The “delta variant”, the new COVID-19 variant that has its origin in India, has rattled the world as the fight to contain COVID-19 keeps getting complicated by emerging variants.

Before now, there had been other variants in the UK, Brazil, South Africa etc. As of April, the Alpha variant was the dominant variant in the US. Now there is “delta plus” a more deadly mutant of the delta variant, that India described as “variant of concern”.

The World Health Organization (WHO), said it’s the fastest and fittest coronavirus strain yet, and it will “pick off” the most vulnerable people.

“It has the potential to be more lethal because it’s more efficient in the way it transmits between humans and it will eventually find those vulnerable individuals who will become severely ill, have to be hospitalized and potentially die,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, said during a news conference.

Delta plus has toppled the talk of the delta variant without minimizing its impact, augmenting the variant roller-coaster trajectory that has undermined the vaccination outcome to a great extent.

Alpha was the most dominant variant until delta showed up and took its place with 60% more severe effect.

Delta has now spread to 92 countries, Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for COVID, said. At a White House briefing on COVID-19 on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said 20.6% of new cases in the U.S. are due to the Delta variant.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it’s on its way to becoming the dominant variant in the nation.

The United Kingdom recently saw delta become the dominant strain there, surpassing alpha variant, which was first detected in the country last fall. The delta variant now makes up more than 60% of new cases in the U.K.

Israel, the first country to have the highest number of its population fully vaccinated, is now grappling with a new spike in COVID-19 cases. The country recorded 125 new cases on Monday, and the director of Israel’s health ministry, Dr. Nachman Ash said around 70% of new infections were the Delta variant.

The rate of the emergence of the variants, their spreading pace and how deadly they are, cast doubt on the chances of vaccination stopping COVID soon.

A growing number of vaccinated people are concerned about getting infected again by the variants as they appear to undermine vaccines’ efficacy.

A study of the delta variant in Scotland from the University of Edinburgh found that while the variant was associated with a doubling in the risk of hospitalization in those infected in the region, the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines offered a 79% and 60% protection, respectively, against infection two weeks after the second dose. Another study from Public Health England showed that two doses of the Pfizer vaccine were 88% effective against symptomatic disease from the delta variant.

However, the Wall Street Journal reported Friday that about half of adults infected in the delta variant outbreak in Israel were fully vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, confirming the concern of many vaccinated people.

The WHO said last week that vaccinated people should continue to wear masks and observe other safety measures as the variants spread.

“People cannot feel safe just because they had the two doses. They still need to protect themselves,” Dr. Mariangela Simao, WHO assistant director-general for access to medicines and health products, said during a news briefing from the agency’s Geneva headquarters.

“Vaccine alone won’t stop community transmission,” Simao added. “People need to continue to use masks consistently, be in ventilated spaces, hand hygiene … the physical distance, avoid crowding. This still continues to be extremely important, even if you’re vaccinated when you have a community transmission ongoing.”

“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There’s nothing wrong with the Nigerian character…, land or climate or water or air or anything else” – Chinua Achebe.

A well-thought commentary of the Nigerian quandary by the great writer, Chinua Achebe. However, as overarching as this analysis, certain elements of this seminal profession is terribly untrue. The Nigerian state is anything but simple.  

Let me start like this; being ushered into the glorious courts of self-determinism (or independence), the world held Nigeria in high expectations. She was to blaze the trail for the other countries particularly in the sub-Saharan African zone where the colonial powers still hoisted their national flags as a show of the prevailing authority. Twenty years, forty years…, sixty years from October 1, 1960, could she be said to be deserving of more pecks than knocks?

Did she like a spoiled child, blast the hope of her glorious sequined future? Many have argued that Nigeria should be fairly treated and allowed to make mistakes, her own mistakes – in the words of Nkrumah Kwame.

