ADADEVOH AND THE EBOLA CRISIS By Rev. Chris Okotie Okotie@revchrisokotie. Follow on twitter @Revchrisokotie. 08048421451 (sms Omly) The death of Dr. Ameyo Stella Adadevoh from the deadly Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, sent shock waves across our nation, which is already traumatized by multiple woes inflicted by this strange epidemic and other negatives from our dysfunctional polity. This is precisely why I have been making a case for governance upgrade across party spectrum in my syndicated articles. I knew Dr. Adadevoh fairly well because she was once my personal doctor. That gave me an insight into her humility, diligence, and proficiency as a physician. She reportedly contracted the EVD as the first Nigerian doctor who attended to the index case, the deceptive Liberian – American, Patrick Sawyer who deliberately failed to forewarn the doctor to protect herself knowing full well, he was a carrier of the deadly virus. Our nation is eternally grateful to Dr. Adadevoh for helping to isolate Sawyer and alert the Lagos State Government on the frightening presence of the first Ebola victim on our shores. But for her due diligence and patriotism, she could have yielded to pressures from the late Liberian and his host to discharge him prematurely; a move that could have caused Sawyer to spread the disease through several intractable contacts, with fatal consequences to the nation. The gallant and professional manner Adadevoh handled Sawyer’s case was typical of the late physician, who paid with her life for her fidelity to the Hippocratic Oath. The doctor could not have written a better epithet for herself than the heroic manner of her exit, which is reminiscent of famous martyrs who gave their lives for worthy causes. May God take her soul. Like I said in a previous write-up on the subject, our government is to blame for this disastrous failure to prevent a looming threat to our health security before the infected foreigner slipped into our territory with the epidemic. Why Sawyer did this is now between him and his God. Nobody can dispute the fact that our government had watched in shocking aloofness as the disease wrought havoc in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, without mounting tight screening posts at our borders like other nations have done, to prevent carriers of EVD from these countries from entering Nigeria, until the Sawyer case happened suddenly. There was no way he would have entered this country if he had been screened at the airport. A stitch in time saves nine! It is ridiculous that some government apologists have tried to rubbish this claim in their poorly advanced argument against my recent article on the subject matter. I wasn’t just out to blame government; in fact, I actually applauded the timely and decisive manner our health authorities responded to the Ebola challenge. The swift reaction of the Lagos State Government and the Federal Ministry of Health, working as it were, in close cooperation, accounted for the arrest of the malignant epidemic as it was about to spread like wild fire. Again, thanks to Adadevoh, who deserves a national monument for her exemplary sacrifice for the nation. The point is that if the APC government of Lagos State and the PDP – led Federal government had not set aside their perennial bickering over petty, policy differences, the deadly virus would not have been so proficiently managed, to the extent that the alarming projected casualty figures have now largely been avoided. So far, only Port Harcourt, Rivers State has recorded an Ebola death, which was as result of a primary contact with Sawyer. It is my hope that this kind of co-operation would be replicated between Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s government and the Federal government, despite the conflict between the Rivers State governor and President Goodluck Jonathan. We can now say with some measure of confidence that Ebola could be defeated, especially as some suspected cases have been given a clean bill of health. Just six deaths have so far been recorded, including the index case of Mr. Sawyer; a far cry from the feared harvest of deaths. This is the great take-away from this Ebola health crisis. It shows clearly that if we simply shift the leadership paradigm away from needless inter-party rivalries, and co-operate in the interest of the people; if our governing elites would just stop politicizing everything from state creation, university admission and public office appointments, to the fight against terrorism etc; the nation would be better for it. Nigeria is at a crossroad. There are too many challenges cobbling our nation; this Ebola crisis is a nightmare, which, in addition to the kidnappings and other violent crimes on our streets, puts our people constantly on the edge. But the current approach to the fight against Ebola, though reactive, rather than proactive, offers hope that, in practical terms, there’s little we cannot achieve, if our feuding ruling elites sink their differences and find an acceptable formula to fast-track the nation’s development. That is what could make this democracy meaningful to the Nigeria people, as we prepare for the 2015 general elections. While cooperation between Fashola’s government and the federal authorities effectively contained the spread of Ebola, we have not seen such synergy between the state governments in the Boko Haram stronghold of the north-east and the federal government. Rather than unite to fight a common enemy, the ruling PDP administration and the opposition APC governments in the affected states, have been trading blames over the Boko Haram killings. This divisive tendency is a hallmark of this dispensation, and Boko Haram Islamists have exploited it to an extent that our thoroughly polarized polity is unable to agree on a workable strategy to combat the insurgents. Without a cohesive internal organization, hostile external forces will be difficult to defeat. The war against Boko Haram is hampered not just by our internal differences; the political leaders have failed to mobilize the entire nation to see this as a war that concerns everybody. But if the two dominant parties continue to politicize the terror war, the violent Islamists would never be defeated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rev Chris is a presidential aspirant and is based in Lagos.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 16:17:37 +0000