TheCable

Barely a few days into the new year, the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported that on Thursday, January 7, 2021, a whopping 1,664 people tested positive for Covid-19.

The spike in the number of Nigerians testing positive for coronavirus is clearly an ugly fall out of the end of the year 2020 and new year 2021 festivities during which most Nigerians defied Covid-19 protocols to engage either in revelry or observe the annual solemn practice of praying into the new year.

Before the current high numbers of Nigerians testing positive on Thursday 7th January, the highest had been recorded on Monday, January 4, put at 1,354.

So by and large, Nigeria seems to be getting into dire straights once again as citizens seem to be throwing caution to the winds thereby aiding the rapid spread of the vicious disease like wildfire does during harmattan.

With cross over service by many Christians and wanna-be Christians in churches across the country from 31 December 2020 into January 2021 banned in most states to stave off the potential spread of coronavirus which thrives best in environments that are crowded and closed, health authorities must have felt confident that COVID-19 might have been checkmated.

But disappointingly, the reverse has been the case. That’s simply because most Nigerians thronged the beaches, night clubs and other fun places to celebrate the new year without caring a jot whether coronavirus was lurking in the air or not. Another proximate cause for the spike in the spread would be the ensuing cold weather – harmattan which although is unlike winter season that is boosting the spread in the cold regions of the world, like Europe and the USA where 4,000 deaths were recorded in one day, has similarly been a period that coronavirus spread has accelerated in Nigeria.

Arising from their intransigence, the Covid-19 protocol breakers ended up being vectors for the disease. In my personal assessment (although without scientific proof) it could be a combination of the cold weather condition and the reckless behaviors of those who failed to respect COVID-19 rules by engaging in the aforementioned misbehaviors that may be responsible for the current ticking up of the numbers of those testing positive in Nigeria now in excess of 100,000.

According to NCDC, the recent spike has pushed up the ratio of Nigerians testing positive from less than 5% in 2020 to the current  20% of those tested this year that’s now a little over one million.

In light of the more aggressive nature of the second wave which is either due to the cold weather condition which appears to foster the virus or the mutation of the virus to a more potent variant, resulting in the uptick in hospitalization and deaths, Presidential Task Force, PTF chairman, Boss Mustafa, and the Task Force Co-ordinator, Dr Sani Aliyu may understandably be tempted to propose another lockdown. But rather than take that option, in addition to ramping up public enlightenment in various local languages and giving more publicity to ordinary people that have died from coronavirus, to debunk the wrong notion that it is only ‘big men’ that are dying from COVID, they should step up enforcement of the non-pharmaceutical preventive measures in public places to stem the current rapid spread. This can be achieved by igniting the concept of citizen policing which is constitutional.

It means that as people currently reprimand fellow phone users who do not turn off their phones during airplane flights, they have the right to challenge those who flout the Covid-19 rules in public places by advising the defiant ones amongst us that, even if they want to be reckless with their lives, they are under obligation to protect the lives of those around them by adhering to COVID-19 prevention protocols. Otherwise, they would be deemed as a public nuisance and treated as such.

Now, to catalogue the torturous journey that Nigerians have had with coronavirus in the past one year, l would like to crave reader’s indulgence to allow me to review six (6) of the coronavirus focused articles that l have written and published in the mass media between March till the end of 2020 to inform and guide Nigerians as well as relevant health authorities based on trending global best practice.

In the essays, l had highlighted coronavirus deadly and gravely consequences on humanity; the century-old remedy/protocol (social distancing, wearing masks over our faces and noses as well as handwashing with soap) that has remained the most efficacious defense against the deadly disease; the choice of liberty over life in some of the advanced societies and the dire consequences of the attitude that’s not so pragmatic, as well as the enforcement of life over livelihood policy in Africa, including most of the third world, with mixed outcomes of less deaths but with severe economic consequences.

The reality which every Nigerian must be conscious of, and which those engaging in revelry is that although 2020 is done and dusted, it did not exit with coronavirus which has dealt the world the death knell and which has left a pall of death on humanity and atmosphere of mourning hanging over the surviving members of human kind on planet earth.

Clearly, Coronavirus crossed over from 2020 to 2021 like an evil spell and scepter being dangled by Lucifer himself, as if in defiance of God’s promise of a shadow of protection over His children. Consequently, there is hardly anybody alive who is not suffering from coronavirus induced loss of life or livelihood on planet earth.

