Ebola in Lagos: The fears, the jokes

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <img alt="" src="http://www.tribune.com.ng/images/ebola-lag.jpg" style="border: 0px; float: left; height: auto; margin: 10px; max-width: 100%; vertical-align: middle;" /><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br /></span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In Lagos, newspaper stands are not spots for idlers. They are meeting points for thinkers, intellectuals, and public speakers. There is no discrimination: everybody is welcome. Sometimes, there are fights; many times people shout and scream and curse and swear. But since Ebola became an issue in Nigeria, newspaper stands in Lagos have become a rallying point for concerned voices.</span></div> <center style="height: 0px; margin: auto; overflow: hidden; width: auto;"> <div style="padding-bottom: 5px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: left;"> </div> <div id="ebzNative"> </div> </center> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">New Garage in Gbagada, Estate Bus Stop at Alapere and Ketu Market are just a few of the most rowdy spots observed by Saturday Tribune. On this day, most of the dailies had reported that Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian whose visit to Nigeria a couple of months ago, ushered the deadly virus into the country, was indeed aware he was infected before the visit.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“God will punish this man!” one man exclaimed, at New Garage.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“He will rot in the pit of hell,” another man agreed.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Ah…ah! Some people are very wicked!”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Heartless!’</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“I say it will not be well for him and his generation!”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Please, don’t say things like that,’ a bespectacled middle-aged man said very quietly.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And it was at this point that all hell was let loose. Almost everyone turned to face this man.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Mr Man if you don’t know what to say, just keep quiet!”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Do you know how many people have died?”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“Do you know how deadly this disease is?”</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This argument continued for a very long time. Sometimes, smaller groups are formed out of the larger group, particularly when there are too many dissenting voices. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The fear of Ebola in Lagos is as real as the disease itself. Fear, panic, worry, frustration and disillusionment have been unleashed on the streets, markets, schools and offices. It is difficult to find people in groups discussing issues that are not related to Ebola. Where this is not the case, one has only to wait for a few minutes and Ebola is sure to creep in. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The search for the cure of the virus is a common pastime in Lagos. Not many people appear to be waiting for help to emerge from the laboratories of Nigerian scientists, and there are already a lot of conspiracy theories concerning America’s unwillingness to dispatch to Nigeria the drug they worked so hard to produce. Left to their own devices, many Nigerians (particularly those in Lagos) have taken to mischief-making and storytelling. The myths about Ebola cure and prevention continue to multiply on a daily basis. From kola nuts to hand-sanitisers, and from salt to alcohol, they are so numerous. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Indeed, the claim by Professor Maurice Iwu that bitter kola could cure Ebola was interesting on many counts. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">First, it was quite simply refreshing: Nigerians were really talking about research and innovation. Second, it was bitter kola! It was not some chemical or some ancient plant; it was kola nut. And third, it was Professor Maurice Iwu.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">And as if to further heighten the tension in Lagos over the menace, several media reports soon began to allege that the price of bitter kola had, in fact, increased dramatically in Lagos. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">This, however, did not prove to be the case when Saturday Tribune visited Bariga Market last weekend. It was available at different shops, and along the road. An average nut cost N10: it had always been sold at this price, a seller told Saturday Tribune. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There is also the case of hand sanitisers. A trader told Saturday Tribune that the prices of hand sanitisers did not exactly change. ‘It’s just that it’s in demand now,’ he said. ‘More people now come to ask for it than before.’ Different brands were on offer. Most prices range between N500 and N1000, depending mainly on the size. But hand sanitisers have indeed become very popular in Lagos. It is quite common to find people (particularly women) applying it every now and then – on buses, along the road, at events, and so on.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Nobody knows who it was that ‘discovered’ the ‘salt treatment’ for Ebola. But, really, people somehow began to hint that salt possessed the power to prevent and cure the virus. It was said it could either be ingested or used in bathing water. The Federal Ministry of Health has however stated that salt and water do not in any way cure or prevent Ebola. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There are still a number of people who believe it’s not salt but alcohol that can perform this all-important task. The problem, as with salt, concerns the dosage. People ask: how much need to be taken? The danger, again, of this belief becomes immediately obvious.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Workplaces in Lagos, particularly those in the posh parts, have put several measures in place to manage this situation. A young woman who works at Victoria Island told Saturday Tribune that workers at her office are subjected to medical screening, every morning, before they are allowed to go in; whenever a worker’s temperature is observed to be high,  he or she is asked to go home, and to return as soon as their health improves.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">“It is not fashionable anymore to get sick (it probably never was!) But nobody likes to talk about sickness any more. Ebola symptoms are sometimes similar to those of malaria or typhoid, reports have shown. There is also the fear of visiting hospitals: there is no telling whom one may run into, or have contact with!,” she said. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">But by far the most intriguing aspects of the fear of Ebola in Lagos are the jokes that are spun almost on a daily basis. Many people however have pointed out that the Ebola situation is far too grave to warrant any form of jokes. But Nigerians in Lagos are fun-loving people: such puritanical views do not mean much to them.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">One of the earliest jokes comes in the form of advice. Names such as ‘Adebola’ ‘Oyebola’ and ‘Irebola’ are identified as carriers of the Ebola Virus. To avoid contacting the disease, one must stay away from people who are so named. Well, it is not clear whether this is exactly funny. But that itself may well be the source of its humour.</span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">There is another. A man is hospitalised. His wife and his children are devastated: they suspect it’s Ebola; all the vital signs are there. At the hospital, however, they are told that it is HIV. So great is their joy that they organise a get-together to announce to their friends that it’s only HIV. </span></div> <div style="margin-bottom: 10px;"> <span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Yes, there is Ebola in Lagos, but there is also a shared resolve by residents to make it go away. In fact, someone has even said that Ebola cannot survive in Nigeria, but it was not clear whether this speaker intended for it to be a statement of faith, a call for action or yet another joke.</span></div> </div>

Ebola in Lagos: The fears, the jokes

In Lagos, newspaper stands are not spots for idlers. They are meeting points for thinkers, intellectuals, and pu...

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