Category: Korede Yishau

By Olukorede Yishau

I love Pastor Chris Oyakhilome, his stylish haircut, his stage theatrics and his one-in-town miracles. I also love his deep voice and the power and influence they exude. He has spoken about pseudo-science, about the power in the blood and its infinite prowess.

When he speaks, he sounds sure of his facts and many out there see him as God’s right-hand man who can do no wrong. So, when he opens his mouth, they hear nothing else being said around them. The oracle of God, they appear to believe, is on the throne and attention must not be divided.

Since the Coronavirus pandemic broke out, this handsome man of God has been coming up with revelations from high up, revelations never heard of, revelations capable of shaking the globe’s foundation and revelations that can only be described as of gargantuan proportion. Only some days back, he faulted the guidelines for the re-opening of churches.

In his fantastic wisdom, a true man of God should not be afraid of touching a COVID-19 patient. I am sure he believes a true man of God should also feel free to heal an Ebola patient by laying hands on him or her. There is scientific proof that an Ebola-infected corpse is worse than a living Ebola patient. I also suspect he may doubt the calling of the Texas pastor who contracted COVID-19 and died just because he shared a sentiment similar to his and ignored scientific protocols. Chances are also that he will query the faith of the choir members who all got infected during practice in an American church.

His colleague, Apostle Johnson Suleman of the Omega Fire Ministry, is another man of panache. Though not as colourful and handsome as our dear Pastor Chris, he is nonetheless good at his craft. At the outset of the pandemic, he asked for permission to visit isolation centres and heal patients. Heeding this call will save the country the huge expenses incurred battling Coronavirus. Aside from the duo of Pastor Oyakhilome and Apostle Suleman, there are other brave men of God ready to help the government battle the devil called COVID-19. The government needs to listen to them and speed up the process of healing and rebuilding of our economy, which has been damaged by COVID-19. This is the time to ignore the cowards advising otherwise.

We need healing, we need to get people sacked back at work and we need to move forward. This is a once-in-a-life opportunity. Jesus touched and healed the leper so can his able lieutenants on earth.

Apostle Suleman was even specific about the success rate he would achieve if allowed into isolation centres.

The man of God said: “Please permit us to go and pray for COVID-19 patients. Allow us to go there; that is why there are men of God. If you are really anointed to pray for the sick, this is the time because what is holding the world is sickness. So, we’re begging the government to permit us into isolation centres; that is the only way we can reduce this nonsense because it will improve every day.

“There are people with the gift of healing. God has gifted them to pray for the sick. It is not fake, gimmick or arranged. It is there in them. Permit us so that we can prove there are prophets in Nigeria.

“Permit us so that the ridicule and all that can reduce. We’re not telling you we can heal all of them, but by the time we are through with them, you’ll see a significant difference. If they are 20 before, at least 18 will be cleared because that is what God can do.”

We must not miss this opportunity offered to us on a platter of gold. The other day Pastor Oyakhilome spoke about the nexus between COVID-19 and the 5G network. Wow! I have never seen that level of genius before. The man of God made his point with the aid of diagrams only he could properly understand.

We also need to export Pastor Chris and Apostle Suleman to the world. The United States specifically can do with their help because the country is witnessing a spike in COVID-19 cases. The country some days back recorded its biggest one-day cases with 45,242 infections. The country has had 2.5 million cases.

Globally, some 10 million cases have been recorded and no less than 500,000 deaths have been documented. With the dire situation in the U.S. and science’s inability to rein in the virus, Pastor Chris and Apostle Suleman can make a lot of difference. I also believe if the Federal Government plays its game very well, Nigeria can even earn forex from this deal of helping save the world from COVID-19. This will be a good way of diversifying our mono-economy.

My final take: Nigeria was last week declared polio-free. This is a feat that should have been achieved earlier. One of the reasons it was not achieved on time was because parents listened to clerics instead of scientists. By the time gumption prevailed, it was too late. Thank God we eventually conquered it using a vaccine.

Given the experience with polio vaccine, there are fears that followers of men of God who doubt COVID-19 and have been preaching against protocols meant to curb it will refuse to be vaccinated when the time comes. I wish them well. It is a sin to begrudge them their inalienable right to be gullible and sink in it.

