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Fola Ojo
The onset of the government’s lockdown order felt like a crisp opportunity for me to catch up on some chores I had sluggard off on. After the announcement, I immediately settled to some writing; wrapped my arms around some return phone calls; took a jump yakking and chatting off on the phone and cyberspace with friends; and freely caught up on some mundane things that wouldn’t have ordinarily seen the light of day in normal times of life. After all, now we have extra time on our hands that is not usually an easy buy in a pandemonium-free season. That was in the aftermath of the current pandemic outbreak.
Although it spun on for about a week or so; the good time I had welcomed, and was starting to get used to didn’t last too long. Inside of me, I began to feel the downside of the lockdown. Like many friends I had compared notes with, the order had taken some lousy effects on my physical being; and some modest toll on my frame of mind. Sporadically, I felt my heart racing up and down in his cabinet. I went into a cycle of restlessness pacing up and down my house trying to find that which was not lost. In restlessness and like a spinning carousel, I drove around my town with no destination in mind. I had to have an answer to this lockdown that felt like a lockup. In the US, it’s impossible to visit friends these days. Everybody is afraid of everybody because nobody knows what anybody has. One cough during a phone conversation, and that’s all that may be required for your phone number to be blocked and unfollowed on Twitter until you begin to live a cough-less life.
A known but an unseen adversary is wielding its hatchet of death out there on the street. And government has decreed we stay indoors. The government may not be right about many things; but with this, it is right on the money. This unknown enemy has already killed kings and queens. Record-havocs have been wreaked all around the globe sparing only a few tiny islands in the most aloof parts of the world. The rich have fallen flat on their faces so are the poor innumerable. Globally, the dead have numbered close to 200,000 human beings. That’s why the government wants us to stay home. The problem is that obedient citizens among us are in their homes dying inside. This generation is now caught between choosing life; and falling in love with livelihood.
It is an emotional torture confined to your couch and a television set powered by the dreaded 5G technology spewing out negative news without end. Bad news wearies the human mind; don’t newsmen know? Bad news is good news in journalism, my friends. News men appearing on your TV don’t care how you receive what they dish out. They have to bring the news no matter how your taste bud responds to it. Even if your home is 20,000 square-feet humongous mansion, staying confined by government decree within the four walls of a home you built for your pleasure is a very unpleasant and nerve-wrecking experience. It is even worse for the peasant and the poor in many parts of Nigeria whose daily survivals are anchored on meagre profits from their petty trades. How can these ones stay home, for God’s sake? How will their families get fed and roof placed over their heads? But the poor must stay home. Not just because the government is particularly draconian, but it is the only thing we know to do for now to hamstring this known but unseen enemy of the state.
A story I read in the Holy book alluded to the conundrum faced by four lepers. They were trying to beat death by running but didn’t know where they had to run. Everywhere in their sphere of operation was already wired in booby traps. They lamented but only to one another in despair and desperation to live. “What are we doing sitting here at death’s door? If we enter the famine-struck city we’ll die; if we stay here, we’ll die. So, let’s take our chances in the camp of Aram and throw ourselves on their mercy. If they receive us, we’ll live. If they kill us, we’ll die. We’ve got nothing to lose.” Hhhmn! Staying at home now must be seen by the wise as the saving camp of the Aram where the government believes we shall receive mercy form a merciless pandemic. But for now, there’s nowhere to run except stay at home. When there is no one, nowhere, no vaccine, and no mitigating medication to run to, staying safe at home is the only immediate remedy.
The 33rd President of the United States of America; Harry Truman, once spoke some words that are apt for these times. “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know.” Those who are calling for a distancing of the social distancing orders may need to be taken down memory lane. During the Spanish Flu of 1918 that claimed 50 million lives globally, Denver Colorado politicians were feeling pressured to open back up businesses because the curve of the pandemic was flattening; and deaths were going down.
Denver Mayor, Williams Fitz Randolph Mills, surrendered to the pressure from business leaders who complained that their businesses were bleeding off and livelihood was being stymied. The Mayor renounced his earlier social distancing order that had helped reduce the swathe of the pandemic. The state was thrown wide open to celebrate Armistice Day — the end of the First World War. The event drew in battalions of people who couldn’t wait to celebrate their freedom from lockdown. What a premature move! By October 15, the city population of about a quarter of a million and only 300 doctors was hit hard with 1,400 cases of infection. Some 8,000 people in Colorado lost their lives. More Denver residents had died of influenza than Coloradans killed in the First World War. It is unwise to declare victory when the battle is not even half-fought. Such battle will have to be fought all over again with greater casualties and with no certainty of victory. It is true that lockdowns ordered by governments around the world come with psychological fallout. Adverse health effects of staying locked down in one spot are what some are protesting. Their arguments are understandable. But shouldn’t we all too have some understanding of the times we are in today? I think we should. We also must understand that times and seasons come and go. And like all times and seasons, this too shall pass.
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