WAC: A war marred by communication collision

Three years ago, I mused on the confusing communication tendencies of this administration and argued that while it has been in the character of our previous government, this change-propelled administration has made it a cornerstone and I gave an example. ‘On 26/11/13, a group of rebel governors led other PDP members to join the APC and the great Lai Mohammed described the defection as a strategic merger that would give Nigeria and Nigerians a new lease of life. Five years down the line, the same group of rebels formed the APC and decamped mostly to PDP and the same Lai declared: Today is a special day. God has answered our prayers by exposing our political traitors. God has removed stones from our rice. The first act of political harlotry was strategic while the second was divinely ordained to de-stone the APC rice’ (Ik Muo: Communication Collision, Pharaseesm & Change Management. The Guardian, 23/8/18).

Communication Collision (CC) is the tendency to say opposing things depending on the time and circumstances or political brethren contradicting each other in the market square; when what one said previously collides with what the same person says presently or when two people, supposedly in the same camp publicly contradict or lambast each other. It involves one contradicting himself, contradicting his comrade or contradicting the past with the present. This tendency I wrote about 3 years ago has become so professionalized that we cannot have it better elsewhere and it has become the major on-doing of this WAC (War Against Coro).

If NAFDAC has just approved a vaccine for Nigeria, which vaccines were CACOVID, Nigerian Governors Forum and other groups promising to buy for us? Or was any group working from answer to question?

Of course, I treated a similar matter when I wrote on the forked-tongue tendencies of the Federal government last week (Ik Muo: Chatham House Declaration, Forked Tongues and Our Security Catastrophe; BusinessDay, 25/2/21). I also note that in Nigeria of today, everything is a war: War Against Corruption, War against IPOB, War against banditry, War Against ASUU, War against Sunday Igboho, War against hate speech and its twin brother, hate-speech, and War Against EndSARS. Probably, that is why nothing is working because we are fighting many wars in many directions at the same time.

In June 2020, the PTF unveiled its Ten-Pillar Multisectoral Strategy for WAC and one of the pillars was Risk Communication and Community Engagement. How can that pillar work when we have 1001 institutions and person communication with us on the WAC? Communication on WAC comes from the Minister of Information, Minister of health and his junior counterpart, the PTF represented by the Boss; The Coordinator of PTF (Dr Aliu), The PTF National Incident Commander, the NCDC, NAFDAC, National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Ministry of Education, National Research Institutes and at times the amorphous Presidency! So, why won’t there be Communication Collision (CC) or confusion in the land over coro?

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Let’s start from the vaccine matter. Nobody was sure of the quantity, the type, the source, the arrival date, the projected number of people to be vaccinated, the cost of the vaccines and the cost of the vaccination. The figures have varied from 100,000 to 4m to 47m, to 57m, to 109m to 120m while the arrival date had moved from early 2021 to late January, to early February to late February to April. Until the Minister of Health confessed that he was no longer sure of the date while the NPHCDA boss informed us that the date would be fixed by COVAX. And just on 2/3/21, we took delivery of 3.9m doses, enough to vaccinate about 1% of Nigerians and we held a reception party for the vaccines, when Ghana & Ivory Coast had started jabbing! And since COVAX is free, why was a government official telling us that the delay in arrival was caused by negotiation over prices and why was BUA Group and CACOVID quarrelling over who paid for what?

Recently, NAFDAC gleefully announced the approval of the AstraZeneca brand for Nigeria. Good enough. It is not only Willie that is working; this shows that NAFDAC is also working. But other questions arose. If NAFDAC has just approved a vaccine for Nigeria, which vaccines were CACOVID, Nigerian Governors Forum and other groups promising to buy for us? Or was any group working from answer to question? And how many people are we planning to vaccinate? 109m? 75%? 50%?

We all recall when the FG directed students in exit classes (SS3, JSS3 and Primary 6) to resume so as to write exams. However, the same government had earlier declared that Nigerian students would not write WAEC and while that was going on, the Minister of state for Education had advised parents who were not sure of their childrens’ safety to keep them away from School. The Minister of Education said that they were ‘forced’ by states to open the schools. He was in effect singing, ‘it wasn’t me’, that hit-song released by Shaggy in 2000. PTF told us that we had flattened the curve but at the same time told us not to rejoice and while it declared that the second wave was upon us, the Oyo State Government said ‘it is a lie’ while the Kogi State Governor or government (they are not different) said there was no Coro, even though the government is said to have budgeted some billions for the vicious enemy.

The great Lai had told us that coronised corpses would not be released for burial but we all knew what happened to the corpse of Abah-Kyari. And then, we remember the famed mysterious deaths in Kano. The Minister of Health said about 60% was caused by Covid. The PTF Technical Team said that there was no evidence but that they would investigate and then said that its preliminary reports indicated that most of the deaths were coro-related. The governor of Kano set up its own team and after its verbal-autopsy model declared that it was a mere 16% and that the report by the Ministry of health or PTF should be thrown into the ocean. As at today, nobody is sure of what exactly happened. We don’t have the patience to follow through on any matter except it involved sharing money!