MECHANICS OF YENAGOA

The political intrigues show the extent men go in search of power and how they can use this power to turn things around for good and for bad. Politicians kidnap opponents’ relatives to score points; they throw up cronies just to ensure no one but them decide who eats of the national cake; and personal interests are disguised as general interests.

As if the antics of politicians are not enough, a fraud called a man of God tries to ruin the lives of many. In the middle of the political and religious drama is Ebinimi, whose life ends when it appears to be starting. He starts a career as a mechanic despite having a first degree and studying for a second degree.

The fake pastor’s gimmicks and other unplanned and planned events make Mike Afenfia’s new novel Mechanics of Yenagoa an interesting and intriguing read. Every chapter ends with a cliff-hanger that will see a reader quickly turning the pages to find out what next.

Afenfia knows how to write a suspense-filled plot and memorable characters. Check out this book, which brings Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, to life in ways we have never seen in fiction. Lagos, Port Harcourt, Kano and other big state capitals have been well-depicted in fictions. Now, Yenagoa, a fast-developing city, is brought alive in vivid picturesque.

I am sure you will love Saka and the rest of the mechanics under Ebinimi. The sisters, who are girlfriends to Ebinimi and Saka, are so crazy you will fall in love with them and that fake pastor will further open your eyes to the evil that men do in the name of our father in heaven.

• Segun Gbadegesin will be back in August

Olukorede Yishau

 

I never met you, never really heard you speak at any public function, but never will forget you. Just how can I get that video out of my head? Just how? That video that radiated love and happiness, that video on Instagram some days back in which you and Pastor Ituah Ighodalo were the dramatis personae.

In the video, you were play-beating him and hugging him and he was heard playfully alleging domestic violence. “See domestic violence.

Sanwo-Olu o, Buhari, wa gbami lowo domestic violence,” your hubby was saying in the video. I can’t remember hearing your voice but I clearly heard pastor asking to be rescued. It was the last time you were together in flesh and blood.

The video, which has since gone viral, was all play and clearly you guys enjoyed it. I enjoyed it too. Then less than a week after I saw the video, I heard you were gone; gone on the journey of no return. You ‘chose’ to leave us instead of living with us.

The news turned black a day which had seen me writing a poem for my bestie and number one fan. It became a Black Sunday, bringing to my mind Tola Rotimi Abraham’s novel, and I couldn’t but ruminate about your life and life generally.

You were a beauty queen and remained a beauty till the last. Pastor met you and fell for your charm, and gave up his ‘throne’ at the Redeemed where he was told he could not remarry because his first wife was still alive.

Death and infidelity, we were told, were the only grounds for divorce. But things had long fallen apart and there was no way the centre could hold in Pastor’s first marriage. So he took a walk and happily pitched his tent with you.

Marriage came with its challenges, one of which was your quest to have kids of your own; those tiny tots who love to scatter our homes with no knowledge of how to fix them.

One year. Two years. Three years. Four years. Five years. And a decade rolled by and little Ibidun or Ituah refused to take form in you.

Since we live in the age of science, you sought help, including IVF. The money went down the medical drain and your tummy remained in perfect shape.

I hear eleven IVFs refused to yield results. You decided to accept God’s plan and opted for adoption, and life continued, and it was good.

Until the bombshell: Ibidun Ituah-Ighodalo dies. And in Port Harcourt, that city named after a colonial master on the stupid pretext that there was no befitting local name.

It was in continuation of your firm’s involvement in putting isolation centres in different parts of the country. You died while trying to save lives.

Why do hearts suddenly stop beating as if arrested? One moment you were full of life, the next you are gone, set for dust to dust and ashes to ashes.

I thought they said life begins at 40. This has turned into a big lie in your case and many others. Life has no beginning or end. Reza, a character in Abubakar Adam Ibrahim’s award-winning novel, ‘Season of Crimson Blossoms’, captured life beautifully when he observed: “We are like clothes… We get rumpled, and creased and torn, sometimes irreparably.

