The Priest who prefers to be a Prophet

There is a story in Bible that I think all Nigerians, especially those managing the nation's health sector should learn one or two lessons from. It is the story of the prophet Jonah contained in the Bible book named after him. The prophet was instructed by God to go and announce to the people of Nineveh the then capital of Syria that the cup of their sins was full and that punishment would shortly be visited on the city in the form of utter destruction. Jonah didn't want to go, but he was forced there through a special miracle. He delivered the message to the people who were cut to the heart and repented to the last man and beast. By reason of their repentance, the predicted punishment was averted.

There are two key lessons that any perceptive person could readily learn from the story. The first is about the purpose of prophecies or predictions: they are not meant to destroy people, rather they are meant to save them from impending doom. The second is that predictions do not necessarily have to come to pass if the people take appropriate actions to avert the prophesied doom.

We have all witnessed the flurry of prophecies (predictions, if you are not given to such religious terms) by Prof Babatunde Osotimehin, Nigeria's Minister of Health. {quotes align=left}He began his prophetic mission in February with the alert to Nigerians that an outbreak of cerobro-spinal meningitis, CSM, was imminent. Then he followed it up with the prediction that an epidemic of Lassa fever was in the offing{/quotes}. In fact, I believe the honourable minister must be given kudos for getting the ministry to be alive to its duty of sensitising the citizens to imminent outbreak of diseases and what they could do to avoid infection.

But beyond the credit, I honestly think something is wrong with the way the predictions were handled. Barely three weeks after the professor's prediction of CSM outbreak, many states in the Northern part of the country virtually erupted in a harvest of deaths from the disease. In Kano State alone, CSM claimed over 58 persons. Bauchi, Gombe and Kaduna States recorded scores of deaths from the disease. His prediction about Lassa fever has also come to pass. It is still ravaging parts of the country. All these after the alarm raised by the minister! What then was the purpose of the predictions? If the people of Nineveh could rise up as one man to avert a doom planned by God as a just punishment for their wickedness, how come Nigerians could not do anything to avert the epidemics predicted by the minister?

{quotes align=right}But the big question really is whose responsibility was it to put measures in place to avert, or at least mitigate the effects of the epidemic? {/quotes}The minister and his ministry ought to play key roles there. That is not to discount the roles of individual citizens in ensuring that they do not make themselves and their environments susceptible to the predicted diseases. But the minister and his ministry ought to have done more by way of rolling out preventive measures. Rather we had a situation where the chief priest who was supposed to have roused the people to action in implementing prophylaxis measures chose to play the role of the prophet. He must be very satisfied that all his predictions have come to grim fulfillment.

In his satisfaction with his self-appointed role of prophet, he has once again predicted that Nigeria, especially the North-Eastern States that share a boundary with Cameroon, stands a great risk of suffering an outbreak of measles. Considering the regularity with which his predictions are followed by fulfillment and the enormous satisfaction he appears to be deriving from it, Nigerians should expect more prophecies of epidemics in the coming months, and perhaps years. But it is pertinent to remind the minister that such prophecies do not serve any positive purpose if he does not lead the way in putting measures in place to mitigate, if not completely prevent, the outbreak of such predicted epidemics.

Just an Aside
It is quite strange that a National Assembly that finds it difficult to pass a law to regulate the practice of Traditional Medicine could vote a whopping N103 million as budgetary allocation to a non-existent Federal College of Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Is this not a case of putting the cart before the horse?