EBOLA: putting asunder Nigerian’s rich culture

Emeka Ibemere

Obviously, this is not the best of time for Nigeria, African’s largest economy and the most populous black nation on the surface of the earth.

Since the outbreak of the dreaded Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), smuggled into the country by Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian-American, life in Nigeria, has been at all time low.

As at last count, Federal Government officials disclosed that 169 secondary contacts were still under surveillance, while in all, 11 Ebola cases had been recorded, including the index case, Patrick Sawyer, and the two Nigerians that died of the disease.

Aside the panic, tension, fear, suspicion and hopelessness occasioned by the fast spreading speed of the EVD, in the country, Nigerian culture, relationship and religion are on the brinks of phasing out  with the outbreak of an alien disease, already tagged on social media as ‘touch and die’.
Nigeria with abundant resources, where hospitality, caring and love tops the cultural index of relationship and where everybody is a friend and a welcome guest, is being redefined by the Ebola Virus.

For some time now, it has been like trying to catch lightning in a bottle and in an attempt to stay safe and uncontaminated with the virus, some cultural heritage of Nigeria are being phased out.

Those cultural ambiances of handshake, public hugging, kissing, visitation, lying in state ceremony, wake-keep, caring for the sick, being your neighbour’s keeper and sharing seems to be on the way out with the presence of Ebola.

Ebola may have redefine the way Nigerians are going to relate with each other with relevance to the communal life that the people of the country have been associated for long ages ago.  Ebola has developed into a cult of disunity and division, isolationism, quarantining and self preservation.

Nigerian food delicacies, especially the popular bush meat and Suya, a barbecue-like method of roasting meat, a well delicacy are suffering patronage because of the EVD.

In an obvious attempt to remain protected from the EVD, the Imo State Government warned against handshake and other forms of close contacts to check the spread of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).

The State Commissioner of Health, Dr Edward Ihejirika, while speaking with journalists in Owerri, the state capital, on precautionary measures taken to check the spread of the virus, said avoiding a handshake could prevent the spread of the disease, adding that the virus could be contracted through handshake with an infected person.

He also urged the residents to avoid travelling to areas where Ebola has been detected. He disclosed that health workers and care-givers were at a greater risk of contracting Ebola because of their close contacts with infected persons, especially during treatment.

Ihejirika said the government was planning a sensitization tour of the 27 local government areas of the state to educate the people about the disease. As that wasn’t enough, the Federal Government banned inter-state transportation of corpses in the country.

The ban on movement of corpses across state boundaries was discussed during the Emergency National Council on Health meeting in Abuja on Monday, last week.

“Council also resolved that ideally all corpses should be accompanied with death certificates. All states are to be encouraged to have legislation to support this resolution. The corpses of all persons confirmed to have died of EVD must be buried according to standard WHO protocol”, the health minister said.

“State governments are to institutionalise communication strategy to ensure mass awareness creation and sensitisation for individuals and communities on EVD. Council directed that particular attention should be paid to vulnerable groups such as market women and other women groups, patent medicine vendors, road transport workers, fishermen in the riverine areas, hunters and bush meat sellers, school children, morticians and mortuary attendants, traditional healers and faith-based groups”.

As that wasn’t enough, the state government also banned lying in state rites done before burial. Writing on Enyi Oha Nd’Igbo, a blog specially designed for Igbo, culture, tradition and history, the blogger stated. “Among the Igbo people of south-eastern Nigeria, death is traditionally a highly ritualized event filled with deep mourning.

“The traditional burial rites involve not one, but two funerals whose main intention is to safely escort the deceased from the realm of the living to the spirit world. Only after a successful second funeral can the deceased pass from the time of "ita okazi" -- a period of torment into a state of peace and contentment”.

the blog quoting "Igbo Funeral Rites Today: Anthropological and Theological Perspectives," stated, “when an elderly man or woman dies, the corpse is immediately stretched out on plantain leaves, sponged down thoroughly and rubbed with camwood dye to mark it as sacred. After the cleaning, the body is laid out in the living room, lying down with the feet facing the entry way-- though if the deceased is a woman, she is often seated upright. Sometimes, women are also carried in a stretcher back to their ancestral village for burial”.

According to the Igbo Funeral Rites Today: Anthropological and Theological Perspectives, once the body has been prepared for its passage from the world of the living into the spirit world, a wake is held. The eldest son of the bereaved family welcomes the community into the home with kola nuts and palm wine. Prayers and libations are spoken to beckon ancestral spirits into the home to escort the spirit of the deceased. The wake lasts the whole night until gun shots are fired early the next morning to alert the surrounding village of the death that has occurred.

After the wake takes place, the body is immediately buried in a grave dug in the living room. Also enclosed are a large quantity of cloth and some of the deceased's most valued possessions in life. These are the beautiful culture; Ebola has tried to end in Imo State.

To add to it, the Federal Government banned sick people from travelling on commuter vehicles within and outside Nigeria, without doctor’s medical report.

Inter-state transportation of corpses has also been banned by the government until further notice except with approved waivers by the Federal Ministry of Health.

