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.
