COVID-19: Tourism, other value chain industry mostly hit by shutdown —President ISG

The COVID-19 pandemic, an invisible enemy to humanity has continued to ravage the world and rendered economies postrate. In this interview, President of Ibadan Social Group, Mr Oladele Bakare, speaks with WALE OLAPADE on how the lockdown has affected tourism value chain and human ecosystem, among other issues.

Government intervention

As humanity, we are being beaten hands down. There is no cure, the government is trying to contain, so they are just managing it. If we do not witness additional spread of the pandemic, like in Oyo State, after the first set of the people that are seen, no other new cases have been discovered, so it depends on the location, if the state is partially closed, people are not accessing us from other states and they are able to contain all we have here, maybe we may see Oyo State getting out of it and probably other states of the federation too getting out of it.

Lessons

Well, it has shown that, firstly, no society can be abandoned, What I mean by that is that if the developed world had made it a point of duty to show that we have very good medical facilities in the developing world, now that they are even going through crisis at that end they don’t have medical facilities to cope, maybe the reverse medical tourism would have taken place and they would have come this way, but it is on a global level. Of course , for us too, basic standards of leadership should also be set. When we have basic things in place and everywhere, when we have issue like this, we will be able to react.

Maintain hygiene protocol

On Hygiene level, from the household and the community it cannot be over-emphasied; the hand-washing, the sanitizing and the protection all over the place, we need to have a cleaner environment because viruses thrive in a dirty environment.

Aftermath of COVID-19

Well, I was happy recently that the Federal Government announced the issue of employment of 750, 000 Nigerians in preparation for the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. We can’t shutdown, we are not in a vacuum, and we are not in an island. The world is an ecosystem that you cannot be shutdown because any disconnect anywhere; it will affect the value chain of the system. We are all going to pay the price for it. Of course our fears; loss of employment, production lines have been truncated, even presently as we speak, other medical people who have medical alignments, I believe are suffering because all the emphasis are all on COVID-19 treatment been given to victims, so the whole world itself needs to have a total reset… Let us use agric as an example; If people can’t go to the farm then how are we going to cope wth food next year, don’t forget that Nigeria is a subsistent economy, where up to 60 to 70 per cent of the population must not only work but work daily to feed themselves or take any meal. You lock them down, you shut everyone down, how do you go forward? So all those fears are there but we believe gradually we re going to take a lesson out of it and we need to recalibrate the all gamunt of governance, the way the governed look at the whole thing and the way we also need to look out for ourselves in the ecosystem.

A school of thought described the COVID-19 pandemic as giving the earth a sigh of relief from the human pollution; what is your take on this?

I share their view because the ecosystem, like I said, does not live in a vacuum. We have years of so many complaints about the earth. We heard about global warming, environmental pollution and degradation, effects of the industries among other non-environment friendly actions and as human beings we are a threat to other specimen or lives in the ecosystem, in the way we consume them among other treatments. Now we need to have a total rethink that everyone has its own part to play in the ecosystem. Now every ozone layer we wiped off will come back to haunt us one day. We don’t pay attention to agriculture, we don’t pay attention to other living species in the ecosystem one day the world will pay a price for it and we are beginning to see it. Of course, not scientifically proven but you all see the kind of things they eat in China, they eat virtually everything that crawls, so the after effect is here… nobody has been able to place his or her hands on the source of the virus but with studies we will eventually get to know where and how, so that will define what we do generally as people in the world and the universe.

Global tourism industry is mostly affected by the shutdown

You are right, tourism is totally shutdown, for the first time I can’t think of my own existence as a human being. People have what it takes, they can’t cross border from one country to the other or go elsewhere. In Nigeria what was popular for us is for holidays, medical tourism and pilgrimages; like going to the holy land in Saudi Arabia and the holy land in Jerusalem. All those places are completely shutdown now, we can’t go anywhere. Even those foreign investors or other people that come from other countries for tourism cannot do anything because the whole place is shutdown. It is a total devastation; aviation industry is paying a lot of price as well as those who are linked with the airline industry; the ticketing companies, hotels, transport companies; the Uber of this world, boat users and other value chain are feeling the bite of the lockdown. So it is a complete gamunt down all the way, nobody is spared.

What is your take on the school of thought that says that COVID-19 pandemic has made the world one?

Well there is this popular saying that the world is a global village now. It use to be them versus us. What do I mean by this? The developed countries versus the developing countries but today, that divide is gone, the so called ‘super powers’; the Americans of this world, the Asian powers, the European powers, I mean you could see the numbers of dead recorded in some of these place we thought they are epitome of development. So everybody needs each other, of course you could see what Cubans have done, a small country in the world is the one that is now providing medical aids for the so called European countries; they went to Spain, Italy, and also they are offering their support to the United States of America. In fact the US has gone ahead to relax the restrictions they placed on their visas, trying to encourage medical personnel that have the skills to come to their country because they are totally overwhelmed by the pandemic. So the world itself has been forced to live the word that the world is a global village and we are seeing it playing out seriously in this period of COVID-19.

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