Sierra Leone and the coming Nigerian eclipse

For weeks, the United States’ solar eclipse fever permeated everywhere as if it was Christmas already. Weeks before the eclipse, people took vacations to cities that were in the path of totality. On the day itself, counties organised science fairs for schoolchildren; scientists were on different media channels educating the public on the phenomenon they were about to witness. Amidst that festive spirit, the Nigerian in me quietly wondered what would happen if science turned out to be wrong. With the level of their fascination with the eclipse and the cultural economy they had built around the eclipse, I was curious to know what would happen if things turned out otherwise. Of course, I knew it would not be otherwise. Scientists have built a comprehensive knowledge about eclipses over centuries, and every time, they had been right to the hilt. Once again, they have predicted that in 2024, another eclipse would occur and given how much they have mastered complex celestial happenings, they would be right. As always.

Monday’s exactitude of the science of eclipse tells me that superstitious subversion of scientific facts leads to calamities. Even more pathetic is when science is denied based on politics, a valourisation of ignorance, or just sheer fatalism. In the past, people have died of AIDS because of their rejection of scientific evidence. Up till now, and even in advanced countries such as the US, the denial of the science of vaccination has triggered the return of diseases that should have otherwise been permanently eradicated by humanity.

In the past one week, Africa has witnessed major ecological disasters that mainly occurred because people shrugged off scientific predictions. At the last count, over 500 of Freetown residents had died (and another 600 declared missing) when a mudslide occurred after a torrential rainfall. Sierra Leone is one of those unlucky countries in the world that seem caught in an endless whirlpool of disasters – natural and man-made. After a debilitating war that lasted more than a decade, and only recently survived Ebola, this had to happen? With the acute shortage of facilities to manage the number of deaths, another catastrophe, waterborne diseases, loom.