I cannot now remember the precise year but not too long ago or too short ago either, Nigeria, our country, was on the verge of celebrating our status as a wild polio- free country. I think it was in the year 2020. But the week or days when we were about to roll out our famous talking drums it was discovered that another variant of polio was still in existence in Kano, Bauchi or Borno, one of our northern states.
For a people who love celebrating things, including those that are not truly worthy of celebration, this particular ‘achievement’ that we were set to rejoice about was a real one worth celebrating for until then, whenever the world talked about polio prevalent countries, Nigeria gots mentioned alongside India, Pakistan or Afghanistan, an inglorious company of underachievers in a fight that other countries had won over several years before. But alas! Like a people cursed to suffer from what we Pentecostal Christians call ‘’near success syndrome’’, the discovery of the existence of another variant of the virus was truly devastating. The WHO that was set to go along with us in celebration, went limp. Our talking drums and cymbals went silent. A chill ran through us. This disappointment truly rankled us.
I remember this incident in the life of our country because I am now resident in the rural area where the devastation of this disease that deforms and defiles a person is in much evidence. What polio does to a people is truly lamentable. This disease sometimes paralyses one side of a victim; his or her hand and a leg are deformed. You are now forced to limp or walk in a crab-like manner as you cannot walk straight like other human beings. And this ‘sentence’ on an unfortunate victim is a life- long one. No magic has yet been found which can restore you to normality. Sometimes, the paralysis is from the waist down. This one is the more unfortunate of the disability options for in this one you are forced to crawl or invent a kind of special carrier that can help you move around.
Polio inflicts a physical and psychological pain on its victims. Even with the invention of the Para Olympic Games, the psychological pain of not being able to compete among the normal people of the world must be very hurtful to the sensitive ones among polio’s victims. Being a champion in any of the events of this special Olympia, can never be truly rewarding to anyone who is forced to compete as a physically challenged person.
While we are on this sad subject, I cannot fail to mention that one of the amazing things about polio is that Science is yet to unveil to us why the disease afflicts more men than women. Those whose limbs are twisted and turned are mostly men. Women are a significant minority. It is not that I am complaining on behalf of the males because I am a man and sympathetic towards my gender. No. I am just curious to know the scientific explanation for this reality if there is any. Is it because women are psychologically more devastated by anything that alters or damages their physical looks or puts them in unflattering position or situation? Or does the explanation have anything to do with the hyper activity of boys who crawl all over the dusty places than their female counterparts and are thus more susceptible to the infection? Whatever is the reason for the ‘discrimination’ in the way it deals with male and female; this disease is an avoidable nightmare that should have been eliminated from the world long ago. Others fought and have eradicated it, why are Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan still living with this devastating disease that looks like leprosy?
Another very painful reality of our country that also rankles is our freedom or rather non- freedom from debilitating foreign debt. In the year 2005, former President Olusegun Obasanjo, a man who is an undeclared disciple of Adam Smith, the frugal Scot who is acknowledged as the father of modern economics, decided to free our country from foreign debts. He took a decision that many freeloading people pooh -poohed as foolish but which many of us hailed. He used some precious Dollars to set our nation free. Some of us then said that that year should be declared our true National Day, our day of freedom from foreign rule. I cannot now say what took us back to our current frightening foreign debts once again.
Where have we all been that our leaders after Obasanjo secured more foreign loans and have taken us back deep into the trap that Obasanjo had sought to free us from? Was a veil used to cover our eyes and minds? Who can explain to me and other sane Nigerians what has happened to us in that sector of our national life? Are we cursed to never make it as a proud people freed from any barrier or limitations?