My mission in the six opinion pieces which l had written and published widely in the past nine, 9 months, was and still remains to sensitize relevant authorities about the trajectory of the virus with a view to nudging them to be proactively prepared with countermeasures that would lead to the mitigation of the loss of lives and damage to the economy.

So my role has more or less been that of a patriot offering advisory services, even though it is unsolicited, and it is being rendered Free of Charge (FoC).

The six (6) articles are:

(1) Covid-19 And The Dark Side The Medical World

(2) Emefiele’s Post COVID-19 Marshall Plan For Nigeria: Trick Or Treat?

(3) COVID-19: 8 Ways To Avoid Lockdown Leading To Breakdown In Nigeria

(4) COVID -19: Do Nigerians Need Celebrity Enlightenment On CNN?

(5) Strategy For Combating COVID-19:How Nigeria Can Change From Go-Slow To Go-Smart

(6) A Clarion Call To Declare World War World War lll Against COVID-19 Pandemic.

Although, thankfully the deadly virus hasn’t taken as much lives as had been feared, for reasons scientists are yet to phantom ( less than 1,400 compared to over 370, 000 in the USA and nearly 2,000,000 worldwide) the authorities charged with managing the pandemic have not been as effective and efficient as they could’ve been. That’s especially with respect to testing of Nigerians for COVID-19, (just one million), adequate and effective care for those in isolation centers, and the distribution of the palliatives as a relief to those who suffer the loss of livelihood, which has been chaotic resulting in disastrous outcomes as evidenced by #Endsars riots.

Without further ado, allow me to commence the review with the piece titled “COVID-19 and the Dark Side of the Medical World” written and  published widely on

March 30, 2020.

This intervention dwelt on the initial reliance on hydroxychloroquine as an antidote to coronavirus, and the controversy that it stirred up in the medical world on whether it was efficacious enough. It also focuses on the suspected sinister role of powerful forces(deep state actors) with interests in big pharmaceutical firms that are front runners in the race to produce new vaccines. It is suspected that these powerful players are suppressing the use of hydroxychloroquine therapy which is a century-old medical remedy. In the piece, l recalled the hellish experience faced by a Nigerian-born American medical doctor, Ben Omalu, who discovered CONCUSSION(CTE), a health condition suffered by American football players due to continuous butting of their heads in the course of playing the game. But despite the fact that the discovery was a life-saving game changer to players facing the risk, stakeholders in the NFL-a multi-billion dollar industry, rubbished the discovery and even threatened the life of doctor Omalu because the discovery would negatively impact their business.

Below is a highlight of the essay.

“So it is disheartening and disappointing that some unseen hands in the organized medical/ pharmaceutical products development and marketing sector of the world, embedded in the inner recesses of the establishment in New York and Washington may be pursuing selfish and exploitative agenda, hence this otherwise cherry development is not being ventilated or given the attention that it deserves.

Is it not quixotic that the tested and proven combination of anti-malaria remedy of hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic, azithromycin which have produced positive effects of successfully curing coronavirus patients is not even being considered a frontline antidote for the killer virus by the US Centre For Disease Control, CDC and Food and Drugs Administration, FDA?

It is my suspicion that the tzars of the industry regulatory agencies that are claiming that hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin need a more extensive clinical trials-a bureaucratic process that takes a very long period and therefore an unwise measure to take at this critical point in time are being manipulated by the unseen hands of vested interests. How else can one explain a situation whereby an effective, perhaps not the most efficient medication needed to stem the tide of death that now pervades the world is bring taken off the equation as a potential cure, if not to create some delay that would allow the medications currently in the pipelines-Remdesivir first developed as a trial antidote for Ebola  and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, MERS now being targeted at coronavirus, come into gestation?”

With hydroxychloroquine ditched despite outgoing President Donald Trump’s vigorous effort to promote it, and remdesivir being adopted as medication at the onset of Covid-19, the stage was set for the investors in the invention of the remdesivir drug that failed to be efficacious for Ebola and MER to recoup some of their investments while the race towards developing new vaccines for COVID-19 remained on course. Following the shelter-at-home policy of govt and the potential stressful effect on the masses, the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN acting on behalf of govt introduced some measures to cushion the anticipated pains of the stay at home policy.

