Politicians say COVID-19 is real, but do as if it’s not
BY Ademola Adeoye
One of the things (in Nigeria) I am yet to fully understand is the reason too far many modern-day-slaves embarrassedly follow slave-owners without being coerced with guns and bullets like it happened in the days of yore when slavery was in force. It is indubitably one of the wonders of the present world!
Who are the slaves here? And who are the slave-owners I am talking about? Slaves in this context are the people—who awkwardly and thoughtlessly follow slave-owners, while slave-owners are the politicians who hate those following them. I am deliberately calling those who follow politicians (as if they are being remotely-controlled as we all use remote-controls to change television channels in our varied homes) slaves, so that they can become irritated and maybe when they get angry, they will end up being able to find themselves, because as far as I am concerned, they are completely lost!
One of the prominent politicians died as an effect of covid-19 and on the day he was committed to the mother earth, I was in our home, watching and listening to the news on one of our local channels. It is important that I mention that the reason I sat before our television was not to see how he would be buried by those who ate crumbs and tidbits continually from his table, when he was alive, living larger than life and bigger than our laws. Remember, our law in Nigeria is created principally for the poor, not politicians!
I was amazed and disappointed to see mammoth-crowd on site—where he was to be buried. My disappointment became heightened and intensified when I saw a sitting-governor amongst them! As if that was not enough, when the corpse of the man—who we were all told died of covid-19 was brought in, I saw that not one covid-19 protocol was observed! This is one of the major reasons our people do not believe one jiff in all the noise we have been making on the dreaded disease of coronavirus. On one hand, we would close schools, businesses, churches and mosques while on the other hand, we would behave idiotically while burying rich and influential folks.
It is clear to all that covid-19 protocols are only for the peasants and rustics—when they want to bury them, not for politicians who lived as kings amongst crumbs-eaters while they were alive. While watching the foolishness we were displaying to the whole world, I kept on asking myself why those who were at that venue would be so scatter-brained, because they knew the man died of covid-19. I do know that our people are poor, but it seems the problem battling our people is deeper than poverty. Being either a poor man or woman does not mean that one shouldn’t use his or her brain as designed. It seems the essence of our people has been taken away from them!
As if that was not enough, I have been following “Edo politics” for quite a while now, because of the nature of what I do and to say that I am crestfallen, disenchanted and upset is an under-statement. I have seen virtually every campaign rally led by one of the former chairmen of the ruling party, All Progressives Party and these words keep coming to my mind, “politicians truly hate and detest those who are following them.” I wonder why the poor and hungry Nigerians follow politicians (without their own children, wives, siblings, fathers and mothers amidst the crowd) to campaign, especially during a dangerous season as this.
How can we behave foolishly and throw caution to the winds during the day and at night, the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on covid-19 would come out to reel out covid-19 figures of those affected? Does this make sense? What is the essence of making decisions that have impacted negatively on students, business men and women, religious people, only for our politicians to be behaving as if there is no covid-19? We can announce on radio and television stations and it will yield no tangible results as long as our politicians continue to thoughtlessly move around as if there is no coronavirus. The way political campaigns are being done shows that those in government do not want covid-19 to end on our soil very soon. Also, I hope it has not become the cash-cow of a few. I hope so.
Yesterday, one of those close to me needed to be on one of the luxurious-buses being owned by a state government and not one covid-19 protocol was observed! There was nothing and no one on ground to check the body-temperature of our people. Also, there wasn’t just one hand-sanitizer and there was no one on ground to disinfect the buses. When he told me, I concluded that covid-19 in Nigeria is not as serious as we are being daily told by all our two-faced politicians.
Lastly, on the condition that all the buses owned by a state government are being handled as described (in synopsis) during a pandemic, then what do you expect from the “NURTW”? He told me that they have increased the transport-fare from “Ikeja” to “Ojodu-Berger” from 100naira to 150naira, but contrary to what we were told, the bus he was on and other buses were all filled to the brim like a glass-cup filled with water. What a shame!