COVID-19 Omicron and Nigeria’s frenemies

Columnist CHIDO NWAKANMA asks when we will stand up to Nigeria’s frenemies using Covid-19 Omicron to throw us under the bus.

The United Arab Emirates graduated from one finger to inserting its hands full in the eyes of Nigeria on Monday 13 December 2021. It asked airlines all over the world not to bring Nigerians into their country. It is a declaration of war.

Formal declarations of war have become obsolete since WW2, but nations do so through hostile actions or rhetoric that create a state of war between two or more states. The UAE action is what we call in Nigeria “see finish” a provocation that asks the recipient, what can you do?

The Nigerian passport is now haram at any of the airports of the UAE. The ramifications and implications are enormous.Omicron variant of COVID19 was the excuse for many nations to show their disdain for Nigeria. The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Saudi Arabia and UAE announced restrictions of entry of Nigerians. The UK claimed that it was because 21 out of 23 passengers from Nigeria had the Omicron COVID19.

Contrastingly, citizens of Netherlands and other Euro nations with higher cases of the COVID-19 wearing akwete (Delta variant) and the one in Ankara (omicron) did not receive the same treatment.

Since 2020 the West sought in vain to dump COVID-19 on Africa. They wanted to position it as an African ailment. They also did with it with HIV-AIDS and Ebola.
They crowed about how the pandemic will reduce the African population.

When it did not happen, they started manufacturing rationalisations. One of those is the one that claims either that African test numbers are understated or that there is corruption in the process. Unfortunately for them, Africans have access to their media reports showing corruption also in pandemic management.
Africans are not dropping like flies from the pandemic. It is an European disease as we watched the sad cases in their cities and the high incidents. With no evidence of pandemic levels, Africans have gone about their businesses with scant regard for COVID-19, apparently infuriating the West.

At the same time, the West sends to Nigeria and the rest of Africa vaccines that are near expiry. That scenario builds the case for vaccine resistance.
The same West that speaks about “evidence-based decisions” can no longer stand the evidence. They have left evidence for outright prejudice and hostility.
The facts are that more Western nations have both ordinary COVID19 and the one wearing either akwete or gele. They did not ban them.

Africa should wake up. Nelson Mandela said then that it becomes Nigeria to stand up for the black man. It is ironic that it would take one of our worst to do so but it is what it is. Nigeria should ban flights from those countries defaming us. I support with my full chest.
Nigeria brought the UAE finger-poke on itself. We have an irresponsible and sybaritic leadership and elite class. They are ravenous wolves who feed on their own citizens.

Take the management of COVID19. Both internally and from external sources, huge sums of money were available for tackling the pandemic. Rationally, citizens expected that Nigeria would build at least one new world-class hospital. Zilch.

The Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 painted fine word pictures of its mission claiming a commitment to use the COVID19 as a spur for developing a new framework for scientific enquiry but did nothing. There was neither framework nor scientific enquiry. Instead, we have progressed only in empowering fashion designers to do face masks but nothing in science and technology, medicine, pharmacy, fabrication, or medical laboratory science. We are middling through.

Vaccine production is one source of this insult Yet way back as far as the 1970s Nigeria developed and manufactured vaccines. We even established a dedicated vaccine production institute in Vom, Plateau State. Now, we cannot join the global race to produce one.

What happened to you, Nigeria? Cry the beloved country.

UAE has dropped its human waste in front of Nigeria’s entrance door. They know that the Nigerian elite will pile pressure on its member the dissolute Nigerian government to swallow the mess. The Nigerian elite is so invested in the UAE that it would pretend that this waning shot is a mere Christmas fireworks.