The number of hours most Nigerians earmarked for sleep the previous night must have been interrupted by calls from family members and loved ones who worked the phone in the wee hours of Friday morning to pass across this message: “ensure you bathe with hot water mixed with salt before dawn as that has been said to by the means by which you can avoid contracting the deadly Ebola disease.”
Other versions submitted that aside having an early-morning shower with hot water mixed with salt, Nigerians should make it a necessity to drink a glass of the cocktail of hot water and salt, still before dawn. As if that isn’t enough, another school added that same composition of hot water and salt should be used to cream the body, all before 6am.
In deference to these widely-circulating information, some Nigerians trooped into the street very early in the morning in search of this commodity that hitherto had not been that high in demand. Those who had no electricity supply cursed and earnestly wished for power to be restored just to allow them boil the water they intend to turn into salt water.
In the face of all this, what bugged one was how to find out the person who planted the message because everyone who received calls or text messages about the new way to avoid contracting Ebola could not categorically state the authority who handed them the new Ebola manual. The quest to get to know the source pushed this writer to contact a friend who hails from Kogi State.
According to him, the number one Royal Father in his home state, who occupy the stool of the Attah of Igala yesterday placed a curse on the Ebola virus, after which he requested all Igala sons and daughters to, before the next dawn, bathe with solely hot water which is mixed with salt. That once they did that, the Ebola virus would not be able to break through the shield the bath would have bequeathed their body.
This was essentially all that was needed to provoke the early-morning telephone calls for the ‘hot salt water’ shower and the alacrity with which Nigerians responded to it. Like somebody enthused, if only they could apply same level of commitment in abiding by the precautionary measures publicized by those who should know as regards how they can avoid becoming patients of Ebola, our country would have by now escaped this prevalent and highly intimidating Ebola virus.
But trust Nigerians, we are always courting shortcuts; irrespective of whether the shortcut is unreasonable or otherwise. it was amazed to see ladies who carry their skin as their most prized possession, joining the fray of those who poured ‘hot salt water’ on themselves just to escape contracting Ebola.
This led one into awarding ‘victory’ to Ebola. But, its victory is with respect to the fact that it had succeeded in implanting its fear on Nigerians. However when it comes to claiming casualties, there is no way it will win in the long run. This is because there is no doubting the fact that it will still have to undertake the same circle already passed by other afflictions and ailments that were a terror to humankind.
But before then, Nigerians must do themselves a world of favour by being more scientific than superstitious. Many of us were bemused and amused when we learnt that it is commonly believed in South Africa that a cold shower will make an individual who had sex with an HIV patient free himself of contacting the virus! One just wonder at the opinion of South Africans and the rest of the world would have of us as a result of this new theory we’ve evolved on how to steer clear of Ebola. I guess we are all Africans after all.
Be that as it may, we have an obligation to beat the Ebola virus. We can only do this by staying alive. Our resort to superstitions and folklores will not help achieve this. At best, it will boost the turnover of traders whose commodities are subjects of our superstitions and make us more susceptible to the disease.
Let’s all hope we don’t get to the stage where some unscrupulous merchants would attribute strange healing abilities to some of their wares just to boost patronage. We should also hope that supposed myths by some mischievous spin doctors will not make us remove our eyes from the ball.
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