Oga-Coro was officially recognized on 31/12/19 when the WHO China Country Office was informed and the
virus was isolated on 7/1/20. However
there are reports that one 55 year old in Hubei Province was the first person to contract the mean
virus on 17/11/19. There have been reports, even of recent that China disclosed
far less than it knew about the origin of the disease, its statistics in China
and even how they miraculously overcame it to become the only country that
recorded almost 5% growth this year, while others are in the -20% region. China
has also just ‘discovered’
that Coro is not an indigene; that it migrated from Australia, among others but that is not my
concern today and may not even be tomorrow. Now, if you check the median from
17th November and 31st December, you have 9th
December. And so, Coro has just celebrated its first birthday anniversary.
It is one of the wonders of 2020,
and indeed, of this generation, that a strange
being, which is just one year old has gotten to the level where we are
blackmailed and coerced to honour it with the
Oga appellation . In the world of area-boys, who have recently done a
change-of-name to hoodlums,
motor-parks and prisons , the most ruthless becomes the Oga. If you doubt, go and ask Olu-Omo, an ally of
the father of all democrats .
Coro has indeed become the most ruthless and monstrous being that ever
existed in this generation and that is why it has forced us to hold it in fear(
not respect), which is why we humour it with the appellation, Oga, so that it
will show some mercy. An invisible, unknown and vicious being has
within one year become the most popular word in the internet, even more popular
than Trump and the most notorious being on earth. Within its 12 months ‘on the throne’, it has rattled
great men, humbled great nations, invaded and desecrated sacred and hallowed
places , humbled the proud, created a hitherto unimaginable new-normal, equalized all
humanity, forced Nigerian big men to stay in Nigeria for more than 6 months at
a stretch, rendered their private jets idle and forced them to visit Nigerian
hospitals and take in Nigeria air. It has killed kings and princes, showed
celebrities a taste of ordinary life and according to the President of African
Development Bank, Coro has enrolled 30m people into the
unemployment register in Africa…all within 12 months!
It is so powerful that as a toddler and without firing a shot, it imposed the global 3Ls (lockdown, luck-up and luck-in) and in obeisance, markets, schools, international travel and commerce, and sporting activities were crudely stopped. Our people who were experts in foreign conferences and meetings were forced to stay home or try the zoom option. We all became online experts: worshipping, learning, meetings and sales became mandatorily online affairs. Hospital and mortuary facilities were overwhelmed in the US of all places and grave diggers were forced to proactively dig graves up front across the globe. It forced us to do what we have refused to do( hand-washing, spacing…) despite years of schooling in personal hygiene and social etiquettes. It has shown its influence by pushing other health concerns like HIV, tuberculosis and cancer into oblivion and whereas there has been no vaccine for cancer, malaria, HIV and Ebola over these years, its own vaccine has berthed after just one year and there are several of them! It is noteworthy that the last vaccine approved took 4 years to be developed! It also brought most of us closer to our Creator as prayer for an end to Coro became the major prayer point in 2020.
We were FORCED to realise that most of the things we see as must-have are actually dispensable and not essential to our lives. It forced husbands and wives and indeed the whole family to share a common space for months( and the results are showing in the various maternity wards across the nation!!! And just this week, Coro proved the truism of the ageless saying, ‘Amor Vincit Omnia’ ( Love conquers all), which I first read in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales during my HSC days at Federal Government College, Enugu( 1975-77). An Indian couple has just wedded in FULL Coro-protective attire after the bride tested positive on their wedding day (6/12/20)!!
The officiating minster and the lone witness were also similarly
attired. This took place at the quarantine center in
Baran in the state of Rajasthan Coro has also introduced or popularized a basket of strange terms into
our lexicon; terms like droplets, flattening the curve, coronised covidious, verbal autopsy, active
cases and plandemic.!
I have been having sleepless nights, cracking my medulla-oblongata,
wondering where this came from and the source of its mysterious powers. And then, on Monday,7/12/20, (around 2.pm), I
got it: ‘See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the
kingdoms, to root out and to pull down, to destroy and to throw down… they
shall fight against you but they shall not prevail against you’.
(Jeremiah, 1;10 & 19). It was the marching order to Jeremiah and I believe
that the devil, who was expelled from heaven
with all his powers still intact,
created Coro and handed the instruction over it. It deliberately
ignored the second part of that
Verse 9 which instructed it ‘to
build and to plant’. I believe that we shall eventually get to the
build and plant stage but now we are on the
‘root out, pull down and destroy’ phase!
On its first anniversary, rather than listening to our ‘calm-down’ pleas and offering us some gifts, it has offered us a weird gift of inexplicable recrudesce so that while some countries are in the second phase, others are on the third. It has even refused our gift, the vaccines, which have created more controversies. Most of us cannot afford it while others have ordered enough to go round thrise their population and laid out solid strategic responses to vaccine management. Britain, apart from being the first country to approve a vaccine, has appointed a Minister of Vaccines; Japan and Algeria are offering free vaccines to their citizens and Russia and Britain have started jabbing. Margret Keenan, 91, has become the first(8/12/20) to receive vaccine in UK and first to receive Pfizer Vaccine in the whole world, thereby making history in the twilight of her life. In Nigeria however, we are more concerned with quelling treasonable demonstrations by EndSARSers and the best we have done about the vaccine is to plead for equitable distribution. In this dog-eats-dog world? There are even doubts as to whether we have the capacity to manage the vaccine logistics , given the storage specifications. Even then, Haryana’s Health Minister, Anil Vij
has just tested positive
barely two weeks after being administered a trial vaccine shot of Bharat
Biotech’s Covaxin! Bharat Biotech however informed that the efficacy of its
vaccine could be determined only fourteen days after a second dose. Pfizer vaccine also has a 21-day, 2nd
dose specification. Scientists, over to you! And New York Times has just written that ‘the
lack of transparency, compounded by dubious business practices, has rattled
public confidence in Chinese-made vaccines, even though they have been proved
safe’. I learnt that in UK, many citizens are waiting for the PM to
take a jab before they can join the queue. But as at today, face-masking,
sanitisers/handwashing and social distancing constitute the most effective
vaccine. You can take that to the bank.
