‘We were here, Ebola came and passed’

Five years ago, the first case of the Ebola virus in Nigeria was recorded in Lagos. The outbreak claimed several lives and would have claimed more but for the brave men and women who prevented patient zero, Patrick Sawyer, from escaping into the crowded Obalende area of Lagos. This is the story of some traders […]

Five years ago, the first case of the Ebola virus in Nigeria was recorded in Lagos. The outbreak claimed several lives and would have claimed more but for the brave men and women who prevented patient zero, Patrick Sawyer, from escaping into the crowded Obalende area of Lagos. This is the story of some traders in Obalende who watched as Ebola walked by.

 

In 2014, Liberian-American lawyer Patrick Sawyer was rushed to a Lagos hospital from the Murtala Muhammad Airport and later died of Ebola. His death sent chills across the country, and the world. It was the first confirmed case of Ebola in Nigeria, a country pushing on 200 million people. Sawyer had died in Obalende, a busy suburb, one of the most crowded in Lagos, famous for its nightlife, its red light districts and its many schools, its ambience set by civil war veterans who settled there after the war.

First Consultants Medical Centre, where Sawyer died after infecting several hospital staff, is located on a busy crossroad intersecting with St. Gregory Road. A huge brick faced building, without any signage, it was the place where Nigeria fought and won one of the most important battles in its history.

Inside the building, in the reception area, the martyrs who lost their lives while treating Sawyer have their faces up on the notice board. “In Honour of Our Fallen Heroes” printed in boldface over the four photos of Dr. Stella A. Adadevoh, Dr. Amas Abaniwo, Nurse Justina Ejelonu and Nurse aide Evelyn Uko, shows the veneration in which they are held. Obviously, the hospital is proud of their staff and what they achieved in 2014 but it is something they are anxious to get over.

“We don’t want that kind of publicity,” an elderly hospital staff said. He would not disclose his name or his designation. “We don’t want to talk about it.”

When pushed, he insisted Daily Trust spoke to the hospital administrator, who was not around at the time. The next day, the administrator was in a meeting, said another hospital staff who gave his name as Mr. Udunze.

Outside the hospital gates, hundreds of people went about their business, bumping into each other at the intersection as cars shared traffic with pedestrians and shop owners, one of whom splashed a bowl of water onto the asphalt. Others sat in front of their stalls while one burly man used cow whisks to dust his wares with the gentlest of touches. In a pharmacy across the street, a pharmacist briskly shoved drugs into a plastic bag for a customer. If Sawyer had escaped to the street, as he apparently wanted to do, he would have detonated a time bomb at this intersection. The hospital prevented that. Now they do not want to talk about it.

“When people pass by, they would point at the hospital and say this is where Ebola landed,” Hamisu Ado, 30, a trader, sitting opposite the hospital said, as if that would explain the rational.

Gabriel Ogoro, 28, is one of the traders who witnessed the outbreak. Sitting in his shop with clothes dangling off hangers and shoes perched on display racks, he cuddled the baby on his lap.

“I was afraid,” he said of the time. He lives nearby on the Island, and remembers how tensed things were. “They said the disease could be contracted through shaking someone so we avoided all kinds of contacts. Even when we went to church that time, we normally did not shake hands. Everyone was just minding his business,” he said.

He knew the role the hospital played in saving thousands of lives in Obalende.

“I think if they hadn’t controlled it, the death [toll] would have been higher,” he said. “I feel sorry for them,” he said of the hospital staff who lost their lives during the outbreak. For him, they were soldiers who sacrificed their lives for the country. “I remember them as heroes and I hope they will always celebrate them.”

 

The men who watched

Across from the hospital, right on the intersection, sitting like Esu, the Yoruba god of the crossroads, is Malam Ashiru Abubakar. He sells snacks, detergent, milk, batteries and more. He has lived in Lagos since the early 1990s and along with other traders who sit by him, they had witnessed the coming of Ebola and its aftermaths.

“We were sitting here and “we heard that they had a patient who had died and they suspect Ebola was the cause of death. I was with a doctor here who told me the disease was not airborne, that victims of the disease are always sweaty and if you didn’t touch them, you would be fine,” he said.

Malam Ashiru, 45, remembered how news of the outbreak transformed Obalende.

“Within a short time, this Obalende became a place cars don’t even want to come to. When you call Obalende, they would say, Obalende has Ebola. People in my village in Katsina called me to say they had heard rumours of Ebola in Lagos. I told them it is not a rumour because from where I am sitting now, if I jump 15 times, I will land in the midst of the hospital,” he said.

