25032020

COVID-19 and Nigerians
FOR the first time in recorded
history countries not
formally at war have shut their
borders against their neighbours.
Even traditional allies in the
global set-up could not sustain the
pretence that things were normal
and life could go on as usual. So it
was that the United States after
choosing to keep its doors open to
visitors from the United Kingdom
and Ireland after initially closing
it to other countries in Europe
stepped back to shut their skies on
flight from these two countries.
The cause of this global anxiety is
Covid-19, the virus that first broke
out in December 2019 in Wuhan
in the Chinese province of Hubei.
Viewed initially as a problem for
the Chinese to resolve, Covid-19
has now ensured a lockdown of
the world. The possibility, real
threat of global annihilation that
was long foretold, is no longer an
issue of mere speculation. Except
that the present danger is more of
a biological warfare than the
nuclear war the world long feared.
There is no known cure for this
virus that is believed to have its
origins in the animal world but
which might have found its way
among human beings due to
uncontrolled human tinkering
with the world of our so-called
lower brethren.
For months after East Asia
reeled under the clouds of Covid-
19 and millions of Chinese
citizens were locked down in their
cities, the rest of the world looked
on. But by early February this
year, it was clear that Covid-19
was no longer a Chinese affair as
the virus started finding its way
to other countries in other
regions of the world. Even then,
Africa appeared detached as the
statistics for Covid-19 or corona
virus as it is otherwise known
remained starkly low in the
continent. At this time, countries
in Europe were beginning to take
precaution, shutting their
borders to and restricting flights
from regions most affected by the
virus. This was when countries
in Africa, including Nigeria,
ought to have started moving.
But rather than take active steps
to prevent the spread of the virus
to their parts of the world, people
were busy peddling rumours of
African immunity to Covid-19.
It was, perhaps, under this
illusion that Nigerian leaders
lived doing little.
As the threat of the virus reaching
Nigeria loomed larger and
ordinary Nigerians got anxious,
Revisiting Nigeria’s social contract
By TITI SANNI
NIGERIA at independence was a vibrant
promising entity which was on a clear
path to economic prosperity. The air of
optimism on what the future held could not be
mistaken with each of the geographical regions
having carved out their niche in mainstay
agricultural production. The enthusiasm that
greeted the independence was a validation of
the commitment of Nigerians to take their
destiny in their own hands and join forces to
nurture a new country on the path to delivering
on the dividends of independence.
Fast-forward 21st century, Nigeria records
45 per cent of its population living in
extreme poverty, according to recent
Bretton Woods report. It is easy for anyone
with a modicum of decency to become
frustrated with the current situation. The
country is drowned in the conundrum of
failing political and economic institutions
such that may come to a point of
disintegration or preference for the
breakdown of law and order in an effort to
reset as happened in other jurisdictions.
Quite naturally, the new century evolves
progressively with new levels of expectations.
There is much more to demand from political
leadership, same way there is a lot to ask from
citizens. Nonetheless, the social contract
pendulum swings more toward the latter. Most
societies evolved from largely monarchical and
autocratic system where the ruler was supreme
to a modern system where rulership is replaced
with leadership and everyone is deemed subject
to the rule of law.
While the system allows for some immunity
to shield from distractions on civil matters,
modern day leaders get convicted when short
on moral and criminal grounds. However, as
the rest of the world evolves in this social
balancing, Nigeria appears to draw back.
In the Nigeria of 2020, despite evident
mismanagement which keeps the country poor,
it remains a mirage to question leadership
over their time in power. In other climes,
first step to reset for prosperity was to bring
past leaders to justice on how they have
handled resources during their time. Ghana,
South Korea, Egypt, South Africa, the United
States are few among countries which have
tried and sometimes handed down
convictions and jail terms for bad leadership.
Except as a decoy for military take-over,
Nigerian political leaders have remained
reverently above the law. With a rigged judicial
system and lack of will to revamp, anything
can be explained away. Ours is the country
with fine human resources, we have proved,
till date, incapable of fostering a system of
free and fair elections, a situation which
makes it impossible to match the true will of
the people with the quality of leadership.