Anyway, after berthing in China, Oga-Coro opened its first ‘branch office’ in Thailand on 20/1/20, came into Nigeria, the first in Sub Saharan Africa on 28/2/20 and was declared a pandemic and global health emergency on 11/3/20. As at today, the world has had 68m active cases and 1.55 deaths, with Us having 15m active cases and 284000 cases and Nigeria, 69645 active cases and 1181 deaths( as at 7/12/20). And it is still powering on because it is not yet satisfied with its current deadly ‘achievements’!
As Coro celebrates its
BD, here is a rundown of some recent developments. The WHO has expressed worry
that people are behaving as if it is over just because of the availability of
vaccines. He warned us that it is
NOT yet over! He also advised that vaccination should NOT be
compulsory, even though countries and institutions have vowed to lock-out
non-vaccinated citizens. On the other hand, INTERPOL has issued a global alert,
telling us to beware of fake vaccines as organised crime rings target these
vaccines physically and online. However, while other countries are doing
everything to obtain, distribute and promote vaccine usage, with Obama, Clinton
and Bush promising to be vaccinated ‘opendentially’ Brazil’s Bolsonaro, probably an admirer of Trump has
boldly declared: ‘I’m not going to take it’! This is despite the
fact that he is an alumni of quarantine
facilities and that Brazil is seriously under pressure . The figures all over the world are
alarming with newer and tighter
restrictions being imposed but in Nigeria, it is neither here nor there. Nine
states Borno, Gombe, Ebonyi, Abia, Enugu,
Adamawa, Kebbi, Zamfara and Kogi states did not report new cases case between November 8 and December 6 while
nationally, we have had 5 days of 300+ figures
from 3rd to 6th December( 343, 324 310, 318, and
390)., figures we never had throughout
September and November. The figures for last week,( 1607) was 31.4% higher than
the previous week’s. And I ask again is it that the states did not have
cases or that they have refused to test and or report the cases?
On 3/12/20, the figures were from only
13 states while on 7/12/20 when we had
390, the highest since August 23rd, only 20 states+ FCT had figures.
Were are the other 17 states?
While the second wave is of global concern, some Nigerians went a-worshipping at Redeemed Christian Church of God church in Turkey, where they were rounded up by the security officials for breaking social distancing rules, some fined and others scheduled for deportation. However, a group of 300 youths defied the Coro scare and organized a 5-day ‘Swingers Convention’ themed ‘Naughty in N'Awlins’ in New Orleans,
At least eight inmates were killed and 50 others injured in a violent riot at the Mahara prison in Siri Lanka. The riots started after prisoners demanded accelerated testing, separation of the ‘saints from the sinners’( healthy from the coronised) and outright release amid spread of Coro in the prison. More than 1,000 inmates and 50 prison guards, and at least two of them have died And our precarious situation in Africa has just been amplified when a young(28) Kenyan doctor,
Stephen Mogusu died of Coro while being owed 5 months salary and without health insurance. It was so bad that his family had to engage in online fund-raising to see him through, but to no effect Meanwhile, an Italian has been fined for breaking Coro curfew after storming out of the house following a quarrel with his wife. The man had spent a night in a local hotel and walked away as far as he could and within 1 week, covered 280 miles from northern Como to Southern Fano. The police who rescued the fatigued husband asked the wife, who came to pick him up, to pay the hotel bill and the fine of $485 for breaking the curfew( walking during the curfew period of 10pm-5am)! I cant tell you what the domestic dynamics have been since the man was recued by the wife from whom he was trying to escape!
And now, I have just come across the statistics on average deaths-per-day due to various ailments.
It is 438 for Diarrhea, 433 for pneumonia, 430 for tuberculosis, 263 for malaria and just 4 for Coro. Incidentally, malaria has no vaccine. What does this imply? That while we are conducting this WAC(war against coro,) we should not ignore the management of other more debilitating ailments.
To conclude this special Coro birthday
edition, here is a report I just
received from an anonymous source ‘My uncle attended a wedding party in
Lagos on October 31. Thereafter, he
became very sick and he went for coronavirus test and tested positive. He later found out that 140 out of 185
attendees at the wedding event also tested positive. He is aware that the bride’s father and a
younger sister to the bride (who came in from the USA and who had other
underlying conditions) have died. A few
other attendees have also died. Luckily,
he is 100% recovered now and he has vowed never to attend any more public
engagement in the near future. .He also told me of another wedding in Ibadan
that took place in early November (of course he did not attend). He said the father of the bride has also died
since.
What do I say? Those who have ears, let them hear!
NB:
Just
like Frank Olize searched for the common man years ago, I have always been
searching for anybody who have received any of these FG intervention funds. I
am glad to announce that I have seen a school proprietress who received the
N30000 for ten of her teachers. It is a one-off affair and I do not have any
reason to believe that she had to SEE somebody in order to access the
grant
-Ik Muo, PhD. Department of Business Administration, OOU, Ago-Iwoye 08033026625
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