Love in the time of Ebola

I have found the geopolitics and epidemiology of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) particularly intriguing. It was first discovered in 1976 in the erstwhile Zaire, the quintessential failed state in Africa. After the brutal assassination of Patrice Lumumba in 1961, Mobutu Sese Seko was installed as a puppet king. A murderous and corrupt tyrant, Mobutu ruled his people with a merciless iron hand for the better part of three decades. Apart from the marble palace he built in his ancestral home village of Gbadolite, Mobutu did not construct a single school or clinic from what the Belgians left during their precipitate exit from King Leopold’s benighted estate.

Then as now, the country has remained a playing field for multinational mining interests and other avaricious vultures. The world powers will never allow the DRC – a country the size of France, Germany, Italy and Britain combined – to evolve into a strong, united and prosperous country. It is not altogether surprising that the first case of Ebola surfaced in that long-suffering country.

In May this year, the founder of the French extreme right National Front party, Jean-Marie Le Pen, outraged the civilized world by declaring that the Ebola virus could be the perfect solution to the population explosion in West Africa, and, by extension, Europe’s “immigration problem”.  Speaking at a cocktail reception in the port city of Marseille in the eve of the European parliamentary elections, he declared that “Monseigneur Ebola could sort that out in three months”.

I had occasion to make reference to that sinister commentary by Le Pen in this column. What I find disquieting is that no one in Europe or the Western world found it necessary to call the man to order for those outrageous comments. Paradoxically, the party now led by his daughter Marine Le Pen went on to win an unprecedented 25 percent of the Euro-parliamentary votes. 

When fascists express their mind, most people are wont to dismiss their opinions as the mere ranting of demented fools. When Hitler announced that he would invade Poland, nobody believed him. At a dinner banquet hosted for Arab leaders in Kuwait City, Saddam Hussein remarked that he would pay a special visit the following year. Everybody laughed it off, the Amir of Kuwait included. Fascists always say precisely what they would like to do. 

History has taught me to weigh carefully what people say. I am not altogether surprised that the latest outbreak of EVD has been in West Africa and from the fragile states of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Ever since Sekou Toure said to “non” to membership in the colonial French Community in 1957, Guinea has been treated as a pariah by France and the francophone community. They never forgave Guinea for joining hands with Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana as vanguard of anti-colonial liberation in Africa.  Guinea is today a member of the English-speaking West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ). 

Guinea is the famed land of griots – custodians of the ancient gnosis that has sustained the African people since time immemorial. When Ebola broke out in the country recently, the youths went on a rampage attacking the French Medicins Sans Frontiers and other international aid workers. They alleged that anywhere these people went there was an outbreak of the disease. 

Liberia and Sierra have only recently emerged from a long night of war. Nigeria spent about $10 billion and lost 5,000 of our brave young men in those jungles to bring hope to both countries. After we left, the International Economic Hit Men moved in, accompanied by a gaggle of Phoenician jackals that took over the mining interests and built elaborate cartels around the real estate sector. 

It is intriguing that Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American who contracted the virus in Monrovia, decided to take a plane to Nigeria. When he collapsed at Ikeja Airport and was rushed to a hospital, the doctors diagnosed EVD and decided he had to be quarantined. The Chief Medical Director was prudent enough to get approval from our Minister of Health. From all we have been told, Sawyer violently protested his detention. The Liberian Embassy made several agitated efforts to get him released. 

The Sawyer saga leaves many questions unanswered: Knowing that he might have contracted the virus, why did the authorities in Monrovia allow him to board a plane to Nigeria? Why did a supposedly educated man like Sawyer – a consultant to ECOWAS — behave so primitively against his quarantine, knowing full well the risks that he posed to the public?  Why did the Liberian Embassy in Abuja allegedly insist that the man must be released? How did he escape and who might have assisted his successful escape? 

Was somebody hell-bent on ensuring that this pandemic contaminates as many Nigerians as possible? Why West Africa, why Nigeria? At a time when our government seems at last to be taming the Boko Haram monster, are there sinister forces that want to ensure our country is faced with yet another form of warfare? 

Is Ebola some kind of WMD?  Are there sinister forces that want to ensure that Africa’s fastest growing regional economic community is brought to its knees?

Last week the consultant physician and endocrinologist who looked after Patrick Sawyer succumbed to the virus.  Stella Ameyo Adadevoh was a respected doctor from the well-known Adadevoh family. Her late father was a distinguished medical scientist and former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Lagos. A great granddaughter of Sir Herbert Macaulay, founding father of Nigerian independence, she also counted the venerable Bishop Ajayi Crowther as an ancestor. 

A dear friend of my youth comes from that family. Quiet and self-effacing, they are people of the highest intellect, character and decency. Nurse Justina Obi Ejelanu who worked with Adadevoh in looking after Sawyer has also perished. Both women paid the ultimate sacrifice to save us from the evil scourge. 

Because of their love and sacrifice — because of God’s protection — Nigeria will not only survive; we will prevail.