauty and benefits of coronavirus to Nigeria.
My people would say that a child carried on its mother’s back never feels the distance of the road. But the moment the child has to be compelled to do the trekking it would easily realise the true situation. The modus operandi of coronavirus, like any other pandemic in the known global history, is that is has no geographical boundary, it respects no class, the language of age is not meant for it, it knows no president, it does not recognise any minister let alone senator, tribal differences has no meaning to coronavirus, it is an atheist in that it recognises no Cathedrals, no Mosques, no Synagogues, no Shrines, etc. It operates a level playing ground. Coronavirus is therefore democratic and humanitarian in that it treats Musa, Chinedu and Bolaji without distinction. In other words, it treats all and sundry equally.
Coronavirus may be the messiah we have been waiting for as far as the development of medical services in Nigeria is concerned. Abba Kyari infected and is being treated in Abuja. Wow! Atiku’s son positive and he is being attended to in Nigeria. Another Wow!! Ordinarily these two persons would have been flown in a private jet to the best hospitals in the UK, France, India, Canada, China or even Dubai. Fortunately those countries have their hands full and even overflowing with coronavirus cases now. They have all plugged all entries. Some have even gone as far as revoking some entry visas in order to ensure that every country stays with its own measure of Covid-19. Could one have, by dint of any imagination, thought of Oga Kyari taking a bed in a Nigerian hospital, substandard as the system is or as they deliberately made it? Incredible!! Coronavirus has made the incredible possible.
You see coronavirus arrived unannounced and took the world unawares and spread even wider than wild fire, hitting people of all ages and classes alike and in a fell swoop it has accumulated uncountable victims. Former president Goodluck Jonathan said in his book My Transition Hours, “If you want to dig a pit against your enemy you better make it shallow because you may be the one that will fall into it”. I love the GEJ warning. Yes. If only Oga Atiku and now Kyari had had an inkling of the advent of coronavirus they would have used their good offices to improve the health system. No, they never did. They banked all their hopes in the first class hospitals outside the country (established by their counterparts in government) whereas they had more than what it would take to establish such state of the art hospitals here in Nigeria. God has a reason for everything. Covid-19 is the opportunity which God has created for our leaders to have a feel the kind of the squalor to which they subjected the poor populace of our beloved country, i.e. to fall into the pit they dug against the poor masses. It is an opportunity for our leaders to see that what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. It is an opportunity for them to see that the blood flowing in Musa is not different from the flowing in Chinedu and Bolaji. It is a lesson to them that we are all human beings.
In my place we have a traditional vaccine against epidemics and pandemics which is administered free of charge. It is called Ọgwụ Ọnah which my people have already prepared and started administering unto the people for the prevention of coronavirus. The Ọgwụ Ọnah is for every irrespective of age, class, religion and tribe.
The almighty Covid-19 has compelled Atiku to donate N50m to beef up the fight against coronavirus and the FGN is quickly up-grading the hospital to meet the Kyari standard. All these are happening in Nigeria now. But the question is: Why not before now?
I am not unaware that people may die in Nigeria, but you will all agree with me that they will be making sacrifices for Nigeria to get better. They are indeed what Roman Catholics may call martyrs in this regard.
My prayer is that Kyari will survive and Atiku’s son, amongst others, will also survive. We will all survive and live to tell the stories.
But will COVID-19 be the lesson? We will all wait and see what happens on the other side of Coronavirus.
By EMMA ODOGWU
However, recent developments appear to be proving (if they have not yet proved) me (us) wrong. For a country like Nigeria it is not everything about Coronavirus that is BAD and LETHAL as we erroneously thought.
