A pandemic is sweeping through Africa, a shape-shifting Pandemic. I have seen it in Uganda, placing the stamp of Museveni on the cuffs of democracy, making the discourse of free will only a song in our mother’s folktales. It was sighted in Mali, detaining voices, answering questions with bullets, and feeding history the mistakes of ignorance.
More than once, we have seen it in Nigeria, using the trick of shapeshifting into snakes and fishes, without waiting for a full moon, swallowing money, and leaving no trace of its presence. I am sure with the way it eats; this pandemic has grown a big belly over the years. Best believe it is bigger than the ones that our leaders wear when they speak to us. The ones that the rich wear. I do not mean the protruding stomach that the woman who sells you beancake ties her purse around or the neighbor who drinks beer at the call of his salary has. Beneath the protruding flesh is a mass of waste and want.
A familiar taste of the pandemic is peculiar to the rotten roof in Africa. That is the only shape of the pandemic that has rested its fangs on our necks, the face of poverty. Indeed, Africa is a beautiful mass of tall cities and lights that reflects from the cities that are dying from unrest. Of course, you see it on your screens in the news highlight, the Hollywood cameos, and the part that the news network hides from you. Beneath those lights are a mass that darkness thrives, the dark areas, the poor part, the majority part.
The areas where the pandemic gets its belly from. I do not mean to uplift the face of poverty at the expense of the coronavirus, but the rate at which poverty kills people from these areas has made the coronavirus a tale from a whiny voice, as unreal as the songs of democracy in our mother’s folktales. At night, the whole family gathers in front of the television, defying heat and hunger to treasure the embrace of family time. They watch the lady from the news network.
The women’s eyes do not leave her painted nails and their attention wrestles with the lips and the long hair that rest behind her as she offers them a dashing smile. The men scratch their crotch and dream of days when they would be able to buy their dreams and afford a lady like the news network lady and then she reads out the headlines, and announces the daily update on the coronavirus case. The numbers are real but the fear is not. They ask themselves. Who has this virus? I heard about the cousin of a cousin whose girlfriend had it. I heard of a man in Ikoyi with two billion naira in his bank account who had it? My tongue hurts! Maybe it is corona or Malaria?
I once watched a television show where a group of women defied rare journalist standards and peddled Hollywood gossips. Their discussion rested on a celebrity that had the coronavirus and then the phone lines were thrown open for discussions. The first caller was a man who expressed his sympathy and prayed for more grace from God. The lady who spoke after him echoed the same sympathy and appreciation. And then a woman called, her voice was young and calm. She said she was a teacher in Makoko who had been living there for twenty years. She told the ladies about the Corona and expressed her reservations about the virus.
‘Makoko is a very dirty place and the topic of hygiene goes beyond Zero. The people here are not bothered about the virus. We know we should stay indoors but what hope is there for people who live by what they can survive daily? Hunger is a more real virus, perhaps you can help us appeal to the government about this?” The ladies laughed at the folly of the woman for doubting the reality of the virus when the call ended. One said that the woman should be sacked as a teacher if that was what she taught her students.
The virus was real and everyone should stay home and not spread the virus by moving about. I could not help but wonder how frustrated the teacher from Makoko could be to call a gossip show and discuss real issues. There were two different realities present that day. The first was the women in the show. The ones who traveled in and out of the country as if America and Dubai were playgrounds behind their houses in Lagos island. Ones who had come in contact with foreigners and lived through the deadly virus in their white tales. And then there was the woman, the teacher from Makoko, who had never been to the airport. In the end, all she had were rumors and a moaning belly. It is not our fault that we have become The Thomas in the pandemic.
You can only feel the pain of the mosquito biting your buttocks. The one singing beside your ears is only but a noisemaker. Noises do not hurt, but bites can kill. And now they speak of a vaccine. A vaccine more salivating than the long offering boxes in our temples. The one we saw our leader’s wives take in their cars in a country that isn’t ours while we fought for the bones of the fishes that have been soaked in crude oil. If God decides to leave his home and touch our leader’s mind this one time, if they decide to give us a share of this one after they must have had their fill and grow their bellies, if they will hear us or if you will tell them, then please tell them that we will prefer a loaf of bread over a dose of injection. We are hungry, not sick.
Taken from “I am not angry. I am just a Nigerian”, a collection of essays
Written by Festus Obehi Destiny
1 Comment
I flowed with each word, relating each to the present state of things in our country. Nice write up.