Saturday, August 23, 2014

The new phase of terror – The Suicidal Bio-Terrorist.

by Eze Eluchie

Whilst countries on the front-line of terror have spent, and continue to spend, billions of dollars fortifying their military defense systems; training and retraining their security personnel on evolving patterns and approaches to tackling violent terror groups; sensitizing their citizenry on the individuals role in identifying and supporting the States efforts at combating terror; and increasing international collaboration and information sharing strategies to addressing a scourge that is becoming an increasing blight to our humanity; a new and rather innocuous form of terror, with equal, if not more devastating effects as the violent terrorists, crept into our consciousness – the Suicidal Bio-terrorist, a person who gets into another entities territory, imbued with and terminally afflicted by biological agents and intent on causing maximum fatalities and harm by spreading the offensive agent!

The notion of suicidal bio-terrorists, previously restricted to fiction novels, has for over two decades now, attracted the attention of various global powers inclusive of the United States Army which has devoted enormous resources and undertaken extensive research on the topic, particularly on the issue of release of viruses using human or animal vectors. The US Army, had ironically, delved deep into the prospect of using such viral disease agents as Ebola as a tool for the suicidal bio-terrorist of the future.

Currently beleaguered by ‘regular’ terror attacks from Boko Haram, for Nigeria, in the course of the current outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) ravaging countries in the extreme western flanks of West Africa, the fiction of a Suicidal Bio-Terrorist has metamorphosed into reality.

The example of Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American who served as human vector to transport EVD into Nigeria is worthy of understudy by persons interested in confronting this new brand of terrorism. Indisputable and publicly verifiable details of the Sawyer-episode include:
*Mr. Sawyer who had contracted EVD during his regular visits to his sister (who later died of the disease) in Monrovia, was suspended by his employers to prevent him from infecting other employees of the firm with the virus.
*Sawyer's deteriorating health condition was known to Liberian authorities who placed him on a watch-list and restricted from making foreign trips during his period in quarantine.
*The same Sawyer, not being a staff of the Liberian Government and whose health was now terminally in decline due to EVD, surreptitiously, got himself nominated by the Liberian Government as a delegate to a regional conference of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) taking place in Calabar, south eastern Nigeria.
*At the Monrovia Airport on his departure for Nigeria, security surveillance facilities record Mr. Sawyer as being in serious pains and deliberately avoiding contact with other airport users.
* Upon arrival in Nigeria a few hours later, Mr. Sawyer, whose condition had deteriorated sharply, becomes quite generous with contact, embracing and shaking at will until he collapses in the waiting arms of Airport Health personnel, in the process viciously distributing the dreaded EVD to Airport Staff.
*Despite specific questions from medical staff at the high-brow hospital where he had been rushed to as to likely EVD connections, Mr. Sawyer deliberately lied to his care-givers that he had never had contact with anyone suffering from EVD. In execution of his devilish plot, Mr. Sawyer at one point, forcefully removed a medical device affixed to his persons and deliberately splattered his blood on the bodies of Nurses and Doctors giving him care – thus ensuring they contracted EVD. Within 2 weeks of contact with Mr. Sawyer, 4 of these medical personnel are now dead and over 200 secondary contacts are placed on quarantine or surveillance to monitor for possible EVD infection.
*Despite Mr. Sawyer’s deteriorating condition, officials of the Liberian Embassy in Nigeria made spirited efforts to forcefully secure his escape from the hospital, citing diplomatic immunity, on account that he had important functions to perform for the Liberian Government at the ECOWAS meeting in Calabar – the Hospital authorities declined, potentially saving Nigeria what would probably have been a more devastating outbreak of EVD.
*Sawyer died 5 days after his arrival in Nigeria. The EVD he brought along has set Nigeria on edge ever since: overstretching our already stressed public health infrastructure; costing incalculable sums in financial damages; the stigmatization of hundreds of Nigerians at home and abroad; creating disquiet amongst our civil populace; and several other continuing unsavory outcomes.
*Sawyer’s Minnesota, USA based-widow further complicates matters when she states that her husband (an American citizen with access to American health facilities) opted to travel to Nigeria with EVD because he had ‘confidence’ in the ability of the Nigerian healthcare system to ‘take care of him’. Really? Did Sawyer prefer Nigeria's healthcare system to his own country’s (the USA’s) system? Or is there something Mrs. Decontee Sawyer is keeping away from Nigerians and the international community?

Trite facts emanating from the Sawyer episode is that the attack was neither natural nor coincidental and that the deceased Liberian-American was not acting alone in his suicidal bioterroristic attack on Nigeria. Questions that directly emanate include:

1. Whodunnit?

2. Who stands to benefit, if there is actually any benefits to be derived therefrom?

3. Was someone worried that over 100 days after the outbreak of EVD in West Africa, the disease was yet to touch-base with Nigeria? A ‘hit’ that will, on account of the size of the Nigerian population, certainly galvanize more international attention for EVD?

4. Was this a test case? How will a country cope with many Sawyers arriving at different entry points all laden with human-borne biological or chemical weapons?

5. Is it feasible that several suicidal bioterrorists, in the mold of Mr. Sawyer, already resident in a given territory, deliberately infect themselves with an incurable infectious disease and proceed to ensure wide distribution of their disease condition?

The projections here are dire, and with present realities, real.




Picture: the Liberian-American, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, the harbinger of EVD to Nigeria.


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