For Nigeria in the last three years or so, there have not been many cheery stories. That is when you discoun­tenance the recent re-basing of our economy, which placed it as the largest in Africa. The last four weeks have been particularly scary since after the big Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, broke into our lives with his deadly burden, and since then, nothing has ever remained the same again. Not only was the Ebola fever introduced into our system through the most wicked and unex­pected channel, it has sown death, pains and fears on the most unde­serving and the most unexpected.
The plight of Dr. Adadevoh and the nurses at the First Foundation Hospital at the Obalande area of Lagos, who lost their lives while offering life-saving services to an afflicted human being will, for a long time – if not forever – remain indelible in the minds of Nigerians. It would particular­ly remain so because many will remember that that it happened at a time when some doctors had downed tools in protest against some incoherent and most senseless rea­sons, and had refused to return from their strike even in face of the outbreak of the Ebola emergency.
Then you start to wonder which type of doctors are these that have no regard for human lives and more importantly for the oath they had sworn to. You also wonder the type of doctors Nigeria has that are jousting over enhanced pay packets and other conditions of service while their counterparts from all over the world are flocking to West Africa to help out the Ebola victims. Yet, you hear our doctors and their NMA talking of international best practices while it is unheard of that doctors, who are involved in such delicate job of saving lives would ever go on strike, worse still, to persist, like heartless robots, during a period of health emergency.
While it is important to point out that the likes of Dr. Adadevoh in private health facilities do not fall within the category of those who have downed their tools, yet distraught and disappointed Nigerians – and we are legion – see her and many other doctors who are angry at their striking colleagues as heroes and heroines, and of course, as metaphors. (However, this piece is not about the striking doctors and their ill-advised motives for embarking on strike. I will devote a fuller space to comment on their obvious demeanor. It suffices for now to hail the suspension of the Residency programme as one of the best policies of this administration and to pay homage to all those doctors and other health workers who have remained faithful to their oath and who view the sanctity of human life with the sense of responsibility that it demands.
And before I embark on this holistic discussion of the doctors’ strike, I would hasten to advise the government to immedi­ately move to remove all those things that had made those misguided doctors to feel that they are a special breed of humans who must be pampered. That would include privatising all the hospitals and making doctors in training, like the house officers and resident doctors, see themselves for what they truly are – doctors in training, who should be made to pay fees for their training as is done elsewhere in the world.
Back to the Ebola and its consuming scourge. It is great to note that the outbreak has brought out the best in Nigerians as they are fully united in their determina­tion and resolve to defeat it and avoid its spread. As it is, apart from our national football team, nothing seems to have united Nigerians like this virus, to the extent that the sense of fraternity which has attended this evil outbreak has been unprecedented. Overnight, the fake prescription of drink­ing and bathing with brine reached every nook and cranny of the country with the Internet speed, in the obvious determina­tion of every Nigerian who got the news of the remedy not to keep it away from his or her neighbor, who had become every other Nigerian without the discrimination of religion and tongue. That is the way it should be – except that the widely broadcast remedy turned out to be a dangerous hoax.
Nigerians have also been faithful in their adherence to the recommendations and pre­scriptions of those whose duties it had been to give them information on the dreaded and incurable virus. It has hardly mattered that the fight against the Ebola virus has brought about massive modifications in our lifestyles and our fundamental ways of doing things. Who would have thought that Nigerians could suddenly forego their lively handshakes and hugs; who would ever agree that Nigerians could so quickly adjust to new ways of communal wor­ship, or that Nigerians could ever learn to suspend hustling and bustling while joining buses in Lagos and elsewhere.
While Nigerians have been heeding the instructions and prescriptions of the government and its agencies, a lot of kudos should be reserved for those people and groups which have been acquitting them­selves creditably since the outbreak. A lot of praise should be reserved for the Federal Minister of Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu who has been indefatigable in the way he has been leading and marshaling personnel and information on the Ebola virus outbreak. The same amount of praise should be extended the Lagos State gov­ernment for its proactive handling of the outbreak. It is noteworthy that most agen­cies of the government have risen up to the challenge of ensuring that the scourge does not overwhelm the country. It would be unnecessary to warn that any slack in these efforts or any temptation by any of the people involved to cut corners or corner some resources would spell doom for all and sundry.
