Global Health, Humanity and the COVID-19 Pandemic: Philosophical and Sociological Challenges and Imperatives

498 Pages·2023·10.863 MB·English

by  Francis Egbokhare, Adeshina Afolayan

Global Health,
Humanity and the
COVID-19 Pandemic
Philosophical and Sociological
Challenges and Imperatives
Edited by Francis Egbokhare
Adeshina Afolayan
Global Health, Humanity and the COVID-19
Pandemic
Francis Egbokhare • Adeshina Afolayan
Editors
Global Health,
Humanity and the
COVID-19 Pandemic
Philosophical and Sociological
Challenges and Imperatives
Editors
Francis Egbokhare Adeshina Afolayan
Linguistics and African Languages Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan University of Ibadan
Ibadan, Nigeria Ibadan, Nigeria
ISBN 978-3-031-17428-5 ISBN 978-3-031-17429-2 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-17429-2
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Preface and Acknowledgements
Pandemics have always been a part of the world’s historical heritage.
From the first series of plague pandemic—or the Justinian plague—of
541 to c. 767 down to the second plague pandemic—or the Black
Death—of the fourteenth century that killed between 75 and 200 mil-
lion people, to the Spanish Flu of the twentieth century (that decimated
over a hundred million) and the HIV/AIDS pandemic that started in
1981 (that has so far killed over thirty seven million), humanity has
always battled unknown pathogens that were unleashed, sometimes as
the consequences of human activities under the auspice of the march of
civilization. Since the dawn of the twenty-first century, scientists have
identified a new species of virus—severe acute respiratory syndrome-
related coronavirus (SARSr-CoV)—with the capacity to infect humans.
Two strains of the virus have been responsible for millions of deaths. The
first one, SARS-CoV-1, manifested between 2002 and 2004, across about
29 countries, and led to over 800 deaths. The second strain, SARS-CoV-2
(also referred to as COVID-19), has had a worse impact than the first
strain. Both strains were first discovered in China from where they
became worldwide pandemics.
The emergence of pathogens has been simultaneous with the inexora-
ble civilizational progress of humans. And science and technology have
played the most fundamental role in the defining of the human world as
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vi Preface and Acknowledgements
we have come to know it. Both have been borne by the epistemological
legitimacy that science constructed for itself as the template for human
knowledge, especially about the universe and its dynamics. And that tem-
plate has been consistently applied to societal understanding of human
activities, all to the deliberate sidelining of the humanities themselves. In
other words, the sciences have attempted to be humanitarian without any
consideration for the humanistic values and sensibility that derives from
the humanities. And from that disregard has emerged the horrors of the
atomic bomb, climate change and the tragedy of pandemics that have
transformed the human world.
Global health denotes the cumulative health profile of the entire global
population. It refers to the complex of not only the framework of
researches and practices that investigates and improves the health of all
people on the globe, but also the range of humanistic issues—economic,
cultural, social, ideological—that constitute the sources of inequities and
threat to the achievement of a positive global health profile. Pandemics of
all sorts in human history, including the recent COVID-19, have consti-
tuted the major threat to the framework of global health. Science can no
longer be scientistic in its explanation of the universe. And that depends
a lot on the humanities jettisoning its besieged mentality in order to be
able to take its pace besides science and technology in the understanding
of the world, and the appropriate monitoring of the progress of civiliza-
tion. It is the hope that this volume will serve as a space-clearing gesture
that will outline an interrogation of science through a humanistic analysis
of the COVID-19 pandemic and how a post-pandemic world would be
better with science walking side by side with the humanities in the recon-
struction of a new world order where dangerous pathogens are kept at bay.
