A phased reopening of a Nigerian economy pummeled by coronavirus may not make sense, but it’s exactly what the doctor recommends in these strange times.
There was never going to be an easy way out of this for President Muhammadu Buhari, the state governors and the rest of us.
Humanity is in a bind right now as it were, and for leaderships across the world, you are damned with whatever decision you arrive at in this novel coronavirus (COVID-19) era.
President Buhari’s decision to relax coronavirus-enforced lockdowns imposed in Lagos, Abuja and Ogun from May 4 and to enforce curfews nationwide from that date, may not make plenty of sense, but nothing makes sense right now.
No political leader is making sense right now. Not U.S. President Donald Trump who has tacitly recommended sunlight and disinfectants as cure for the virus and whose touting of Chloroquine as the ultimate panacea for COVID-19 is now dead on arrival.
The coronavirus has left everyone clutching at straws. Scientists and even the World Health Organisation (WHO) have had to go back and forth on certain guidelines in the midst of the confusion coronavirus has unleashed on mankind. We are now at the mercy of the virus.
No one has got a clue.
With very little known about the virus, how it spreads and how to annihilate it, medical experts are going with the safest protocols of social or physical distancing, adhering to personal hygiene and the use of face masks. As they should.
Nigeria’s economy has suffered immeasurable damage since the president imposed lockdowns in the nation’s economic nerve center of Lagos, the capital city of Abuja and the industrial state of Ogun on March 30.
With states like Kano (the economic hub of northern Nigeria) and Rivers (the nation’s crude oil mining hub) imposing restrictions of theirs–all in a bid to curb the spread of the virus–something had to give.
A chunk of Nigeria’s economy is informal; small business and private sector driven. Most folks survive on daily wages and let’s face it, you can’t ask an average Nigerian to sit at home for two months, hard as you try. We are wired to hustle.
With 80 percent of the population getting by on less than a dollar a day, I always had doubts about how long we were going to lock down Lagos, for instance. It is little wonder that the spate of robberies spiked as the restrictions took a toll on most neighborhoods.
Everyone of us can now cite instances of that neighbor, uncle, aunt, sibling, friend or distant relative who has asked for some kind of financial assistance since March 30.
My mechanic has been calling just to say “hi”, except that I know better. My barber has been offering to wash the car and the supermarket in the neighborhood has brow beaten its staff into being super friendly and nice just to keep customers coming.
All of which means that the inability of the Nigerian leadership class to implement the kinds of infrastructural, structural and social reforms that would have lifted a chunk of the populace out of poverty and strengthen the economy, has returned to haunt us all.
Years of governance failures and endemic corruption has left us all at the mercy of coronavirus. And I do hope that lessons have been learned for the immediate future.
In any case, the president hit the nail on the head when he said: “Lockdowns have also come at a very heavy economic cost. Many of our citizens have lost their means of livelihood. Many businesses have shut down. No country can afford the full impact of a sustained lockdown while awaiting the development of vaccines.”
In the United States and some parts of Europe, there have been protests denouncing lockdowns. People just can’t wait to get back to work and earn a living, because let’s face it, government palliatives and stimulus packages were never going to get to everyone.
In Nigeria for instance, the crash in the price of crude oil means there’s very little money or food the government can disburse at the moment.
Nigerians would have to live with this virus and take responsibility for their actions. We have to normalise the use of those masks, wash our hands regularly, observe social and physical distancing, leave our religious houses and clubs shut, use our hand sanitizers when we visit markets, shops, cash dispensing outlets or public places and treat the next person as though they have the virus.
President Buhari’s new measures to deal with the pandemic in Nigeria may not sound very plausible for the simple reason that right now, nothing sounds plausible or makes sense. But by jove, easing shutdown restrictions in a nation this poor and unstable is the most pragmatic thing to do.
Some states like Lagos just have to fashion out what works for them because that 8pm to 6am curfew prescription from the president was never going to work in a city this chaotic, claustrophobic, unruly and irrational.
I expect federal and state governments and the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) to ramp up testing, and to aggressively contact-trace and isolate as we co-exist with COVID-19 long into 2021. They owe us that much and anything less would be a disservice.
By the way, have you acquired your face masks yet?
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Pulse Editor’s Opinion is the opinion of an editor of Pulse. It does not represent the opinion of the organization Pulse.