EBOPHOBIA 2.0: FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN

A Wake Up Call:

Somehow we all woke up to text messages, BC’s and even calls from our “loved ones” this morning. My morning was not an exception. I woke up at 5am to iron my clothes in preparation for the day’s work. I could hear utensils jiggle in the kitchen from where a pleasant aroma was oozing out. My mom was sure up so early trying to prep something for the family as she does before going to work.

Moments later I heard my dad answering a call and I was puzzled as to who could be calling him that early. For someone to call you that early it must be something really serious. Calls like that are usually received with great anxiety as to what has happened this time. When I didn’t hear my dad ask questions like “O’ragiaraga?” which means “Was he/she sick?” I knew it wasn’t much of a bad news then. So I thought it was probably my younger brother who’s away from the house. A few minutes later my dad called my mum that her phone was ringing… Didn’t hear the convo oh! But all I know is that my mom dashed into my room and hurriedly says “We were asked to bath with salt and hot water before 6am.” Immediately she ran and hurriedly did as she was told to beat the time as it was just a few minutes to 6. Her phone did not stop ringing as almost everyone related to her was so eager to share this ‘Life saver’ with her. My elder sister also called but when it rang and my mum did not answer because she was still busy in the kitchen, she decided to call me and asked me to tell my mum to call her. She could not tell me the ‘Salt bath’ story because she knows so well that I don’t subscribe to such BS. As usual, my dad was indifferent at the same time disappointed with my mum for always giving a listening ear to such stories and fallacies.

The whole neighbourhood was up early this morning. People were sending and receiving messages, others were talking on the phone, neighbours knocking on each other’s door to make sure they’ve gotten the message. There was pandemonium everywhere as I could hear children crying as their mom’s woke them up earlier than usual to have a strange and mysterious ‘Salt Bath’.

At the end of all these, Dangote and The mobile network providers would smile to the bank as a result of the millions they’ll make from all the salt and airtime that would be used in promoting the ‘Salt Bath Therapy’ BOOM!!!

The Place of Ignorance:

Seriously the event of this morning goes a long way to reveal just how blinkered and gullible most Nigerians really are. It’s even recorded in the Bible in Hosea 4: 6 that “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” This ignorance happens to be our greatest problem as a nation and that alone has really limited us and made us accept mediocrity and take everything that is presented to us as the easy way out. First we heard of bitter kola and now it’s salt bath. What would be the next possible cure/preventive measure? Where are our foremost pharmacists and researchers? They are probably in the markets buying up some salt for their families to bath with also. Will they continue to produce more panadol and paracetamol which our clinics prescribe to us for every ailment?

Truth is the western pharmaceutical companies are not ready to produce drugs or vaccines to help cure and prevent Ebola yet because the disease is domiciled in Africa and therefore they don’t see a viable market for them. At the end of the day it’s more about making profit than actually saving lives. We need to realize that we can’t continue to depend on the Americans and Europeans to help us solve our problems.

Even our fresh graduates are not enlightened enough to be able to analyse information they get despite all the access they have to internet and the web as portrayed in the image above. They were busy panic buying salt from a woman who did not get up to the level of education they have or should I say are ‘supposed’ to have. This is a big problem oh! “Leaders of tomorrow” indeed.*SMH*

Smartphones With Dumb Users:

Most Nigerians today use smartphones with data running on them 24hours. But what do we use our smartphones for? Playing Games like Temple Run and Candy Crush and sharing high scores with friends? Chatting and Pinging on Whatsapp and BBM? Taking pictures and sharing them with friends on Flicker, Instagram, Facebook and Twitter? Really is that why we call it a smartphone? How often do we use Google or Wikipedia to look up more info on things we don’t know about and just heard of? When I first discovered Wikipedia in my junior school, I made it a habit of always asking my mum to help me print out info on any subject I needed clarity and deeper knowledge of. I still have copies of what she printed out for me on Architecture, Climate Change, Sustainable buildings, just to mention a few. Then when I got a phone that could browse, I became ‘Mr Know it all’ to all my friends, challenging and educating them on several issues and subjects. At a point in senior school I was called ‘Yahoo’ by students and even a few teachers. But that’s BTW.

Usually I look up ailments to find out their causes, symptoms, cure and prevention to adjust my lifestyle, but later on I thought to myself that ‘why am I really doing this? Is it fear or what? Don’t I know what is written about ailments in the bible anymore or have I lost faith in God and his word?’ After answering all those questions, I stopped looking up ailments. But as soon as the Ebola thing became an anthem on every lips and every discourse on TV, I decided to look it up and I am glad I really did, because it took away every fear that I would have had if I stayed ignorant. I actually didn’t wait for the fear to set in before I took a step to enlighten myself, which is where most of us fail.

The last time we experienced this type of disease, was the Avian Influenza known to many as Bird Flu. But before then, I remember that while I was in primary school there was something called SARS. I was so scared then because I thought the whole world would die since it was airborne but somehow that passed and so will Ebola.

If you’re reading this it means you have access to the internet, so let’s all do ourselves a favour and look up Ebola on Google and Wikipedia to find out first-hand information from reliable sources on its causes, symptoms, treatment and most of all prevention as there is no known cure for now. God will show us mercy and keep us all by helping us to find a solution to wipe out this epidemic that is threatening our existence IJN.

To know more on Ebola, you can start by opening the CNN link below http://t.co/sRzSBjzBTV