We are woefully blinded by religion and
ethnicity to our detriment. Any group of
people which places meritocracy below these
paltry and biased considerations set the
recipe for a rigged system. Such people are
quick to resign to predestination and
clannish prejudices. Denmark, Sweden,
Norway, The Netherlands and Switzerland
are five of top 10 countries said to be the best
places to live in, yet these are five of top 10
whose adults describe themselves as atheist.
Nigeria with all her overt religiosity and
spirituality ranks significantly high as a
poverty zone of the world. In any system that
does not operate on merit, there exists vested
interests who profit from prejudices and will
do everything to perpetuate themselves. In
Nigeria, these interests see government
apparels as their only sources of accumulating
wealth and status. They create a rigid
leadership unwilling to commit to the
strengthening of the rule of law and
accountability.
These socio-political cabals live solely in the
moment. Instead of saving and catering for
the future, they borrow from it. They are
threatened by the freedom of speech and the
development of the human index. They lay
siege both within and outside government and
hurl vile attacks against anyone who dares to
speak against the status quo. The sparse voices
of education and reasoning are very quickly
drowned by the forces of political hooligans.
The inverse relationship between our fine
human resources and the quality of our
leadership is more worrisome considering the
Abuja simply went to sleep while
sluggish steps that were limited to
our airports were taken to arrest
the spread of the virus. But even
then, the attitude from Abuja was
one of doubt and tentativeness. It
didn’t look like they believed in the
existence of the virus. Not until an
Italian business man visiting the
country suddenly took ill and was
diagnosed with the virus did
Nigerians know that the virus has
slipped into our country. That was
Nigeria’s index case.
Rather than act fast, Abuja was
still full of assurances that Nigeria
was up to the task of containing
the spread of the virus. Government
and its supporters took their lack
What other selfish
motives accounted for
Abuja’s delay in
protecting Nigerians
from the ravages of
corona virus at a much
earlier and less
prohibitive stage?
of initiative for invincibility,
allowing what could have been
restricted to the airports to
gradually spread across several
states of the country. From Lagos
to Ogun, Ekiti to Oyo and Abuja,
Covid-19 is gradually spreading,
with the number of people down
with the virus officially put at 30
as at March 22. Lagos had the
largest number of 22 people. There
is every reason to believe that the
national figure is much higher.
Between the first and the third
week in March, Nigerians were
anxious to hear from their leaders.
They craved words of assurance
Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2020 — 25
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from Muhammadu Buhari as
they could see leaders in other
parts of the world doing. But
there were none and rather than
take necessary steps to restrict
flight from affected regions of the
world into the country, President
Buhari and his team remained
mutely unconcerned until last
week when restriction was placed
on flights from 13 countries. It
was then left for governors in the
different states, particularly
Lagos under Babajide Sanwo-Olu
whose state was beginning to look
like the ground zero of the virus
in Nigeria to act fast.
For a state that was just
emerging from the avoidable mess
of an explosion that destroyed
many houses and left many dead
in Abule Ado, Lagos rose
admirably to the challenge,
followed by Ogun State, another
state on the frontline of states
exposed to the killer virus.
Governor Dapo Abiodun has been
as active as his counterpart in
Lagos, while the likes of Seyi
Makinde whose state harbours one
corona virus patient continues to
act confused as he urges Oyo State
citizens to be careful while he is
anything but careful in his ways,
organising campaign rallies with
heavy human presence or hosting
hip-hop singer, Davido who was on
a musical tour of Ibadan, the state
capital. All of this while a
nationwide Federal Government
ban on gatherings was in place!
Yes, Abuja finally woke up from
its deathly slumber last week when
it ordered the closure of schools at
all levels nationwide and sent
young Nigerians of the National
Youth Service Corps on orientation
straight to their places of primary
assignment. The government
fact that few times, individuals with
appreciable personal accomplishments who
are political outsiders have brought
themselves forward for election or attempted
to cause a new political movement. Sadly, they
have been dwarfed by damning voter apathy
or the buying power of political moneybags.
Current elections never really reinforces the
hope for a new beginning.
There is gross disconnect between our
leadership and the citizens. People would rather
provide for own amenities than supervise the
process that delivers good governance and
prosperity. They are oblivious of the need to
ensure that the right people get elected just the
same way we hire managers for our businesses
because they impact similarly.
