Perhaps this should
also give us the opportunity to reflect on the type of society we want: do we
continue to live with this increasing inequality so that we can continue to
produce a few Dangotes while millions sleep under the bridge or do we work
towards a more just, equitable society where our focus would be to democratise
resources to meet the needs of all and seek to banish hunger?
When in the face of
the dangers that COVID-19 presents, a country is reduced to a debate that is
cast as a binary option between lockdown and hunger, you know that leadership
has gone on leave outside of the country. This is not just at the level of
government, critical as that is, but also in the wider breath of leadership
centres in the country – business, civil society, religious, etc. – no one
wants both and the debate how can we banish the reason for both.
How could it be that
a government is so bereft of ideas in designing and implementing effective
palliative measures but there is no forceful presentation and canvassing of an
alternative beyond the clap trap of “if you do not do me palliative, I will not
do you lockdown?” How come the mobilisational capacity and the civic agency of
the citizenry have all but gone to sleep, left by an ineffectual stirring of
few civil society organisations in an ineffective shout of catch phrases of
monitoring accountability of the implementation of the palliatives? Are we
saying that we agree there is a palliatives scheme which has credibility and
potentially effective that we can monitor? Labour has suddenly disappeared in
the radar to leave medical and health workers at the frontline of the battle
against COVID-19 to negotiate on their own protection and hazards at the
service of the nation. The prophets of private sector as the engine of growth
have suddenly gone quite: Can they step out and show leadership if they truly want
us to believe in their worn-out message that the private sector, not the state,
is the solution. Truth is that like leeches, they feast on the public sector
they want us to hate, to nourish for their phenomenal profits.
There is no point
beating a dead horse in this matter. This government has shown an unparalleled
level of incompetence in confronting the challenges of COVID-19. It has
adequate window of grace to do its preparation. Since late January, it could
have built and equipped testing, isolation and quarantine centres at all the
major international gateways of the country and implement a compulsory
quarantine for all coming into the county, the way a number of countries did.
It did not and instead it is responding in an ad-hoc manner after the chicken
gone home to roast. It would have used the grace period to design and even test
run a palliative system, mobilizing ideas in an inclusive way. It did not and
instead in the late hour got a few political appointees and bureaucrats to do
what they have no idea about. How can it be that in an all-important battle of
save lives, government will opt for a non-inclusive body to handle this task?
The same government that is calling on all (private sector, development
partners, individuals) to make contribution but doesn’t want any of these to be
part of the management of the resources or even harvest ideas from these on how
to use the resources.
It would have
carried out a massive sensitization campaign to prepare people both
psychologically and in terms of understanding that we all have a role to play
in curbing the spread of the virus. It missed this opportunity such that today
it is not outlandish to hear people in the streets offering the argument that
it is better to die outside in the hospital than to die in groaning at home to
the fangs of hunger.
The Presidential
Taskforce is all but a self-serving committee only interested in the daily
sitting allowance they get (reported to be N500,000 per day: give a local
community organization in Zuba this amount to mount a community sensitisation
campaign, it could succeed in getting everyone to be at home, palliative or
not). Its messages are fall flat and unbelievable because it has not worked to
earn public trust and confidence. Take as simple as providing electricity free
for the citizens under lockdown. The government cannot fight away to reach
agreement with the DisCos. The presidential committee does not understand the
importance of electricity in the lockdown period. It is not for citizens to
have cold water and keep perishable things (which is also important) but that
in the lockdown, electricity and data are what people need to stay connected
and informed.
What do we see? It
is a horrible celebration of anarchy as we gleefully report of armed youth committing
arson or robbery staking neighbourhood and we say it is paying the government
right. The problem is that it is not the government that is paying for the
consequences. It is our own people as double victims first of arson and rubbery
and then second at the hand of COVID-19 when being out, exposed, heighten the
possibility of contracting the virus. We amplify the messages of anarchy in the
mistaken belief that this will force the government to act. The truth is that
no anarchy has ever solved any social problem. They cannot accelerate history
as in the dawn of the social revolution. They can only disorganize and defocus
the revolutionary forces of real social. A mob cannot be the leadership that is
missing across the breath of society in Nigeria.
But where government
has failed, it becomes necessary for citizens to take the leadership. We cannot
keep waiting for a government that is incapable of providing an aspiring
leadership to lead the way. We must become the saviours of our communities. We
have done enough of lamentation. Now is time to end that and think boldly and
act swiftly. We must understand the key challenges which is curbing the spread
of the virus while ensuring people have food to eat under lockdown and provide
concrete solutions that can work whether government accepts them or not. Let it
be known that even without lockdown, millions of Nigeria have been going to bed
hungry.
Perhaps this should
also give us the opportunity to reflect on the type of society we want: do we
continue to live with this increasing inequality so that we can continue to
produce a few Dangotes while millions sleep under the bridge or do we work
towards a more just, equitable society where our focus would be to democratise
resources to meet the needs of all and seek to banish hunger?
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