Chukwuelobe’s self-quarantine… inspiring in coronavirus era
THE experience
of the Abuja-based journalist, Fred
Chukwuelobe who quarantined himself for 14 days after returning from a trip to
the United Kingdom (UK) now trends as an example of what active citizens should
do in this period of universal fight to curb the spread of coronavirus and it’s
most dealy variant, COVID-19.
Mr. Chukwuelobe was
in London when the COVID-19 disease was declared a pandemic by the World Health
Organisation (WHO) and nations, including UK and Nigeria began frantic efforts
to curtail or contain it. Upon returning to Nigeria, four hours
beforecommencement of President Muhammadu Buhari’s order to restrict movements
in Abuja, the Federal Capital Teritory (FCT), Lagos and Ogun states the Anambra
State-born journalist put himself in a solitary confinement to ensure that, had
he contracted the coronavirus during his
stay in UK or during his return journey in which had companions from high-risk
countries and a stop-over at Ethiopia.
According to
Chukwuelobe, apart from the virus being prevalent in UK, in his flight there
were many Chinese travellers in it and several reasons for him to conclude to
he had to ascertain his health status before rushing to interact with his
family and the larger society which according to him would be a willing attempt
to harm people.
In an interview he
granted GbengaAruleba of the African Independent Television (AIT) ‘COVID-19
Watch’ program, yesterday, after he completed his self-sequestration and tested
negative, Chukwuelobe who once served as the chief press secretary to a
governor of Anambra State said: “I took the decision because I knew how
dangerous it would be if I took the disease there and passed it on… That would
be terrible.”
Further in the
interview, monitored by National Light, Chukwuelobe observed that the biggest
challenge Nigeria has currently in the fight against coronavirus is the
stubbornness of and deliberate aloofness of citizens who, sadly would be
terribly hit if the current effort by government to curb the pandemic fails.
Referring to
citizens’ resistance of lockdown rules and the fact that many people, including
those who should know the dire consequence of their actions, who returned from journeys
like his, did not sequester themselves or submit themselves to appropriate
authority as required by worldwide anti-COVID-19 campaign, Chukwuelobe said
that what he did is a recourse to his conscience and what he knows to be right.
“In whatever you do,
you will always have deviants. Some of them you can call social deviants. And,
it is a matter of choice. You have to decide where you want to belong to. I
don’t want to be a deviant. I don’t want to be a rascal. So I believe that the proper thing to do was
to go into self quarantine. And I did it for fourteen days. It wasn’t easy. It
was difficult for me to do. At a point I felt like breaking it. But I kept to
it for fourteen good days. Before coming out from my room.I remained indoors
for the two solid weeks,” he explained.
When his interviewer
asked him what he was doing every hour, through the two weeks, if there were no
friends calling to urgehim to break the regime, Chukwuelobe replied thus: “Yes…
Didn’t I say something about our society;
that even when one wants to do something right, there are pressures from
left, right and centre. Pressures from family members, from friends for you not
to do that which you feel convinced about as the right thing to do…I just felt
I should continue in what I did, ignoring them.
“I told myself: what
you should do is to stay on course.Once you believe in a particular cause you
feel is right you do that.
As I was indoor, I
was watching the television, listening to the views of experts. Of course,I
heard those from the Northern part of the country saying:“Mallam ya che babu
Corona, Mallam told them that there is no corona”. I think it is ignorance.
And it behooves
their leaders to go and educate them, to tell them that there is actually
something called Coronavirus. And it is a respecter of nobody. It can kill
anybody. Someone said to me that I was afraid to go into self-quarantine. The
person was expressing a wrong opinion.
He didn’t understand
it. It was now left for me as a mature person, as someone that is exposedand as
a responsible citizen to do what was proper to do.
And that was why I
decided to ignore him and go into
self-quarantine and because of what he said I was more convinced more than
ever, to go in there and stay there for
fourteen days. So that when I come out and tell my story nobody will begin to
ask me: “but you opened your door and came out,
and went out and you were also spreading it.
“I sat down there
and I made sure that I didn’t step out of that room…I was drinking water,
reading my novels, listening to your programs, listening to CNN and listening
to other people speak. And getting more information on how to avert it and then
what you should do incase you have the symptoms. And thank God I didn’t develop
any of those symtoms for good fourteen days.”
Choosing between
ignorance and deviants, the one Nigeria is suffering from most in the current
campaign against coronavirus, the media man settled for ignorance using the
on-going effort to use the issue of 5G in telecommunications to distract people
from the very import global push against the pandemic.
“We are suffering
more from ignorance than deviants, because I overheard people talking about
coronavirus and 5G. I don’t get it.I listened
to a Man of God, a pastor who has large followership talking about
something he is not vast in (laughs). I don’t get it… I think at this point in
time, if there is anything anybody can do, the best anybody can do is to listen
to the experts. Listen to the infectious diseases experts.Listen to the
government, and do what they asked you to do. And if you develop any of this
symtoms, you go and treat yourself,” he said.
Asked if he took the
contacts of people who came in contact with him when he arrived the
airportbecause if he had turned COVID-19 positive,tracking the persons would
have been very important. He informed that he did.
“Futunately enough,
the person that came to pick me at the airport is somebody I know very well.So
what I did was that the moment I came down from the aircraft and cleared
customs and immigration, I called him. He came. I first of all, gave him the
hand sanitizers I brought from UK.So he sanitized his hands and cleaned the
doors of the cars and the rest of them.
As someone I know very well, I used to sit in the front seat and chat with him.
But I told him that I was going to the back to stay so that we can give
ourselves some social distances.Even when I got to the back, I made sure I
sanitized. And when we got to my house,
he didn’t come down from the car. I told him to stay there. I came down, he opened the booth, I picked my luggage and
left. I have called him since then. He
is okay.
“Let me also tell
you something. Before I left London, I was hungry. I couldn’t get Nigerian food
to eat, and I was tired of eaten biscuit and drinking coffee. I simply visited
a friend of mine who lived very close to the hotel. We stayed about three days
together. When I came to Nigeria, I was so worried and I kept calling him
asking him to go and run a test. He ran
it and told me that he was negative. So I was happy. I actually took
precautions. I was not afraid. The driver that brought me from the airport is
very okay.”
In my view,
Chukwuelobe has emerged a champion of sort in the nation’s anti-COVID-19 quest,
at least for showing what ‘people who should know,’ should do. Unlike the
FunkeAkindele’s, Naira Marleys et al and the several disappointing elites of
this period, he showed the light.
He made his “final
appeal” in the interview thusly: “In the first place let me also appeal to the
government before appealing to the people. I think you can simply say that a
hungry man will not be able to readthe messages
you are sending if you don’t take care of them. Many people are hungry; many
Nigerians feed from mouth to mouth on a daily basis.
And you are asking
the person to go inside the house and sit down. What will he eat? How will they
clothe himself?But the citizen despite his complaints has to know: You have to
be alive to see the other side of coronavirus. And the only way you can be
alive is to observe social distancing. Stay at home; stay safe; wash and
sanitize your hands and you will be okay. Find a way to manage.
And those who are
public-spirited should find a way to help
those around them who are not able to cope with the difficulties we are
experiencing. But most important, people should think of their lives. Stop
listening to people who are spreading fakenews. Listen to the government, listen to experts. Don’t wait until it
happens to you before you learn. It is only a fool that learns from his own experience.And if you do
that, you will be safe and be able to
suvive the pandemic.”
I concur.
Post a Comment