National Alert- By Olukayode Salako.
In the past few days, I have had the opportunity of meeting with some Nigerians at the grassroots level, who still feel the infection of the coronavirus pandemic disease can never be their portion, because of their religious Faiths or because their daddy G.O. says it.
“Coronavirus is not my portion in Jesus name or in Allah’s name or I am a child of God, it can never come to me”. That is what is in the orientation of many Nigerians right now, so they keep running their normal lives, oblivious of the danger of the infection of the deadly airborne disease that is lurking around all of us in the Nigerian environment at the moment, and this is highly disturbing and worrisome.
Alas! This is the way the people of places like Italy, Spain, Iran and some of other countries around the world also took the warnings with levity when their governments were begging them to observe all the life saving measures.
They refused to listen to their governments, just the same way many Nigerians are taking the dangerous and contagious issue with levity and nostalgia right now.
My worry in all of these is not that some people, who would contract this disease won’t be able to escape death through timely treatments by the health system in Nigeria at the end of the day, but the disaster of the over stretch of the medical facilities in Nigeria, when it spreads extensively in Nigeria, just the same way some countries, which have been badly hit are crying about it right now.
Today, Italy, Spain, Iran, China et cetera are losing their citizens in hundreds on daily basis, probably due to the faults and negligence of their own.
Just this yesterday more than 700 dead Spanians were whisked to the mortuary or creamery. The virus killed them! And that that is the way it has been in many countries in the past few weeks that the scourge started ravaging the world.
The question is, how many medical facilities and treatment equipments do we have in Nigeria, if eventually we allow it to hit our country the same way some countries are picking dead bodies in their streets right now around the world?!
As it stands right now, Italy, Spain, the US and the UK and co. are crying bitterly right now, because their health facilities are overly over stretched and their people are dying like chicken in droves on hourly basis.
These are advanced countries that were boasting of some of the best medical facilities around the world before the advent of these pandemic afflictions.
So, what would become of our own situation, if out of the naivety or stupidity of many Nigerians as they are going about it right now, and we allow it to keep spreading fast as the number of the contagiousness of the disease keeps spreading as it has been spreading in geometric stead as the number of those, who are being infected are now growing in Nigeria right now on daily basis?!
This is my worry! And it is very, very disturbing as many Nigerians are now joking or taking all the laid down precautionary measures to save all of us from it for granted right now.
The danger in all of these, is that by the time we allow the scourge to spread so extensively like the level it is in some high risk countries right now, the insufficient facilities our country can mustle at the moment, would only be left for competition between the high class Nigerians, who might also be infected and the masses, who won’t be able to survive it, if the medical system abandons them for the care of only the so called prominent Nigerians in the treatment isolation centers.
If care is not taken, however, the masses would suffer more death fatalities in the hands of the afflictions, while the available facilities would be concentrated to the care and safety of the privileged Nigerians eventually, when the time comes.
If we allow this virus to spread extensively, our medical facilities and the few number of doctors as well as other medical personnel we have in Nigeria might only be for the care of the high class victims in our few isolation centers at the of the day.
So, dear Nigerians, I urge all of you to take the safety of your life seriously in this life threatening and health damaging situation.
On this note, do not just continue to say it cannot be my portion in Jesus name or in Allah’s name.
If the headquarters of most of our religious faiths around the world, could be badly affected and all religious activities in those places remain shut down for the period, then it would be stupid for you to keep believing your own God is better than their own in the midst of all these.
As I submit the contents of this sobber reflection piece, hundreds and thousands of people, who believe and practice that same religious faith as you, have been killed or consumed by the pandemic disease. And more and more are still either awaiting for deliverance or death in the lonely and helpless isolation of their bad state of illnesses in many countries around the world.
I, therefore, advise we let sense of sane and proper reasoning to prevail at this juncture.
Stop feeling you can be spiritually immuned to the afflictions. Take all the safety and precautionary measures seriously.
This Coronavirus war is not a joke. It is a reality all of us must take seriously.
Coronavirus has infected great men of ‘Gods’ around the world. It has killed many Christians and muslims and people of other religions around the world. Obviously, we can’t all continue to claim we are more religious, gracious or better than them in the sight of God.
It has killed pastors. It has killed imams. It has killed temple priests. It has infected great and powerful men in governments glabally. It has infected Prince Charles of the great British empire. It has entered our own Aso Rock. It has entered big and massive church congregations in South Korea et al. It can infect you. It can enter your home and household!
Stop seeing yourself as someone, who cannot be a victim. Stop deceiving yourself.
It is contact and airborne mysterious pandemic disease and afflictions.
Go to and stay where you would be safe.
Do all that could make this afflictions to pass over you around this period.
Your pastors and imams too don’t want to be victims, so they know how they are protecting themselves and their households.
Don’t be a victim!
Don’t be an agent of the spread!
Obey all government precautionary directives about it!
Don’t be a dead man, while the end of the global scourge would be celebrated at the end of the day!
You have a choice to survive it or you allow your naivety, ignorance and stupidity to make you a victim, when you can live safe to avoid it.
Stay where your life would survive the scourge!
Be part of those wise and obedient human beings, who would celebrate the survival at the end of the day.
If God doesn’t want it to happen to the world, it would not have happened.
Don’t be one of those foolish human beings, who would be buried with the scourge.
He encouraged Nigerians to join the Coronavirus challenge now to kick the ravaging monster and enemy of the survival of humanity out of Nigeria.
