Incredible! That was what a supposedly close friend of a man, Kene, who had gone to stay a day or two in his village to attend the funeral of a relative told him. And what was he to take off? His mask! Kene was one of those residents of Lagos who believe that covid-19 is real. The majority do not. Before he travelled home a good friend of his, a banker, had just died of the disease after suffering for two months in the hospital. Kene refused to take off his mask, never visited anybody and did not entertain visitors during his stay at home. After the two days he was relieved to travel back to Lagos.
So what really is happening in Nigeria with covid-19? At the beginning of the pandemic some months ago everybody was busy, the Presidential Task Force in Abuja giving daily briefings from Abuja. Each day all those ‘distinguished’ gentlemen, well dressed and donning their special masks, looking very important, lectured us on what to do to be safe. A lot of well off Nigerians donated billions of naira to them for the good cause. The sermon everywhere was, wash your hands always, have a bottle of sanitiser in your pocket all the time, wear your mask and so on. Stay home unless you have something really important to do outside your house and if you are over sixty-five do not go to church, do not attend mass weddings or parties and so on. There was so much noise about testing and how many people are dying from the virus. For me, every morning I reminded my house help always to have his mask on any time he was going out. On the one fateful day I forgot to warn him to wear his mask as he was going out I had a phone call from him later. He had been in the market and was arrested by the police with other people for not wearing masks and they were now at the police station. When I got to the police station there they were already in a bus that was to take them to Panti police station. His story was that he had his mask in his pocket instead of on his face. The police did not listen to my pleas. It cost my house boy five thousand naira fine at Oshodi where they were taken instead of Panti. That was in August.
These days you still hear of some people dying from covid-19 but the behaviour of the majority of the populace is as if there is nothing like covid-19! Very few people wear masks in Lagos these days. The other day when there were rumours of an impending strike by oil workers I had to queue at the filling station for over one hour. There were more than a hundred people who were crowding around the pumps with their jerry cans. They were not wearing masks. I came out of the car wearing my mask, had my two jerry cans and my fuel tank filled. On another occasion tired of suffering no internet service in my house even though I had paid for my MTN internet I went to Airtel to buy their sim card in the hope that their internet service in my house would be better and my stay-at-home life would be more tolerable. Even in their office none of their staff was wearing a mask and there was only one of the many other customers waiting to be served with a mask on. Many other major establishments no longer care whether you wear a mask. The police is no longer arresting maskless people. The one major establishment that is serious about obeying the covid-19 protocol is the banking system. You cannot gain access if you are not wearing a mask and they will check your temperature, squeeze their ubiquitous sanitiser into your palm and inside the bank insist on social distancing. Some drug stores and supermarkets are also serious.
My take on Nigeria’s attitude to covid-19 is that many Nigerians have never believed in the existence of the virus. Others agree that it was around but ‘has gone.’ And the PTF seems tired of the whole thing and I have not witnessed any briefings of late. Some days they tell us so many people caught the virus the previous day. There is no longer announcement about testing. They say only sixty six thousand people have tested positive since the coming of the virus in a country said to have a population of two hundred million. The average citizen does not care about getting tested. But you cannot blame anybody. It cost fifty thousand naira to get tested. The PTF is now warning people not to travel for Christmas to avoid infection. May be they are copying the Americans who are warning citizens to no avail not to travel for Thanksgiving. This must sound like a joke to most people. If they tell us only just over one thousand one hundred Nigerians have died since the virus came is that why they cannot go home and enjoy Christmas? After all malaria kills an average of one hundred thousand Nigerians yearly! And nobody cares.
The PTF seems now to be waiting for Pfizer or Astrazeneca or the World Health Organisation to have their vaccines approved so that we can beg them for some. I say ‘beg’ intentionally because if Europe is going to pay billions of Euros to cater for the vaccination of its citizens where will Nigeria get the money to pay to cater for its own citizens? Even at three dollars a vaccine which Astrazeneca is promising will our government pay for it? Or will they acquire it and charge the citizens? If so many citizens do not believe in the existence of the virus why would they bother with vaccination? If the USA or Europe cannot ‘dash’ us vaccines perhaps we can wait for China to give vaccines to us on the usual strangulation terms with which China is recolonising Africa.
Until vaccines are available those of us who believe that covid-19 is real, those of us who are aged and those suffering from underlying medical conditions like uncontrolled diabetes, asthma, cancer, hypertension and so on must continue obeying the rules and waiting with our wonderful country, Nigeria, for somebody to be magnanimous enough to ‘dash’ us vaccines. The PTF calls it negotiating licence from manufacturers to produce the vaccines here. They are not talking of doing like Europe and buying the doses necessary to vaccinate Nigerians. Many people do not trust ‘made in Nigeria’ goods. I hope they will trust made in Nigeria vaccines! Africa Oyee!!