COVID-19: Nigeria between the devil and the deep blue sea

Before the advent of COVID-19, Nigeria was already in a dire strait. In 2018, the Brookings Institution in a report, The Start of a New Poverty Narrative, named Nigeria as the global headquarters of poverty as the country was home to about 87 million people living in extreme poverty, the highest in the world. Corroborating this, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, while presenting the 2020 budget estimates for the approval of the House of Representatives Committee on Internally Displaced Persons and Refugees in November 2019, said Nigeria had 90 million of her citizens living in poverty. So, before being dragged to the battle against coronavirus disease, Nigeria was already in full war with poverty.

So, the coming of coronavirus disease and the prescription of social distancing and total lockdown as the antidote threw Nigeria between the devil and the deep blue sea. It exacerbated an already difficult situation. To contain the spread of the virus which has afflicted over a million people around the world and rendered many advanced countries incapacitated, the Federal Government ordered the lockdown of Lagos and Ogun states as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). A number of governors also directed a total lockdown of their states. However, the lockdown could not be sustained because of the high level of poverty of the citizenry which forces them to live from hand to mouth. The poor need to go out daily to eke out a living. If the poor don’t go out, they go hungry.

Although the Federal Government, states as well as some public-spirited individuals and organisations have tried to give palliatives to the nation’s teeming poor people, it is nothing more than a drop in the ocean. Many of the nation’s 90million poor people are still left out; they are still unreached. So, they can’t stay indoors for the fear of being killed by hunger.

Realising this dilemma, the Federal Government had to relax the restriction order and opened a window to allow the people to go out daily to buy or beg for food. In its own modification of the order, Ogun State government allows citizens to go out for about five hours every other day to get food items. While Oyo State has ordered that all government offices and others be closed, it allows food markets to operate so that the people can have access to food items. According to the state governor, it does not make sense locking up people when they don’t have food to eat. Some states have also relaxed the restriction to allow citizens observe Jumat service and Easter celebration.

To shut down or not to shut down the country is the big question agitating the mind of the president and those in the corridors of power at the moment. If the president orders a total lockdown of the country, will the poor not revolt as a result of biting hunger? Will criminal activities not spike as the poor descend on the rich? Will the country not end up in turmoil?

If the country is not shut down, shall we not be exposing the country to communal transmission which could result in thousands and even millions of Nigerians going down with the disease? Should that happen, do we have the facilities to treat the people? If a mass of the population is affected by COVID-19, shall we not be endangering the nation’s productive capacity? Will that not increase poverty in the land?

There is no easy decision to be made here. Whether the government locks up the country or takes its chances and insists on the status quo, the country will pay dearly for it. But I think what should help the government in making a decision is determining which of the two is a lesser evil.

Which is easier to manage a hungry people or a sick population? Which one is easier to get: food for the hungry or health for the sick? Going out to eke a living will not transform the poor and make them rich overnight; it will only tide them over to the following day. If a poor person gets sick, then it becomes a double jeopardy for him; he will be unable to go out in search of food which would leave him hungry and he will still have to battle his ill health.

Given the rate at which the virus is spreading in Lagos State, it is not unlikely that we are already experiencing a level of communal transmission of the disease. Therefore, in spite of the obvious threat it poses to all, it is in the best interest of all Nigerians for the government to shut down the country completely and allow minimal movement so that the spread of the virus can be contained. If we wait till we have a full blown community transmission, the suffering we shall be subjected to would be horrendous because our health facilities would be stretched to the breaking point and we will still need to shut down the whole country at that point. Our government should be mindful of Warren Buffet’s saying that “What the wise do in the beginning, fools do in the end.”

What all tiers of governments can do is to devise means of identifying the poor and the needy and intensify efforts to get palliatives across to them so that while they stay away from the streets to escape the virus, they would not be dealt a death blow by hunger at home.

 

e Transparent In Identifying The Poor For Palliatives —CAN Charges Govt
THE Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has charged the state and Federal Government to apply transparency and inclusiveness in identifying the poor, whom relief materials had been made available for amid the present pandemic… Read full story

COVID-19: Why I Believe Nigerians, Others In Malaria Belt, Have Little To Fear —Abu, US Based Clinical Cardiologist
Dr Rasaq Olanrewaju Abu has been in medical practice since 1984 and currently runs a clinical cardiology practice in College Park, Maryland, USA. In this interview conducted online by SAHEED SALAWU, Dr Abu speaks on why the huge number of deaths being experienced in Europe due to COVID-19 pandemic and America may not … Read full interview

COVID-19: NCDC Confirms 17 New Cases, Toll Rises To 305
Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), on Friday, has announced 17 more new cases of coronavirus (COVID-19), making the number of confirmed cases in Nigeria rise to 305… Read full story

Can I Have Prostate Cancer?
I am a 60-year-old man. My father died from Prostate cancer many years ago. Kindly let me know my chances of also having the cancer… Read full story

Outsmarting Covid-19
It is no longer news that COVID-19, a strain of coronavirus, has held the whole world to ransom. When the disease broke out in China some months back, it gave the whole world a chance to prepare ahead. It is however conspicuous that the preparation was and it is still not sufficient, looking at the severe effect of the outbreak… Read full story

Coronavirus Came From Bat, But How Did It Get To Man?
A vacuum of knowledge about the origins of the new coronavirus ravaging the world has provided fertile ground for all manner of theories — from the fantastic, to the dubious to the believable… Read full story

Eti-Osa Is Leading In Coronavirus Cases, Yet Flouting Stay-At-Home Order
Despite recording the highest number of coronavirus cases, residents of Eti-Osa Local Government Area of the state have continued to flout the stay-at-home and social distancing orders imposed on the state to contain the spread of the deadly virus, Saturday Tribune was told by one of the community leaders… Read full article

Help For Couples With Mental Health Disorders
IDENTIFYING problems without proffering solutions will amount to a wasted exercise. Every mental health disorder is treatable. Couples facing such a challenge should know that help is available to them. So, there is no reason to lose hope, and resign to fate. Once they embrace this truth, they will be able to seek for the available help… Read full article

I Was Under Some Pressure On What It Would Take To Be Olori —Olori Adeyanju
Save for beads, which she sparsely adorns at public functions, there is scarcely anything which announces her as the wife of a traditional ruler. Ask her about her preference for anonymous disposition, Olori Iswat Oluwakemi Adeyanju, wife of the Olororuwo of Ororuwo, Osun State, Oba Qamarudeen Adeyemi Adeyanju… Read full interview

Preventing Skin Damage Due To Face Masks
With many frontline healthcare workers wearing face masks for much of the day, some are experiencing uncomfortable skin damage. One of the authors of a recent article on the topic offers advice… Read full article

Manicure At Home Like An Expert
Getting a quality nail art in the comfort of your home is very easy and now is the best time as going to the salon is not an easy option because of the coronavirus pandemic… Read full article

 

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE