Consistently, Nigeria as a nation has stepped on God’s big toes, and gets away with it. Terrible decisions are being taken daily, yet the country continues to enjoy great favours.
When most countries of the world are on their own trying to create wealth out of their barren lands, Nigeria has everything in abundance. She has crude oil deposits in abundance; there are numerous mineral resources that have remained untapped; there are arable lands for agricultural purposes round the year; favourable weather condition and abundant human resources.
The country is also free from natural disasters that constantly disturb the peace of people in other lands. The only problem is that we are our own problem. Otherwise, everything in Nigeria is bright and beautiful.
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic ravaging the world at the moment appears to be mild on Nigerians. While the virus has somehow demystified the developed countries of the world that have the best of technology, human and material resources, it is very gentle on Nigerian citizens.
The rate of death in other countries is not so here; the quick recovery rate here is not so in other nations. People test positive today, the next few days, they are negative, and are discharged and free to go home. By the estimation of some experts going by the seriousness of the virus and what it is doing to other countries, many Nigerians would have been falling ill and dying, or put differently, the streets of Nigeria would have by now been littered with dead bodies as it is happening in some other countries. Their postulations were as a result of our lackadaisical attitude to everything, from the leaders to the led.
What did the people of Ecuador, a South American country, do wrong that corpses are littering the street? Reports have it that coronavirus-ravaged corpses have been rotting in the streets of the port city of Guayaquil in Ecuador — while others lay unclaimed in hospitals and clinics because morgues were filled to capacity, according to a report. The government and health officials are overwhelmed with rising cases of deaths that they have decided to pack decayed and decaying corpses with cartons. Nigeria is simply enjoying divine favour.
Here, many Nigerians are busy arguing that the COVID-19 was not real. This is because they have neither seen a single corpse of the number said to have died of the virus. The identity of those said to have tested positive is also shrouded in secrecy, fuelling doubts. Could this be the reason for the wanton disobedience to the government’s directives on lockdown?
The Federal Government could not even believe its eyes that the death rate has not escalated; to be sure what is happening, it decided to extend the social distancing order to enable people stay-at-home to watch for another 14 days if the number of infected persons would escalate. Health experts say that having contained the index cases (those who came into the country from other countries with the COVID-19) the next few days would help to monitor possible community transmission (those who may have inadvertently contracted the virus by mingling with index cases).
The frequent discharge of those who had earlier tested positive, and the number of people already discharged have been a marvel to many. These are the things that have flabbergasted many Nigerians to the point that they now doubt the kind of COVID-19 that is in Nigeria; if it is the same as the type that is wreaking havoc in Italy, Spain, Britain, America, etc.
Some analysts have explained however, that only an infinitesimal percentage of the Nigerian population has been tested, and that chances are that if many more people could be tested today, there could be too many cases that could even overwhelm whatever health facilities that have been put in place.
But the likes of Femi Fani-Kayode, a former aviation minister, do not believe in such assumptions. For one, the former minister sees the finger of God in what is happening in Nigeria, and has vehemently repudiated insinuations that the virus would sooner than later wreak a serious havoc in the whole of Africa.
Fani-Kayode was quoted as saying that there is an invisible shield over “our nation and over Africa,” and that COVID-19 will pass and “our people and our nation will rise again.”
It is believed that Nigeria would have been one of the best nations on the planet earth, but for bad governance. A former leader in the country was quoted as saying that he was surprised that the nation’s economy had not collapsed despite everything (bad policies, corruption) that had happened. That is the resilient nature of the Nigerian state. A lot of things happen in Nigeria and they are just taken as normal, and these are same things that had caused havoc in so many other countries.
In all of these, some people attribute the resilience to a divine intervention on account of the deluge of supplications by Nigerian people to the Almighty God.
ZEBULON AGOMUO
