Ebola case in Abuja: what Nigeria can learn from history
- A 42-year-old Ugandan woman, wife of a Swiss diplomat in Abuja, tested positive for Ebola on October 20.
- A newspaper column recalls how an epidemic killed Aláàfin Májòótú of Ọyọ-Ilé in 1831.
- The piece warns Nigeria against complacency in handling the reported case.
Nigeria is handling the reported Ebola case in Abuja with what one newspaper column calls dangerous complacency, and it is pointing to history as a warning.
The case was confirmed on October 20: a 42-year-old Ugandan woman, the wife of a Swiss diplomat living in the Federal Capital Territory, tested positive for the disease, according to the account in the Tribune column.
The piece, titled "Ebola: Day pandemic killed an Aláàfin", argues that Nigerian authorities should treat the case with the seriousness it deserves rather than the usual levity.
The 1831 lesson from Ọyọ-Ilé
The column recalls a disease the Yoruba called Pẹhẹ, described as a highly contagious illness that attacked the respiratory system. It ravaged Ọyọ-Ilé, capital of the Old Oyo Empire, in the 1820s and 1830s.
By 1831, the outbreak had spread into the palace and killed the Aláàfin Májòótú, the supreme monarch of the empire, according to the account, which cites the historian Samuel Johnson's History of the Yoruba. Aláàfin Amodo took the throne afterwards.
The column says the empire had set up a crude isolation centre in a forest about half a mile outside the city walls, a scene recorded by the Cornish explorer Richard Lander, who visited Ọyọ-Ilé in 1827. Relatives of the sick were required to leave food and water at the edge of the isolation ground.
But famine and political instability made things worse. The column says many victims died of starvation rather than the disease itself, and that the capital lost more than 100,000 people to famine, civil strife and disease combined. Ọyọ-Ilé was abandoned as the capital between 1835 and 1836.
Why it matters now
The column's point is simple: outbreaks do not spare the rich, the powerful or the sacred, and a slow response can cost far more than the illness itself.
It urges authorities to act while the problem is small, warning that ignoring early signs only makes the eventual cost heavier.
What happens next depends on how health authorities in Abuja trace and monitor everyone who came into contact with the confirmed case, and on how quickly the public is kept informed.