It remains for me to draw attention to the small matter of overlap in information management during this perilous period. It might be due to the honest zeal and anxiety of the managers of at the health ministry, there have been information lapses in some areas, leading to situations whereby of­ficials have had to correct or modify pieces of information they had given out. Like in medicine and other fields in life, informa­tion management is a profession which also has its methods, rules and challenges.
Next in importance to isolating and treating Ebola patients is the need to give accurate and non-ambiguous information on the scourge. While the health ministers might be erroneously thinking that their coming out to personally address the na­tion on the virus would necessarily confer greater credibility on the issues, the truth is that such a situation whereby the minister always becomes the chief spokesman gives the opposite of the impression on what he might have set out to convey. One of them is the impression it creates that the logistics of handling the Ebola outbreak do not oc­cupy him enough, to the extent that he has the time to speak, every now and then on the issue. Has he considered what would have been the public perception on the fight against terror if the Minister of Defence, rather than the professional information managers, come out everyday to brief the nation? What must be done is for the Ebola management team to have a team of media managers who are professional and experienced enough to manage information on that national emergency.
Another remarkable thing about the Ebola outbreak is that information seems to have dried up on the other major scourge afflicting the nation. Suddenly, not much news is being disseminated on the Boko Haram terrorists even though they have not abated in their macabre dance, at the same time the fear of Ebola is ravaging the land. Suddenly, the Boko Haram scourge seems too distant, even as the terrorists are reportedly gaining more and more grounds against our nation. For instance, it was during this Ebola outbreak that the Boko Haram reportedly captured and occupied Damboa and more recently, Gwoza, where our mobile police officers are trained.
It is extremely dangerous for the nation to relax its vigilance over the terrorism that threatens the nation just because Ebola seems to strike a more personal chord. It is such relaxation of our guard that would en­able the Boko Haram to prepare and come out with other sinister strategies that could catch us unawares. This general relaxation and shift of attention have a way of affect­ing even those whose direct responsibility it is to watch after and fight the terrorists. It looks evident that the severity of searches on the highways has been relaxed in recent times.
That is why the vigilance of the Depart­ment of State Security (DSS) must be applauded for its announcement, during the weekend, about the outfit of Catholic nuns that were reportedly stolen by unknown persons from where they were being sewn in Kano. It is not difficult to agree, as the DSS director of Information, Marilyn Ogar, had pointed out, that the outfits must have been stolen by terrorists and their agents for intended nefarious ends. In recent times, the Boko Haram has changed strategies by using young ladies disguised with the hijab – the Islamic toga for ladies – to carry out suicide bombing. That method succeeded in wreaking serious havoc around the pe­riod of the last Id-el-Fitr celebrations.
The use of these reverend sisters’ outfits would be even more dangerous if not nipped in the bud. A young lady or even a male dressed in a reverend sister’s outfit would not look out of the ordinary around church premises on Sundays, especially during services. Such people would not raise any suspicious eyebrows at places that are removed from the current theatres of Boko Haram operations. A church at bustling cities in the Southern cities like Onitsha, Benin or Lagos would hardly find a bomber dressed in a reverend sister’s habits out of place until they wreak great havoc. That is why the warning by the vigi­lant DSS is most commendable and timely.
It is not enough for the SSS to issue this public without particularizing on its recipi­ents. It should inform the Catholic hierar­chy through the Council of its bishops of the imminent danger. The Catholic Church, as the acknowledged most organized insti­tution on earth, has a quick way of getting information down to the grassroots in a jiffy. It is expected that apart from order­ing for better vigilance where that had not been the case, like in the churches in the suburbs and the rural areas, the different congregations of the reverend sisters and nuns should be expected to modify and monitor the movement of their members, especially to churches and other religious gatherings. It might even be necessary to order a change of outfits by some of the congregations which are similar to the ones stolen in Kano.
The fight against terrorism is that which must be waged without blinking the eyes because dropping the guard even for a split moment would enable the terrorists to get ahead of their victims. The Boko Haram, through the indiscriminateness of its attacks has convinced even the biggest Doubting Thomas’s in the country that it does not belong to nor does it spare the adherents of any religion or ethnic group. Like the Ebola virus, Boko Haram is a scourge that makes victims of all and sundry, without discrimination. So Nigerians must continue to fight both with the same unity of pur­pose, vigilance and dedication that is being currently displayed in the case of the recent Ebola outbreak.
For between Ebola and Boko Haram, there is no lighter enemy; we should fight both with equal tenacity of purpose.

Between Ebola and Boko Haram