• Friday, March 29, 2024
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Oga-Coro; Another ‘abami-eda’! & Other matters: The demystification of America

Coronavirus

I had earlier argued that we should treat Coro with respect, which is why I have been addressing it as ‘Oga’ since then. I know that the irrepressible Fela was and is the one and only Abami-Eda, who did many strange things, including marrying 27 wives at a sitting. However, when considered on a multidimensional scale, Oga-Coro is indeed strange, another ebami-eda (in small letters in deference to Fela! It is strange because one year after it invaded the globe and destroyed our peace, a lot remains to be known about it. It is strange because people have turned the health emergency into an avenue for criminal entrepreneurship. It is strange because the why and how of it has torn the world apart, rather than bringing them together for coordinated response. It is strange because as we were celebrating its eclipse, it came back with vengeance, with a bang.

It is strange because it is central to the American elections and the current

Trumpocratic quagmire. It is strange because it hits hard where the government is capable and willing, showing mercies to places like Nigeria where , as some people say ‘we don’t have a government’.( Please tell Lai I am just quoting somebody!).It is strange because it uses the big and mighty to show its vicious strength as it has just sent our dear JJ Rawlings, a Ghanaian, African and global citizen to the great beyond. It is strange because even though it is not human, it knows how to afflict those who dare make a mockery of it just as it has dealt with Trump2, after dealing with his hard-to-describe father.

Trump2 had deliberately spread misinformation about Coro and had recently said that the deaths from Coro were insignificant when the toll was 228000 in the US. That was how it afflicted David Lah, a preacher in Myanmar who declared that Christians were immune to Coro. Beyond the affliction, he also ‘earned’ a 3-month jail sentence for holding a church service against the Coro protocols. It is also strange because certain things about it are simply WEIRD, as exemplified by these two stories.

Recently, the Coro-test on the Iconic Singer, Erykah Badu, came out both negative and positive. The testers took swabs from the left and right nostrils. Weirdly and to the chagrin of the scientific community, while the sample from the right nostril came in negative, that from the left nostril came back positive! And that was with the same machine, repeated twice thus yielding 2 positives and two negatives. Rather than voting to decide which one to accept, they went for a third test, which turned out negative. In a second strange case, Perpetual Uke, a rheumatology consultant at Brigham City Hospital, delivered a set of twins while in a Coro-induced coma!

She was 6 months pregnant before she was coronised and was in a coma for almost a month. She had ended up on a ventilator in her own place of work. You will recall that earlier in May, President Maxfully of Tanzania had announced to the world that samples from Sheep, Goat and Pawpaw ‘tested positive’ of the virus. I am yet to fathom out why he assembled and tested those strange samples.

Oga-Coro is still powering seriously across the globe where the figures are increasingly alarming and fresh restriction protocols are being introduced. As at 24/1/20, there were globally 59.2m active cases and 1.4m deaths; 12.5m cases and 250000 deaths in the US. The Pope has just intervened in the matter through his latest book “Let Us Dream:A Path to a Better Future, taking a swipe at anti-maskers just as China has allowed in foreign researchers to interrogate the animal origins of Coro( we have to know from where the rain started beating us!).

King Felipe of Spain in quarantine while Qantas Air has decreed that anyone who wishes to patronize it must be vaccinated. Toronto, parts of Italy and France, and Denmark are in modified lockdown just as North-Dakota has experienced its ‘worst day’ with 9224 daily scores. Greece has also shut down all schools as the number of deaths continue to rise unabated.

In Nigeria, we have had 743288 cumulative tests, 66439 confirmed cases (Lagos,22968; Kogi,5) and 1168 deaths. 138 Corpers have tested positive while 45percent of the international travellers have refused to undergo the mandatory Coro Test. We have also made the startling discovery that the recent fuel price increase was due to the ‘announcement effect’ of the new vaccines while the FG has magnanimously blessed Ekiti State with multi-million Naira medical equipment and facilities including an armada of 12 ‘keke’ ambulances to aid the WAC( War Against Coro). The FG has also expressed some worries about the mental state of Coro survivors while WHO has announced that 20 percent of Coro deaths in Africa is linked to Diabetes.

However, there is an avalanche of good news as an anti-Coro nasal spray has been developed in Australia, a face-mask that kills more than 90 percent of Coro has been invented in Nottingham by Gareth Cave while a mouth-wash that can kill the dreaded virus within 30 seconds has been developed by Scientists at Cardiff University. On the other hand, while G20 was promising to help LDCs with vaccine funding, Bill Gates has, in a ‘talk-and-do’ fashion, donated $70m for that purpose.