Some of us are stitched up, patched up, others are discarded. Some clothes are fortunate. Others are not. They are born into misfortune and ink spills and whatnots…”

We all just stroll by, some lucky to spend more time than the others on this unpredictable journey called life. Even for those who are lucky to have a longer stroll, the things they see do not gladden hearts: Some lose kids, some battle illness and some face calamities upon calamities.

And for those who are lucky to have some form of jolly rides, we have seen their kids fight over their last will and testaments even before the earth with which they were covered has dried.

Life. Life. Life. It is all full of crazy shits. Fathers raping their own daughters, pastors impregnating a girl and organising louts to rape her in the church, and policemen killing black men in a white world and ignoring ‘I can’t breathe’

JP. Clark, in one of his most remembered poems about the Nigerian-Biafran civil war, said: “The casualties are not only those who are dead”.He remains right. Their kids, spouses, kids, friends, families and even enemies are also casualties. Spouses, kids, friends and families miss you dearly and enemies regret the evil they forgot to do during the dead’s time on earth.

Some kids’ lives are torn apart after the death of their mother or father or both. Some widows or widowers never recover from the deadly kicks from death.

Empires have crumbled because of death. A pioneer’s death has been known to lead to the end of his or her invention. And a founder’s death has left many working under them unable to find their feet thereafter.

At a moment like this, when a precious heart like yours just suddenly stopped, I am tempted to wonder what the fuss about life is and I wonder: Why do we need garages beaming with Rolls Royce, Cadillac, Limousine, £120,000 Bentley Continental GT, €407,000 Mercedes-Benz Maybach 62, and a lavish fleet of armoured Range Rovers worth £600,000? Maybe we should just enjoy life as much as possible before the hearts stop.

Maybe we should fill our wardrobes with hundreds of pairs of shoes, designer wears and never repeat a piece of clothing or footwear.

But is this life worth having in our vaults currencies running into billions, which will never finish if we live for the next 100 years? What is the worth of rooms with cobwebs in many mansions in different cities of the world? Why do we squander on homes money enough to give us hospitals of world-class standard and universities that can rival Harvard? Why can’t we see sense in the saying there is enough for everyone’s need but not for everyone’s greed? Some people have left this world and their properties have become someone else’s, and not necessarily their children and spouses.

My final take: Life is not worth taking too seriously to the extent of solely keeping the wealth that can turn around the lives of millions.

We live in a country with over 100 million people in abject poverty, of high maternal mortality, of one of the world’s worst out-of-school-children statistics and of millions whose tomorrow are bleak just on account of their birthplace. Let us do what we can to make our country and the world a better place.

Ibidun, go well, eat whatever they eat on that side, drink anything available there and generally have the best. Pastor Ituah, I am sure, will keep your memory alive and one way of doing that may be to sustain your foundation through which you were helping women become mothers through the IVF, which failed you.

You knew its failure in your case did not mean others could not benefit and you made many hear the cries of children in their homes through IVFs you paid for. To mark your 40th, you even footed the bill of 40 women to have IVFs.

Say hello to Azeez Ozi-Sanni, The Nation’s ace cartoonist, who took the final bow a day after you. Tell him we will miss his masterstroke, tell him you guys’ fate has further made many of us still here feel that life is nothing. Absolutely nothing.

 

By Olukorede Yishau

There are mad people everywhere. Everywhere. In the last few days, we have seen a policeman kill a young girl named Tina.

We have also seen a girl raped and killed. And in America, a policeman ignored George Flyod’s cry that he could not breathe.

The knee of the white policeman on the neck of the African-American man ceased his breath and threw America into chaos.

Protest, protest and protest everywhere. Now, the policeman is standing trial.

The killers of Tina and UNIBEN’s Vera Uwaila Omosuwa must be brought to book. They must dance naked for their crime.

Red Also: Report any rape case in your vicinity, NAPTIP DG urges Nigerians

The cursed souls, who raped and killed Vera, did it in a church where she was reading and some idiots have had the gut to ask what she was doing in a secluded area alone.

It is at a time like this that I feel God should work like the god of thunder and effect instant judgment, but the bastards in our midst know that He is merciful and take advantage.

Men need to accept that when a woman says ‘no’, there is no need for further explanation.

No is not a word in this sense. It is a complete sentence with no ambiguity.

