COVID-19 Nigeria by Mories Atoki & Georgios Radoglou

None of these were necessary to combat the epidemic
Ebola and as such, did not come into play for the dynamics
to be better understood, refined and deployed for the
“global COVID-19 pandemic” hence what is being
witnessed today. As a matter of fact, one key dynamic that
came to play with this global pandemic which was not
present during the Ebola crisis was this – Nigeria’s elites
could not travel out of the country to access quality medical
care. This singular happenstance is the cornerstone that
many believe will alter the mindsets of those charged with
governing Nigeria – the realization that the only medical
Airports across the country shutdown
access that will be available is their country’s own public
healthcare system, a system that is ordinarily debilitated by
poor coordination, a lack of accountability, few incentives to improve performance and a lack of resources at the frontline.
These problems can be traced back to Nigeria’s competitive political settlement where the political elite frequently use state
resources to maintain the support of their allies and to co-opt potential rivals into accepting the status-quo. This situation,
while enabling a semblance of political stability in the short term, only serves to undermine the effectiveness of the public
sector in the long term as seen in the case of the health sector where the average citizen is left without access to quality or
affordable healthcare.
Granted, while the government seems to recognize moments of catastrophic threat and pull together political and technical
resources to head it off, this is not a viable or sustainable approach and cannot be practical. For instance, Nigeria has
recently had Lassa fever and Avian flu epidemics, but these were not addressed with the kind of technical, coordinated and
efficient leadership seen during Ebola or COVID-19 and why should it? Is it not time for the entire healthcare system to be
restructured and reorganized to manage public health efficiently and contribute to the Nigerian Nation’s resilience for the
coming challenges?
Tragically, COVID-19 is affecting Nigerian society much more broadly and deeply than the Ebola outbreak did. To respond
effectively, the country will need to strengthen the capacity of the public sector across the board. Federal State governments,
as well as the overarching Federal Government, must each lead their populations through the health and economic crisis.
The legacies of past governors will be significant, but each state can chart its own course through the pandemic. Some may
generate narratives of unity, such as in Ekiti State, where the governor has announced a 50 percent pay cut for his political
appointees in order to fund the state’s crisis response while others abdicate responsibility laying blame on the Federal
Government for abandoning its responsibility to the States while citizens die in droves as in the case of Kano State. However,
there are also deeply contrary extreme narratives where state governments deny the existence of the disease within their
borders as in the case of Kogi State where the governor has refuted the NCDC’s report of infections in the state and on the
opposite the governor of Benue state seeking economic benefits for his state by inflating the negligible COVID-19 infection
cases and maintaining them at the same level for weeks.
Following the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria after the lockdown, there are growing calls for sincerity on the parts of
the authorities, the health workers and citizens.
Graves in Kano following the state's government’s slow response