Richard Elesho/ Lokoja
When the Covid-19 disaster befell the world, it was like a fiery tale from another planet. Nigerians nay Africans, watched nerve wracking scenes of the epidemic in Asia and other parts of the globe on television sets with near langour.
As the disease toured the universe with commendable speed bringing down the low and the mighty on its track, Africa relished in a false sense of immunity from its sting.
The world knew too little about the new virus. In fact, ignorance powered our knowledge. Then, the rumour industry, ever active in the country and now digitalized by advent of the social media filled the vacuum. It fuelled myriad claims, some of them weird. ‘The virus cannot survive in tropical temperature.’ ‘It cannot successfully cross the Atlantic Ocean.’ Above all, ‘African delicacy will fight it to a standstill.’ And should it remain obstinate and still trespass? ‘It will meet its Waterloo in herbs and side victuals.’
Now, we know better. Experience, as they say is the best teacher. Africa has had, and still having her own bitter encounter with the deadly virus. The disease claimed its first major victim on Friday, 17th April in Mallam Abba Kyari. He was Chief of Staff to President Buhari. Many insist he was Nigeria’s surrogate leader or the de facto President.
No matter the nomenclature, Kyari’s passage at 67 years, advertised his virtues and strong character to the world. But, it was too late. No body knows exactly how and where Kyari got infected. He had recently travelled to Germany for a meeting with Siemens on how to improve power situation in Nigeria. He had a brief stop over in United Kingdom on his return journey. Did he contract the disease in Germany, UK, on air or even in Nigeria? So many questions begging for answer after his demise.
Without doubts, we have a real and present danger with us. The rate of infection is still rising by the day. Countries worse hit include the super power nations – China (where it emanated), United Kingdom, United States of America, France and many others, less powerful. Unfortunately, the virus has thus far defied human remedy. The virus may have arrived for a long stay with humanity. Indeed, Coronavirus is a global pandemic that has threatened a collapse of public health infrastructure even in the most advanced countries. To deal with the contagion, words like quarantine, isolation, social distancing and total lockdown have gained fresh admission into man’s register.
Leaders of countries affected in Asia, Europe and America have directed different levels of economic lockdown of their societies. While some are partial or installmental, others have been total. Only people on essential services are allowed to go out in lockdown. Work is suspended or grossly restricted to ‘from home.’ Vehicular movements and social gatherings including religious congregations are outlawed.
President Buhari and many State Governors have also giraffed their counterparts abroad and copied word for word the economic lockdown policies. This was done without regard to Nigeria’s culture and micro economic sensibilities. To be candid, lockup and it’s less pandemic associates- isolation and quarantine are not new to our world. Those who are conversant with history can draw several examples from the past.
In the time of yore, any occurrence of widespread deaths was a pestilence. The earliest reference is in the Bible. Its second book, Exodus, captures the ‘plague’ or ‘diseases of Egypt’ among the extra ordinary measures Yahweh took to secure the release of the Jews from Egyptian bondage. From then on, humanity have been living with intermittent occassions of strange pestilence. The plague was later Africanized and called the ‘black death.’
The world has known many plagues. There was an outbrreak in Constantinople under Emperor Justinian in 542. China also had an outbreak from 1348-1352. It spread to Italy and other parts of the globe.
However lockdown was not deployed as a public health instrument until the 15th century. Even at that it was first applied in full force in Florence, Italy during a plague outbreak in 1630-31. The pandemic had claimed thousands of lives within a few months.
There is a parallel between the lockdown option which China, Europe and the West took against Covid-19 and the Florentine approach. Lockdown may prove effective in controlling the spread in those places. Nigeria and other African countries need caution on how they look up to China as example of how to respond to the pandemic. We do not share the same political, economic and social culture.
Lockdown on an empty stomach is lethal. For lockdown to be effective in this culture, people must be encouraged or bribed to stay at home. The type of palliatives and other support needed to make people obey seat at home order cannot be guaranteed in a third world economy. Nigeria, therefore needs to think out of the box for an effective home-grown remedy to cope with the pandemic pending the time a vaccine or cure is confirmed.
This virus shouldn’t lock down our economy forever. An average family in this country is a subsistence earner. Most people use what they earn daily to survive till the next day. From hand to mouth. The inability of people to go out in pursuit of daily bread has led to a sharp increase in robbery and other criminal activities. The one million boys terrorising Lagos readily comes to mind. Added to these, there have been rampant reports of law enforcement agents molesting and extorting citizens in the guise of enforcing the lockdown order. The frustrations of the Nigerian citizen are in all fronts.
It is time to consider a partial reopening of the economy. What is required is to issue strict guidelines and impartial enforcement of preventive measures as given by the World Health Organization, WHO and the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, NCDC. Restrictions on international and possibly interstate travels can still be maintained for a while. Government should enforce the use of face masks, sanitizers and crowd control. Restriction on big gatherings should not be compromised. Market activities should also remain regulated in urban centres.
Man does not trivialise with food. He was not created to joke with his stomach. Like they say, a woman who knows the way to a man’s stomach, will have the way to his heart, and vice versa. This also holds true for a government. Remember the stomach infrastructure mantra of a former South West Nigerian Governor. Lockdown is good as a preventive, never as a curative measure. But, it breeds hunger.
Hunger kills faster and more painfully than many diseases. This is the semantic theme conveyed in many Nigerian languages. I am hungry in many of our cultures is literally rendered as ‘hunger is killing me’ (Yoruba, Ebi un pami; Igbo, Aguna gugbum; Isoko, Oho bi ‘ekpo me, etc). Tell a man to choose between dieing of hunger or other causes of death and watch his mood. The war against Coronavirus needs not condemn citizens to untimely death, from hunger and fear. God forbid.