I watched the panic in USA as the Ebola virus made its way from the filthy jungles of West and Central Africa to the concrete jungles of America and claimed its first victims. I watched as President Barak Obama cancelled all appointments for two straight days to deal with the emerging scourge. I watched as the Centre for Disease Control gave some frightening figures about America and the scourge of Ebola. Then I watched as they reached out to Nigeria for help in containing the virus that had earlier threatened Nigeria.
I watched to see what our leaders will say. I watched to see if they will tell the truth about how we fought and won over Ebola when no one gave us a chance. I heard all the wonderful stories of non-partisan collaboration, which seemed to be the only thing new. Then I laughed.
I laughed because my children were back in school after an extended fear-induced break. I laughed because the stigmatization meted out to Nigerians all over the world was going to end with the declaration by WHO that Nigeria was Ebola free.I laughed long and hard because our leaders were not telling the world the real truth about how we overcame the Ebola scourge.
Christ! For crying out loud, our doctors were on strike. There were no proper quarantine centres. Medical personnel were not properly kitted, and one of the few people that were quarantined escaped to some state in the East. One of the men that was in contact with the index case succeeded in eluding our powerful medical surveillance and was treated in a hotel in Port Harcourt where a doctor trying to make ends meet, was reputed to have collected N2 million to treat him quietly. Sadly the news had it that the patient survived, but the doctor and his family died! So what exactly did we do right?
The fight against Ebola was fought and won by the Nigerian populace in a very unique way. And that is the more reason I am laughing even now.
Finally Nigeria has found a cure to Ebola. And this is how we did it…
The Ebola virus is a very queer creation. It can be killed by ordinary washing of hand with soap and use of sanitizer but it can survive the severe heat that we put our bush meat through in cooking and smoke-drying. What this wonderful piece of discovery showed us was that the milder the treatment the more destructive it is to ebola virus. So we devised our own methods of soft treatment.
First we introduced the salt bath. It worked like magic. Overnight salt that has been the cheapest commodity in the Nigerian market suddenly appreciated in price. From then on, nothing could stop our ingenuity. So we took to social media with Ebola jokes. Like this one:
EBOLA AND AIDS
AIDS: Bros na wah for you oo, u just come everybody dey fear you like death, wia u get ur own from.
EBOLA: Ha ha ha, I told u that time now, say make u wait, make u neva kommot, u no gree, u rush come out, e no tey doctors tidy u…but see me now, the patient dog, eats the fattest bone.
AIDS: Na wa ooo, everybody dey fear oo, nobody dey near person wey u catch oo, but me, if i catch someone, no one go send, people go dey even chop wit am, hug am, even “sleep” with am sef, without issue.
EBOLA: Bros i ready come, u know native doctor wey do dis juju for me? I dey pursue somebody sef even if im don die…u no fit carry person wey I kill from state to state like dat oo.
AIDS: Even hospital sef dey fear u oo, if dem carry ur victim come hospital, the hospital don close be that, but me, everybody go dey go normally like say i no dey dia sef.
EBOLA: Bros, no be me do u oooooo, na only u waka come naaa.
AIDS: Your case tire me ooo, I wan be like u oo, u just make me look like kindergarten. Even me dey fear u cos u fit catch me sef……..but know say, all these death u are sharing, remember that’ dia is God oooooo!
Laugh out Ebola! That was how we spread the message, without fear, without panic, but with the help of our comedians and the creativity of the young generation, we passed the message and chased Ebola out with a beautiful hearty laugh. If you are going to offer advice to any country that is all you need to tell them. We proved without a shadow of doubt that EBOLA CANNOT SURVIVE A GOOD HEARTY LAUGH.
Covid 19 is not as powerful as we projected it, let us adopt the Ebola strategy to conquer this monster again. Nigerians, Africans are peculiar people in the world, together we can laugh out Corona virus.
Have a laughter filled day.
Oluwatosin O
Glintsightnews@gmail.com
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