Corona virus — na strong head go kill us
Eku Corona o. Let me gist you people small gist.
Every morning, as I leave for work, I turn onto the highway from a major junction where a sign says “LEFT TURN ONLY”. The sign is clearly there to tell people that they can only make a left into the highway. If you need to go to the other side of town, you only need to make that left turn, drive for a minute, then make a right. But every day, half of the people who queue at that junction make a right turn, often blocking the people from the other side making their legitimate left turns and sometimes barging into them, fighting for the right of way.
Ever so often, cars bash themselves and the owners come out and shout at each other. The police have a vehicle permanently parked at the junction, and often come to direct traffic. Almost every day, I see these policemen direct users to make the right turn they should be arresting people for. Even the police do not understand that the junction only allows left turns!
I recently discussed this with a friend who immediately said “But what do you expect people to do? The government should have built an overhead bridge, so people can manage the crossings better.” I agree. However, the government havn’t built an overhead bridge (as if people use pedestrian bridges in Lagos), but they’ve made a sensible rule, “LEFT TURN ONLY”, but we do not have the good sense to obey this simple instruction.
We hate impunity from politicians, but we also bend the rules when they give us an advantage. We hate police corruption, but we settle them just that one time they catch us driving without a license. We complain that Nigeria jaga jaga, but drive one way, because our business is really important right now. Just once. Just this once.
It’s not that we don’t know what the right thing to do is, we do. Every time we jump the red light, we do it because we can, because there is no consequence. We complain in public but disobey in private. We do all the things we know we really should not do, and more often than not, with the right dose of privilege and a helping of dysfunction, we get away with it.
Well, we can’t get away with this one now — corona got us. It got us right between the eyes and the usual excuses suddenly don’t cut it. It’s life and death, you see, and there are no cop outs. There are no foreign hospitals to fly too. A passport full of visas can’t help. You can’t call your big uncle on the phone to use his big yoga voice to get the Officer Coro to let go. You disobey Coro rules, Coro catches you. No option of fine.
Shortly after the index coronavirus came into Lagos, I was at my office to work, jejely ovoiding people, but had to lock myself in my office because a film crew was working in the office space. I refused to shake hands with anyone. Some said I was paranoid and I said “I’m just obeying WHO and distancing.” They laughed and talked about AMVCA outfits. I told everyone there that it was best to cancel the event, but even if it held, people should stay away. Again, laughter. I was surprised that people who are usually sensible were still going. Ok now.
A few days later, word on social media said there was a corona virus exposure at the event. But people still refuse to show small sense.
My people say “Etang eno nyin unen, etang eno mbukpo”, meaning as you’re warning the chicken to be careful, warn the hawk too to stop eyeing little chicks. We can blame the government all we can for not closing the borders, or politicians for not building much-needed hospitals, but the warnings were there — stay away from large gatherings, observe social distance. But did we do it? Answer to yourself loudly — did we do it?
The politicians who are trying to carry the few ventilators in general hospitals to their homes, have they close the usual European hospitals you people usually fly to? Has your private jet spoiled?
And the fellow Nigerians who returned from trips abroad and refused to self isolate because the blood of Jesus is enough, did the government do that too?
Amean, look at this rubbish →
From top to bottom, leadership to citizenry, rubbish. Who did this to us?
Will the old gentleman I met at the store who laughed at my mask while exposing his high-risk self to danger get to blame the government too?
So do we think we should not have held those events now? Or allowed those big men pass through airport security without screening? Should we have ignored politics and ensured the big men went straight into isolation when they came in? Of course, we do! We wish now that we had eschewed the politics that underfunds the NCDC and disempowers it because the oga there was appointed by the Vice President. We regret that we didn’t play games with the warnings. We wish we could do it over.
But we can’t. Corona comes bearing a mirror, to help us watch our dysfunction in super HD, to remind us that visas are good, but investing in building this country is the only option we really have. If it doesn’t hit us, it will hit our parents or close relatives, and I’m not even talking about corona here.
To be Nigerian is to be a boundless, careless idiot, who does stupid stuff we would never try anywhere else, but we do it here because we can get away with it. We refuse to criticize bad behaviour so we can protect our privilege to behave badly when our time comes. But coro no dey hear! We got learn.
I hope that when all this is over, we will take a long hard look ourselves and learn to do the half-decent thing.
I hope that…lol, who am I kidding?