 

Olukorede Yishau

Congratulations on our new-found freedom. It has been torturing having to ensure one was back indoors before the 8 pm curfew.

Now that the curfew is 10 pm, life will be a lot easier. It is also great that airports are set to resume domestic flights on June 21. Banks have also resumed normal operations and businesses should boom.

But it is not time to pop the champagne yet; let us save the dance. I need to make some things clear and the first is that the decision to re-open the world after it was shut by COVID-19 for months is not because we have a ceasefire agreement with the deadly virus.

Two, world leaders are feeling the bite of the virus on the economy and have decided to take sides with economic well-being.

In a nutshell, it is now to your tent O Israel! Our destinies are now in our hands and we can choose to either live or leave! It is all about balancing public safety with protecting livelihoods and allowing the full renewal of economic activities.

My plea to all of us is that freedom comes with responsibility, and responsibility in this sense is that it is not time to throw caution to the wind yet.

While we bank on herd immunity to protect us from the virus, we must guard our actions with all diligence. Partying, nightclubbing, and the likes should not be on our to-do list for now.

I know we have missed our religious obligations but we need to approach our faiths with all sense of decency. I have heard a Christian body argue that “if Christians and Muslims return to their worship places to pray for victory over COVID-19, God will surely answer us.

The closure of the worship places is not acceptable to God. We thank God for opening the eyes of our government to the reality”. I am a layman in matters like this so I will only say we have seen examples of choir members who contracted the virus by ignoring physical distancing.

We have also seen a video of a church in the U.S., where many members were lost to COVID-19. There was also a pastor in Texas who dared the virus and paid with his dear life. He said the virus would not stop him from serving God and he died thinking he was doing that.

One thing that has also occurred to me is that except churches and mosques are set to cut corners, which I doubt, reopening will be difficult.

The places of worship are expected to provide running water for intending worshippers to wash their hands before accessing the facilities, they are also expected to provide hand sanitisers and, above all, physical distancing must not be compromised. They are also expected to conclude services within a specific time.

There are massive churches where members are so huge that more than one service has to be conducted to accommodate them. Some even have to do as much as four services. Achieving this within the specific time given to them will be like a 60-year-old conceiving.

There is also the issue of children church. Kids generally are difficult to compel to observe physical distancing. How will the churches work out the magic?

I suspect we will see churches with the capacity to accommodate 5,000 having only 20 or 50 members in a service, which means many will still have to do church online, which actually became popular in the Pentecostal churches before the thief called COVID-19 came to plunder our world and make us strangers in our homes.

Coronavirus is a killer. In the last few days, jobs, millions of them, have been lost to this bastard, which has also killed millions all over the world. Colleagues — many of them professionally competent — are home thinking of where the next jobs will come from.

They were excused from their jobs because their employers could not withstand the COVID-19 blow. It was a killer punch that sent employers scrambling for new grammar to justify a bad situation in a nation in dire need. Until this madness, I never heard the word ‘furlough’, but many now know what it means and it is not good news.

I am quite aware that Lassa Fever, malaria and other tropical diseases kill, and more than Coronavirus does, but they are regimented and have minimal effect on the global economy.

COVID-19 is a globetrotter. Like the legendary Ajala, it has travelled all over the world but unlike Ajala, it brings bad news anywhere it goes. Like a telecoms giant, it is everywhere you go.

We are yet to reach the peak of the pandemic and our newfound freedom may aggravate things if we fail to be responsible.

There is still the need to limit social interactions and reduce the risk of transmission of the virus. Hand washing, wearing of a mask, maintenance of physical distancing and the avoidance of mass gatherings should still be gospels we preach and practise.

We all need to be careful to escape Coronavirus and prevent it from further penetrating the world. It has done enough damage already and, in our little corner, we should join the race to clip its wings and leave it prostrate.

My final take: Ebola bowed to us and Coronavirus must. In defeating it, we must rein in the folks roaming the streets recklessly ignoring the protocols meant to protect us.

They must not continue to roam like lost cows and pigs with disoriented owners. We are endangering ourselves and others by continuing to crowd parks, playgrounds and public spaces. It is time we stopped.

By Olukorede Yishau

I will start by hailing you all for the patience and candour you have demonstrated in the fight against COVID-19, this generation’s biggest health trial.