Admittedly coronavirus is a deadly infectious disease that has rendered incompetent the hitherto competent governments of many countries and has claimed tens of thousands of lives the world over. As at today 26/03/2020 virtually every country in the world has been touched. Countries like China, Italy, Spain, France, etc. are already on their knees, unable to stop Covid-19. The Prince Charles of Wales is positive to coronavirus. In Spain, France, Morocco, etc. ministers have tested positive. Back home here in Nigeria we recently heard of a Governor, a Speaker of a State House of Assembly, the son of a former Vice-President, etc. testing positive to coronavirus. The case of the almighty Abba Kyari is no longer news. Many prominent personalities who had contact one way or the other with the above infected patients have gone into self-quarantine pending the outcome of their screening tests. It is only God that knows the magnitude of the spread they have unknowingly engaged in. In a country like Nigeria where people pride themselves in romancing with dignitaries: handshakes, hugging, snapping photographs, dining together, whispering some gossip words and propaganda into their ears, etc. it will be difficult to imagine the scope of the spread. But the fact remains that if you are infected you remain infected till something is done to set you free or till the virus registers victory over you. This now takes me to the unanimously accepted beauty and benefits of coronavirus to Nigeria.
My people would say that a child carried on its mother’s back never feels the distance of the road. But the moment the child has to be compelled to do the trekking it would easily realise the true situation. The modus operandi of coronavirus, like any other pandemic in the known global history, is that is has no geographical boundary, it respects no class, the language of age is not meant for it, it knows no president, it does not recognise any minister let alone senator, tribal differences has no meaning to coronavirus, it is an atheist in that it recognises no Cathedrals, no Mosques, no Synagogues, no Shrines, etc. It operates a level playing ground. Coronavirus is therefore democratic and humanitarian in that it treats Musa, Chinedu and Bolaji without distinction. In other words, it treats all and sundry equally.
Coronavirus may be the messiah we have been waiting for as far as the development of medical services in Nigeria is concerned. Abba Kyari infected and is being treated in Abuja. Wow! Atiku’s son positive and he is being attended to in Nigeria. Another Wow!! Ordinarily these two persons would have been flown in a private jet to the best hospitals in the UK, France, India, Canada, China or even Dubai. Fortunately those countries have their hands full and even overflowing with coronavirus cases now. They have all plugged all entries. Some have even gone as far as revoking some entry visas in order to ensure that every country stays with its own measure of Covid-19. Could one have, by dint of any imagination, thought of Oga Kyari taking a bed in a Nigerian hospital, substandard as the system is or as they deliberately made it? Incredible!! Coronavirus has made the incredible possible.
You see coronavirus arrived unannounced and took the world unawares and spread even wider than wild fire, hitting people of all ages and classes alike and in a fell swoop it has accumulated uncountable victims. Former president Goodluck Jonathan said in his book My Transition Hours, “If you want to dig a pit against your enemy you better make it shallow because you may be the one that will fall into it”. I love the GEJ warning. Yes. If only Oga Atiku and now Kyari had had an inkling of the advent of coronavirus they would have used their good offices to improve the health system. No, they never did. They banked all their hopes in the first class hospitals outside the country (established by their counterparts in government) whereas they had more than what it would take to establish such state of the art hospitals here in Nigeria. God has a reason for everything. Covid-19 is the opportunity which God has created for our leaders to have a feel the kind of the squalor to which they subjected the poor populace of our beloved country, i.e. to fall into the pit they dug against the poor masses. It is an opportunity for our leaders to see that what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander. It is an opportunity for them to see that the blood flowing in Musa is not different from the flowing in Chinedu and Bolaji. It is a lesson to them that we are all human beings.
In my place we have a traditional vaccine against epidemics and pandemics which is administered free of charge. It is called Ọgwụ Ọnah which my people have already prepared and started administering unto the people for the prevention of coronavirus. The Ọgwụ Ọnah is for every irrespective of age, class, religion and tribe.
The almighty Covid-19 has compelled Atiku to donate N50m to beef up the fight against coronavirus and the FGN is quickly up-grading the hospital to meet the Kyari standard. All these are happening in Nigeria now. But the question is: Why not before now?
I am not unaware that people may die in Nigeria, but you will all agree with me that they will be making sacrifices for Nigeria to get better. They are indeed what Roman Catholics may call martyrs in this regard.
My prayer is that Kyari will survive and Atiku’s son, amongst others, will also survive. We will all survive and live to tell the stories.
But will COVID-19 be the lesson? We will all wait and see what happens on the other side of Coronavirus.
By EMMA ODOGWU
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