TheCable

This second wave have long been expected even when for all intent and purpose we didn’t even see a first wave. Our leaders in this space have simply been playing the monkey running around like headless chickens and causing the economy and the psychology of most Nigerians havoc in their sheer incompetence.

This Covid thing is like the Hurricane that hits landfall decapitated. When the wave first started in China we had thought this was another Ebola coming towards us and we started the usual panic. But this time there was confidence, we had wrestled Ebola to a stand down thanks to the brave matriarch who gave up her life and rightly so has been immortalized by the brilliant Bolanle Austen Peters.

This virus hit landfall via a lone Italian who came in and went straight to Ewekoro. The brave and brilliant Professor in Lagos who spearheaded the fight worked courageously and pronto in weeks we had started discharging patients and the world  was amazed. Granted we did not really understand the nature of the Virus and as such had to deal with it with enormous care we joined the world in a massive unprecedented lockdown which saw the economy grind into a halt with unprecedented job losses and other massive effects.

But wait the figures were not adding up. The expected infection rate going by our situation was not adding up.  It just was not climbing and worse still the mortality rate was less than 2%. Far lower than the mortality rate of the usual. But this did not make us calm down and look at this Virus and its local situation but No we continued with our Copy and paste solution which was not helping the situation as the figures just did not add up.

They made a 75,000 infection rate prediction by June 2020 , we are just getting there now in December following an unprecedented incompetence in the culling and handling of the matter. Mortality rate is still less than 2,000 making this Covid thing almost like a joke if you see that 59,000 Nigerian mothers died last year from child birth making us the world leaders in that space.

The Endsars riots opened the bowels of these people with the looting of giant warehouses filled with palliatives that for one reason or the other where not distributed to the people. The effect of this has gone beyond just that, it has gone to further erode the credibility of the whole Covid industry such that even if the thing came and killed millions of Nigerians in one day, we will still be saying that there is no Corona.

This is the backdrop of the cry of a second wave by the authorities. Nigerians have greeted the cry with disdain. They are doing once beaten twice shy and are even saying let the corona come sef. Afterall he no dey kill. So social distancing has gone out of the window, masks have been discarded and the wash basins that once littered offices have turned to dustbins or have been stolen.

The Government also relaxed as people have been flying in from Corona Ravaged climes and just walk into the society and mix and mingle. So the figures began to spike expectedly, reaching heights never before reached like 700 in a day. But Nigerians have beaten that fear. The need to survive economically has driven the apathy to such areas that the rest of the world will just be amazed.

People are now trying to draw a thread between the emergence of vaccination and the sudden spike in the figures. With countries like America, UK and Germany struggling with the pandemic, Nigeria’s figures will be a joke where urgent distribution of the vaccines are being discussed. So, what other way than to drive the frenzy, stoke up the figures in a futile bid to justify whatever resources that will be driven towards that procurement.

That is the word on the street and I must confess that I am inclined to think that way. The Endsars rallies and riots which saw Nigerians throw out the protocols and come on the streets did not throw up this spike, it is now almost two months after that we are now seeing spike, mbok where or what is generating this spike.

Please forgive me for my seeming pessimism you will not blame me if you look critically at this issue, the way the authorities have handled it and much more importantly the way Nigerians have simply refused to fall down and die of Covid. You will not blame me.

Thank you.