Our nation has recorded over 6,000 cases of the virus and no less than 192 people have died as a result of complications arising from the virus whose roots are firmly rooted in Wuhan, China.

The pandemic has shown the weaknesses of our health systems and we have had to be scampering to build facilities to care for patients.

We have also had to be converting structures such as hotels and event centres into testing and treatment centres.

I am happy to report that our health care system is now better equipped to detect, test, isolate and treat every case and trace every person who came in contact with a positive case.

Like the economies of many nations which are struggling as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic, ours has not been an exception.

As a matter of fact, ours have been worst hit because the pandemic came at a time when the price of oil plummeted to an all-time low.

The Coronavirus blows on our economy have seen jobs either lost or at stake. Medium and small scale business owners are in trouble. Thousands of workers are not sure of their salaries for this month after their employers struggled with April bills.

The media, a major front liner in the fight against the pandemic, has fared badly in the face of the debilitating blows from COVID-19.

The administration believes that without the media our nation’s struggle for Independence from the British colonial masters would have taken a different turn.

The nationalistic zeal of our heroes past such as Hebert Macaulay, Nnamdi Azikwe and Chief Obafemi Awolowo was given expression by journalism and we have journalism to thank for being free from imperialists.

Without the media, the government would have found it difficult to disseminate information regarding our management of the pandemic.

There would have been no way the people would have known about the guidelines put in place by the Presidential Task Force for the management of the disease.

The media in Nigeria have for years been struggling with not a few on some form of ventilator as if afflicted by COVID-19. For the majority, salaries are either not paid or terribly delayed. There are times journalists go for months without pay.

Only a few publishers constantly pay what can truly be described as a take-home package. The majority do not pay well and sadly, they struggle to pay these peanuts.

No thanks to the Coronavirus pandemic, which has made us strangers in this world we wrongly assumed we knew like the back of our palm, things have gone worse for the media. Even the best of them have had to make adjustments with terrible impacts on employees.

Coronavirus has plummeted sales and advertising has dropped. Newspapers have had no choice but to cut pagination to 32. Print-runs have also been reduced because circulation and marketing have been affected by the restrictions caused by the pandemic.

I fear a post-pandemic era for this industry which fought for and got us our Independence from the British colonial masters.

To cushion the effect of the COVID-19 blows on the media, I have directed the Central Bank of Nigeria to immediately work out a stimulus package for the media.

We cannot afford to let the media die as a result of COVID-19. We will all live to regret it if this happens and our country will be the worst for it.

Read Also: No Presidential broadcast today – Presidency

A country without a strong media that will hold the government to the highest standard of accountability is dead and waiting to be buried.

Our government has also secured insurance scheme for reporters who cover the daily briefings of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19. At this point, I must commend the insurance sector for providing this support within a short period of time.

Our security agencies must continue to ensure that journalists are given the freedom to move around during this period as they are exempted from all forms of restrictions.

I want to assure the media that your safety and security remain our primary concern, especially in these difficult and uncertain times.

We value you and will do our utmost best to see that you continue to play your role as the Fourth Estate of the Realm as enshrined in our statute.

Our administration has equally directed the CBN to get banks to restructure loans to longer tenors for all media organisations whose businesses are adversely impacted by COVID-19.

Part of the ideas being mulled includes but not limited to: Suspension of repayment of such loans for one year to give the media ample financing room to pay salaries; and debt forgiveness for loans less than N10 million.

Our assistance to the media becomes more urgent because we are cognisant of the fact that Nigeria is not ready for the full opening of the economy.

In the next few days, the Nigerian Press Organisation (NPO) and the CBN will be meeting to work out the plans, which, in the long run, will give us a media we will all be proud of.

After rendering assistance to the media, our administration will criminalise non-payment of salaries by publishers. Publishers found guilty may have their properties confiscated and sold to offset the workers’ salaries.

We will continue to rely on science, lessons from other parts of the world and verifiable date to wage the war against the pandemic so that we can return our world to what we know.

The current one is a stranger and we must do all in our capacity to get rid of it. It is not something we should get used to; it is something we should fight with all our might and defeat quickly.

