People in Nigeria are taking their bathes with salt water to “prevent” Ebola. They don’t want to die. But rather, from our stupidity, two of us have died of salt toxicity and two dozen have been admitted. Though Ebola is transmitted not only by contact but by odd and unknown means, including through the air, hand sanitizers are finished from the shelves in Nigeria. People do not want to die.
Before Ebola broke-out, one could not appreciate this love of life among Africans and Nigerians. The behaviors of the people were consistent with suicide inclined. Purchasing hand sanitizers is preventive in thought, but where was the preventive thought before Ebola?
The consequence of foolish action is disease and death. Ebola is a problem in Africa because of our character; our foolish actions, our lack of pursuit of real advances in societal structure and relevant technology; our decayed morality; our tolerance of valueless and clueless, retrogressive leadership. We continue to spread Ebola and it will continue to spread thanks to our character, to our evils. It is us after all who transported it on purpose from Liberia to Nigeria and peed on those attending to us. This is our inherent evil. This is the behavior of those cursed.
In Nigeria Ebola keeps spreading faster than it should; and for clear reasons: the nurse or matron who was infected with it is said to have burst out of quarantine against instructions (and only possible due to failed medical institutions) and set out to go to see TB Joshua. En route, she infected her children and she died. Another lady is reported to have come in contact with Sawyer/ the facility where he was, but when she came to the NNPC center, she denied this encounter. By her character and lies, she put her children and the workers at the medical center at risk.
Our character is turning us not only into victims of Ebola but into killers. We refuse to apply common sense, we refuse to apply responsible caution, we keep eating bush meat, we lie, we cheat, we support hopeless rulers; and the consequence is Ebola.
Our systems are distraught, our leaderships are hopeless. We feel there is no consequence of this – the consequence is terror, the consequence is Ebola. Lawlessness that pervades society leads to the curse. When we elect leaders not because they are best suited for the job (as we would do if choosing doctors to care for us, for instance), but merely based on tribal or religious assumed affiliations, the consequence is the pestilence. In Nigeria, people in Ekiti state elected a caught thief as their leader. This was done either out of wickedness, stupidity or evil. The result is terror, the consequence is the pestilence.
Nigeria elected a President whose wife had been caught twice with millions of dollars, looted state funds, attempting to launder them. When we support such an immoral leadership to continue to loot funds for proper institutions and protection of people, health-wise, socially and security-wise, the result is terror and the pestilence. We will either have to beg and bow to God or beg and bow to the white man to help us with the curse we inherit.
There are well defined rules of national character and well demarcated punishments God promises for those who fail these guidelines. In Islam people are told not to eat bush meat, they are told not to travel to or from places with the pestilence. When we violate this, as Sawyer did, we spread the plague. The Bible promises that all sorts of unknown pestilences will reign on the people who have abandoned God. The pestilence as with the terror is the repercaution for our wickedness, for our lies, for our tribalism, for our hatred of each other, for our political evil.
Lagos is on high alert right now. I am very troubled about Lagos, we should all be. There should be a school set aside for quarantine. Every doctor and other personnel that goes in must never come out, but should sleep there in quarters within, till the plague is contained. There must be no two-way movement into and out of quarantine facilities. The doctors, late Sheikh Khan and the American doctors who came down with Ebola; they were as careful as the best of us can be. Ebola is transmitted not only by contact but by other means. Our personnel may take it home despite their medical gear. We must dedicate people to reside there till this is contained. We need real and sensible leadership to manage this problem. We need repent-full behavior to contain it. We must be ready to die but tell the truth the minute we have a headache, than go to the hospital and put everyone at risk and die and kill. This is why the West is hardly afraid of Ebola; they trust their system, their leadership and their people.
We must change our leadership. We cannot accept leaders by accident, criminals in power, because if Boko Haram, the worst terrorists in the world, is at an extreme of the country and we think this curse of evil leadership will not affect us and our wickedness in choosing and supporting clueless and incompetent leaders for some vile satisfaction, shall not suffer us, God will give us the pestilence. We will reap the fruit of our curse. Things will fall apart and we will not even know where to begin picking them up from. In my last article, I outlined how simple it is to develop our own Zmapp ‘secret’ monoclonal antibody laden serum Ebola cure. Cures for Ebola can exigently be sought and found by apt African leaders. Are those the people we have in power? We think simply, but the deadly problems we face are complex. This is why western democracy does not work, because what do popular voters know about the role of leadership in preventing or combating Ebola or Boko Haram? The masses who vote have no idea of the challenges.
It is time for serious and sober reflection and action. We need excellence in character and leadership across Africa. Hopelessly managing broken systems and worthless, corrupt representatives causes meaningless death. Dysfunctional character causes disgraceful death.
Dr. Peregrino Brimah; http://ENDS.ng [Every Nigerian Do Something] Email: [email protected] Twitter: @EveryNigerian
