“The labor of fools wearies them, for they do not even know how to go to the city.” –Ecclesiastes 10v15

Back in my senior secondary school days there was an examination we must write in SS2 which served as a promotional exam and preparation for the O Levels of WAEC and NECO. It was called the Joint Promotional Exam, JPE, but we called it “the Almighty JPE”. We feared it more than the O Levels itself. It was joint because it involved all the Air Force Secondary Schools in the country. It was a high level competition for the school that will produce the best result, so, all the teachers in a school were sent to another state to invigilate thoroughly checking any form of malpractice. Anyone caught cheating got a common sentence, rustication.

I knew the three possible outcomes of the examination. I could pass and be promoted; fail and repeat the class and the exam; and badly fail and be asked to withdraw from the school. But my goal was to make the best result. How can I achieve this? I must go to her because she got the best result in the last JPE. You mean you made eleven distinctions by studying just WAEC and NECO past questions and answers? I asked her. I went to a rich neighbor to let me do his laundry and fetch water for him every weekend for a stipend. And this was how I made money to get the study materials. When the results were out, I made nine (9) distinctions out of eleven.

You see, I desired the best result, (the city) and because I didn’t want to be a fool by preparing the wrong way, I had to meet someone who has achieved my goal. With her guidance, I didn’t hit the sun but I landed on Mercury, the next hottest spot.

Recently in Nigeria, the polity has been unnecessarily heated with Sino-phobic assumptions. The major ones are: 

1. Italy’s Covid-19 deaths spiked with the advent of the Chinese doctors. 
2. The nose masks China is sending around the world are tainted with the coronavirus. 
3. The Chinese are coming to use us guinea pigs in search of the vaccine. 
4. The Chinese are racists. 
5. Our doctors did well containing Ebola and they are doing well with Covid-19, we don’t need the Chinese. 
6. The Chinese doctors lack the requisite experience of our health environment. 
7. The Chinese doctors are coming to treat the political elites in the guise of coming to share knowledge. 
8. The government wants to use them to embezzle money. 
9. When they come they will not return to their country. 10. Bla bla bla.

One of such assumptions that amuse common sense is credited to an APC Chieftain, Captain. Jerry Ogbonna (rtd) who said, “…Please stop these doctors from China until our doctors have failed.” This is a dangerous statement. The objectives of the federal government in battling the pandemic are to prevent more infections, to manage the infected, and to minimize the death rates.  In other words, to flatten the curve. The consequences of failing in these objectives are to see a rise in infections and deaths in the thousands. This is the kind of failure Capt. Ogbonna wants to see to justify the invite of the Chinese doctors.

Another assumption I would want to subject to critical analysis is the one the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA is using to express their disapproval of the invite of the medical team from China. They cited the spike of Covid-19 death rates in Italy purported to have been caused by the Chinese doctors. Using the table below, let us verify their claim.

We can see that the United States has taken the lead in confirmed cases and by the time this article gets published they should also take the lead in death rates. The US didn’t invite the Chinese doctors. Also, Germany, France, the UK, and Iran are in the top ten most affected countries who never invited the Chinese doctors.

On this note, I am firmly in support of the federal government’s action in bringing over the medical team from China to come and share their experiences as part of the efforts in combating the pandemic. This is wisdom because the Chinese were able to keep their death rates below 4,000 compared to the escalating death rates of the other countries in the table. This is also an opportunity for those misinforming the public to monitor the incidences before and after the arrival of the Chinese in the country just as they did that of Italy. At this point we have to forget the fact that the Chinese may never be counted among the nicest people in the world. If warring parties in the Middle-East and elsewhere are having truce and uniting against a common enemy, how much more China with it stakes in Nigeria, Africa, and its quest for global dominance. 

Let’s stop spreading fake/hate news/speech!

In an unprecedented move, the U.S. president Donald Trump announced on Tuesday he is halting funding to the World Health Organization.

Trump has earlier attacked the UN’s organization and its president Tedros Adhanom for “not doing their job” properly and “dancing to the tone of China.”

His announcement has come in the middle of a global health crisis that is ripping the United States apart.

The U.S. provides $400 million to $500 million to the WHO each year as the highest donor, while according to Trump, China “contributes roughly $40 million.”

Trump’s anger has been blazing since coronavirus hit the U.S. with a devastating impact, threatening to cripple the economy he has been counting so much on for his reelection in November.

On Monday, Trump retweeted a tweet calling for the sack of Anthony Fauci, the director  of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAD), who has been at the forefront of the war against coronavirus in the U. S.  Fauci had said the Trump administration failed to put up stronger measures to curtail the outbreak, which resulted in many avoidable deaths.

While he has justified his perceived lax response to the crisis, Trump who appears to be looking for a scapegoat has been pointing the finger at the international health body.

“Had the WHO done its job to get medical experts into China to objectively assess the situation on the ground and to call out China’s lack of transparency, the outbreak could have been contained at its source with very little death,” he said.

Trump is blaming his decision not to impose a travel ban on people coming from China on the WHO, whom he said failed to act timely and opposed travel restrictions from China.

But his tweet on January 24 showed him heaping praises on China for the way they had handled the health situation back then.

“China has been working very hard to contain the coronavirus. The United States greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency. It will all work out well. In particular, on behalf of the American people, I want to thank president Xi!” he tweeted.

Trump’s attack on the WHO on Tuesday was based on its objection to travel restriction in early January. Trump said the health body covered up the spread of the virus, and called its objection to the travel ban “disastrous.”

Though the WHO said in early January that such a travel ban would be “ineffective in most situations,” the group said it could buy countries time to “initiate and implement effective preparedness measures.”

However, the Trump administration showed lax in preparation and wasted valuable time procrastinating. The WHO declared coronavirus a global health emergency in late January, but it was until mid-March that Trump declared a national emergency.

Trump’s administration has been vocal in praising China’s handling of the outbreak. On Tuesday, top health officials of the administration praised China for alerting the U.S. early enough in January.

“Now, some of the assessments that the Chinese made at that time, were obviously not accurate. But you know, it’s a testament to them that within a short period time, as you know, they identified a new coronavirus, which they basically almost immediately shared online, and allowed us to develop the diagnostic test … that gave us eyes on this outbreak,” said Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on SiriusXM’s ‘Doctor Radio’ show.

With clinical trials of many drugs going on, this development has thrown the fight against coronavirus into jeopardy, leaving many countries in Africa and Asia severely vulnerable.

World leaders have called for international cooperation as a weapon to be deployed in the fight against the pandemic. The UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres said on Tuesday night that WHO needs to be supported as its role is critical in the fight against coronavirus.

“Once we have finally turned the page on this epidemic, there must be a time to look back fully to understand how such a disease emerged and spread its devastation so quickly across the globe, and how all those involved reacted to the crisis. But now is not the time,” he said.

While the call by the UN to push blame aside for now rings, Trump appears so fixated on his rhetoric that he is wittingly breaking the pandemic preparedness plan, drafted by his administration in 2017, which calls for “expanded international coordination on pandemic preparedness and response … and continued support for the WHO.”

However, Trump’s decision to defund the WHO has followed a pattern of criticisms of the UN and then the WHO even before the outbreak of coronavirus. Trump has notably questioned the US’ playing big financial roles in the UN, while other nations contribute little to nothing. It is seen as part of his efforts to pull the US back from playing lead roles in financing international multilateral organizations.