In a piece titled “ Emefiele’s Post COVID-19 Marshal Plan For Nigeria: Trick Or Treat”, which l wrote and published massively on the 17th of April, l made the following case.

“After successfully intervening with massive funds infusion into the agricultural sector, as reflected by the drastic reduction in rice import and its current intervention in cotton production as well as in other food value chain which are also looking good, the CBN might have convinced itself that it now has a proof-of-concept that money works when used to intervene in some critical sectors of the economy wisely.

Presumably, that’s what has emboldened Emefiele to offer to plough another N3.5 trillion into critical growth areas that would facilitate a more self-reliant Nigerian economy.

But are all or most Nigerians aligned on this quest for food security/sufficiency, the CBN style?

That’s yet to be seen.

And given the anger and hunger on the streets of Nigeria, stemming from the Covid -19 pandemic compelled shelter-at-home order that has left most Nigerians stranded, since quite a lot of us usually eke out our living based on the odd jobs that we can do to earn about N2,000 to N5,000 on a daily basis to feed ourselves, Emefiele needs to go beyond the bold declaration in his deeply thought through and inspiring proposition “Turning The Covid-19 Pandemic Tragedy Into An Opportunity For A New Nigeria”.

Besides the CBN, the other critical agencies of Govt responsible for mobilizing Nigerians into action and galvanizing their belief in the common good and survivability of our country seems to be missing in action.

In this period of high level of despondency, owing to the compulsory social distancing policy which seems to be the only proven panacea to Covid-19 in the industrialized and advanced society, how do we make more Nigerians share the CBN vision when they are practically starving and unhappy in light of the fact that majority of those who earn their living solely in unstructured system of daily income of a couple of thousands of naira are now without income? Why are we in Nigeria adopting Western solution to the Covid-19 pandemic hook, line and sinker? Would what works in the industrialized economies, work for us in the developing world, given the different local dynamics at play?”

As it turned out , owing to economic lockdown,  hunger-induced protests and riots pervaded the nation, so l was being prophetic when l made a case that although lockdown worked in the Western world, it may not necessarily be helpful here because of our peculiarities.

The next piece that l wrote and published on April 21, 2020, is titled “COVID-19 Pandemic: 8 Ways to Avoid Lockdown Leading to Breakdown in Nigeria”

In this piece, l questioned the rational behind the lockdown that l reckoned was an overkill. I also reinforced my argument that the best weapon against coronavirus was to follow the protocols introduced by our forbears as an initial remedy against the 1918 outbreak of the Spanish flu pandemic which exhibited similar characteristics to COVID-19.

To drive my point home, l advanced the argument below.

“If it is not a case of joining the global bandwagon of locking down economies, irrespective of the fact that the socio-economic dynamics prevalent in the structured economies of the industrialized countries, which justify lockdown does not exist in Nigeria, is there social intelligence to the decision to shut down our industrial, commercial and administrative power hubs of Lagos, Ogun and the FCT  for initial 14 days, now extended for another 14, bringing it to a total of 28 days?

The simple fact is that, on the contrary, and unlike the existential reality in the advanced industrialized countries where the measures that they have put in place are required, Nigeria’s socio-economic dynamics are inversely proportional to what obtains in the advanced economies.

In the first instance, whereas the hallmark of advanced societies economies is that they are formal and structured, the Nigerian economic environment is the direct opposite -informal and unstructured”

The case l made in the above article about three months into the COVID-19 pandemic about the probable consequences of a total lockdown which might include a revolt manifested in October as #Endsars protests by youths against police brutality that went awry when the hungry and angry Nigerians denied livelihood due to the lockdown order, hijacked the otherwise well-organized youth protests.

The following is the highlight of the essay.

“Allow me use the analogy of a sea diver to illustrate this point. After going under the water, at a point, he has to rise to the water surface to exhale and inhale oxygen. That’s simply because he is not a fish that is biologically structured to live underwater and breathe with the aid of its gills.

After 28 days, owing to desperation to survive, Nigerians would most likely not adhere to the lockdown rules.

What would then happen?

Would chaos arising from the breakdown of the unenforceable lockdown order be imminent?

There is a way out and the following are my suggestions:

(1) Continue with social distancing order, but lift the lockdown order.

(2) Observe the 6 meter distance in markets or supermarkets. Everyone should wear face masks and hand gloves. Limit taking children out because they can’t manage masks or gloves.

