Palliative is a medical treatment that relieves suffering without treating its cause or an action designed to minimise the effect of a problem without solving the problem. Concerning the WAC (War against Coro), palliatives are the interventions by governments, organisations, associations and even individuals to ameliorate the impact of the triple locks (lockup, lockdown and lock-in) on the economies of individuals and businesses. In Nigeria, the issue in contention is whether the government is extending palliatives to the people or whether the people are the ones “palliativising” the government.
Now, earlier on, Britain picked up 80 percent of private sector wages and just recently, it subsidised lunch to the tune of 50 percent for Britons; food for the people and business for the restaurants. Ghana gave the poor free electricity till 2021. In Nigeria however, while Ogun and Lagos state governments reduced land-charges by 50 percent, the FG on 1/9/20, increased the price of fuel from N148 to N160 and doubled the price of electricity while interest on savings was reduced to 1.25 percent when inflation is around 13 percent. Long before now, the same government had increased the Kaduna-Abuja rail fare by 100 percent, Airport Service Charge by 100 percent and access fee by 300 percent. So, who is “palliativising” who?
Meanwhile, the government said that the hikes in the prices of petrol and power were by discos and oil companies but that the ‘wicked’ increment would transform the economy while the ruling APC says it was in the interest of the people. Some mischievous and unkind Nigerians (I am not among them) reminded them, with some wicked pictures, how they “occupied Nigeria” in January 2012 over a small version of the same matter! This is an appetizer.
The other day, the FG approved the $3.1bn customs modernisation project on a PPP basis. My mouth is too holy to mention the amount in Naira. I am not a quantity surveyor but the shiver that went through my body when I heard that figure was similar to what happened to me when I heard about N1.7bn for Abuja runway consultancy (just consultancy) and N64bn for Unimaid fencing. The other interesting news is that NARD is on strike over COVID allowance and other small matters (their ultimatum expired two weeks ago); just as ASUU is also on strike. Some people will argue that Customs earns the money and any money expended on them is an investment. Fine! So, the amount spent on health and education is not an investment? That is by the way.
Last week, some people asked me why I addressed Coro as an Oga and a celebrity. There are two reasons; first, it has taken the front-page and primetime spots in global print and electronic media. Second, it hangs out with celebrities and that enhances its celebrity status. In the last week, Neymar, Paul Pogba, Tanguby Ndombele (Tetenham) Silvio Berlusconi (former Italian President), Robert Pattinson (producer of Batman), Deayne “The Rock” Johnson, and his entire family, Riyad Mahrez and Aymeric Laporte (Manchester City) and Kylian Mbappe have all been “coronised”. Thus, even if we wanted to ignore coro, we cannot do so because of the association effect!
I thank the NDDC for responding to my “query” last week as to the suspiciously low figures from Kano. It is due to non-collection and non-testing of samples. Whereas it was a general feature across the country, that of Kano was worrisome. Kano, which generally accounts for about 10 percent of the tests in Nigeria, tested 11834 samples in the 14 days between 8-21 July but tested only 1364 between July 19 and September 1. So what it tested in the 6 weeks from 19/7/20 was 11 percent of what it tested in the preceding 2 weeks.
Back to the scramble for vaccines. Last week, it was reported with fanfare that Nigerian had received the Russian Vaccine, which the Minister of Health assured us would be referred to NAFDAC et al for assessment. The following day, in our very before, the Minister of State for health, said that Nigeria never received the vaccines; that the Putin-fellows merely came to the ministry to update them on developments in the vaccine! Is the “Chinese Doctor” scenario repeating itself? And you want us to trust the government?
Meanwhile, a report on the Russian vaccine has shown that at least, it is safe though it accused Russia of “vaccine nationalism”. While our VP is calling for equity and accessibility in vaccine matters, Australia, (25m citizens) has signed agreements for 85m doses ($1.2bn and from universities), which puts it at the “top of the queue” while the US starts mass distribution on November 1. Mr Bogillot, of Sanofi, has estimated that ultimately, a vaccine would cost about €10. Cheap, isn’t it? At the bank rate, that is about N5000 apiece and if countries are procuring in multiples of their population, we need about 500m doses. International flights have started and I note that elite irresponsibility is not a Nigeria-only disease. Surf the net and see a demeaning “love letter”, which a passenger served a hostess who asked him to mask his face.
The uncertainty about school reopening continues unabated. Iran begins a new school year despite the coro concerns while France shut down 22 schools days after reopening. Wales provides face masks for students at £2.3m while pupils are being asked to stay off school due to positive results. In other climes, parents fake sickness for their children so that they would not attend school. Ogun state has just adopted a staggered school opening timetable while private universities are pushing to be allowed to resume.
