Cholera Outbreak As Indicator Of Deeper Issues

By Adekunle Adekoya

When we move forward by a mile, it seems we always do something that will make us take backward steps for 10 miles. And so, it was alarming and distressing to read reports of cholera outbreak in our country again, especially in Lagos, our most sophisticated showpiece of urbanisation. Many have died, and more are hospitalised as a result. I thought we’d heard the last about cholera; I remember the epidemic that raged in our country in the early ‘70s.

No less than six people fell to the cholera epidemic in my little village of Gbawojo, nestled in the forested plains of Ijebu North-East Local Government Area of Ogun State. It was 1971 and I was in primary school in Sagamu, at Wesley School, Oko1. From our school gate we could have glimpses of the courtyard of the Akarigbo’s palace. The Akarigbo of Remoland then was the late Oba Moses Awolesi, Erinwole II.

The government of the Western Region at the time, led by Brigadier Oluwole Rotimi as military governor, swung into action and despatched immunisation teams to the schools. I still have the scar from that immunisation on my left forearm. Many people of my generation in schools at the time had similar scars and will remember. We defeated cholera then and for a long time, except sporadic outbreaks, cholera was kept at bay. Until now. Why couldn’t the public health authorities sustain the actions that kept cholera at bay? What went wrong that public health officials looked on till an outbreak started claiming lives?

I know there is a steady influx of migrants into Lagos on a daily basis, in their thousands. Many of these migrants get into the city and look for convenient places to berth. These include places of worship, garbage dumps, uncompleted buildings and other ungoverned open spaces, like under the bridges. Without access to accommodation with toilet facilities, these fellow countrymen relieve their bowels openly in drains and any other place they find convenient. As a result, the entire city has a problem of open defecation which generates the vectors that carry cholera germs. The Lagos State Government, and indeed, all state governments have a lot of work to do in this regard.

Can we now see the connection between insecurity in one part of the country and disease in another?

A common feature of urban life is street food, and is a global phenomenon. We are no exception. But you will find the presence of government by way of regulation, which seems to be lacking here. What stops public health officials from ensuring that street food preparation adheres to basic procedures of hygiene? Open hearth cooking is a common feature at many of our bus-stops, with flies buzzing items on offer for sale.

In the markets, a visit to the butchers’ section will confound those who are finicky about what they purchase to eat. Our butchers, recalcitrant, truculent tradesmen they are, will be seen permanently waving away flies from the meat on their sales slabs with their knives. Nobody regulates them? It is my guess that the average housewife will inevitably bring home cutlets of meat with germs already deposited on them by flies. A family man ends up buying contaminated food with his own money.

The other leg are those food sellers. The conditions under which many amala joints prepare their food for sale are simply unhygienic. Many of them pound yam or turn amala by the roadside, right next to a drain in which a vagrant might have defecated overnight. Don’t these people come under the purview of the Public Health Department for regulation? 

As the political authorities find it more and more difficult to deal decisively with insecurity, let Nigerians prepare themselves for the worst. Those of us not killed by bandits and kidnappers and marauding herdsmen may get taken out by the fallouts of insecurity. Add to that incompetence of the power elite when it comes to anticipating problems and fashioning out solutions to them. We are in for a hard, very hard grind. 

As I write, I am recovering from a bout of malaria and typhoid fever. It cost N18,500 to treat. Chicken feed, right? Not until you recall that similar treatment used to cost under N6,000 not so long ago. The malaria problem has existed for ages here. Pharmaceutical giants have made billions of dollars in revenue selling anti-malaria drugs to us. Isn’t there a politician that can come up with a plan to eradicate malaria? None. They’d rather be thinking of holidays in exotic destinations with their paramours.

How much will it cost to treat cholera? I don’t want to find out the hard way, because government is not present in our lives anymore. It is why we pray so much here, but in other countries, our prayer points have been taken care of by God-fearing men in their governments. Here, they don’t fear God. If they do, we won’t be where we are.

*Adekoya is a commentator on public issues