The light shone by Henry Townsend’s Iwe Iroyin must not be allowed to die. The glow must continue.

I thank you all for listening. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria and protect the media.

• Parting Shot: If only this dream can turn to reality, the hullabaloo in the media will die a natural death.

By Olukorede Yishau

In another time, Friday next week will witness parties in states of the federation. But, this is no time to pop the champagne, a sparkling wine the rich love to celebrate with. That day will mark the first anniversary of first-term governors in the current dispensation. One of them is Babajide Olusola Sanwo-Olu, who sits on the hot seat in Lagos. Like some of his colleagues, the Lagos governor has spent the last few months building bridges, housing estates, hospitals, roads and other infrastructure. He has also breathed life into the civil service and stepped up efforts to rev up the state’s finances.

The BRT lane project, which he inherited from his predecessor, Akinwunmi Ambode, and others seem set for inauguration as part of activities to mark his first anniversary as the ‘Alausa landlord’.

But, Sanwo-Olu’s first anniversary comes at a time when no one will judge him by how much infrastructure he has built or how much he has improved the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR). He is a leader in a time of war and will be remembered by how well the war is prosecuted. Till this day, ex-Governor Babatunde Fashola is judged by his handling of the Ebola virus crisis after it was ‘imported’ into the country by a Liberian.

The state made history on February 20 when it was revealed that the country’s index case of the COVID-19 passed through the state on his way to the Ewekoro-Ogun State factory of cement giant Lafarge Plc. He was subsequently returned to Lagos where he was successfully treated and discharged. Since March, Sanwo-Olu has had to address Lagosians almost every day.

Being a huge state in terms of population, policing the guidelines for the management of the pandemic has not come easy. Some religious leaders have also not helped matters. A few days before President Muhammadu Buhari announced the phased easing of the lockdown on Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Apostle Johnson Suleman of the Omega Fire Ministry offered to heal COVID-19 patients. He passionately pleaded with governments for access to isolation centres.

”Please permit us to go and pray for COVID-19 patients. Allow us to go there, that is why there are men of God.

“If you are really anointed to pray for the sick, this is the time because what is holding the world is sickness. So, we’re begging the government to permit us into isolation centres; that is the only way we can reduce this nonsense because it will improve every day.

“There are people with the gift of healing. God has gifted them to pray for the sick. It is not fake, gimmick or arranged. It is there in them. Permit us so that we can prove there are prophets in Nigeria.

“Permit us so that the ridicule and all that can reduce. We’re not telling you we can heal all of them, but by the time we are through with them, you’ll see a significant difference. If they are 20 before, at least 18 will be cleared because that is what God can do,” Apostle Suleman said.

Other pastors such as Pastor Poju Oyemade do not share this kind of sentiment. They believe the issue is medical and science should be allowed to tackle it.

Islamic clerics have also been known to cast doubts in the minds of the people and as a result of this Lagos and other parts of the country have seen an army of doubting Thomases, who tells us the virus is a scam. The other day some faithful gathered at a mosque in Agege, Lagos, and packed themselves like sardine fish in a tin. When government officials queried them for flouting the order on social distancing, they went irate. It took a combined team of security operatives to finally shut down the mosque.

The role of religious leaders in nipping the virus in the bud is not lost on Sanwo-Olu. At the weekend, he had a virtual meeting with them. The Grand Chief Imam of Lagos, Sheik Suleiman Abu-Nolla, Dr. Abdulrahman Ahmad (Chief Missioner, Ansar-Ud-Deen), Pastor W.F. Kumuyi (Deeper Christian Life Ministry), Pastor Joseph Obayemi (RCCG) Dr. D.K. Olukoya (MFM), Rev. Mercy Ezekiel (CPM) and other leaders in the five Christian Bloc and CAN Executives participated in the meeting.

The pandemic, the governor told the religious leaders, is now at the community transmission stage. He pleaded with them to obey the “0-congregation” stance of government for religious worship centres.

The community stage transmission, which the governor spoke about, is festooned by disobedience. Many of us have behaved as though we have signed a multilateral pact to support community spread. We were joyous to be let out of the jails that our homes looked like for the six weeks we were locked in. Before 6 a.m. of the Monday that the lockdown was lifted, the Third Mainland Bridge must have noticed something its body was no longer used to.

