COVID-19, The Leveller! by Lateef Adewole

The Insight by Lateef Adewole

“Eni ija o ba, ni o n pe ara re l’okunrin”

(He, who has not been tested in a battle, will always assume he is a strong man).

If someone had predicted some months ago, about the situation that the world has found itself in the past few months, such a person would have been asked to go for psychiatric evaluation. None of our “seers” saw this coming in all their annual/regular prophesies and predictions. What we are experiencing now was unimaginable. A single virus has brought the world to its knees.

Even when this virus is not the most deadly nor the pandemic the worst in the history of the world, the peculiarity of it makes all the difference.

None in the past, despite a higher number of infected people and the number of people who died, can be compared to the current one that has brought the whole world to a standstill. It’s mysticism is in the rate of its contagion and “sneaky” manner with which it does it.

The virus cannot move by itself but it is currently in 191 out of the total 195 countries of the world. About 3.3 million people have been infected with over two hundred thousand deaths globally. Yet, it can not move by itself. It is moved by people, mostly unknowingly. This gives it an aura of “invincibility”. And up to date, there is no specific cure for it.

So far, it has defied science, technology, or spirituality. All that the world has been doing is “trial and error” in managing it. In the process, some have been saved while many have died.

Right now, no one or country could claim superiority over another. Coronavirus has levelled everyone and every country.

It is shocking how the virus has exposed the frailty of our world, despite the claim to the advancements in science and technology. Before now, some countries with enormous military might and economic wealth often pride themselves as super powers. But now, “koro ti ja ranki won” (Coronavirus has deranked them). All that military strength could not save them.

In fact, the USA, which was hitherto seen as global leader, is now the epicentre of the pandemic with over a million infections (almost a third of the global infections) and sixty three thousand deaths (27 percent of global figure).

Similar high numbers have been recorded in other advanced and wealthy countries like UK, Russia, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, China (where it originated from), Iran, Canada and many others. The lowest figures actually came from the supposedly “underdeveloped” countries in Africa. What an irony.

Oxford researchers says the blood of people who recovered from Covid-19 needed for trial

It is that bad that many Africans do not want to travel to Europe or America at this time, even for free. Many Africans stuck in these countries wished they were in their home countries now.

Covid-19 has changed the game. It is not impossible that the arrogance that comes with power and enormous wealth of some of these countries, could have been responsible for the escalation of the virus in their territories, particularly in America.

Same irresponsible carelessness is still being displayed as I write this, despite the scary death threats facing them. Or what could have been responsible for the protests that we saw recently against lockdown in some states in the USA, despite provisions of palliatives for the people, an important missing part that is driving people out in Nigeria, desperation and hunger?

“A ngba oromodie l’owo iku, o ni won ko je ki oun lo akitan lo jeun” (we are protecting chicken from being killed, it is insisting on going out to feed).

Coming back home to our dear country Nigeria, the way the coronavirus has reformatted our brains and lives is incredible. So many things we previously considered important, which we “fight and kill” ourselves to acquire, have shown up to be immaterial. We can actually exist or do without many of them.

All the sprawling mansions, expensive cars, luxury holidays, flamboyant lifestyles, and many vain inanitites have turned out to be unimportant. All that we all desperately need to be alive and well are; air, water and foods. Shikena!

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, DG World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against lifting lockdown early

With the way religion was being carried in our heads in Nigeria, even far more than countries where they originated from, one would have thought any inhibition in the way we have carried on for so many decades would have caused calamities of immeasurable proportions.

One would have thought we could not live a day without going to our worship centres. Since everyone was “bannished” from going to church or mosque for congregational worship, what has happened? Has the world come to an end? No! Have we now become more “evil”? Has our country become a land of sin? Has our lives turned upside down? No.

We now worship in our houses as against going to worship houses. In as much as the latter is preferable, the import of all these is that, our true Godliness is carried out in our hearts, and not attached to worship centers. The true faith we professed should have manifested in our humanity to other humans since the beginning of this pandemic.

How have we been spending our wealth to support our neighbours? Now that it is impossible to go for lesser hajj in Mecca, what did we do with such money? Keep it for the future trip while our neighbours die of hunger? There lies in our actions, our true religion. It is time to sincerely search our hearts. All the tithes, fruits, seeds, etc, that people have been sowing for years, what are the religious leaders doing with such humongous amounts of money now that the same church members are in dire need?

Are the pastors saving them for themselves? (because, God truly does not need money, it is people who spend it), There lies in their actions, their true faith.

We are all humans afterall. I read an hilarious but succinct post on social media recently. It was about how all those who “claimed” to perform miracles in the past have suddenly hibernated, and are also waiting for coronavirus to go away before they “resume” their miracle performances again. Is that not interesting?

It is unprecedented to have the number of important personalities who have been stuck with us in Nigeria now. Not even during the civil war, was everybody locked down within the country. The rich, the politicians, top civil servants, political office holders, important business men and women, all have no other country than Nigeria to stay in now. Coronavirus has grounded everyone in over one month.

