By Moses Obroko
November 2030:
Africa is facing a
biological warfare from nature in the year 2030.
The dreaded ebola virus has yet again surfaced; only this time in West Africa. It was in 1976 that it was first identified
and named after a river in the country that used to be called Zaire, now
Democratic Republic of Congo. Of course no one had really given any serious
thought to developing a cure/vaccine for it in Africa as it usually breaks out at intervals
every other few years. 54 years later, the virus having mutated into a stronger
strain, has reared up its head once more; only this time with fatalistic global
consequences.
The death toll from the virus is rising in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia.
Many countries along the West African coastline are already overrun by it with Benin
Republic
beginning to count its own fatalities.
And then it happened! Nigeria which had
hitherto had been grappling with every other socio-economic and leadership
issues known to mankind, got the virus. And the world noticed!
Nigeria has nearly
190,000,000 people who had been bedeviled by corrupt, inefficient leadership,
having a rippling effect on their economic wellbeing. The people of Nigeria
had always borne their poor socio-economic situation with the equanimity of the
subjugated. One military dictator after another had instilled the fear of the
ruling class in the masses. Robbed of any will power to challenge any government
of the day, Nigerians always hoped and prayed to God to help them solve
problems they already have the solutions to, but lacked the will power to do
so. Nigerians can tolerate poverty, bad leadership and deprivations from the
callousness of a wicked few. This is
because they can see and feel the problem. For instance, it is because there is
no electricity, or the roads are bad or doctors are on strike and the hospitals
are not well equipped; indeed the reasons are varied and countless for which
Nigerians perfectly understand-and can stomach.