(3) Allow church services and mosque attendance of not more than 50 people at a time and with 6 meters social distancing rule inside the church or mosque. Multiple church or mosque services can be held in a day provided the venue is sterilized and sanitized after each service session.

(4) Schools can reopen provided it’s not for a classroom containing more than 50 people at a time. The authorities can be creative by rescheduling lecture timetables.

(5) Civil/public servants should work on shifts with limited and essential staff only, at work at every point in time.

In other words, Govt should operate on a skeletal level.

(6) Public transport system managers should ensure social distancing rules are observed so that passengers are not packed like sardine which was the case in the past.

(7) As for the fear that in the event that private car owners are allowed on the roads, there would be gridlock and social distancing rule may be violated, let’s go back to those old days (1976) when odd and even number vehicles were allotted days to be on the roads to beat congestion.

There would likely be less traffic congestions if the proposal is adopted. The number of people riding in a car can also be limited to a maximum three or four.

With nostalgia, President Buhari may recall the vehicle odd and even registration number experiment aimed at curbing road traffic congestion in the mid-1970s and as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

By nature, Nigerians are very creative and resilient and they have already started producing imaginative face masks and gloves from Ankara, tie&dye etc.

The lgbo, Tiv, Idoma, and Fulani handwoven fabrics can be added.

Who knows, a new industry may spring fort from the trade.

(8) Aso Rock should vigorously engage global financial institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank and other global creditors with a view to receiving funds to tide the nation through this difficult financial period, especially at a point where crude oil is selling for less than  $15 per barrel and the benchmark for budget 2020 is $57. That our country was sidelined from the $21b that the IMF recently availed indigent countries underscores how lightweight, ignorant and inexperienced in international financial and diplomatic matters  the present crop of technocrats managing the nation’s affairs at the federal ministry of finance are”.

The piece above was written six months before the #Endsars riots in October. But because the advice contained was unheeded, the youth protests that got hijacked by thugs, literarily set Nigeria ablaze. And sadly the army that was called in to quench the inferno ended up pouring more fuel into a burning fire by shooting at protesters.

What a price that the society had to pay basically because the authorities were tone-deaf?

The fourth piece is titled

COVID-19: Do Nigerians Need Celebrity Enlightenment on CNN? It was published on April 23, 2020 and a sort of advisory on how to effectively enlighten and mobilize the masses against the coronavirus. My admonishment against the elitist approach to the publicity about COVID-19 by using mainly CNN platform, featuring tycoons and movie stars that was bound to make the masses wrongly believe that COVID-19 only affects the rich, came to pass like a prophecy as most Nigerians reached the wrong conclusion that coronavirus affected only the rich which is fallacious.

Here is a snippet.

“So, who and what is behind the charade of billionaires and performing artists preening on CNN?

Were there to be any need for the use of traditional media to mobilize Nigerians, why not concentrate it on Nigerian broadcasting stations? If it’s about taking advantage of the wider coverage area of the CNN, how about syndicating the adverts to local TV stations nationwide back in the rural areas where the bulk of Nigerians reside? Better still, why not produce the adverts in the three major Nigerian dialects of Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo spoken widely by practically every Nigerian from the regions? Is Aliko Dangote, not Hausa, are Jim Ovia and Tony Elumelu, not Delta Ibo and are Mike Adenuga, Femi Otedola and Folorunsho Alakija not Yoruba? Wouldn’t it have been novel if they spoke to each of the audiences with affinity to them in their local dialects? Without a doubt, these ‘big men’ speaking English on CNN could have connected better with the folks back in their homesteads if they spoke to them in their dialects?

It was very refreshing for me recently when l saw a video clip of former CNN anchor lady, Aisha Sesay enlightening her people in patois spoken widely in her homestead, Sierra Leone.

She simply stripped herself of the Western garb  and climbed down to the level of the ordinary Sierra Leoneans at the bottom rung of the ladder by communicating with them about coronavirus in flawless patois”.

Until the current second wave of the pandemic started taking the lives of regular folks, most average Nigerians have been living in denial as coronavirus was deemed to be a ‘bigman’s’ disease because it’s only their death that was in public eyes and therefore coronavirus was talked about with derision by the ordinary folks. Happily, that’s changing now with regular folks who have been struck down also being publicized.