All their “birds in the sky” (private jets) have perched. Even the president now stays at home for long without travelling abroad. They now share the same space with their “wretched” country people without choice.

Right now, many of them will never venture out to their usual favorite destinations abroad, supposing they are allowed. The conditions in those countries are far worse than here in Nigeria. And the chances of survival if infected by getting adequate medical attention there is slimmer due to the overwhelming health challenges there. We all saw how many of them abroad, scrambled to come back home before the closure of the airports. Mr. Ben Bruce recently posted that he misses home (Nigeria).

God is indeed wonderful. He has been stuck in the USA since. He even showed how he now dresses there, like a “ninja” (lol).

The rich and the poor, the haves and haves-not, the leaders and followers, the elites and masses, are all stuck in the country. Nowhere to run or hide. We now use the same hospitals. Managing the Covid-19 infected persons have proven to be more successful in the public isolation centres by public health workers, than in those fanciful and expensive private hospitals. Coronavirus is indeed a leveller.

Before now, the world placed premium on many sectors which have now proven “useless” at this moment of pandemic. They include sports and entertainment among many others. These two remain the leading money spinners. They gulp huge funds. The business world and governments spend billions of dollars to develop and sustain them.

People who break into them become instant millionaires. They live like kings and queens. They rule the world but not at this time. They have all holed up in their shells. Corona has dealt a deadly blow on them.

We have suddenly realised how we have misplaced our priorities. The health sector and the health workers that were treated as second or third rated citizens have become our life savers. They have become the most important people in the world as they risk their lives to save our lives. They are now our heroes and heroines, not some Ronaldo or Messi, Davido or Wizkid. Everything that the sports and entertainment were to us are now irrelevant. We simply want to survive and live. What a life!

Education is now very important. The people who the world is looking up to for rescue from the grip of Covid-19 are scientists and researchers. People who dedicate their lives to solving our collective problems to make life easier and better for us. But how much attention were they paid before? Now, their importance has been proven.

I remember a few times during graduations in various higher institutions, how outstanding graduands were often given peanuts. There was the case of a 10,000 naira award to an overall best graduands in one university in Nigeria.

Many private businesses lack interest in educational excellence. On the contrary, hundreds of millions of naira were spent annually to sponsor one frivolous show or another on the television, with winners going home with millions of naira, expensive luxurious cars and full year sponsorship by the organisers and their sponsors. Likewise in different beauty pageantries. But now, where are they? Useless!

It is now the educated, intelligent graduates who go into research that we are all looking up to. This scenario is not peculiar to Nigeria, it is a global phenomenon. Sad.

Now that the coronavirus has defied orthodox solutions so far, and many people are still dying in droves, creating anxiety that is worse than the death itself, what do we do? As expected, the orthodox medical practitioners are not expected to easily and readily embrace the alternative medicine as available in the traditional herbal practices.

It is time for the orthodox medicine practitioners to be humble and accept any support that could come from herbal medicine.

However, whether they like or not, in a matter of life or death, many people are bound to “experiment” with many herbal “concoctions”. It was revealed that herbs played important roles in helping China overcome the pandemic so quickly, in combination with other orthodox medicine.

Madagascar has raised the bar. President Andry Rajoelina is the champion of their Covid Organics (CVO), a newly “invented” preventive and curative solution to Covid-19. He even drank it on national television to give his citizens assurances. We learnt that other countries are already ordering for it, if the news about Senegal, DR Congo and Guinea-Bissau requests is anything to go by.

Our own Chairman of PTF on Covid-19, Boss Mustapha also suggested asking for presidential approval to import a “planeload” of the herbal tea. That remains to be seen, though.

I am surprised about our penchant for “foreign or imported” things. This is because, with different indegineous herbal practitioners claiming to have remedy to the virus, the leadership of the country never gave them any consideration whatsoever. Is it not possible that: “oun ti a nwa lo Sókótó nbe lapo sòkòtò” (what we are travelling to look for in Sókótó is inside our trouser’s pocket).

The pandemic should, hopefully, teach the world some lessons, especially in Africa and particularly in Nigeria. It should teach us to rearrange and get our priorities right going forward. We should come to realisation that while sports, entertainment, etc might be good, they remain secondary in the hierarchy of our real needs. Splashing billions of money on them, while neglecting sectors like education, health, research can only spell doom in time like this.

Those whose stock-in-trade is mismanagement of public funds, stealing infrastructure funds, squandering public resources, should have realised that there is only so much they need to survive. And that those infrastructures they abandoned in decrepit state will eventually be their undoing when they desperately need them. But by then, it will be too late. “Aso o ni b’omoye mo, omoye a ti rin ihoho w’oja”.

We hope they listen, hear, understand and put it into use. “Aabo oro laasofun omoluabi” (a word is enough for the wise).

May God continue to protect us and guide us aright.

God Bless Nigeria.

Lateef Adewole is a political analyst and social commentator can be reached by email lateefadewole23@gmail.com or via WhatsApp +2348020989095 and @lateef_adewole on Twitter