COVID-19:
Matters Arising in Nigeria
Patrick I. Ukase, Ph.D
(Associate Professor of History),
Department of History and Int. Studies,
Kogi State University, Anyigba
Email: patrickukase@yahoo.com;
The world is generally going through one of its most perilous times in recent history caused by the COVID 19 pandemic. From Wuhan, China, where it started in the later part of 2019, the pandemic has ravaged most parts of Europe and the United States of America (USA), and it is currently on rampage in most parts of Africa. As at 6th May, 2020, 3,741,276 people have been infected globally with 1,247,433 recoveries and 258,511 deaths had already been recorded (source: worldometer). The US alone has registered more than 50,000 deaths as a result of the virus.
For the first time in more than 100 years, countries have been forced to lockdown; close their borders – land, air and sea – and citizens compelled to stay at home, as a way of curtailing the spread of the pandemic, given that no cure or preventive vaccine has been discovered. The global economy and system has been shut down as trade, commerce, tourism, diplomatic shuttles and relations, sports, international conferences, and so on, have been temporarily suspended due to the sporadic spread of the disease.
Nigeria joined other countries that are facing the challenge brought about by COVID 19 on the 27th February, 2020, after it identified its first index case. Since then, like other parts of the globe, the nation has been going through perilous times trying to figure out ways to tackle the disease, which the World Health Organisation has since labelled a pandemic. As part of measures to curtail its spread in Nigeria, the Federal government set up a Presidential Task Force, totally locked down two states – Lagos and Ogun, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). It also closed its international borders, to prevent new cases from coming into the country.
Virtually all states have also taken some measures to prevent the scourge. These include partial to total lockdown of state boundaries, enforcement of the stay at home order and social distancing with the temporary closure of schools, markets; the suspension of worship, weddings and burials. Others include the setting up of various task force and isolation centres for infected patients, disinfecting some public places, and carrying out several sensitization campaigns using orthodox and non-orthodox media channels, just to mention but a few.
Truth is that no one saw this coming. The pandemic took even most of the advanced countries, supposedly imbued with mechanisms on early warning signs by surprise. Despite the quality of their health infrastructure and human capacity to manage human and natural disasters, these nations have been overwhelmingly depressed by the rampaging pandemic.
It is rather unfortunate that several countries in Africa and Nigeria particularly ought to have seen this coming, following the havoc it had already caused in other continents, but typical with leadership lackluster, proactive measure were never put in place to prevent the pandemic from penetrating Africa. Nigeria, for instance, took the pandemic for granted. It delayed – by omission or commission – to shut down its borders and also enforce stricter checks in air, on sea ports and other entrants. Our handlers went to sleep. Even after it identified its first index case, the country still carried on as if it had a magic wand to confront the pandemic. Within the same period, public officers and members of their families flew out and into the country at will, while arrogantly declining to subject themselves to the remedial measures put in place at the airports to check the possible influx of those infected by the virus.
Now that the pandemic is here with us in Nigeria, it has further exposed the weaknesses and gaps – not just in the health institutions – but in our entire national life. Suffice to say that Nigeria’s health system collapsed in the early 1980s, thereby setting the stage for health tourism. Those who had stolen state funds embarked on medical treatment and checkup in the advanced countries to benefit from a health care system they (the advanced nations) had invested heavily in, and worked tirelessly to fix. Former military dictator, General Ibrahim Babangida, once remarked that hospitals in Nigeria had become merely consulting centres. Regrettably, Babangida, even with some efforts at improving the primary health care system, failed to strengthen or improve the health care system in the country generally. Babangida would later spend some weeks in an American hospital in Paris-France for a surgery.
Since the 1980s, virtually all military and civilian presidents, governors, ministers, legislators and many other public office holders and members of their families, receive medical treatment abroad. Late President Yar’ Adua raised the bar of Nigerian leaders who sought medical treatment abroad, while President Muhammadu Buhari, to use his coinage, took it to the next (an unprecedented) level. In 2017 alone, President Buhari spent more than twenty weeks receiving medical treatment in the United Kingdom. Sadly enough, the country lost enormous task payers money and foreign exchange in the process.
It is estimated that Nigeria loses more than $1 million annually on health tourism. Couldn’t all of these resources have been used to improve the country’s health infrastructure? Annoyingly, former public office holders facing prosecution are quick to seek for bail, through their lawyers to enable them receive medical attention abroad. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, all these category of Nigerians have suddenly recourse to their crawling, archaic and primitive health care system; the one they hitherto abandoned. The so-called “big men” will now have to attend the same public hospitals they refused to fix.