The fear of a catastrophic outcome from the lockdown inspired the fifth article titled “Strategy For Combating COVID-19: How Nigeria Can Change From Go- Slow To Go-Smart” widely published in the mass media 20/5:2020.

Here is how l tried to make the case.

“The first go- slow became evident during the first full lockdown when characteristically, govt authorities that promised the masses food, money and welfare after appropriating huge sums of money under the auspices of a powerful presidential task force, PTF, failed to deliver. Suddenly, the echoes of the fate that befell Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs- the unfortunate victims of Boko Haram attacks, for whom Govt appropriated huge sums of money for their welfare, but who failed to receive the intended care as the bulk of the funds got embezzled by corrupt officials. And as if history was repeating itself, the long-suffering masses compelled to stay home are bearing the brunt of the go-slow which is a subterfuge for corruption. More so as the scandal surrounding the infamous ‘grass cutting’ contracts in IDP camps which rocked the presidency is still fresh in the minds of Nigerians.

In admonishing the authorities, l posed the rhetoric question:

“Is it not a crying shame that the federal ministry of health that receives billions of naira annually and is supervised by two ministers have been caught flat-footed by the Covid-19 pandemic as health authorities seem not capable of stemming the tide of the spread despite the head start we had since coronavirus did get to Nigeria until about two months after it was discovered in Wuhan, China? In a country of 200m people, how can it be said that less than 40,000 people have been tested for Covid-19 in a period of at least four months since the pandemic broke in Nigeria via the Italian construction worker?

How could the best solution to the Covid-19 pandemic continue to be the mantra of stay at home after over two months of the introduction of the shelter in place policy?”

Thankfully, the lockdown of the economy is now off the table.

My sixth (6) and final essay on Coronavirus in 2020 is titled “A Clarion Call To Declare World War lll Against COVID-19”.

Owing to the fact that the title of the essay appeared to be extreme, l started by justifying the choice of military terms.

“Before proceeding further, I would like to crave the indulgence of readers to pardon me for recommending the deployment of the same zeal applied in fighting the World Wars I & II to combating the Covid-19 pandemics which appears to be hyperbolic. But I’m compelled to do so as the fierce and deadly attack on humanity by Covid-19 pandemic, in my view is comparable to the catastrophic consequences of the two world wars.

In the light of the scenario described above, we all need to combat covid-19 the way our forbears wagged the world wars between 1914-18 and later 1939-45.

That’s because, by now, it should be clear to all who were initially skeptical that Covid-19 pandemic is a nihilistic threat to humanity much the same way that the two world wars were, which is why I’m making the clarion call that we should declare a Third World War against it”.

Recommending a Third World War to exterminate coronavirus may be perceived as being too aggressive, but apart from the efforts being made by the World Health Organization, WHO, which has been more or less silenced by hurricane Trump-outgoing president of the USA who made excoriating comments about WHO leadership and withdrew USA’s funding support to the organization, the need to make the fight against Covid-19 an aggressive global affair has been inevitable.

As such the war has proceeded with the global health agency putting forth the idea of pooling of research data, know-how, and intellectual property together in the quest for a COVID-19 vaccine globally.

Fortunately, vaccines with high efficacy (70-95%) arrived ahead of regular time.  And now the application of democratic principles in its distribution so that it may be available to people in both rich and poor countries alike is imperative. Hence it is being advocated by the likes of President Mohammadu Buhari of Nigeria amongst other presidents and heads of state.

On the 16th of October, 2020, he stated in his address to a global audience.

“Learning from the painful lessons from a history of unequal access in dealing with diseases such as HIV we must heed the warning that “those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it”.

According to him “Only a People’s Vaccine with equality and solidarity at its core can protect all of humanity and get our societies safely running again. A bold international agreement cannot wait.”

Since then, COVAX , GAVI and Vaccine Alliance have also weighed in, and that’s how come Nigeria would be receiving her first batch of vaccines by the end of this month based on the statements by the health minister, Osagie Ehanire and PTF coordinator, Dr Sani Aliyu amongst others.

Now, having received assurances about the supply of the vaccine, the challenge of logistics and the last mile distribution of the vaccine is likely to become another potential disaster in the value chain.

How do l know that?

