Depopulation by bio-gun

There’s a natural mystic Blowing through the air If you listen carefully now you will hear This could be the first trumpet Might as well be the last Many more will have to suffer Many more will have to die Don’t ask me why. Bob Marley might as well have been singing about these funereal […]

There’s a natural mystic

Blowing through the air

If you listen carefully now you will hear

This could be the first trumpet

Might as well be the last

Many more will have to suffer

Many more will have to die

Don’t ask me why.

Bob Marley might as well have been singing about these funereal times. Whoever knew that an invisible bio-foe could so comprehensively render the entire world so helpless that the world powers are eating the humble pie and conceding for once that there are things beyond their control.

Globally, as at this moment, there have been 311,894 confirmed cases of Covid-19 (an infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2). 13,071 people have died while 95,838 live to fight another day. Major cities all over the world are on lockdown. Man is advised to keep a safe distance from fellow man because the unseen killer feeds on person to person contact. The elderly are especially vulnerable. Who would ever have foreseen Boris Johnson’s admonition to fellow Brits to keep away from their mums on Mothers’ Day if they wanted them alive. Imagine giving your mum a hug which leads to her death!

When the Covid-19 fire started raging from Wuhan, China, and crept borderlessly to other countries, my US-based friend, Dr. Mabayoje, frantically wrote that Nigeria should watch out. In fact, during his last trip home a couple of weeks ago, he observed that many Europeans, whose countries had been on the no-fly list of the US, travelled through Nigeria to take advantage of the Visa on arrival policy in order to connect US-bound flights. He warned that Nigerians would suffer for the lapse. Time is proving him right. Mercifully, government has been swift in its response and all international flights have now been banned.

Churches and mosques have largely been on shutdown because the disease spreads easily among crowds. Malaysia is paying a huge price for allowing a huge religious gathering of 16,000 Islamic missionaries and devotees after which the country’s coronavirus cases jumped to 1,183 with eight deaths and officials warned of an anticipated sharp increase as they track down people who attended a large religious “tabligh” gathering now linked to 714 cases in Malaysia – 60% of the total.

Covid-19 is deadlier than Ebola but it seems that the Nigerian authorities are still using the Ebola protocols to handle this novel disease. An Ebola patient is easy to identify, but a Covid-19 sufferer may still mix and mingle with the rest of humanity without the slightest hint of trouble. Coronavirus disease is like an iceberg — there’s plenty more than the tip.

There is no reason why we can’t quickly acquire the latest testing kits now being used by the US. It’s clear that this is one disease we can’t play politics with. We cannot continue to rely on five testing centres in a country with 200 million people. Every state ought to have a testing centre. Private hospitals, especially the more reputable ones, also have to be coopted into providing at least holding facilities. Government should not be under the illusion that it can weather the storm alone.

If the experience of other countries is any guide, the spike will soon come — and we had better be prepared. It is futile to say it is not our portion; whose portion is it? The low count of the afflicted, so far, cannot be the full story. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the World Health Organisation (WHO), said last week that the number of cases in Africa was likely understated. “The best advice for Africa is to prepare for the worst and prepare today,” he said.

Even the use of hand sanitisers has been demystified by Minister of Power, Babatunde Fashola, who recently made the point at a public gathering that the sanitiser he was required to use before entering the venue was an anti-bacterial sanitiser, whereas Covid-19 is a virus!

One and all got to face reality now

Though I try to find the answer

To all the questions they ask

Though I know it’s impossible

To go living through the past

Don’t tell no lie

There’s a natural mystic

Blowing through the air

Thank you Bob Marley. Somehow, Covid-19 has sent Boko Haram, bandits, kidnappers and robbers on a compulsory holiday. Even cannibals know they have to be alive to partake in the next meal.

Twenty-nine percent of Americans believe the virus was created in a lab, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. Conspiracy theories are no use when you consider that the virus does not discriminate. But we can learn one lesson: those who manufacture biological weapons may never know the many possible mutations of their unborn monster.

A bioweapon may turn round to consume its creator, even if that creator controls nuclear weapons. It is no longer funny when a bio-gun uses your head for target practice! But we can be sensible by staying at home and minimising social contact.

Meanwhile, the world is cleaner by some degrees — less harmful emissions in the air and less assault on nature. The British Prime Minister projects that it will take three months to defeat the virus in his country.

Do we have any such projection for Nigeria?

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ODIA!

Many happy returns to Odia Ofeimun, our friend, brother, poet, polemicist, serial author, political activist and, above all, a decent human being on his 70th birthday. Oh Dia-Dia-Dia, long may you live!