The global WAC(War Against Coro) continues unabated and it has been different strokes for different folks. Trump is off the hook (not much has been said about the wife) and he appears not to have been be humbled by his experience because he is still ‘running his mouth’. He declared that coro was a blessing in disguise as he felt better than he did 20 years ago and told his people not to be afraid of Covid and ‘Don’t let it dominate your life.” I don’t understand this Trumpian declaration. Is he saying that the Coro-infection had energized and made him healthier? Well, for Trump who most often thinks with his mouth, everything is possible. He has gone ahead with his campaign to Florida after which he boasted about the large crowd. Large crowd? His attitude towards coro has not changed. Meanwhile, as Trump is living his life in full, a 33 year old school dropout, Bussa Krishna from Telangana India, who worshiped Trump as a god has died( 11/10/20) while fasting for him to recover from Coronavirus.
Dr Atlas, a member of the White-House Coro Taskforce, has publicly stated that there's no scientific basis for the mask-always policy. He says in effect that masking by all always is NOT essential. We can now see the type of people advising Trump who has become a self-acclaimed authority on Coro and whose expert opinions are at variance with those of everybody else. Just last week, he has disagreed with CDC on the timeline of the availability of vaccines to Americans.
Spanish Government has declared a state of emergency in the Madrid region just as the world recorded the highest number of coro cases ever (8/10/20) caused by the second wave in Europe, which recorded 97800 cases that day. Broadway has suspended all shows up till may 2021while protesters have also stormed Jeff Bezos House( CEO, Amazon), demanding that he caters for 20,000 Amazon workers who have been ‘coronised’.
Britain has also introduced a three-tier Coro alert level, France has declared a health emergency while coro restrictions are back across Europe. Research by Australian National Science Agency has shown that Coro-virus can stay on the surface ( bank notes, phone screens, stainless screens) for up to 28days while another research has proved that Coro can be transmitted during flights, all the current precautions not withstanding. Nobel Prize winner Jennifer Doudna and her team has discovered a Coro-test that gives result in 5 minutes. An 89-year-old Dutch woman has just become the first person known to die after catching COVID-19 a second time. The World Bank has upped its anti-Coro financing policies, providing $12bn for vaccines for LDC and $50bn for fragile economies-post-Coro. AC Milan striker Zlatan
Ibrahimovic, Criatiano Ronaldo( Juventus) and Johnson, World #1 golfer have joined the list ofcoronised stars .There are more than 38.27 million cases and more than 1.08 million deaths worldwide. More than 26.52 million people have recovered as at 14/10 20. Surely, Coro is still on duty!
At home, Nigeria has crossed the 60,000 mark and as at 11th October, we have recorded 60266. It is however noteworthy that the number of states filing their Coro returns continues to dwindle. They were 11 states on 10th of October and 12 states on the 11th. So what of other states? How do we make declarative statements on our Coro scenario with figures from 33% of the states? . In Delta state, tertiary students, supported by their parents ( probably for the first time) protested the Coro-facility upgrade levy of N5000 and N10,000 for undergraduate and PG students.
They perceive this as wickedness and "extortion of the highest order’. I don’t know how these students would have described the situation in River State where breach of Coro-burial protocols would attract a fine of N100m infraction (from 10m fixed in June 2020). The key provision is a maximum funeral crowd of 50. Wike always reminds us that he is a lawyer. However, I don’t know whether he is aware of the Austins Theory that a rule can only become law when it is enforceable. How can RVSG limit funeral attendance to 50 and how can it collect a fine of N100m per infraction? Does it want to convert Coro to another oil industry.
Still on criminal
entrepreneurship, the NANS president,
Danielson Akpan has been impeached
for misappropriation and diversion of
Coro palliatives just as the Accountant General of the Federation has promised
to release the interim report of PTF Coro expenditures next week. ASUP has
declared that Polytechnics cannot afford the stringent Coro protocols required for resumption just as the NYSC camps
would open on 10/11/20. But as the government is opening the schools and the
camps, the FCT has banned street
protests because the protectors violated Coro protocols. The government has
also rejected the World-Bank Covid facilities; because it is not from China?