The COVID 19 pandemic has thrown up a number of issues concerning our health institutions. The federal and state governments are running desperately trying to establish isolation centres. Existing facilities – teaching hospitals inclusive – which would have served this purpose are generally in a sorry or pitiable state. Recently the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha reportedly said “he never knew that Nigeria’s health infrastructure was in such a deplorable situation until he was appointed the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID 19.”
This statement clearly reflects the insensitivity in “high places” and the extent to which public office holders in Nigeria have distanced themselves from institutions they were originally appointed and paid through tax payer’s money to fix. Almost sixty years after independence, Nigeria’s primary, secondary and tertiary health systems have become a death trap. The COVID 19 has already dealt a serious blow on countries whose health systems are solid and working thereby raising questions and doubts about the ability of countries such as Nigeria with weak health systems to confront the ravaging pandemic.
Sequel to the insensitivity of the Government to the health sector, several Nigerian trained doctors, nurses and other health workers since the 1980s, have exited the country, plying their professions in other countries of the world. For instance, the number of Nigerian doctors and nurses working in the USA are legion while the once back home have had endless labour issues with the state and federal government on matters of remuneration, allowances, working tools, environment and son on; yet all these strikes have not been able to pressurize the government to improve the quality of health care in Nigeria. The pandemic has thrown a bigger challenge to the nation’s handlers to recalibrate its primitive health care sector. Now that we are all in this together, it is either we fix it or sink together.
Yet another problematic is how to engage citizens and convince them that the pandemic truly exist. While many Nigerians – literate and illiterate – do not still believe that the pandemic exist, others feel that the disease is essentially for the upper echelon of the society. Despite several campaigns to sensitize citizens on the dangers associated with the disease, many citizens have refused to yield. Thus, the various strategies put in place to prevent its spread including lockdown and social distancing have been scuttled by citizens across states and the FCT. Why do citizens consistently refuse to believe, trust or accept the instructions of leadership?
The reasons are not far-fetched: citizens have since lost confidence and trust in their leadership. When leadership is driven on deceit, falsehood and lies, it disconnects its citizens from itself. For so long, successive leaderships in Nigeria have failed to deliver on promises – including campaign and post – campaign promises. In the face of this type of distrust, citizens have come to take the promises, instructions and directives of their leadership with a pinch of salt. The COVID 19 lockdown and stay at home order, appear to have presented an opportunity for citizens to revolt against the State for its insensitivity, dishonesty and corruption.
In addition, the directives in Nigeria have been complicated due to the difficulty of the government and its agencies to define and classify the poor population in the country in clear contexts. This has been attributed to the absence of a functional data bank in the country. In other climes the total lockdown has been accompanied with palliatives that would cushion the effects on citizens. Apart from providing food to its citizens particularly the vulnerable, some countries affected by the pandemic have either subsidized or opted to provide essential services such as water, electricity and gas to its citizens for free within a stipulated duration. Others have also given out stipend to citizens, especially the unemployed to cushion the effect of the lockdown. This, it has been able to achieve because of the existence of a comprehensive data bank of the poor and vulnerable citizens; in addition to the employment and income histories of the citizenry.
In Nigeria, the federal and state governments’ locked-down states and declared a sit at home order without providing the necessary palliatives to cushion the effects on citizens. Some citizens have, therefore raised questions around their survival during the period of the lockdown, wondering whether to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea in the present circumstance; that is to stay at home and die of hunger or to go out and be infected by the virus. Many seem to have opted for the former.
Governments at all level have mouthed their commitment to provide some palliatives to citizens while some corporate organizations and public spirited individuals have contributed – in cash and kind – to assist but the distribution has largely remained skewed. The truth of the matter is that it is rather impossible for the state to distribute food and other items to the poor and the vulnerable without an accurate data bank. No thanks to the newly created Ministry of Disaster Management and Humanitarian Affairs and the Social Investment Programme, which are reportedly at a loss about what to do, or how to go about distributing the palliatives. The COVID 19 pandemic has once again reechoed concerns related to the need to have a comprehensive data of citizens, which would assist the country to plan, not just for the pandemic but generally.