More vaccines with efficacy of 95percent+ are also in the offing, including the Moderna and Oxford, products while Britain, which hopes to obtain the vaccines by next week is planning a ‘mass-attack’ in which the several mass-vaccination centres will attend to at least 5000 daily. Meanwhile for those who believe in ‘seeing tomorrow’, Nicolas Aujula, a self-proclaimed psychic and regression therapist has revealed that Coro restrictions and panic will be with us up to 2022. So? We have been lucky but let us be on our guards rather than taking God’s mercy for granted!

Other Matters: The demystification of America

On 9/2/17, after watching Trump on duty for a few weeks I wrote: ‘. The fact that a Trump won the nomination was bad enough, and that he even went on to win despite his queer Unique Selling Propositions is shocking and indicates that the America that we knew- in terms of culture, values and dispositions- was actually fake. But our people say that the type of firewood available in a town should suffice for their cooking needs.

So that is what Americans wanted and that is what they have. However, my attention took a quantum leap when I noticed the extent to which we have exported our political practices to the U.S. In the first instance, it was a replication of ‘Ekiti 2014’ in which Goliath (Fayemi), was roundly defeated by David (Fayose). In the U.S., Clinton, with deep commitment to uplift women, children, and other minorities; a most distinguished career in public service; an unprecedented level of preparation for the job and compelling experience was defeated by Trump who had a legendary penchant for self-love that hovers on the borders of narcissism, unusual combination of ego, arrant lack of critical experience, a particularly inappropriate temperament, and embarrassing ignorance of the nuances of global diplomacy.

As for the first ladies, it has been class (Michelle, Doctor of law from Harvard and Dean, Princeton University) and trash (Melania: a nudist model!) America now has a president who ‘lies promiscuously, destabilises the government with impulsive, discriminatory, and inhumane policies backed up with jarring firings, and cannot allow his White House to apologise or admit error under any circumstances’… We also have a new world in which America, the cornerstone global world and free trade is now under Trump, doing everything to destroy and destabilize the world. As at now, nobody is sure of anything under a president who deliberately disrupts the world, works with aids who openly disagree with him on everything. He is at war with NATO, UN, EU the media and in particular, CNN, fellow republicans, immediate past president, and market forces. He is driven by a transactional mentality and many of his ideas disparage the principles, institutions, and alliances central to U.S. foreign policy.

This is what the Americans asked for (is it?) and so they must live with it. Unfortunately, however, the trouble of America is also troubling the world. Instead of an inclusive, peaceful, healed, unified, and transformed world, Trump is working furiously towards a traumatised, divided, and hate-full world that is in pieces. The bull is on rampage and everyone is running for cover. Even the Trumpeteers are terrified. Who or what can stop him? How prepared are the U.S. constitution and the Judiciary for this strange phenomenon? Can Trump serve out his term? Is he the last president of a united America? Are we headed for WW3? I am afraid, both for the U.S. and for the world!

Meanwhile, I insist that Trump be pressurised to undergo that full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation as advised by U.S. psychiatrists. It will be good to see what the outcome will be’ (Ik Muo, Trumpocracy; A new Year, A New America and A New World, Guardian, 9/2/17). I wish that a proper psychiatric evaluation of Trump was undertaken 4 years ago. Now he has demystified America and is bent on destroying the country, especially its democracy. How can the US issue sanctimonious statements on the principles of democracy, rule of law and corporate integrity after what Trump has done? Four years ago, I asked ‘how prepared is the U.S. constitution and the Judiciary for this strange phenomenon? Is he the last president of a united America? Today, even though he has grudgingly allowed the transition, I am still asking the same questions.

Meanwhile, while we await how US citizens and institutions deal with the plague called Trump, it is on record that in generations to come, people will read in the records that America once had as a President, ‘a billionaire who hides his tax returns, a genius who hides his college degrees The businessman who bankrupted 3 cassinos and lost over $1bn in 10 years, a playboy who pays for sex, a Christian who does not go to Church, a philanthropist who defrauds charities, a patriot who dodged the draft 5 times, an innocent man who refuses to testify, a president who takes no responsibility, a tough strong man who wears a makeup and hair spray and a deal maker who has yet to close a deal’ Sad indeed!