Staying home and doing nothing for two weeks may be troubling and painful, but it is very necessary. It is the only necessity for our collective survival as a people in the present circumstances where that imported dangerous affliction is threatening to eliminate all of us. Our capacity to fight it is not strong considering that our health system is a very fragile one.
Even if we had the best of systems in terms of health, it would have been still being very difficult.
Let’s just consider what is happening in the developed world. These countries we have been taught in our studies of international politics to be amongst “the first world countries” – countries with enough capacity, economically, military, scientifically, and all that qualifies a nation to be self sufficient and self reliant.
I mean those with revered Armed Forces who are referred to in global politics as Super Powers, those who hold powers to direct affairs at the UN – those with Veto Powers and those with “financial powers and muscles” who make things happen and make the world go round.
As we speak, all those countries are struggling right now with most of them almost literally on their knees begging for others to come to their aid. You can mention for example the greatest nation on earth – the United States of America, Spain, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the rest of them. All of them are currently in what can be described as dire and distressful situation.
Italy for example, has been hit so hard by Covid-19 that it has become a dependent nation receiving medical and logistical support and aid from Cuba, Germany, Russia and others to help them overcome the enormous impact Covid-19 has brought upon them almost to the point of collapse.
Their President recently was seen on television almost throwing up his hands in despair calling on the God above to come to their aid because whatever they needed to do to calm the veracious spread of the deadly novel coronavirus. They had done it, fought it with all their might and power, threw everything at it, but yet nothing was changing.
That is how serious it has been elsewhere where systems were said to good on paper and practice. If nations like Italy have been hit hard like this, what then will be our faith with the kind of fragile systems we have if we allow the disease to run out of control? Your guess is as good as mine.
Here in Nigeria, our health system is not anywhere close to what these great nations I have enumerated that are struggling to deal with Covid-19 and bring it under control have.
In that regard, what we should do quickly before things get worse is to sacrifice any and everything including our time, jobs, socialization, freedoms, our happiness and so on for the next two weeks or more depending on what happens later so that we can level the curve as the medical people say. Stop both horizontal and vertical spread of Covid-19, contain what has been recorded so far, treat the affected and infected and God willing, we shall overcome this obstacle too soon. Get back to our normal times and give glory to God.
For me, that’s all that we need to do. Two weeks is not too much to ask for. We can do it and we must prove that we can do it for our collective survival as a people.
Let every single Nigeria who will be staying home throughout these difficult times take this from me. If all of us as Nigerians -rich or poor, politically connected and less connected, famous and ordinary people can try the best we can to sit with our pain, listen to our pain and respect our pain, in due course, we will move through this pain brought upon us by Covid-19.
That’s all that matters now. We need to endure now just so we can become free people again tomorrow which I hope will be very soon.
Stay at home, stay safe. Love you all.
– Yakubu Yousef D. writes from Ejule, Ofu, Kogi State.