It is pathetic for Nigerians
to agonise in abject poverty
yet incapable of thinking
above our complacency and
vexing to the point of
staking everything
As a solution, we need to review our contract.
Nigerians must be prepared to look at their
adversary in the eye and reset destiny.
Providence rarely occurs. We cannot languish
in human index and wait unto divinity. It is apt
to draw from the examples of prosperous
countries that take political leadership very
seriously and Hong Kong offers a suitable
current reference.
Over the past several months, a critical
section, mostly youth among the people of
Hong Kong, have taken to the streets in
protest against their government on
principles bordering on social welfare and
repulsion of influences from China. Hong
Kong is a country with GDP per capita of
$48,451.00 in 2018 (pre-protest) at the
same time that Nigeria’s was only
$2,033.00. By all standards, Hong Kong had
far much higher living standard than
Nigeria. Yet the people did not waver in
taking their leadership to task at the risk of
aggression. In contrast, it is pathetic for
Nigerians to agonise in abject poverty yet
incapable of thinking above our
complacency and vexing to the point of staking
increased the number of countries
from which flights are restricted.
By the end of that week all airports
in the country had been put under
lock. But all of this only happened
after the president’s unnamed
daughter had returned to the
country from Britain. Now, was the
delay in shutting the airports
connected to the need to have the
president’s daughter back in the
country first? What other selfish
motives accounted for Abuja’s
delay in protecting Nigerians from
the ravages of coronavirus at a
much earlier and less prohibitive
stage? Perhaps hoping to make a
virtue of corruption, Aisha, the wife
of the president, announced to
Nigerians that her daughter was
on self-isolation after her return
home. How many Nigerian lives
did the tardiness in acting fast
cost?
Now Abuja is stirring into action,
it’s the turn of our religious
brethren to endanger the safety of
Nigerians. Many of them,
Christians and Moslems alike,
have been vending salvation like
toast bread and blatantly
disregarded government directives
banning gatherings of any kind.
How does one begin to make sense
of this open display of contempt
for the state for private gain?
While this may seem an
appropriate opportunity for many
of them to add to their already
overflowing barn, they should at
the very least adhere to one of the
basic tenets of their preachment:
respect for authority. Are these
clerics now so full of themselves
that they equate themselves with
the state? Why is it more difficult
for them to obey rules meant for
the common good than it is for
them to fish in troubled waters?
everything. Mediocrity persists because
informed people refused to form themselves
into a critical mass and have no desire to
stimulate change. Instead they prefer to either
flee the country legally, thereby draining the
brains needed to put things right or sneak out,
thereby regurgitate the second class mentality
which had passed with slavery.
Nonetheless, by sheer providence, Nigeria
has witnessed flashes of progressive leadership
that needs to be consolidated upon. We need to
be deliberate to consistently raise the bar of
leadership both at national and subnational
levels. At the risk of stirring discord in
opinions, there are few states in Nigeria whose
current leaderships are perceived as
progressive and are, therefore, attracting the
right type of economic gravity. The states are
favourably disposed to open budget. They have
improved collaboration with the private sector
and lead homegrown initiatives to improve
the living standard of their people. Evidently,
they gradually become investment destinations
and economic hubs in their respective regions.
These governors, in their foresight, have also
been strictest advocates of child education,
setting aside substantial part of their budget
on education. They seek to automate processes
to avoid undue influences. To foster healthier
competition among states, the Nigerian
Bureau of Statistics should project more data
on the performance of subnational economies,
some of which are geographically larger than
countries.
By its simple definition, social contract provides
that a people’s moral and political obligations are
dependent upon contract or agreement among
themselves to form the society they live in. Put
differently, it states implicit obligations between a
people and their leadership. We, as a people, must
therefore take our civic duties seriously at the only
solution to our autocratic leadership. Starting with
the need to sanitise our electoral system, the elite
must form into a critical mass and rally in strength
to advance ideas of equality. We must improve
in civic advocacy and the quality of our political
engagements. We must see the duty of
participating in elections much the same way we
hire managers for our personal resources for which
accountability is key.
•Sanni is a Lagos-based Non-Interest
Banker.