TheCable

Many Nigerians were not keen about precautionary measures against the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) until Liberian Patrick Sawyer introduced it into the country on July 20, 2014.

After its outbreak in Guinea four months earlier, the highly-contagious disease spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia and Sawyer, who contracted the virus during the funeral rites of his elder sister, departed his country under the guise of attending an ECOWAS summit in Calabar, Cross River state

His wife later said his main aim was to connect the United States through Nigeria. Below are five  remarkable things to note about him and, by extension, the havoc he wreaked on Nigeria.

‘CRAZYMAN’ SAWYER

Jonathan was so angry that he branded Sawyer ‘crazyman’

“You don’t speak ill of the dead,” goes an African adage. But there was an exception to this rule for former president, Goodluck Jonathan, in his assessment Patrick Sawyer’s actions.

While trying to convince Nigerians to accept one of the policies initiated to check the spread of the disease, the former number one citizen, who was so livid with rage about how the disease came into the country, said: “Some people like burial ceremonies. This is not the time for burial ceremony, somebody is dead, he is dead, leave him there. This is not the best time for those ceremonies.

“Sawyer that brought this Ebola to Nigeria; his sister died of Ebola. And he started acting somehow, his country asked him not to leave the country, let them observe him, but the crazy man decided to leave and found his way here.”

‘INFIDEL’ SAWYER

Embittered Decontee

In trying to clarify a letter she wrote after the death of her husband, Decontee Sawyer, widow of Patrick, opened a can of worms.

Nigerians had accused her of trying to defend her husband who brought avoidable disaster to their country and in setting records straight, she washed their dirty linen in the open.

Decontee alleged that Patrick abandoned her and their three children for a new wife after securing a plum job in Liberia.

“He left me when I was seven months pregnant with our third child. We already had a three-year-old, and a four-year-old together, with a third on the way,”  she explained in a letter to Nigerian blogger, Peace Ben Williams.

“He left us all and started a new family in Liberia. I was left by myself to now raise three children alone, one of which (my 3-year-old at the time) was diagnosed with autism. That in itself was a challenge (and still is). Patrick left us, and he never turned back.”

She ended the letter by describing her estranged husband as “confused and troubled”.

‘RUINED’ FIRST CONSULTANTS

‘No longer the First Consultants you used to know’

Sawyer’s case brought negative attention to First Consultants Medical Centre, where he was admitted after arriving the country.

Benjamin Ohiaeri, the chief medical officer of the hospital, said “Sawyer almost ruined our lives”.

In an interview he granted after the hospital had been decontaminated and the experience was still fresh, Ohiaeri narrated what transpired.

“Sawyer got very angry and nasty. He yanked off the intravenous line and spilled his blood all over the room in a fit of rage,” the doctor said.

“He told us that he had every intention of leaving immediately because he had an important role to play at the Calabar ECOWAS convention and that arrangements had been made for him to be in Calabar. We could not understand why he was so desperate and determined to leave the hospital when we were clearly trying to investigate his situation and find the way to treat his condition.

“As a responsible medical institution, faced with a serious and potentially calamitous medical situation, we had decided that we would not permit Mr Sawyer to exit this facility.  Whatever damage his presence portended would have to be limited to the Hospital.  We decided that we could not take the chance of a potential Ebola sufferer moving freely and randomly within the unsuspecting Nigerian population.”

EBOLA-TRIGGERED FRIENDSHIPS

Nigerians enjoy living, no matter the condition. There was no other time to test this belief than after Sawyer introduced the virus to the country. Banks, Churches, schools and other public places conducted screenings. Supermarkets made huge profit from the sale of hand sanitizers.

People hardly left their houses except there was urgent need. The example that best describes this situation was the encounter this reporter had with a top official of the Port Health Services at the Seme border area of Lagos.

The official, who craved anonymity recalled that when he was newly posted to Seme, he went round on a visit to sister agencies such as Nigerian customs service, Nigeria police force, Nigeria immigration service, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), among others. But only the head of one agency returned the visit.

The health official said he had not spent two months at Seme, which is a border community,  when there was Ebola outbreak.

Surprisingly, the officers, who were so preoccupied at their duty posts and could not return his visit, were always at the door step of his office on numerous occasions after the Ebola outbreak, seeking to know what they could do to defend themselves against the virus. “Life is sweet”, goes a local parlance.