For six weeks, the Bridge must have wondered what was happening; it certainly must have wondered too what changed again that Monday when row and row of cars queued on it struggling to find their way to Lagos Island, Victoria Island and Lekki Peninsula.

The environment, too, must have wondered what was going on. For six weeks, fumes from exhaust were on break; the air smelt fresh.

Then from that Monday, everywhere became choked once more. Our streets, if they have eyes, must have noticed strange creatures parading left, right and centre. Many of them look like ace Afrobeat musician Lagbaja.

Their masks are from different tailors and the ways they wear them range from the ridiculous to the incredible. Clearly, many of the mask and the ways they are worn cannot protect us against the Coronavirus, the enemy that kept us home for six weeks.

With these strange-looking masks, we have been visiting banks, offices, pubs, restaurants and what have you. It is good we are wearing masks; though many of what we wear as masks are deceitful.

Social distancing is one guideline we have found difficult to practise. From buses to banks to our streets and others, we crowd one another and rely on our ridiculous masks to save us from being infected. Danfo drivers ordered by governments to carry only 60 per cent of their buses’ capacity are not obeying the law.

Keke NAPEP drivers, who are obeying the social distancing rule, are charging more to ensure there are no losses, which mean people who were either not paid April salaries or had their salaries slashed have to pay more to get to work.

Despite the closure of boundaries, an open truck with cows and 40 human-beings was intercepted recently trying to enter Lagos from Zamfara State. Of course, no social distancing or any hygiene routine was observed by these men who appear to believe ‘babu Corona’ and are intent on exercising their rights to kill themselves. Acts like this will only work against Sanwo-Olu’s efforts to get Lagos back on its foot.

Returning my dear state to normalcy depends on you and me. It does not rest on Sanwo-Olu. If we comply with the guidelines, the phased unlocking will happen soon. If we behave badly by ignoring the rules, it will take longer and we will be the ones to suffer for it. Businesses will continue to lose money and unable to meet their financial obligations to employees. It is until we are ready to fully conform to the government’s guidelines that we can begin to see a clear sign of when Lagos will be our Lagos again.

Lagosians should learn from the news that 30 people from a factory in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, tested positive to COVID-19. The government cannot be present in all factories to ensure compliance. We must take ownership of the management of the pandemic. We cannot afford the chaos the virus plunged New York, a city which has so much in common with Lagos.

As the General leading the Lagos battlefield, Sanwo-Olu has led a good fight against the pandemic. In a war like this, the General needs 100 per cent loyalty. A simple act of disloyalty in the form of disobeying the guidelines will work against winning this battle on time and prolong our woes but I trust in the ability of the governor to ensure we do not obliterate his record for which posterity will judge him.

By Olukorede Yishau

It is a lonely time: longer nights and days without elastic limit; and weeks that are staggering in outlook. Everything seems strange; miles apart from what we knew. In the firm grip of a virus with proprietorial virtues we are. The virus wants a place in villages, it seeks rooms in towns and desires mansions in cities, and many cities of the world are under its boot struggling to extricate themselves.

The virus, I feel, wants us to live day to day, do what we have to do each day and not think about tomorrow as though the future will take care of itself. It wants us to run to it and run with it! But it is neither our lord nor our saviour, and its tune we will not dance to.

Doctors have died or contracted COVID-19 caring for patients and doctors have continued to take care of patients. Nurses are at breaking point caring and they have continued to care. Lab scientists have contracted the virus testing samples and testing has not been abandoned. They are the angels of mercy in a season that demands courage, and many are displaying it at a time some are denying the existence of the virus. Maybe it needs to strike someone dear to them, or them before they accept its existence.

Each day we wake up to bad news: Coronavirus deaths everywhere across the globe; friends and neighbours who had been breadwinners losing jobs; well-wishers happily accepting pay cuts and colleagues tearfully being furloughed, and businesses taking decisions that months ago were unthinkable. Capitalism has never been more ruthless. It is tearing down walls. I have heard of a company that collapsed a whole department. I have heard of a bank which donated N1 billion to fight COVID-19 only to attempt throwing several employees into the labour market. It took the regulator to get it to pull the plug.

