There are a lot of things happening in the world, and we can't even tell what's true or not. I come from a country where you can't really believe whatever is happening—even the so-called COVID-19 was a lie to us in the first place. We barely believed a lot of things, and since there was a conspiracy theory about the existence of COVID, we didn't believe it.
There is this quote. I normally see it everywhere on people's status and it says, "Believe whatever you see at your own risk." This quote seems like a regular thing to us here in Nigeria, and for that reason anything that is happening doesn't freak us out unless we have strong proof.
COVID is one of the biggest conspiracies ever to me because who would have believed such a thing would ever exist? Probably because we don't deal with chemicals too much here in Nigeria or maybe because we don't get too deep into science. So, most of us find it hard to believe COVID-19 is real until it spreads all around the country due to people's carelessness.
Aside from our carelessness, a lot of people took advantage of it by selling some drugs that don't have anything to do with COVID, all because we heard that COVID was like malaria. Isn't that funny? Well, I didn't experience what having COVID feels like, so I can't really say anything about what it's like.
The image was designed in Canva by me
Some bloggers here even made the whole situation worse, which I believe caught most people's attention. Then it was said by a blogger that COVID had killed our president, who was Buhari. I wouldn't deny the fact that I got scared at that point because if the so-called COVID-19 killed someone like Buhari, then it must be everywhere hunting people.
I remember going to the market to get foodstuffs during COVID-19, and I passed through where dry pepper is blended into powder. By the time I got home, I couldn't control my nose from sneezing. I never took it seriously that day because I knew it was the dry pepper I inhaled in the market.
The next day I started having a serious headache and feeling cold at the same time, according to how COVID was described by some bloggers online, and I quickly checked online to see what could cause all this illness all of a sudden. I called my fiance then, and he told me I might probably contact COVID from the market, so he rushed down to my house.
We both checked the symptoms together, and it was the same symptoms, but it was said in the article we read that it could be taken care of just like malaria. Even after reading that it could be taken care of, I was still very scared because I didn't want to die, just like every rumor I saw online.
I followed my fiance back to his place, and his mom cooked some herbs, which I drank, but what scared me more was that the next day my fiance had a sour throat along with a headache; everyone in the house was complaining, and that was when I began to believe the COVID might be real to some extent.
We all took the herbs and some malaria and antibiotics that the nurse who always treats my fiance's mom prescribed for us. Some days later, we were all fine, but what baffled me more was that some had the same symptoms and then ended up dying, while some people in the neighborhood were complaining of so many side effects after taking the vaccine.
Some people even said that the vaccine that was given to them had all sorts of side effects like headaches, vomiting, and so on. I never got the vaccine or thought of taking it because I got scared of all the news I read about it online, but now, thank God that COVID is not that serious here anymore like before because of the vaccine and some other drugs that were helpful to people.