Open Letter To Comrade Coro By Dele Farotimi

Alaye mi to Corosive,

I hope you will pardon my temerity, but your full name is a tad too long, and the COVID-19 nickname is a little too science-fictionesque for my unscientific mind. Jor, biko, manage Coro like that, and let us just focus on this my letter to you. Or perhaps we can just call this what it actually is: an appeal. 

Now to be sure, you have not shown any inclination to be partial, even though our pastors and imams would prefer that we prayed against you. I look to the fact that you have ensured that the custodians of the holy sites of all the religions have shut their doors in awe of you, and in proof of this. I however believe that we the Nigerian people, are entitled to a special consideration of our collective appeal, which I shall now present to you. 

We are already an afflicted people. Coro, look around you in the place that you have come to afflict, we die daily from causes that you will not find in any of the other places that you are currently touring. We die of malaria here, common malaria that we have herbs and roots to cure, that we could have eradicated or at least minimized with better planning and education, still ravages our land, and wreaks havoc on the economy. Please do remember that we are one of the few places on Mother Earth, where your brother, the Poliovirus is still rampant in spite of humanitarian efforts by foreigners to help us eradicate the scourge. We usually just disappear the donors’ monies and materials intended for the effort. 

Dear Coro, exactly what do you want from us? Look at the land you have visited, look around and see the afflictions with which we already grapple. Behold the abject failure of our government’s pretentious war on Lassa fever, and then consider the response you can expect from such men and women. If you doubt the truth of my words, hear what Shehu Garba has to say about you: “This morning’s newspapers, all of them have Coronavirus as the lead, cover story. When will they bring the spotlight to bear on 822 who are killed by malaria every day in Nigeria?”. 

Bros Coro, I beg, you have to pity us.

I will not bore you with the many other things competing with our rulers to kill us, but it is important that I let you understand that we simply cannot host you at this time. In my quest I ask that you consider the words of Mr. Shehu Garbage, and realize that we are simply not in any position to host you. 

I am told that you have a taste for the human lungs, and that you would only be appeased when your host is placed on a respirator. You will not find too many of those in our country. Respi wetin? Our rulers have no need for such waste of money oh, and I seriously doubt that you will find up to 500 respirators clogging up our hospitals, be they public or private. We are simply not in the habit of using our own hospitals, as the state has assured that those deserving of being kept alive, are routinely shipped abroad for each and every one of their health challenges. Our president is particularly partial to foreign ENT specialists, they have found the key to ensuring that he does not hear our cries. He picks his teeth unhearing. 

Don’t mind their serial protestations of readiness oh! They are completely incapable of being ready for anything other than the pursuit of their sybaritic pleasures, and kleptomaniac gyrations. The former secretary to the government of saints, thought nothing of spending the money intended for the upkeep of the victims of their wars, on cutting the grasses that grows in the space where his brains should reside. They are simply not ready for anything that requires the use of the human capacity for reasoning: they are creatures of their debauched appetites.

Now, if you could somehow find a way to discriminate in choosing your hosts, you could become the commando soldier of the much needed Nigerian revolution. You could just visit the persons responsible for the state of our healthcare delivery systems. The ones in the states, and the ones in the federal government, they are the ones that you should be visiting. Why not just discriminate? Visit those that have afflicted the Nigerian peoples, the ones that are daily throttling and killing the awesome possibilities of the Nigerian nation, even as they have strengthened the Nigerian state, and built the feudalistic hegemonies that has devalued our citizenship.

Broda Coro, think and ponder carefully the conclusion of this appeal to you: what is the point of doing other peoples work for them? Working and not receiving the credit for your work? Do you honestly believe that the Nigerian state would ever credit you with the devastation that you are threatening? Lailai! Aside from the fact that we are completely incapable of the logistics of testing for you, nobody is going to be hanging around looking to spend the time and money to conduct the autopsies that would have acknowledged your works. Our witches and wizards have suddenly become invincible, and it is boom time for the spiritual charlatans that dots this blighted lands.

Gallows humour. That’s what it is called in case you have wondered. How else do you expect anyone still in control of his sanity in these insane lands, to rationally engage the tragedy of Nigeria in the hands of this wicked system, and its evil rulers? I will take my laughter, wherever it be found. And yes: PRAY! It’s all you’re really left with.

PRAY!! We are Nigeria. We are ready and prepared.