Government said the earlier declaration forbidding transportation of corpses into the country remains in force as part of measures to contain the spread of EVD.

Prof. Chukwu disclosed this at a meeting with leaders of National Association of Road Transport Owners (NARTO) and the Nigerian Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) in Abuja. The minister appealed to leaders of the groups to sensitise their members to the directives from the government to curtail the spread of EVD.

He told the associations to assist the government by redesigning their manifests to provide detailed information on passengers and ease tracking of persons infected with the virus.

 “For your member to carry any sick person, ask for doctor’s medical report. And that medical report certainly should not be more than one week old. If you look at the report and it is more than one week, tell your member, don’t accept that report because we want to be sure it is not the one that the sick person will go and cause problem for other passengers, the driver and for the conductor. We don’t want that.

“So, once people are sick, they don’t have to travel. If they have to travel because they have to be conveyed, ideally, it should be in an ambulance. But, if they can’t get an ambulance, the minimum thing is to look at the condition and reason if such thing will not affect other people in the vehicle with things like Ebola, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. Tell them they cannot travel with other passengers. They should go and make a special arrangement.

“It is better they go through the hospital so that the hospital can advise them on the transport system to use if it is an ambulance. So, the person who is sick should be told ‘doesn’t come to meetings, don’t come to work; go and get medical leave.’”

Chukwu also told Nigerians at the meeting to avoid handshakes to curb the spread of the viral disease and maintain effective hygiene.

In the religious life, Ebola has redefining the Catholic Church worshipping system different from what it used to be.

Catholic Archbishop of Abuja, John Onaiyekan, on some aspects of worship in reaction to the outbreak of the Ebola disease, stated that worshippers would hence forth receive the Holy Communion bread in their palms as against the usual practice of sticking out their tongues to receive the bread. It also suspended the shaking of hands, a practice usually observed regularly during church service. The new directives were said to be precautionary measures to prevent the spread of the deadly disease.

Meanwhile, some faithful have reacted over the directives and accepted it in good faith. According to some who spoke to our correspondent, if the new mode of worship can stop the virus from spreading, it’s okay by them.

 Reacting to the directives, Chukwudi Ambrose, a member of Catholic Church in SS Peter and Paul Oke-Afa, Isolo accepted the order and said it came at the right time. He disclosed that handshake wasn’t enough to show love to one another. He saw it as a mere church’s style and not necessarily as an avenue of being a good Christian.

Bitrus Ayila, a faithful with Saint John’s Catholic Church, Igando said there is nothing bad in the recent mode of worship being adopted by the Church to safe life and viewed it as a precautionary measure to prevent possible contamination.

“A handshake isn’t a sign of faithfulness and seriousness in God. It’s a greeting format of the Church which if they decided to stop; it doesn’t mean radicalism in the church.

Kenneth Ukwuoma, also a catholic faithful in Saint Patrick Alaba, Ojo Council Area, stated that Catholic Church is not fanatic adding that the recent move was meant to save souls. “It doesn’t mean that we don’t believe in God or that the Church is against Christ by changing her worshipping models to save life. Its pure seeing danger an applying caution, Ukwuoma stated.”

Mariere Bielose Inyagbe Joseph, Managing Director, Onward Newspaper in Ikotun opined that Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, should not make people especially Christians to lose their precious faith in God. He drew his assertion and belief from the scripture that says, “the just shall live by faith. But if any man draws back, my soul will not have pleasure in him”, Joseph quoted copiously from the bible. He therefore stated that abstaining from handshake with people shows faithlessness and fear from Satan and his agents which Ebola is one of them.

Deacon Chinedu Onyeanuforo, an entrepreneur and a member of a Pentecostal Ministry, Holy Dream Reality Ministry, on Oka Afa, Isolo also quipped that handshake or no handshake, what God said would be would be.

According to him, handshake is an involuntary action that we don’t know when we do it, even though its cultural way of greeting everywhere in the world, banning it because of Ebola, is difficult. He argued that handshake is as infectious as Ebola itself that it will be difficult to resist a handshake from your guest or family members because of Ebola. Onyeanuforo disclosed that the magnetic handshake cannot be ignored. He however said caution should be played in the whole saga. He said God has the final say on the disease. 

Olufemi Akanbi warned against trying to draw balance between faith and deadly sickness like Ebola. A member of Apostolic Church in Oshodi said people shouldn’t challenge Satan by disobeying orders of the health experts. Disease should be avoided and faith preserved. Handshake as a greeting in the house of God is mere formalities. People shake hands in churches and come out fighting the same people, so where is their faith. “The most important thing for me is that people should maintain a good relationship with God and one another”, he said. Speaking, Mrs Akuebuka Jennifer advised worshippers not to play with the instruction of health experts no matter the level of their faith. After all he said, “Faith without good work is dead” According to her, let it not be like a man in Jos in 1982, who after reading Daniels counter with Lion in their Den decided to jump into the JOS zoo, because he got ‘born again’, and was devoured by the lions.