By Abdulyassar Abdulhamid
At last, Kano State locks down for seven days to defend itself against Coronavirus, effective from Thursday, April 16, 2020. As of Thursday April 16, the state has recorded twenty-one cases of the new strain and one death.
The hunt for possible treatment for the disease in the world is on and the counting of COVID-19 patients in Kano State continues.
Giving the directive on Wednesday, April 14, Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje said the state government would do its best within the stipulated period to trace all the suspected cases of the disease.
What could the authorities do? First came sheer ignorance; then gross irresponsibility followed. The two are enough to set the state in disarray. Haven’t they heightened the fear?
It is tragic. The two have caused panic and put the lives of about twenty million people at risk. Ultimately, they have thrown a spanner into the tedious work of keeping the disease at bay.
On Wednesday, March 25, the governor had placed an embargo on cross border movements, and since then a significant number of the population has already lost their means of livelihood and a spike in the prices of goods and services welcomed the move.
Business owners have taken advantage of the hard time to accumulate wealth and to terrorize the afflicted. Some of them pray for crises and they have gotten one in the disease.
This is as much the reader’s problem as it is mine; we have gradually eroded the very foundations governments at all levels built to save lives? The result is that everyone is jittery today.
Despite the tough measures the state government has taken, the time, energy resources invested and the continued public awareness campaign to stem the spread of the pandemic to the state, now it is just like walking on the edge of a precipice. Ignorance and irresponsibility has caused it.
Ignorance has done it. Ignorance is not the same as illiteracy rather a disease that prevents a sighted person from seeing the truth – it shuts one’s heart from understanding the conspicuous.
Imagine! As countless families in various countries continue to record deaths and grapple with the economic impact of the disease, here in the woods, on the streets, at joints, in the sun, under the shade, everywhere, is someone who does not believe in its existence; or who thinks by observing infection prevention and control measures he or she is doing the government a favour!
Such people out of sheer ignorance think they possess Coronavirus-resistant skins or the disease is a divine retribution for Nigerian’s leaders’, past and present, decades of bad governance. Therefore, it only attacks the rich or the highly placed.
Irresponsibility is not less cruel. As President Buhari has put it ‘the irresponsibility of the few can lead to the death of the many’. Isn’t our situation self-harming? We have brought the infection and profound and far-reaching consequences thereof to our doorsteps.
Often times it is the irresponsibility of the masses of people that causes distortion, downfall and destruction.
Immediately the Kano State Government gave a directive for the immediate closure of all routes linking the state with other parts of the country, I wrote a short thread advising the authorities and anyone who cared to listen to step up efforts – to be responsible. We all have a moral duty to be responsible.
I was reliably told of how some unpatriotic citizens continue to bribe their ways and sometimes forge their own path, into the state. A young man told me there were many J 5s buses en route to Kano State then through Kwanar Dawaki.
I suggested that a chain of patriotic, intrepid people should be mobilized to impose the orders and a mobile court constituted to trial offenders and henceforth send them to jail if need be. This is a matter of death and life.
Unfortunately, the aberration continues. Truckloads of people especially from the southern parts of the country, where the disease is more pronounced, continue to trickle into the state.
On the other hand, the very people saddled with the responsibility of guarding the borders have turned it into a business. “Bribe your way in” is the mantra. They have placed people’s lives on a chessboard. They don’t care a straw if Kano State were to be wiped out of the surface of the earth.
We live in denial. We want to lie to ourselves and others, even if that will lead to destruction. The Kano index case lives in it; everyone lives in it. And sadly we are proud of it.
We are too selfish a people. How on earth a man, despite the constant public enlightenment, refused to submit self to proper treatment. Why, for God’s sake?
Example of Ecuador – I wish I can meet those irresponsible people to relate to them the happenings in Ecuador, as a makeshift riot act.
The stench of death has no comparison in this world. The horror is unimaginable. Dead bodies littered Ecuador’s streets and families have to keep dead loved ones for several days before they are buried. The country is overwhelmed by the death toll.
Any right-thinking Nigerian must be concerned with the rising cases of the infection, and the telling effects resulting from the measures taken to curtail the spread in the world and Nigeria in particular.
As of Thursday April 15, 2020, Nigeria’s confirmed cases stood at 407, 128 patients have been discharged with 12 deaths recorded. More so, millions of people have gone hungry and many societies have been plunged into crises.
Wasn’t a friend reduced to tears when a friend of his, who lives in Lagos, narrated her ordeals under COVID-19 lockdown? Two weeks have gone by and it has been extended by two weeks. It is necessary, however difficult it may be.
As Kano State locks down on Thursday to defend itself against the pandemic, the authorities concerned must understand that the damage has been done. The situation has been exacerbated. Coronavirus is waging a war on Kano State.
Millions of people lack access to basic needs: food, clean water, shelter and clothing, as they solely depend on daily labour for their bread. We are faced with the question of their survival within the week-long total lockdown.
The north has been under lockdown for too long. Its population increases exponentially; but sadly there are no adequate corresponding policies to channel its ever-rising population into potential workforce thereby becoming an asset.
As the lockdown comes into effect, we should understand that we are faced with too difficult choices – between the gangrene and amputation. Lockdown is a must to, as they say, flatten the nerves, and palliatives must be provided to give a succor to especially the disadvantaged in order to avert a looming disaster.
We must be resilient, positive and hopeful. Together we can break the chain of COVID-19 and emerge stronger in the end.
Abdulhamid wrote via abdullahiyassar2013@gmail.com
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sky Daily
