The first casualty, when war comes, is truth
–Hiram Johnson (1866-1945)
The events of the last week revolving around the outbreak of
monkeypox should make us sober. Logic was turned on its head, and common
sense took a dive into the bushes. A whole region was gripped in a mass
hysteria that was almost apocalyptic in scope. The atmosphere is
reminiscent of wartime – when confusion and lawlessness usually create a
dark enterprise for merchants of death.The South-East geopolitical zone was thrown into confusion after
claims on social media went viral that some soldiers entered some
primary and secondary schools and were forcefully injecting pupils and
students with poisonous substances allegedly causing the dreaded
emerging epidemic monkeypox. Parents and guardians rushed to schools to
pressurise the school authorities to allow them take away their children
and wards. The story was the same in Imo, Anambra, Abia, Ebonyi and
Enugu states. Within hours, almost all schools in the states were shut,
and the rumour brouhaha continued on the social media: The Army was
using a so-called medical exercise to depopulate the South-East!
However, for someone like me, who was very much in the know about
the ongoing public relations drive of the Nigerian Army for some months
now, I could only shake my head in sadness. With the general distrust of
anything Federal Government in the South-East, the monkeypox epidemic
was a ready tool in the hands of mischief makers. And, to worsen the
situation is the lack of comprehensive public relations strategy on the
part of the Army.
For one, Nigeria is a country where many people distrust “uniformed
men”. The old Nigeria Police Force public relations tag-line, “The
Police is your friend”, has become a punch-line for national lampoon.
And unlike in the West where people view military personnel as iconic
national heroes, many over here view them as gun-toting nuisance. Even
traffic wardens and Federal Road Safety Corps officers are so despised
that some drivers devise ways to “embarrass” them into the bush while
these officers stand in front of their speeding cars carrying out their
legitimate duty to the nation.
Secondly, unlike what is obtainable in many developed countries
where soldiers are known for coming in to help impacted communities in
times of emergencies like natural disasters and epidemic outbreaks, over
here, our collective psyche can only visualise the Army as holding no
other tool or implement but the Kalashnikov. It will take a Nigerian
civilian with extra imagination to be at home with an image of a soldier
feeding a sick or malnourished child, or salvaging a flooded
neighborhood, or driving a tractor in a tomato farm.
Therefore, the Nigerian Army could not have just started community
relations outreach without a well-thought-out, extensive and intensive
enlightenment programme in order to – as we are wont to say – “carry us
along” in their service to the ordinary Nigerian on the street. And of
course, if it would require extra effort to recondition the mindset of
the ordinary citizen to get used to the “human face” of the army, one
then can imagine the up-hill task of convincing the average
Southeastener, who already perceives the Nigerian Army as the bayonet
end of the Federal Government machinery of repression.
For the avoidance of doubt, I was in Enugu at the middle of the
year, when I witnessed a community outreach project of the army which
focused on environmental sanitation. I was so moved that I drew up an
outline for a draft article with the slug: The human face of the
Nigerian Army. The piece never got finished when the monkeypox hit town.
Today, everything is fast unravelling that it has become obvious that
the idea has been overtaken by events.
Nevertheless, let me paint a vivid picture for illustration of the
need for a more public relations-driven approach to community relations
by the Nigerian Army, going forward. Enugu is a relatively calm city
with most urban dwellers engaged in public sector jobs – the civil
service and its linear support services clusters. Because of this,
everybody waits for the government to fund and execute social service
projects. Unlike in a place like Anambra State, for instance, where
enterprising moneybags can undertake road construction, culvert
clearing, rural electrification and so on, most Enugu communities wait
for the “government” to solve its problems.
Now, there was a problematic refuse dump hub in Enugu, near Ogbete
Main Market, which had posed a serious challenge to people living in the
area. Even the state environmental agency had been evading working on
them. But, suddenly the army from the 82 Division, Enugu, deployed to
the refuse dumps and evacuated the waste, as part of their community
service programme. It was widely reported in the local media and
applauded by the people.
In a related event, this time in Anambra State, the army on July
this year, engaged in environmental clean-up. Interestingly, The Sun
News of July 12, 2017, titled the report, “Soldiers in Onitsha drop guns
to clean up environment”, where it was reported that the Idemili Local
Government Area Chairman, Chief Raphael Asha Nnabuife, commended the
army for dropping their guns to embark on the cleanup of some Idemili
communities.
Incidentally, when the army last month scaled up their services by
embarking on a medical mission, it coincided with the outbreak of the
now dreaded monkeypox, a rare viral zoonosis (a virus transmitted to
humans from animals) with symptoms in humans like those seen in the past
in smallpox patients. As it swept through some Nigerian states,
palpable fear gripped every citizen. But some e-insurgents had to spin
the tale to cause mass panic in the South-East. In an uncanny manner, it
is a sad reminder of the way the northern part of Nigeria was thrown
into mass hysteria concerning polio vaccination. The tale was that the
exercise was a plot to “depopulate” the North!
When the dusts settled, one discovered that the so-called
“injection/immunisation” in the South-East never really happened. The
Army medical team, comprising ophthalmologists, dentists, general
medical practitioners, pharmacists, medical laboratory scientists and
physiotherapists, was there only to carry out an activity it had been
carrying out annually for some years now. And contrary to the
information that was spread, the exercise took place in a church, far
from the nearest primary school in the area, at St Michael’s Catholic
Church field, Amakwa Ozubulu.
Reverend Father Jude Chetanna Chukwuneke, from Egbema, Ozubulu, who
said he witnessed the medical exercise before the confusion set in,
said there was nothing wrong with what the Army did as they were only
there to help the people medically. Fr Chukwuneke, who works at the
College of Medical Sciences, Nnewi Campus of Nnamdi Azikiwe University
as a Chaplain, happened to be my primary school classmate, and my
childhood friend; an ordained Roman Catholic priest, who was baffled
that such a medical outreach became a fodder for hocus pocus.
The way things are going in Nigeria, there is no more demarcating
line between the informed and non-informed, the educated and uneducated,
and the learned and unlearned. Any small scrap of rumour will have the
required effect as long as it is barbed with ethnic or religious
innuendo. This is very sad.
Advanced societies are known for maintaining a boundary between
facts and conspiracy theories. Although there is an emerging problem in
the West today regarding the questions raised by the emergence of the
so-called fake news, there is still a general resistance against blatant
rabble-rousing. This has maintained the sanity of its democracy. In
contrast, it takes no prophet to see that because of the non-existence
of vital intelligentsia, Nigeria’s democracy, and indeed existence, is
threatened.
***
Written by Greg Odowgu
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