Questions occupy minds – How long will this go on? What should I do? And will this really pass? These questions are asked mostly by workers at the mercy of capitalism. It, however, looks like the turn of workers in the civil service to ask these questions will soon be here.

Now when our phones ring, fear grips us and we carefully check who the caller is before deciding whether or not the call should be answered. Answering the call depends on whether or not the caller can do damage to our purse, which has never been this lean. Calls from unknown numbers have never been considered with more care! These are the signs of the time we are in; it is not that we are mean!

In the developed world, many employers also pay their employees half of their pay for working from home. But there is a difference – governments have come in to make up for the losses. In the United States, for example, every taxpayer has received some stimulus package – which also covers non-citizens – once you are a legal resident and you pay tax, you get paid some dollars to ease the pain of the loss. If you have children, your kids also get about half of what you are paid. Landlords have also been mandated not to harass their tenants over non-payment or late payment of rents. These may not cover all your losses, but you are not left to bear the losses alone. A local government in Texas only last week wrote property owners in the area to seek information about tenants unable to pay their rents because of the pandemic; it was willing to pay as much as $1,050 for each tenant.

But our dear Nigeria is handicapped to offer us real reliefs. What some of us have received is tokenism. Those described as the vulnerable have received this token. But, in the end, it appears we are all vulnerable, especially salary earners who, at the end of April, began to receive the shock of their lives when the bank alerts refused to come or came with half or a quarter of their pay. There is even a small firm where all the workers got for April was some cash to buy food.

I have seen people who argued that companies should have gone into their reserves to cushion the effect of the financial dire strait, and my response is: many companies in Nigeria are like the Federal Government, with severely depleted reserves, or no reserves at all! They are run based on what I see as ‘run-as-you-go’. If they do not earn money in a particular month, surviving the next month will be like a blind man trying to fix thread into a needle.

Nigeria as a country has dipped its hand so much into the reserves that all there is left is an embarrassing $34.58 billion. It has been this way since April 7. The reserves had $38.53 billion on January 2. No less than $3.95 billion has been taken from it in the last three months. The oil price has tumbled to an all-time low and, being a mono-economy, we have no choice than to keep dipping our hands into the reserves. Soon, there may be nothing there again as it is the situation for many businesses in the country.

Every government, since we returned to democracy in 1999, has been mouthing diversifying the economy, but this has always ended up as mere campaign sloganeering. No concrete effort is discernible along this line. The agricultural sector that we should have relied on was neglected for years. What this era has shown is that agriculture is ever reliable. Export for agricultural products has soared since the pandemic began and we can build on that to make our ways prosperous and then we can have good success.

There are fears that our country is heading towards a recession. The last time we were in a recession, shortly after President Muhammadu Buhari took over the reins of power in 2015, our lives were hellish. Many companies could not pay salaries for months, and when they eventually started meeting their obligations to their members of staff, it was because investors recapitalised. Recession at a time like this is like jumping from the frying pan to fire. But it does not look like we can avert it. And when that happens, capitalism will do what it knows how to do best: Access the situation and take business decisions. Such business decisions have never been known to favour workers. Jobs will be lost. Salaries will be slashed. And tears will flow.

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‘These are not the best of times for workers. Jobs are being lost. Salaries are being slashed. Furlough is the new fad. And tears are being shed. Pillows are being told tales they have no means of understanding by souls unsure of how to handle their joblessness or reduction in income!’

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I have one fear for workers in the public service – the pandemic has come at a time the minimum wage issue has not been fully resolved. With the pandemic, I foresee a situation where many states will be unable to pay the minimum wage. Already Labour is saying the pandemic should not be an excuse not to pay salaries. During the last recession, states found it hard to cope. Now, there is a pandemic and recession is looming; public sector workers will feel what those in the private sector have started feeling. It is a matter of time.

My final take: These are not the best of times for workers. Jobs are being lost. Salaries are being slashed. Furlough is the new fad. And tears are being shed. Pillows are being told tales they have no means of understanding by souls unsure of how to handle their joblessness or reduction in income. Who will dry the workers’ tears? Lord, have mercy!