I did not have to look far beyond the embarrassing and scandalous outcome of the disastrous distribution of COVID-19 palliative materials that were meant to have been handed over to the critical mass of Nigerians who the lockdown had rendered insolvent and unable to feed themselves, but which were instead locked up in various warehouses across the country.

Had the social-economic crisis now known as #EndSars protests by youths against police brutality in October not escalated into street riots of criminal proportions, how would anybody have known that the highly needed essential food items that should have been in the kitchen and even stomachs of the masses were being hoarded in warehouses by unscrupulous politicians and their accomplices.

Apart from the disappointing experience with COVID-19 pandemic palliatives distribution which left a bad taste,  instead of food in the mouths of many Nigerians, challenges of logistics with political parties general elections have been a recurring malaise that has been bedeviling our country’s electoral system.

This is underscored by the fact that since the past 21 years of return to multi-party democracy, election circles upon elections circles, the process has been fraught with logistic issues such as ballot papers, boxes or other essential materials including the relevant electoral officials always arriving at the destinations late or never at all.

With the two major covid-19 vaccines coming in cold or ultracold conditions, depending on if it is the Oxford/Azeneca version that can be stored at normal fridge temperature or the mordena version and the Pfeizer/Biontech one,  that can only be stored in -70 degrees condition, the challenge of transporting the much-coveted vaccine to their destinations, promises to be complex and very daunting.

Therein lies the dilemma.

Mindful of the unsavory experiences with logistics in the distribution of Covid-19 palliative materials that were hoarded and the perennial ugly experience with the distribution of political party elections organizing materials to the polling booths, the distribution of covid-19 vaccines to where they are needed nationwide when they arrive Nigeria, presumably at the end of the month, may end up in another fiasco.

In 2007, l suggested some pathways towards resolving the logistics quagmire arising from the distribution of voting materials by INEC in an article titled “Election 2007 And National Interest” published widely in the mass media.

In the essay, l made a case that in the light of the dilapidated state of our road infrastructure, which is the main mode of transportation in Nigeria, logistics is bound to be shambolic. And given the inefficiencies inherent in the bureaucracy, why can’t government outsource the distribution of voting materials to firms that are specialists in that function. Fourteen years after, I’m making the same case for the distribution of the vaccines via logistics firms like UPS, DHL, FedEx and in partnership with indigenous firms that have proven capacity. Engaging the military to support the private firms would also help guarantee a secure and effective delivery. That’s because military men and women are actually known to possess cognate experience in supply and transport management as most of the various arms have departments focusing on logistics.

As l join all other well-meaning Nigerians in being hopeful that shooting the vaccine into our bodies via our arms goes well, l have one nagging question?

How come after over a century of facing the menace and even pandemic of malaria in Africa, the disease that thankfully made some parts of Africa uninhabitable for European adventurists and empire builders that were only able to take over some parts of Africa that have no mosquitoes, (Southern Africa region ) there is no vaccine against malaria?

Is it because Africa where the disease is endemic constitutes only 16.72% of the world’s population?

The answer may lie in the fact that although Africa,s population is roughly 17% of the world’s population, only 3% of global GDP is contributed by the continent.

As most of us are currently aware, the development of vaccines is a multi-billion dollars affair. As we may recall, the USA president Donald Trump through Operation Work Speed project advanced billions of dollars to Pfeizer,  Moderna, Johnson & Johnson amongst others to facilitate the research that has led to the production of two anti-covid-19 vaccines.

Now, the reality is that vaccine scientists and investors can’t recoup such humongous capital outlay from a market population that is a mere 3% of the world’s GDP.

So there is no incentive to produce anti-malaria vaccine as Africans and Africa where the disease is endemic can’t afford to pay for research into the production of malaria vaccine, nor are they able to offer potential vaccine scientists profitable return on their investments.

Meanwhile, malaria continues to kill a minimum of one million people in Africa annually.

And the economic impact of malaria killing a million people yearly in Africa is estimated to be $12 billion.

Does that not warrant or offer enough justification for the establishment of a task force by the African Union, AU to mobilize resources to fund the development of a vaccine against malaria that would end the debilitating human carnage and economic hemorrhage caused by malaria in Africa?

When COVID-19 pandemic is defeated, why can’t Africa sustain the momentum gained from the fight against it by making the right to end malaria on the continent, a human right?

MAGNUS ONYIBE, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, development strategist, alumnus of Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA and a former commissioner in Delta state government, sent this piece from Lagos.