Almost every day one virus or other makes news—HIV, SARS, smallpox as a bio-weapon, bird flu, and, most recently, the swine flu in Mexico. A virus is the smallest life bearing creature. It’s my impression that most people don’t realize the significance of viruses in our human life. I feel that it may be a good idea to explain a bit about them. I have to say from the beginning that I am not a virologist (that is a specialist in the field of viruses) and so if my explanation loses ground on the account of expertise, I beg our virologists to pardon me.

Viruses exist in uncountable variety, since every animal, plant, and bacterial species has its own set of them. It’s not sufficiently interesting for anyone to bother to find out how many different viruses exist on every obscure species, so I think we’ll never really know the extent of these tiny devils. But scientists have already isolated tens of thousands of them. You can observe them in an electron microscope, get an idea what their shape is, do a little molecular biology, put them in their place relative to other viruses, and thus classify them.

In a paper in Nature journal, a French group described how they identified a giant mimivirus in a cooling tower in France. Mimiviruses are the largest viruses known to exist — so big they are visible under a normal optical microscope (usually much higher resolution electron microscopes are needed to view them). The new virus, large even by mimivirus standards, was appropriately named "mamavirus." In the same cooling tower, the French group also discovered a second, tiny virus that infects the giant mamavirus. This they named "Sputnik."

So what is the significance of viruses to our human life in Nigeria? I have always been fascinated about the way our politicians behave and act. One can say that some of them could be described as ‘mamaviruses, mimiviruses and sputnick’. When viruses pass from one organism to another, they adapt to that host. They also form alliances.

Sputnik is unusual because it is the first virus ever discovered that is a parasite of another virus. When it reproduces in a cell infected by the larger virus, its action impairs the reproduction of mamavirus particles. Can we not liken this behaviour of Sputnik to what is happening with our politicians in Nigeria? Viruses infect viruses just as politicians infect politicians! No one peeping into Nigerian political scene can deny the fact that Nigerian politicians and political parties have exhibited similar characteristics in recent times. 

Viruses form alliances just as our politicians do. For instance some viruses such as the recent swine flu virus can be a mixture of viruses from pigs, birds, and humans. Such a mixture can be very deadly if not prevented. Have our politicians learnt the art of alliance formation from viruses? Evidently no one can deny the fact that some of our politicians and political parties are like viruses in Nigeria and can be called virus politicians or virus political parties.

In the current political climate, it is a fact that our politicians have become attuned to each other’s style. This is because they live in equilibrium with themselves. They know how to keep passing the loot from person to person. It is evident that there appears to be a series of political evolution among individual politicians and in the parties in the country.

These virus politicians or political parties evolve in such ways that show they know how to adapt to their host species (parties). They then behave in manner that keeps the host alive so that they can continue to infect the host’s children. When virus politician or party jumps into another party, it becomes a non-equilibrium virus politician or party. Such a politician or party will rarely do anything meaningful for the population because it’s not well adapted to the people to be served ab-initio.

As our politicians celebrate 10 years of uninterrupted power sharing, the bottom line is that it’s these non-equilibrium virus politicians that we need to be concerned about. Virus politicians will be devising means to perpetuate themselves in-order to ensure the people who should gain from democracy continue to be ill. No one can be sure how severe the problem will turn out to be as we live in the face of obvious denials and apparent lack of insight by the power sharers. But even the politicians themselves are suffering. Let me remind us that victims of political viral problems -- whether they are politicians whose parties stop working, nongovernmental organisations who find their continuous wailing fail to have any effect, or the electorate who are forced to swallow whatever they are given -- deserve the normal right to life and fight against the perpetrators of harm against them.

The political times are changing and politicians should have to sign a pledge to oppose prostitution, or else they will damage their credibility. Do we have credibility in Nigeria? I think some people do but the majority of the political class has not shown that this is a characteristic that is integral to serving. In the current climate, talking about credibility is a non issue in Nigeria any way. This is because what is for example happening in the British Parliament as a result of immoral claims for expenditure and parliamentarians explaining to their constituencies and stepping down would never be seen to happen in Nigeria in the current climate. Can it happen? My answer is YES it can if we have a change of mindset, attitude and above all have a true sense of moral responsibility to ourselves and our fellow citizens. This is what politicians need to do.

As a people, it is apparent that we can adopt preventive methods and even if we are attacked, we can survive safely from the viruses like swine flu because of medications available. But, the political virus is dirty and political alliances dirtier and more dangerous than deadly viruses. They have no motivation or aim in the welfare of people they intend to serve. Their motivation is to be in the winning party and to get a political role in order to enlarge their pockets. They do whatever is possible. So how can we live with these deadly political viruses? Will there be any cure or can we not prevent the worst politicians who will jump from here and there for their own benefit? In-order words we can adopt prevention is better than cure principle. The fear is we cannot prevent these politicians from jumping and changing their colours unless there is a constitutional ban on such prostitution while in power. So those who want to garner support for proposals that are more responsive to the public interest can count on confronting a political virus of ever-growing strength.

But can we blame these virus politicians when we know that our politics is particularly vulnerable to populism and money and post sharing. Our party system is weak and prostitution is constitutionally allowed. Patronage politics is deeply rooted, god fatherism is the other of the day and corruption and insincerity are the qualifications required for being in power. This is the change we should be attempting.

In the 1780s, Alexander Tyler, a University of Edinburgh professor, stated that democracy was a transitory form of government – that “Democracy can only exist until voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the results that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy and insincerity followed by a dictatorship.”  How I wish votes count in Nigeria?

So as politicians celebrate 10 years of uninterrupted power sharing they should remember that one day a cure for their viral characteristic will become available and I see this as coming soon rather than later. The world is changing fast and with it must we!

Robot  # 1 | 03.06.2009 07:23

Almost every day one virus or other makes news—HIV, SARS, smallpox as a bio-weapon, bird flu, and, most recently, the swine flu in Mexico. A virus is the smallest life bearing creature. It’s my impression that most people don’t realize the significance of viruses in our human life. I feel that it may be a good idea to explain a bit about them. I have to say from the beginning that I am not a virologist (that is a specialist in the field of viruses) and so if my explanation loses ground on the account of expertise, I beg our virologists to pardon me. Viruses exist in uncountable variety, since every animal, plant, and bacterial species has its own set of them. It’s not sufficiently interesting for anyone to bother to find out how many different viruses exist on every obscure species, so I think we’ll never really know the extent of these tiny devils. But scientists have already isolated tens of thousands of them. You can observe them in an electron microscope, get an idea wh...Read the full article.