While the lockdown lasts, students in primary, post-primary and tertiary institutions are to remain at home. The school calendar is already distorted while fixed examinations such as the West African Examination Council (WAEC) and the National Examination Council (NECO), have been suspended indefinitely. Recently, the Education Minister, Adamu Adamu stirred the hornets’ nest when he recently challenged tertiary institutions to resume lectures using E-Learning platforms. For me, the Minister seems to be playing to the gallery. Online teaching is not achieved by fiat; it involves a process that takes you there.
As the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has noted, “E-learning requires certain behavourial changes and regulatory adjustments in order to make it work for the learner, it cannot be established by mere ministerial directive and bureaucratic fiat but through careful and detailed planning, funding and training by those involved. None of these have been done in Nigeria.” It is difficult to find any Nigerian university today that has been able to activate e-learning because of poor internet access, high bandwidth cost and irregular power supply.
To simply put it, public universities lack the infrastructure to embark on this project. This further justifies the persistent altercation between ASUU and the federal and state governments, over the need to improve the teaching and learning environment. While government has always treated this issue lackadaisically, the COVID 19 pandemic has finally helped in reinforcing ASUUs position on this matter.
That said, several international organizations including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank (WB) have warned that the global economy will face a depression, worse than the one experienced in the 1930s. Fragile economies such as Nigeria are already feeling the pinch. While some of the Advanced Capitalist Countries (ACCs) are providing bailout to companies and industries that would enable them re-start production during post-COVID 19, Nigeria is yet to develop a roadmap to that effect. With the price of crude oil presently at $11 per barrel, it is obvious that the depression is set to hit Nigeria even harder. Already the federal government has dipped it hands into its Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWF) Account, to withdraw $150 million, to augment for the potential drop in the federation account for the month of June, arising from the fall in oil revenue.
The question is, what happens if the virus is not defeated by June? For so long, scholars and other stakeholders in the Nigerian project have questioned, not just the recklessness of public office holders, but their blatant refusal to diversify the economy. For instance, at a time the nation is facing a major health crisis, the National Assembly has released several billions of naira for the purchase of Toyota Corolla (2020 Model) for legislators as official cars. How can such a nation be considered serious? Since its discovery, oil has become a curse rather than a blessing to Nigeria. The federal and state government have become less than creative in kick-starting other sectors of the economy to make the “federation” viable. This is so because the basis for state and local government creation was not viability but availability of oil in the Niger Delta. Relying basically on financial handouts from the federal government, most states have become financially impotent to pay salaries, pension and gratuities, also meet other developmental needs of the people.
The COVID 19 pandemic is already exposing the vulnerability of the Nigerian economy thereby compounding the existing challenges confronting states in Nigeria. At the rate at which the pandemic is ravaging, there is a sense in which several states would be unable to pay workers’ salaries, pensions and gratuities, and also undertake critical projects in the near future. With the 2020 Budget predicated on an anticipated oil price of $57 per barrel, I do not see the magic that the federal and state governments would do to actualize their expenditure for this fiscal year, now that the price has dropped to $11 per barrel.
Global food hunger appears to be another challenge stirring the world in the face during and after COVID 19. Already some countries have raised the alarm over food shortages following the lockdown. Nigeria is likely going to face a much more peculiar challenge given the quantum of population movements and internal displacements arising from the variegated security challenges in the last ten years. For example, in the north-east, Boko Haram is yet to be defeated, while states in the north-west are still battling with bandits and criminals. Several states in the north-central and south-west have been ravaged by the activities of herders. The cumulative effect has been the increasing number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) across all parts of the country, who have been denied the opportunity of contributing to food production for some years now.
Finally, Nigeria must brace up to the challenge during these trying times. There is no use denying the fact that mistakes have been made and opportunities lost, but there is a saying that experience teaches slowly and at the cost of mistakes. Nigerian leaders and followers must not let the present opportunity to slip, for it is only when the going gets tough that the tough gets going. Creativity and ingenuity are better put to use when we are confronted with daunting challenges. The COVID 19 pandemic appears to be gradually opening the country up to several missed opportunities in the past. The saying that health is wealth, has been mouthed but successive administrations have always failed to internalise, reflect on its deeper meaning and act.
It has taken the COVID 19 pandemic to remind us that a nation cannot achieve anything if its citizens are unhealthy. The threat and fear of the virus has not only depressed the global economy but has exposed the vulnerability of the Nigerian economy. We must, therefore, reform our health system to provide world class medical care for citizens; a develop a road map that would practically diversify our economy from oil to agriculture and production; improve our education system at all levels and recalibrate our security architecture. These will put the country on the path of sustainable development.
