By Charles Kaye Okoye
Sometime ago, during a premier league match between United and one small team I can’t remember now, I prayed for a winning….just winning, and I didn’t mind, if United would be the loser. And I am a diehard United fan, and was more fanatical those days. But I didn’t mind United losing, provided the match did not end in a draw.
It is not what you are thinking; I didn’t bet the match. I simply wanted to prove a point. While we were watching that early kick-off match at a viewing centre, someone had insisted with a note of finality that the match would end in a draw because it had been fixed. It was a match at the Old Trafford pitching United against a minor. Sir Fergie was still in charge; he still had Giggs, Ronaldo, Van Der Sar, Vidic & Ferdinand……
It was a match that should be a customary trouncing for the blazing United, but they had toiled for over 80 minutes on the pitch without a goal to show for their effort in a match they literally built home in their opponent’s 18-yard box. They had very many goal-scoring chances; on the occasions they didn’t miss sitters, the opponent’s keeper turned bat and performed acrobatic stunts to deny them. A few shots hit the bar.
Amid all these, the guy that bragged about the match being fixed kept thumbing his chest and insisting that nothing would make a goal enter as we neared the end of the match. Almost everyone believed him, and insisted that it was fixed, and that as such United would never win.
I had insisted that the only reason there would not be a winner is because the goals refused to come, and not necessarily because it was fixed. I asked him whether it was fixing that made Giggs hit the bar?
As the game began to wind up, I made a silent prayer; instead of a draw, let my Man U lose this match!
And it happened finally! Two minutes into the added time, Ryan Riggs rose to nod home an Evra’s deft cross. And I heaved a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, the Ugochukwu that had been bragging about fixed match disappeared immediately.
I enjoyed the victory and the relief….. but till date, I have never forgotten how I prayed that United lose just to prove that the match was not fixed…..at least, not in the sense he insinuated it.
And thus brings me to my main topic. When Nigeria still had only two confirmed cases of coronavirus, I visited someone in his office. A very senior citizen, educated, enlightened and all. And while we discussed, the issue of the coronavirus outbreak in Nigeria came up. He told me straight away, “Charles stop it! There is no coronavirus in Nigeria. Let them just eat the money they released and leave us alone.”
I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh. He insisted that if there were cases in Nigeria, that they would have mentioned the Italian’s name.
I felt so bad. I could not understand why people you thought were so educated and people you have so much respect for could believe that government announced a case just because they wanted to create an avenue through which they could loot.
I knew that if we miraculously, either by divine intervention or by dint of hard work stop every further spread of the virus, people like my friend would wager their lives that there was never a single case of COVID-19 in the country.
As at that point, I didn’t know whether to wish for some more confirmed cases so they would understand. I held myself from making the same prayer I made as Man United toiled to undo an insignificant team. Today, we have more cases, schools have been shut down, the way we live is affected. No one is in denial again.
In 2014, a case of ebola was reported in Liberia, a few months before Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian brought it to Nigeria.
While the Liberian government announced a few cases of ebola and advised citizens on actions to take, the citizens just like their Nigerian counterparts insisted that it was a scam by the government to loot. All cautions and precautions were ignored, and ebola went on to kill over 4000 Liberians before it was brought under control.
Today, we no more doubt that coronavirus is here with us. But while the government and its agencies are doing their best to contain the spread of this deadly virus, the citizens are not doing enough. People still gather in large numbers at worship centres, people still shake hands, hold functions as usual, and wait until total lockdown to realize that we are no longer in normal times.
If the citizens can vow and commit to fight this coronavirus by observing the precautions as given by the health minister and the NCDC, Nigeria can fight this headlong and may yet emerge as a case study of how best to handle the spread of the COVID- 19.
