Events of the past five days after the easing of the five-week lockdown on Nigeria’s two major cities, Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja plus Ogun State says it all that many citizens are yet to come to terms with the nature of coronavirus and/or the reality of its presence.
The first day of the easing of the lockdown, Monday, May 4 precisely, Nigerians, especially residents of the two major cities, threw caution to the winds, trooped out and carried on as though the easing of the lockdown was synonymous with the easing of the activity or erasing of the presence of the deadly virus.
All the precautionary measures and guidelines ordered by the government and advised by the health authorities were scarcely adhered to even by otherwise knowledgeable men and women who trooped out of their homes in their thousands without face-masks to the markets or banks where mammoth crowds were seen “hugging” one another on interminable queues.
Incrementally, with each passing day, things have been getting worse and all that can be seen is danger ahead. Daily scenes and rising numbers of confirmed cases and deaths simply show that government’s projections for the fight against the deadly virus are not looking bright at all.
“The overall assessment of compliance with the measures and outcomes of modeling we have developed point in the direction of danger ahead. We, therefore, need personal discipline, increased awareness and enforcement,” Boss Mustapha, chairman, Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid 19, affirmed at a briefing in Abuja.
The rising numbers are not only scary, but also scandalous. It is not, therefore, surprising that community transmission of the virus is on the rise as anxious citizens have thrown all physical and social distancing protocols out of the window.
The result of this is already showing, especially in Lagos. The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Thursday night, released what is so far the highest number of confirmed cases in the three months of the pandemic in the country.
The centre confirmed 381 new cases in the country, bringing the total number of cases in the country so far to 3,526 with 601 recoveries and 107 deaths. A breakdown of the new number shows that Lagos is still leading with 183 cases followed by Kano which recorded 55 cases.
The fear, which is not misplaced, is that the numbers are going to get higher and the situation messier in the coming days and weeks, showing danger signs that need to be addressed quickly.
There are indications that government may be compelled to reintroduce the lockdown and that will happen if, as Mustapha said, Nigerians fail to realise the fact that “our individual and collective safety is in our hands and I re-echo my call and appeal to Nigerians to demonstrate our duty to ourselves and loved ones by minimising the risk of getting infected by the virus.”
The greater danger in Nigerians’ attitude to the rampaging virus is that quite a good number of people go about with the illusion that the virus does not exist or that there is low infection rate or both.
But Okey Ikechukwu, executive director at Development Specs Academy, was quick to correct that erroneous impression in his submissions at a TV programme, Sunrise Daily. “The truth of the matter is that the record creates a deceptive impression of low infection rate,” he said, adding, “We are not testing enough people.”
Ifeanyi Casmir, the publicity secretary of Association of Laboratory Scientists of Nigeria, affirmed this, explaining that the country was slow in testing because of capacity under-utilisation. He disclosed that there are over 30,000 laboratory scientists that could be deployed to ramp up testing.
Casmir noted that the country was yet to see rise in the number of confirmed cases until the end of May when the results of testing of a backlog of over 2000 collected samples will be ready and released.
Evidently, Nigeria is not doing enough testing and that, more than anything else, gives false impression to even infected but undetected persons that all is well. As at Thursday, May 7, the total number of confirmed cases for the entire South East was 19. Enugu State alone accounts for 9.
This is very deceptive. The situation in that region of the country is like that because no much is being done there in terms of testing as opposed to the North and the South West. The governors of the region are beating their chests over this seeming infection-free status, but that is a larger picture of a looming.
It follows therefore that, beyond the individual or personal responsibility in terms of observing the protocols as requested by the PTF chairman, government also has to play its own role and should do so diligently well.
“While the citizenry will have to behave more responsibly, governments at federal and state levels have to up the ante and be alive to their responsibilities,” Joe Okei-Odumakin, president, Centre for Change, advised, noting that other causes for worry are the reported shortage of reagents to continue with testing, depleted stock of PPE even for health workers, and shortage of bed spaces at isolation centres.
Besides ramping up testing and providing PPE, reagents and all, Odumakin also advised that “The professionals must be listened to rather than resorting to knee-jerk political decisions to satiate sentiments or curry fleeting advantages that will ultimately prove disastrous.”
She added that close attention must continue to be paid to the skyrocketing figures while all possible solutions should be painstakingly considered, and home-grown solutions must be factored into the equation like other nations, some of them even African, are doing.
Similarly, Ikechukwu advised that while Nigerians continue to savour the sweet-bitter taste of their new found freedom (from the lockdown) even as danger stares wickedly at them, government should step up sensitisation and communication.
“I think the only way to curtail the spread of the virus now is actual activation of genuine sanitisation; let all the big men and women who are holding public office, who are now hiding in their houses, know that they were put in place to serve the people.
“Let communication extend up to that level; by the time people are told the implications, the number of those who would deliberately misbehave would reduce,” he said.
Ikechukwu stressed the point that the easing of the lockdown should not be mistaken for an easing of the rate of infection or the continued activity of the virus itself, citing the Ghana experience where more cases were reported after easing its lockdown.
“You saw what happened in Ghana; they eased the lockdown and the infection increased. The fear and possibility of such happening in Nigeria are real and is already manifesting in some few places,” he noted.
Before it went into lockdown, Ghana had 1,154 cases. But as at Thursday two weeks ago, the country had climbed to 3,091. Patrick Aboagye, head of the Ghana Health Service, said the country had a 0.66 percent mortality rate and a 2.1percent infection rate based on the 130,000 tested samples done so far.
Perhaps, the position of the Nigerian government may not be the best in the present circumstance. The PTF was quoted as saying that the outcome of the easing of the lockdown in some Nigerian cities would determine whether or not to enact a stricter measure on compliance level.
Sani Aliyu, the PTF national coordinator, said they were expecting to see the impact manifesting in 10-14 days’ time, adding that their recommendation to the President for stricter measures or not would depend on the outcome of their monitoring. But, in view of unfolding events, that time no longer seems realistic.
