A brief look at the news suggests African countries aren’t stepping up their support to the affected countries. This view, however, ignores three important lessons from Africa’s response to the outbreak.
The first is the capacity of the state to act in a timely and aggressive manner. Recently, WHO Nigerian representative Rui Gama Vaz said: “The virus is gone for now. The outbreak in Nigeria has been defeated.
“This is a spectacular success story that shows to the world Ebola can be contained, but we must be clear that we have only won a battle. The war will only end when West Africa is declared free of Ebola.”
Behind this success story lies competent public leaders and institutions that pursued their mission with vigour. After the diagnosis was made, Nigeria implemented a co-ordinated approach that involved making 18,000 visits to about 898 people to check their temperatures. This was possible because Nigeria had the state capacity to undertake such a massive effort in a timely manner.
How is it that the same nation which is lauded for its capacity to defeat Ebola cannot act to bring back the 200 girls captured and now, we hear, converted to Islam and married off? I don’t want to rain on anybody’s parade but the question insists on being asked: Why cannot Nigeria act vigorously against jihadist terrorists?
I don’t have a definitive answer, Terry Tee #1. However, the Ebola cases occurred in Lagos and Port Harcourt, both in southern Nigeria. Northern Nigeria, where the girls were kidnapped, is more heavily Muslim. Wracked by Boko Haram violence, it is only nominally or not at all under the actual control of the government. The corollary to this is that if Ebola got loose in that area the results might be catastrophic.
Katherine I knew that, but part of the problem in Nigeria is the sheer inefficiency of government, allied to a prickly refusal to accept help. I was in Johannesburg recently when the news broke of the collapse of a hostel in Lagos that killed 80 South African visitors. South Africa has the only trained search and rescue team on the continent and offered its help straight away. The help was refused. The rescue effort was chaotic – and this in what used to be the Nigerian capital – leading to needless loss of lives that could have been saved. I mention this because the United States has offered assistance for the rescue of the Chibok girls but again this has been refused. Can you imagine the difference that could have made? I so feel for the girls. We had an intercession recently for them at Mass, and when the reader said, ‘Lord, in your mercy’ the congregation positively thundered back ‘Hear our prayer’ and I knew that they felt strongly too. Would that the Nigerian leadership felt the same. When a delegation of mothers of Chibok girls went to met President Goodluck Jonathan’s wife she was affronted at the strength of their feeling and threatened them with arrest.
Terry Tee, the Anglican Archbishop in Nigeria, I think, has spoken about corruption in the country, and I believe it. It’s endemic in many third world places. The inefficiencies and waste and face-saving and petty kingdom-building are very sad. We saw much the same in the bureaucracies in India. All I can guess is that the contact tracing and quarantine involved in the Ebola cases were straightforward and the death threatened everyone — government officials, Christians, Muslims, everyone.
I had long thought that those poor girls had been “married off” weeks and months ago. Radical Islam makes women commodities.
And when I talk about “inefficiencies and waste and face-saving and petty kingdom-building” in third world countries I see reflections in my own country and wonder where we’re going. We’re not strictly speaking tribal here, which gives us a small advantage.