Why Nigerians Will Survive The Ebola Virus

There's a certain part of us that exist in a place that appears without reach. That part of us that never comes out unless there is an adversary that threatens to tear us way from our existence, or pull us out of our comfort zone. That part of us is hidden, put away because we're scared to reach it. Or perhaps we're too lazy, content to stay within the focus of our limitations and normalcy, that we so often ignore it.

The rampaging Ebola Virus has made us connect with that part of us. Experts of human behaviour over years of deep study and advanced research has found a good-sounding name for it. It's called acute stress response. In its basic form, it's the tendency for an animal to flee or fight when any attack or situation that threatens survival or proposes dire discomfort, is encountered. But we humans are higher, we've refined it a notch or two, (and as with everything else), found various ways to deal with it.

Ebola Virus is an enemy that threatens us on many fronts. It is potent, swift, lethal, easy to attack us, and has no definite form or weakness from which to defend ourselves. Physically, it kills us. Psychologically, it gives us paranoia, provokes fear with its spread, and also makes us very aware of our mortality. It's the worst of them all. It even beats our other national threats: Boko Haram, militants, AIDS, Patrick Obahiagbon, APC, and Patience Jonathan, all have cowered in the face of Ebola. When placed side by side, Ebola dwarfs them all. It's the perfect killing giant.

We have reacted differently in diverse ways, each of us turning to one or multiple sources of help and prevention to seek refuge and convince ourselves that it's not coming for us. Some have turned to God for guidance and redemption, others have gone the way of science, with personal hygiene and conscious sanitary habits up on the rise. Many of us have chosen to ignore it, relegating it to the periphery of our knowledge, and basically not giving a shit about it. A minute number, uncivilised and rudimentary, have sought voodoo and the ways of their fathers to invoke curses upon Ebola. We're still waiting for a certain First lady to give us sound bites. 'There is God Oh'.

But we will survive. Nigerians are made of hard stuff, with the stomach to whether any situation and find a solution. We've been through a lot. Even now, we're still engaging terrorism. Our girls are not back, and some 100 boys have been kidnapped. But we still strive on, smiling on the surface, and crying on the inside, like true winners. We've been through bloody colonization, dehumanising slave trade, and a genocidal civil war, and today we thrive as the largest economy in Africa.

Nigeria will survive Ebola. Irrespective of whether a cure readily pops up, or we develop immunity, we are sure to go on. As a country, and as a people.

Our strength lies not in our ability to find the fastest solution, nor in our immense wealth to purchase the experimental drugs on offer. It lies not in the prayers that we offer to our supreme beings and higher powers, neither does it exist in the voluntary ignorance that we hold dearly. Our strength is way more deeper and all-inclusive. We find true power in being Nigerians.

Being Nigerian is truly a strength in itself. We are of the mental school and belief that whatever happens, life goes on. We will do whatever we can to stay alive and see tomorrow. Ebola Virus can kill all it wants. We face, and still come out more hardened and powerful.

This is the reason why we can survive this plague. Our acute stress response isn't fight or flee, it's 'We Are Nigerians'.