Baba, an elderly man who sells garden eggs at the intersection, and was listening in on the conversation nodded. “There were no cars here at the time, they all stopped coming,” he said. “If you see anyone around, it is one of the hospital staff.”

“Cars stopped coming,” Malam Ashiru said. “Even when they drop a passenger over there, the passenger would hurry and leave. Some people were looking at us as if we were corpses.”

Despite the looks, Malam Ashiru was not concerned about his own safety.

“That time, people stopped shaking hands. You don’t shake hands. But I didn’t care. Even now, I have no guarantee that I am going to live for another hour,” he said.

He recalled how both he, and the hospital staff, who sometimes strolled out for company, would sit and talk while passersby looked at them with wary as if they were already infected by merely sitting there.

“We were together with them before the outbreak, should we then turn our backs on them because of it?” Malam Ashiru said. Baba shook his head.

Hamisu Ado also nodded his agreement. He was sitting on a stool, next to Malam Ashiru and has been resident in Obalende for some years now. He remembered some healthworkers often came to spray the hospitals with disinfectants during the outbreak.

“Often, they came and sat with us here. We would gist and talk about everything. We had no fear,” he said.

When the outbreak started, Hamisu had travelled to his native Kano to see his parents. The news reached him there.

“They said it is in this very Obalende,” he said, “but I knew since it wasn’t airborne then the risk was minimal. I jumped in a car coming to Lagos to resume my business.”

There was something about the trader’s bravery, something Quixotic perhaps.

“I swear to you that at the height of it, I went to the hospital to fetch wood planks that a carpenter used to fix my table,” Malam Ashiru said. “The moment I was enlightened about how the disease is spread, I had no fears.”

Fear was something that spread faster than the disease in 2014. Hamisu recalled the trepidations of his parents in Kano.

“My parents called to ask us to bath with salt water because Ebola was going to be airborne. I told them that was false information,” Hamisu said.

They spent a while discussing the “salt episode,” sharing anecdotes of people who had been misled into drinking salt solutions and bathing with same to keep Ebola at bay. A good number of people died from high blood pressure caused by the consumption of high quantities of salt. Others had narrow escapes. Hamisu thought if the government had sensitized people properly about the disease, those deaths could have been avoided.

But it wasn’t all gloom for the traders. Among the things Malam Ashiru sells is bitter kola, a substance said to have some efficacy in preventing Ebola infection.

“Since the Ebola period, its value and price has never gone down and it is being exported now because it is thought to help cure Ebola,” he said.

As if on cue, he reached for his bag of bitter kola, offered a piece and passed a piece each to Hamisu and Baba. Using his teeth, he scraped off the brown skin and spat it on the floor.

‘These people tried’

Ever since he had been at that crossroad, Malam Ashiru had never seen any signage on the hospital. It was an exclusive hospital, he said.

“Anyone you see going to that hospital must have a bellyful,” he said, using the Hausa expression. “The hospital is expensive.”

He too, like Hamisu, Baba and Gabriel, seemed awed by the achievement of the hospital in fighting the outbreak. “Honest to God, these people tried in stopping Ebola,” he said, bowing his head and falling silent for an instant, as if in respect to the dead.

Lives were lost. Other things were too.

“There was a big fig tree here,” Malam Ashiru said. “They cut it down, because they were saying Ebola originated from animals and there were bats in the trees. They brought a machine and chopped it down. There were hundreds of bats in the tree, close to the bank there,” he said pointing.

After the outbreak, the hospital too was forced to lose its equipment that might have been contaminated by the virus.

“Some of the things were burnt in there,” Hamisu pointed in the direction of the hospital premises. “Others were carried away in trucks and destroyed.”

“We were here when they packed all the equipment from the hospital,” Malam Ashiru said. “Then they brought new ones. We were here when [Babatunde] Fashola [then governor of Lagos State] came to reopen the hospital. Areas boys gathered here in multitude.”

“He stood right here even,” Hamisu said, pointing at a spot on the intersection.

They watched life trickle back to normal at the busy intersection and eventually, they watched as people felt safe enough to start offering handshakes. Slowly, Obalende got its groove back.

Again the men fell silent. But in their faces, there was relief that it was over.

“We were here and Ebola came and passed,” Malam Ashiru said, looking at the street as if he could see the shadowy figure of the disease walking past.