Many governments, including ones manned by military brass are gradually being attracted by the prospects of freedom and justice that democratic systems are ideally known by. In the context of this discourse; I often ask myself – Nigeria (in the pursuit of fairness and justice as promised by democracy), how far or how hard must we endure to reach the Promised Land?

Max Siollun in “Nigeria Military Coup Culture” finely captured the timeline of the Nigerian post-colonial leadership woes. He analysed how the political scene of Nigeria was a panoply of recycled former military personnel cum civilians and former civilian political office holders leading the country in lacklustre fashion. I tend to agree and I have also included academics and clergymen to this trial, due to the huge influence they have on the perception of the Nigerian public to national issues. Talk about leadership!

So I wonder! What could be so wrong with the leadership model in Nigeria? Why is it that some societies seem to produce ‘good’ leaders at the critical moments of their national life while others throw up ‘tyrants and rogues’ who do nothing but run same aground?

True leadership has been described as the capacity to influence others, which is the outcome of a balance of certain essential attributes such as inspiration, passion, vision, conviction and purpose. To a large extent, leadership is even more associated about trustworthiness. As ancient wisdom teaches “… to be trusted is a far greater compliment than to be loved.” This, I believe is even truer for leaders; for trustworthiness is a powerful quality of a leader. Being a Nigerian isn’t easy, and I am not talking figuratively.

Imagine living with a spouse or a roommate whom you are aware isn’t too well. You have done an evaluation on the situation and you believe if you are not well-guarded; you could be another homicide. It is the worst feeling one could ever have, to always be in constant apprehension.

In today’s Nigeria, it is almost both consistent and customary in spite of the multileveled bureaucracies to have public funds missing with the most ridiculous reasons under the sun. Leaders can predictably not be trusted to rise above religious, political and tribal sentiments; hence, the term, Islamisation, fulanisation, North and Southern Nigerian bigotry among others. There’s also been several reported cases of rackets, schemes and opaque public policies planted in plain sight to accidentally or deliberately ensure citizens depend on a few private individuals to do the simplest things. It seems just like ‘another day’ when leaders (elected or appointed) breached public trust. As a Nigerian, I can say – when it comes to leadership at both corporation and national-wide levels; it leaves a lot to be desired.

On the other hand; broadly-speaking, are the national problems unique to the sort of leaders or leadership style? Without going into specifics; globally, we’ve seen leaders fall short of ‘the glory’ yet in that inglorious moment, followers collectively rise to save a country from itself. Therefore, when it comes to the subject of failure in government; it could be argued that there is just enough blame to be shared between leaders and the people they lead.

Great leaders become great because they have great followers. Richard Dowden, a British journalist identified two ‘exceptional’ nature of Africa: That ‘Africa always has hope’ and that ‘African patience allows exploitation and oppression to thrive’. Quite aptly, isn’t this the case with Nigeria? Isn’t it true that we nurtured the frankenstein-ic nature of our leaders? Isn’t it the case of ‘when the mouth is completely full of food, the eye gets shut in turn.’

In Nigeria like in many developing nations, we have failed to establish a climate of enquiry. This even echoes what Nelson Mandela said, that ‘…when the government is afraid of the people, it is liberty but when the people are afraid of the government, it is tyranny”. Therefore, in way, haven’t we created a climate optimized for the growth of tyrants? So it has consistently been a case of fellow angels suddenly morphed into demons once they bite the delectable crumbs of power at both sub-national and national levels.

In today’s Nigeria, the air of frustration is palpable; made more complicated by insecurity, ailing economy and gaily attitude of leaders. The possibility of ‘change’ is usually met with cynicism perhaps because it is true that once the cord of trust has been broken, the scar is forever.

Ultimately, with enough said on the current state of the nation; we must still hold up the flames of hope. Yes! Hope for an outstanding Nigeria in all sense of the word. More importantly, we must know with some level of truism that we are not alone in these struggle for principle-centered leadership.  What is, has already been and what will be, has been before… there’s nothing new under the sun. Human beings are the same everywhere.

