Of Coronavirus and Africa: The Illusion of Disbelief

(By Reuben Abati) - Corona Chronicles

… Throughout known history, whenever man faces a crisis of such unknowable nature, his tendency is to resort to religion, faith, and ego. … Religion … is precisely what many fall back upon in a season of distress and so it has been. As Corona Virus arrived in Africa, and made its landing in a few countries, the people trooped to places of religious worship in typical default response. Africans, victims of Karl Marx’s often wrongly contextualized statement that “religion is the opium of the people” usually blame God for everything. They regard God as the ultimate solution, indeed as the know-it-all-Being, the invocation of whose name can provide all answers to everything on earth. Richard Swinburne, a theist argues in his book – Is There A God? (Oxford University Press, 2010), that whereas the existence of God is “the ultimate brute fact”, human beings also have “obligations” or what he calls “supererogatory good actions” or “moral truths” to which they must abide even as they profess their love for God.

Africans often mix this up. As the Corona Virus pestilence spreads in the continent from one or two cases to over 1, 500 cases and over 50 deaths, more of the people rely on the assurances of Pastors and Imams who promise a cure or advertise the possibility of it. In Ghana, one Prophet said he had found an anointing oil to cure Corona Virus, and the Chief Imam of the same country reportedly announced that all Muslims are now free to consume alcohol to combat Corona Virus. While Europeans and Asians are in quarantine, Africans rush for anointing oil, alcohol and herbal solutions. When Trump [erroneously and carelessly] proclaimed chloroquine as cure, they obeyed him robotically. In Nigeria, pastors and all sorts have come up with passages in the Bible to justify the pestilence and how the cure is spiritual.

Of Herbal Healing, Spirituality and Public Health

(By Rueben Abati) - The other week, July 20 to be precise, I was the reviewer of an important book on herbal healing. Herbal healing is often dismissed as a form of sorcery and in these days of obsession with Pentecostalism, many Africans still consider traditional medicine a taboo. To disprove this, a Catholic monk, Fr. Anselm Adodo began an experiment in 1996 when he set up in Ewu, Edo state, an institution titled Pax Herbal Clinic and Research Laboratories “to serve as a centre for genuine African holistic healing that blends the physical and spiritual aspects of the human person, and to serve also, as a research centre for scientific identification, conservation, utilization and development of African medicinal plants.”

Pax Herbal since then has produced over 32 products, listed and certified by NAFDAC. These include Pax Beauty Cream, Bitter Tea (an antibiotic), Diatea (for the treatment of diabetes, cholesterol, and hypertension), blood tonic, BK caps, cough syrup, herbal soap, potensine capsules, logotine caps, kilodine, pain cream, skin ointment, and Pax herbal colour therapies. Many of these products can be found and purchased at Catholic churches across the country.

Fr Anselm has been able to establish that traditional medicine is a viable business and that alternative medicine, properly modernized can indeed be a useful contribution from Africa to the world and a major source of constructive engagement.

The Man Who Sat On The Tor Tiv's Throne

(By Reuben Abati) - This is about Stephen Nyitse, the young man who on the day of the coronation of the new Tor Tiv managed to beat security and went straight to where the king’s coronation seat, stool, throne had been placed and sat on it. We are told this caused a stir, and not a few in the crowd must have shouted: “abomination!”, Even the President of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Benue branch, Bishop Mike Angou considered Nyitse’s action sacrilegious. He went to the seat, to anoint and rededicate it. Bishop Angou’s intervention obviously was meant to cast out whatever demons Nyitse must have inflicted on the already consecrated kingship throne. It is possible also that the ordinary people in attendance and the chiefs of Tivland interpreted it as a bad omen. Africans including the educated live in a world of spirits, demons and magic. Every act or gesture among them, is considered spiritual or religious.

The other side of it has to do with social hierarchy and customs. Our social life is heavily stratified. People are expected to know their place. Young persons are not supposed to disrespect or question elders. Wisdom is necessarily attached to old age, even if that is definitely untrue. Women are expected to submit to men, and that remains the case for all women in many of our communities. The poor are expected to worship the rich. Employees are expected to be loyal obedient servants.

This is the content of our socialization in traditional communities,

Abati's Nollywood and Presidential Blame Culture

(By Oris Aigbokhaevbolo) – I’ll admit that I’ve never been very impressed by Reuben Abati’s supposed wonderful columns. Even before his Aso Rock days. So when his last article began to spread around social media, and I looked it up, a small part of what I felt was some kind of vindication. The larger part was shock and sadness.

The man comes very decorated. Degrees, honours, the highest government job for a journalist. So how exactly has he found time to devolve into the scriptwriter of a very bad movie from 1990s Nollywood? I confess I couldn’t quite finish his column the first time and have only just done so. I am a film critic and prefer my Nollywood straight from the screen. When I read, I expect more thought and less melodrama. Instead I get this:

“I am ordinarily not a superstitious person, but working in the Villa, I eventually became convinced that there must be something supernatural about power and closeness to it. I’ll start with a personal testimony. I was given an apartment to live in inside the Villa. It was furnished and equipped.

Sugabelly, Rape, and Audu's Sons

Anti-rape protesters in Lagos; source: Reuters

(Reuben Abati)--You probably don’t know Sugabelly. I don’t know her either. But it is the twitter handle of a Nigerian lady: @sugabelly, who in the wake of the death of former Governor Abubakar Audu of Kogi State felt the urge to go public with her story. My foregrounding her/story as opposed to his/story, is further affirmation of an earlier submission that Audu’s death is “inconclusive” (The Guardian, Nov 27).

As the rest of Nigeria mourned the death of Abubakar Audu and pondered the implications of an inconclusive electoral process, Sugabelly showed up on social media and started celebrating his death. Her message was that the death of the man was good riddance to bad rubbish. “I feel so amazing”, she wrote. “Like God actually answered my prayers… That’s usually how it is. Powerful people rarely remember the people whose lives they destroy.”