Understanding palliatives

WHEN you do a quick Google search of the words, palliative measures, you will quickly understand it to mean ‘That which is palliative relieves and soothes, but is not expected to cure’. While the English dictionary defines the word palliative as- ‘serving to extenuate or mitigate. Minimising the progression of a disease and relieving undesirable symptoms for as long as possible rather than attempting to cure the ( unusually incurable) disease’. It would, therefore, be right to say that ‘palliative’ is largely ‘people’ and ‘condition’ sensitive and temporary in nature, ensuring relief and making mild the pain that would otherwise have been felt if it was not available.  The question to ask now is – “where did the leaders, nay rulers, in the Federal and State governments get their understanding of the definition of palliatives or palliative measures to mean the provision of food and food items alone just as we have seen them operationalise across the country in the last 2 weeks since this COVID-19 pandemic began to bite?”

How did they come to the sudden and lazy conclusion that palliative measures must mean the provision of cups of garri, noodles, beans, oil and in some cases other condiments to make jollof rice only for the ‘poor’ who live in the rural areas? Palliative measures can be for some the provision of ‘food’ (Food Palliatives), for some others it can be in the form of the provision of regular and uninterrupted power supply, reduction in tariffs for certain commodities and utility services, suspension of levies, taxes, rates and duties or even the disbursement of physical cash directly to people to take care of other domestic responsibilities (social palliatives), or to some other it can be just the provision of some legal frameworks or legislations that would address monetary and fiscal policy matters of exposed individuals like the temporary suspension or reduction of interest rates payable on loans taken, the allowance to access cheap loans and salary advances to keep the economy liquid or even legislations that make it possible for business men to cut or mitigate their losses or financial exposures ( legal/ legislative palliatives), or it can be religious or psychological palliatives.

Depending on who or what is involved before the need for palliatives is contemplated, governments must first attempt to understand that true palliative measures must be sensitive and must not be discriminatory.  The poor, rich, strong, weak, and every gender in every ethnic group across every stratum of the society must be considered when designing palliatives or what would constitute the best palliative measure whenever the need arises. Palliatives should be only that which can provide temporary relief that would soothe the pains and hardship of all affected by the attendant situation. Having established what true palliative measures should be and seeing the finest of its interpretation in some civilisations outside of Nigeria,  such as the USA, Russia, South Korea, Italy, Spain, the Great Britain and even other African countries like South Africa (Currently experiencing looting by citizens inspite of their palliatives) and Senegal, it would be safe to say that our leaders either do not understand the meaning of the words ‘Palliative Measures’, have a very warped understanding of it or are simply just wicked displaying such wickedness to their people in the very benign interpretation of the term.

Where did they get their interpretation to mean food items and as if that was not bad enough, to also mean that it is only the poor in the rural community that deserve it? Where please? Do they by their interpretation imply that the ‘rich’ (who probably have invested millions or billions of naira in the economy that is about to go down the drains because they can not use it for what they intended such as manufacturing, owing to the lockdown order for days now) would not suffer losses or if they do it would be miniature compared to what the ‘poor’ who they are focusing on now would suffer in this period and as such do not deserve palliatives? Do they imagine that the ordinary taxi driver who is managing his personal taxi or the one he got on hire purchase who because of this pandemic and the ‘decree or order’ for him not to carry the usual number of passengers would not make losses now and so would not deserve palliative also? Do they mean that the woman who paid already for a one year rental with the hope that she would make money for the next year’s rental from her daily sales who the stay-at-home order has prevented from going to open her shop for 2, 3 or even 5 months as the case may be, does not require palliatives that can be in the form of asking the landlord to return the monies paid for the rentals and consequently waiving tenement rate for the landlord for a period of time?

Whatever the case may be, our governments must interrogate again their understanding of the words palliative and palliative measure, in order not to incur the imminent wrath of the classes of citizens not catered to in their plans as a result of their improper understanding and what divinity might serve them as consequences of this wickedness and corruption laden interpretation of an otherwise good word.

• Akpotive writes in from Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

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