In putting together this volume, we would like to first appreciate all
the contributors who are united in their collective belief in the values of
the humanities and how they could be deployed to make the world bet-
ter. They have patiently and assiduously committed themselves to mak-
ing this volume a reality.
Ibadan, Nigeria Francis Egbokhare
Adeshina Afolayan
Contents
1 Introduction: Humanity and Disease Discourse 1
Francis Egbokhare and Adeshina Afolayan
Part I Humanistic Understanding of Disease 13
2 Toward a Fuller Understanding of the Enigma of Health 15
Peter Amato
3 Ubuntu and COVID-19: A Philosophical Reflection 33
M. S. C. Okolo
4 Limits of Science-Based Approaches in Global Health:
Sociocultural and Moral Lessons from Ebola and
COVID-19 51
Samuel J. Ujewe
5 The Vaccination Mandate Debate Revisited 75
Peter Aloysius Ikhane
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viii Contents
Part II Critical Framing of the Pandemic in Africa 95
6 An African Perspective on the Ethics and Politics of
Foreign Medical Aid in a Pandemic 97
Adeolu Oluwaseyi Oyekan and Ademola Kazeem Fayemi
7 Disease Discourses, African Knowledge Systems, and
COVID-19 in Senegal 123
Karen S. Barton, Jieun Lee, and Ivan J. Ramírez
8 Ẹnulẹbọ: Ethical Imperative of Yorùbá Thought on
Eating for COVID-19- Related Crises 151
Adewale O. Owoseni
9 Epidemiology and an Epistemic Evaluation of the
Management of COVID-19 in Nigeria 171
Anselm K. Jimoh and Francis Ikhianosime
10 Borders, Boundaries, and Identities: Navigating the
Barriers to Solidarity and Cohesion in a Pandemic 197
Adeolu Oluwaseyi Oyekan and Wasiu Abiodun Balogun
11 D iscourses of the Wandering Almajiri Child as
Representation of the (Post-)COVID Generation 223
Malami Buba and Mika’ilu Ibrahim
12 Quarantining the Holy Spirit: Africa and the Pentecostal
Economy of COVID- 19 Pandemic 247
Asonzeh Ukah
13 On Pandemic Planning and the Frontline Workers in
Nigeria 283
Damilola Victoria Oduola
Contents ix
14 Dialogism and Polyphony in the Interpretations of
COVID-19 Discourse in Zimbabwe 303
Tobias Marevesa and Esther Mavengano
Part III Representing COVID-19 327
15 Cartooning COVID-19 on Facebook 329
James Yékú
16 “It’s in Your Hands”: Communicating a Pandemic to a
Disengaged Public 353
Eyitayo Aloh
17 Musical Representations of COVID-19 on Social Media
Among Young People in Nigeria 373
Toyin Samuel Ajose and Jeremiah Oluwadara Omotayo
18 COVID-19, Food and Freedom to Worship: An Analytic
Approach to Nigeria’s Religioscape 401
Benson Ohihon Igboin
19 Analysis of COVID-19 Risk Communication and
Community Engagement on Social Media in Nigeria 427
Abiola I. Odejide and Olayinka A. Egbokhare
20 COVID-19 (Post)Proverbials: Twisting the Word Against
the Virus 461
Aderemi Raji-Oyelade
I ndex 483
Notes on Contributors
Adeshina Afolayan teaches philosophy at the University of Ibadan,
Nigeria. His areas of specialization include philosophy of politics, African
cultural studies and African philosophy. He is the author of Philosophy
and National Development in Nigeria (2018), a coeditor of the Palgrave
Handbook of African Philosophy (2017), Pentecostalism and Politics in
Africa (2018), Pathways to Alternative Epistemologies in Africa (2021), the
editor of Identities, Histories and Values in Postcolonial Nigeria (2021) and
the co-author of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti: Afrobeat, Rebellion, and
Philosophy (2022).
Toyin Samuel Ajose is an ethnomusicologist with broad research inter-
est in Christian/gospel music in Nigeria/African Pentecostalism. His
research focuses on musical expressions in Prayer Mountain Spirituality
among Yoruba Pentecostals in Southwestern Nigeria, and Christian
music and social engagements in contemporary Nigeria. He holds a doc-
torate degree from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. He currently serves
as the Ag. Head of Department of Music, University of Ibadan, and also
the Director of Music at the Chapel of the Resurrection, University of
Ibadan. He is also the Public Relation Officer of the Association of
Nigerian Musicologists (ANIM).
Eyitayo Aloh is currently an assistant professor (limited term) at Trent
University, Peterborough. His research focuses on the representation and
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