By Jude Onwuemene
We arrived on a flight from Ghana yesterday, 8th of August 2014, only to be greeted with a classical case of our typical gross negligence and our infamous attitude to the call of corporate and national duty. We disembarked from an Aero flight NG2004 from Accra to Lagos which arrived by about 10.30pm Nigerian time and just before we approached the immigration posts, a middle aged woman stood in the hallway asking non-Nigerians to show their yellow cards while Nigerians were asked to move ahead to the immigration stand.
To us Nigerians, this was a major cause for concern and shock as we all know the havoc that Ebola is causing presently in our country and in West Africa. Any infected person could have transited from anywhere through Ghana to Nigeria, be him or her Nigerian or Foreigner, therefore everyone should have been tested. Instead only one woman who had no protective clothing and with no medical investigating tools was there to attend to an entire group of aircraft passengers, with each impatient passenger bombarding her for clearance.
On the other hand, only 2 day prior to my return, on the 6th of August 2014, when I arrived Ghana, we were thoroughly screened for Ebola. We were made to fill out a form which includes question on your health status, address in Ghana and Nigeria, phone numbers in Ghana and Nigeria, etc. We were tested and sanitized before we approached the Ghanaian immigration desks. With these type of precaution all over the borders of Ghana, how can Ebola ever penetrate. The risk will be definitely low. Now I ask, where have we gone wrong being Nigerians. It is so sad that the giant of Africa is only but an empty barrel. Is it that we hate ourselves or that we can not think collectively as a nation. Nigerians, please wake up. Let us take ourselves seriously and, at least, learn from other countries that we always run to when we have run down our own critical institutions.
I have some Posers for our so called leaders:
1. Is it only one person that should be on duty at this very time ?
2. Where are the medical investigation tools at the nations point of entry ?
3. Is the US$12,000,000 going to take care of this abnormalities ?
4. If yes, how soon ?
5. Don’t we monitor, control, supervise our workers or is it just words on paper and thats all ?
6. What value do our leaders place on Nigerians ?
7. Is this still a party or family affair ?
The press is our only hope of getting true information out to our government. Please help Nigeria.
It is sad.
EDOTOR’S NOTE: Readers are invited to please share their experiences on effort or the lack of it towards checking the spread of the Ebola virus to epidermic proportions.