As Professor Remi Sonaiya rightly noted “Do we Nigerians not flee from danger as do others? Are we not incensed about injustice done to us? Do our hearts not yearn after all the good things of life too? Indeed, all these things are dear to our heart just as they are dear to the hearts of the Bantu, the Russians, or the Icelanders”

Through human history, there have always been certain exceptional moments that has given rise to a path that lead to redemption. No matter how long the night is, there will be day break. These thoughts in a certain way echo the voice of Dr. King about the inevitability of the arc of the moral universe bending towards justice.

Currently, there is so much noise, protests and counter-protests. It seems such a mess. There is no difference between facts and fiction.

In the Nigerian context, the question of current state of affairs – to be trusted or to be loved: which is better with respect to national unity? isn’t an easy debate. Right now, there are several crises which could get worse.

As I had earlier mentioned, we could learn from history; leaders have been upstanding in times when their followers have faltered and vice versa. However, the most beneficial outcomes arise when leaders and followers can indeed put their personal sentiments aside, and look towards national unity and progress.

There was a time when I woke up every morning, looking forward to going through the websites of different Nigerian mainstream media platforms to read updates on happenings across the country and even the globe. The crime watch or metro stories were always my favourites back then because I felt more at home with them than the political and financial news. Then, newspapers’ updates on neighbourhood stories were more comprehensive and detailed because they were reported by journalists that visited the scene of the incident. But as time went by, this section became “boring” because their stories became sketchy. It was during this period I decided to go over to gossip blogs for my daily digests.

When I started receiving neighbourhood stories from gossip blogs, I realised they were becoming more detailed than the mainstream media. At least, they are honest by stating the sources of their information, unlike the newspapers that shield that vital detail. If the information the blogs published turns out to be lies, some of them come back later to announce that and also give you reasons why they are not true. Those blogs were doing good jobs even though they could not give in-depth information that could have been passed across by the real journalists in the mainstream media. For instance, a blog writer may not be able to visit a crime scene to interview eye-witnesses or even call the law enforcers to ask for details concerning an event. They have to wait and listen for information that will be released on social media. Hence, many of us decided to turn to social media for the juicy gossips we received from blogs and the mainstream media.

Many people stopped patronising Nigerian newspapers when they discovered that their sources of news articles came from Twitter and, sometimes, Facebook. People did not see the essence of finding out what is published in newspapers when what they read on Twitter is what appears in the newspaper. So, things became more of the case of hearing it directly from the horse’s mouth. Apart from that, you can also read up the analysis and further details about a story (some of which are lies) given by commentators, which will help you to understand the true nature of the incident. With that, Nigerian newspapers began to lose customers and goodwill.

There is nothing wrong with journalists sourcing information and news from social media but total dependence on it is where the problem lies. Journalists are known to be attracted to stories like flies are attracted to a rotten carcass; hence, being attracted to a piece of juicy news on social media is not condemnable. We all experience the same effect because we follow stories around and try to get every bit of it. However, we depend on journalists to dig deeper and bring out facts to fill up the gaping holes in stories, especially the ones that don’t make sense. But when the journalists we depended on turn around to depend on us, don’t you think something is out of place? Why won’t they visit the crime or incident scene, interview eyewitnesses, snoop around a little, and then get back to us? Are they now scavenging news from social media as we do? Should they and blog owners compete for our attention?

I’m not here to teach journalists how to do their jobs but to let them know that I understand why their articles are becoming too bland and narrow. I am here to tell them that I understand why they have been misled into publishing fake news (most of which they don’t come out to debunk). I am here to tell them that in a matter of time, people will stop subscribing or buying newspapers if they, the journalists, don’t change and become real journalists instead of social media scavengers. I don’t know what their challenges are. Maybe they are no longer paid to go into the field to get information. But whatever their challenges are, they need to start now to make a positive difference.