COVID 19 LESSONS FOR NIGERIA
Developed Nations all over the world are responding fast to Covid 19, the pandemic that broke out in China on December 31st 2019 and is ravaging the world till now. The viral infection which only started off thousands of kilometers away and leading to deaths has finally found its way not only into Africa but to even her ravaged and less prepared nations.
This infectious respiratory pandemic is killing human beings by the hour, not much in Africa for now but in some of the safest health havens of the Nigerian political elite.
1. Developed nations with the best health services are shutting down airports, seaports, global events, international conferences and enforcing lockdown to prevent disease spread. For the first time, its making sense to take your eyes off the USA, Germany, India, UK and look up to Lagos, that accommodating and greatest Nigerian city that thrives with what it has.
2. Diseases are no respecter of persons. And nothing attracts them faster than disobedience to medical advice. Despite these reports, people are still holding parties in some parts of the world. In Nigeria, many top government officials ignored the medical advice of @NCDC and got infected. If you fail to restrict travels for yourself, enforce social distancing, self-isolate and avoid body/surface contacts, you may get infected.
If you get infected and stroll into the country without self isolation, you will have throat issues, fever and short breaths. If you fail to self-isolate and even go to work and gatherings to mingle, you will infect others. If you like these facts, its good. If you don't like them and hate doctors, you may pass on, and die "rightfully".
You may be powerful in the country but you will be sad forever that after airport officials and immigration officials did not help you to help others, you worsened your own case. The impact of national systemic failure on disease control cannot be overemphasized. May we never be a victim.
3. Daniel 4:31 – 36 shows that self isolation can return new depths of understanding and reasoning to man. Beyond making man sit down to observe, It exposes the euphemerality of life- that we are mortals and that a God truly exists who lifts and abases.
4. Very importantly, this pandemic has exposed more than ever before, the importance of ethical responsibility with respect to societies and cultures. Just a few people eat rats in China and the entire world economy, activities and peoples are dying. Eating live rats, dead bats, live octopus, live frog, live snakes, any sea animals, live ants, directly sucking mammary glands of pigs or having sex with cows may spread new pandemics faster. Your culture and traditions should not bring humanity to extinction.
5. This pandemic has shown once again the importance of research and development in the life of a nation. Budgets, jobs, importation, oil prices, foreign exchange and inflation can all be brought down by a simple global outbreak. Developed nations are responding to Covid 19 because it affects them directly. How will Nigeria survive if an epidemic breaks out from the act of having sex with cows and spreading infectious diseases via breaths and handshakes?
6. Never say that zoonotic infections can never get to you. This Pandemic has shown us clearly that both the poor and rich, classy and classless, white and black, educated and illiterates are all taking in same breaths and that your life is at stake when your neighbours health is ablaze. The benefit of Humanity must be a global concern for all.
7. Whether we like it or not, some will get wealthier during this pandemic and others will get poorer. Only nations led by the competent, credible, willing, informed, discerning, insightful, wise and proactive leaders will take the J-curve after the pandemic. Economies that has failed in healthcare delivery, education, infrastructure, good governance, accountability etc will resume at an ICU after the decline.
8. Diseases are no respecter of persons. You can be protected with soldiers, walls, iron and bullet proofs but infectious diseases know no soldiers and bulletproofs. They kill soldiers without guns.
9. By being compelled to stay at home, pandemics can initiate bonding in The Family, the basic unity of the society and show through them, your future. It can show your critical and wasteful interactions. It can show you who you are.
10. Pandemics are a confirmer of the future of the Digital Economy. Robots will run errands when man cannot. Cloud computing will process and keep data while man self-isolates. Education will reach us all without classrooms. Drugs will attack micorganisms on the screen before attacking it in the human body. That world is here!
Finally please note that this Pandemic won't end humanity. Forget it. Between 1918 and 1919, the Influenza pandemic killed 500,000 people in Nigeria, a country of 18m citizens! That's some 2.7% of the population then. Having calculated 2.7% of Nigeria's population in 2020 and its current healthcare needs, unpreparedness, prodigality, single digit oil prices, scarce FX, ravaging poverty and global lockdown, the peoples of Nigeria will soon be compelled to take responsibility for their lives and regional development if the center continues to lack non-bigotal ideas and executive will, needed for true nation building.