The novelty of coro continues to stun the world with new discoveries and surprises. On the surprise side, Kate Wise, in Texas, is battling for survival as a bottle of hand sanitizer exploded while she was lighting a candle while 50-year-old Solomon Ede, was suffocated to death by a tightfitting nose-mask which he wore to bed. On the discovery side, it is a sign of relief to hear that “coronised” people are less likely to transmit the disease after one week in Coro-captivity; and according to BBC, that there is a positive relationship between our poverty and low coro fatality.
Curiouser is the report that traces were found on frozen chicken imported to China from Brazil. That shows that coro is also a stubborn fellow, surviving in the frozen state for the 12893 nautical miles distance between the two countries that last about 43 days. And then, a discovery from an unusual quarter: Pope Francis has just discovered “a plague worse than COVID” and that is…gossiping!
Finally, on the global coro medal table, India has now won the silver medal, with 4.2m cases and 50 percent of these are from just 5 states and in Nigeria, it is bye to facemasks. Just a week after Anthony Sani, a former ACF scribe asked PMB to lead by example by masking his face, I have just gone around town, and I note sadly that 99 percent of the people I met on the trip from Okota to Akoka and back were mask-less. May be they are learnt from the oga at the very top!
Now to the issue of palliatives. We started today’s discourse with the strange practice of “reverse-palliatives”, in which we, the people, are “palliativising” the government. When I raised this matter earlier, I recalled that while each state was given 3 trailer loads of rice et al, Kano was giving 101( one hundred + one) trailer loads and that NDDC people expended N1.7bn to take care of themselves out of which the faint-hearted Prof-CEO received 10m. ( The politics of palliatives, 16/7/20). Anecdotal evidence shows that the government palliative has been all politics and little or nothing in substance.
Just the other day, the Oyo Commissioner for Information, Wasiu Olatubosun, alleged that the Federal Government intentionally neglected the state in the allocation of special funds and resources to prevent control and manage COVID-19. The Benue State Government also accused the FG of giving them 1800 bags of expired, inedible, hazardous rice. You recall that a similar accusation was raised against the FG by the SW states. Eventually, Ondo state backtracked, the others, all APC states, kept quiet and then it became an Oyo-State affair.
When Oyo state decided to return the rice, the Customs refused to accept it, and the Minister of Humanitarian and Cash Palliatives, declared bold-facedly that the rice was certified fit by NAFDAC. And when the NAFDAC Madam said openly that they did not certify the rice in question because they were not even requested to certify them, the Palliative Cash Madam declared: “The rice was assessed by NAFDAC, who issued a clearance before the goods were released’. Can you imagine? So, who was saying the truth? Well, it has been overtaken by events! Of course to begin from the beginning, it all started when the Customs, for whatever reason, represented the rice it seized from a serving Minister in 2016 as being seized in 2019! What is the truth of this date of seizure matter? It has been overtaken by events!
Long time ago, some thugs in Cross River state, led by a known Councillor, attacked the Commissioner for Humanity and Social Welfare in the state during an argument over sharing of palliatives. And then, in a survey on the coro palliatives, residents across Nigeria described the programme as ‘scam, fraudulent and poorly executed and as ridiculous’, lamenting that ‘In some cases, food items that could not feed a family of six for a day were given to hundreds of residents to share. This was exactly what happened in Lagos state, which started with a target of 200000 households and where the Governor, humbly admitted that their disclosed that the palliative programme designed to assist indigent and aged has been sabotaged; a statement that was not surprising because I had learnt from a friend that it was cornered by politicians. You will recall when some rascals converted a loaf of bread given to a street into a football!
Furthermore, it was in this palliative era that I learnt that a bag of rice has diverse specifications. When we were asked to collect bags of rice by Anambra State Government people quickly calculated their likely portions. Eventually, it happened that the bag of rice was 10kg. However I reserved my comment when Ifeanyi Uba’s own came out at 5kg and most often, the cost of customising the containers was more than the contents themselves. In Abuja, it sounded better to announce that 1000 5kg bags of rice were given to private schools rather than call it 100 bags. All political office seekers jumped into the palliative fray, with Dr Maduka introducing the Keke-Palli, providing fuel for keke and okada riders. In Kwara State, PDP accused APC of politicising the palliatives while APC retorted that “It is PDP that is playing politics with this COVID-19 pandemic. “COVID-19 knows no political party or history
A study by the Future Project revealed that despite all the noise, only 3 percent of coro palliatives were shared by governments while Association/ Registered organisations were responsible for – 45 percent; Non-registered organisation- 26 percent; Faith-based organisation – 10 percent; Individuals – 16 percent. And beyond the negligible involvement by governments, which made most noise, the non-government palliatives were genuine, meaningful and eye-marked by the people. There was also the issue of North-South Divide in the quantity and quality of palliatives. The incontrovertible verdict, which is obvious, is that the politics of the palliatives overwhelmed the substance of it and that all the governments, political parties and politicians were and are guilty.