And then, from SARS to SWAT…just like that!
On 9th October, one of my sons posted a message on our extended family platform, pleading with us, the elders, to join hands rather than stand aloof in the face of their face-off of with oppressive and repressive instruments of the state. Hear him: this movement is borne out of the sheer will for every young Nigerian to just simply be let to live by a section of the police force without any moral compass, without any tactical training whatsoever, without regard for the rule of law / law and order which they have been sworn in to protect. The youths of the country have been maimed, killed harassed, extorted, haunted and hunted by these people... This SARS group were supposed to be a special anti-robbery and kidnapping squad but they make the headline more for extortion, broad daylight robbery and other criminal activities, I urge all of us everywhere and anywhere we are, in whatever capacity we can afford to join us in this struggle. Join us to bring down an oppressive system. Join us to share this terrible plight.Join us to tell the government wherever they are that enough is enough. Join us to tell the government to end SARS immediately.
I was at the balcony of my Igbo-Ukwu home, enjoying unadulterated fresh air and exchanging greetings with ‘my people’ when I received this mail. I did not appreciate the enormity of the of the ‘movement of the people’ until the IGP himself announced the immediate disbandment of SARS, which the gentleman PPRO, Frank MBA converted into a 5 point agenda. And while I was trying to have a holist grip of what is happening the police introduced SWAT and before long, the youths came up with their own counter 5 point agenda. The agenda has eventually became amoebic and is now about 1 dozen. Everybody is involved with an indescribable passion and commitment. There is even a video of men in their birthday suite dangling unmentionable things just to end SARS. Protesters are fed refreshed and entertained; they keep the environment clean, maintain order and treat misguided miscreants with love and care. The issues at stake are so important that even the ancestors, the spirits, got involved.
Because
the protest is structured federally with several almost autonomous units, with
no or an invisible command structure,( there is NO Nnamdi Kanu!) no one is sure of what happens next. I am
back to Lagos and for the past 48 hours, I have soaked the avalanche of online
and off line reportage of the coordinated activities of our youths in several
parts of our country. And… I wish I were younger; I wish this was happening in
the 1980s!
But police brutality, dehumanization of citizens and oga-at the top tendencies is not limited to SARS. All our uniformed people, including those wearing weird uniforms provided by LGs have these tendencies. The only difference is that their ability to oppress is limited by capabilities and operational peculiarities. You just need to see how corporate gatemen (they are not actually security men) treat job applicants!. So, how did we get here? Defective training,(on the essence of policing, its servant status and interpersonal relations) defective funding( pauperises the police men and reduce them to subhuman existence), protection by bosses who expect and receive returns from the officers( which creates ‘nothing can happen’ level of impunity), and the whole environment in which everybody weaponizes their status for self-enrichment.
Sanwo-Olu joins #EndSARS
How
did our children get this angry? Because they have had enough and we the elders
appear tired or overwhelmed by existential realities to save them from the
clutches of imperious uniformed men,
armed by the tax-payers money. The IGP found that the game is up and disbanded
SARS. But SARS has been disbanded, reformed, restructured about 5 times in the
last 3 years, the last disbandment being on 4th of October. But how
come they came up with SWAT, with immediate effect?
Our
people say that when you do that thing standing,( that is without
observing proper protocols) you are likely to beget an imbecile. When did they
undertake a holistic review of the
situation so as to come up with SWAT( copied from US?); have they
seriously studied what went wrong with SARS? Where will they get the new people
from or is it a matter of putting old wine in a new wine skin?( Mark 2.22). will
it be any different from the migration from NEPA to PHCN or from PHCN to Disco?
And because of high integrity deficit and wide talk-do gap, the youth do not trust the government and thus, the akshon
continues. So, where do we go from here?
We have seen the
beginning but we cannot see the end as
at now. Let us just hope that SARS does not become a metaphor!!
-Ik
Muo, PhD; Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye. 08033026625
#End SARS protest is a season film. I only pray we'll be able to watch it to the end. Also,that the end be beneficial to us and especially to the youths who're the key actors.
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