From the time that Covid-19 hit Nigeria in 2020, conspiracy theories started flying around about its origins, impact and objectives. It was agreed in some quarters that the end of the world had come.
The proponents of the eschatological belief and its adherents strongly advocated the institution of end time measures like total abstinence from sex, alcohol and any other thing.
These people, however, did not consider rumour peddling as a not too welcome attribute of an end time candidate. As a corollary to their end time gist, the same people went down memory lane to quote Nostradamus. Even when the guy did not say anything about Covid-19, they tried to force him to say it.
Then Huawei spoiled everything. That’s the time they saw to launch their antichrist 5G network! My scientific neighbours did not give me a moment of rest. How Satan was going to move through our systems via the 5G, how he was going to live on the 5G mast. Around Okota, in Lagos, a certain company was laying some underground cable, probably for some intra company communication . Come and see the hullabaloo. I thank God Obama was not the president in 2020! He was already branded by the Nigerian school of end time studies as the antichrist.
If he was the president, and the vaccine was mooted under him, there was no way we would have stopped our religious Nigerians from running into the caves to hide from the impending tribulation.
So, I went out to observe out of curiosity the administering of the vaccine. First I observed that the jab was not given on the right hand compulsorily. Wait. I was not drunk. I saw it. A guy stretched out his left arm and he was given one jab, and that’s it! It may be that I do not understand how the vaccine works.
On my way home I was thinking. Could it be that this Antichrist doesn’t know what he is doing? The people were supposed to be given that injection on their right hands. Then he allowed the doctors to give it on any random hand.
Or could it be that he is using tricks on our people such that after they have collected it, the vaccine flows to their right hands? Are there not six hundred and sixty six drops of the vaccine in each jab? Perhaps that’s why there are two doses. When the first 333 has formed the first chip on your right hand, the second does would form the second chip on your forehead. I don’t trust those doctors. Just imagine. They think they can fool us.
While the antichrist scare raged on, our people still buried themselves in our regular vices. Police still ‘obtained’ the motorists, to enforce the lockdown, our security agents were killing the people even when Covid-19 was yet to kill a single soul in the country.
The people who clamour for the religious houses to be opened were the same people who did not want to go to their offices for fear of contracting Covid-19. The people who were ready to fight for their religions not to be attacked were the same people who raised the price of gari from N800 for a 4 litre paint container to N1500 in one fell swoop!
In the same country, crime rate rose beyond our imagination. 1 million boys went on rampage in Lagos. Armed robbery surged in northern Nigeria and its environs, stories went up about rituals and arsons.
It appears to me that our religion in Nigeria is good at fashioning conspiracies. Our prayers are placed with suspicions and conspiracies. If it is not a certain black tall woman that’s doing her neighbour’s son because of his brilliance, it is Britain stealing our oil. If it is not one boss in the office tormenting his staff using Otumokpor, it is America refusing to support Nigeria because of our potentials. That reminds me. I am old enough to call myself an elder states youth. How come Nigeria is perpetually potentially great?
Oh, I understand now. It is Britain. They are the one looking the money for our roads. They are the ones buying what they don’t need, using our commonwealth to buy houses in Dubai or Maryland. They are the one who share guns on election days. They imported bandits to take lands and turn it to an underdeveloped country.
We must continue our conspiracies o. At least our religions teach us not to argue with leaders. Docility is the greatest virtue in the happiest but poorest nation on earth.
Only when we wake up will good things start happening here. Until then, we await another conspiracy theory.
Alex Agbo
Writer and researcher based in Lagos.