There is no gain saying the fact that the ordinary Nigerian is confused over how exactly to go about the fight against COVID-19. The reason is simply that our leaders, political as well as religious, are not speaking with a singleness of purpose. Take one of the most controversial issues of recent: The coming of a team of medical experts from China. Amidst protest by some individuals and groups of professionals, particularly health workers, Minister of Health Osagie Ehanire, said it was not the federal government that invited the team. On a second breath, he said: “we are not unhappy that they are here”. How does the average Nigerian interpret this?
Apparently, what the minister meant was that the federal government did not on its own invite the team but that it was the Chinese construction giant, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation limited (CCEC) that brought it. But it was with the government’s approval or was it not? The equivocation is uncalled for. One, it suggests an indirect attempt to wash the federal government’s hands off the controversy. Two, and more disheartening, it was an apparent admission that the government had no option than to give approval to the request by the construction company. This is not a good impression to give, whether or not it is wrongly perceived.
Next, take the altercations between the leadership of the National Assembly and President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Social Investment, Hajiya Maryam Uwais. The NASS leadership had, at a meeting on Tuesday, April 6, at which Senate President, Ahmad Lawman and House Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, were present – with the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Hajia Sadiya Farouq, sought some clarifications on the disbursement of cash to “the poor and most vulnerable” as palliatives to the hardship brought about by the lockdown and as directed by the president
In effect, the NASS leadership expressed dissatisfaction over the handling of the disbursement and sought for legislation that will guide the Social Investment Programme (SIP) in future. Remarkably, there were no altercations between the top NASS members and the minister. But just the next day, Hajiya Uwais fired at the former. She made several claims which included that members of the National Assembly had all this while been wanting to teleguide, manipulate or even hijack the SIP.
While the revelations by Uwais are quite weighty and stands for a topic of its own, the thing to note, in the time being, is that it was an entirely different functionary, not the Minster of Humanitarian Affairs, that came to the defence of the executive arm. Interestingly, Mrs Uwais’ response came in less than 24 hours after the meeting between the minister and the leadership of NASS. Which means that it was most unlikely that the Special Adviser (Uwais) and the Minister (Farouq) had discussed the matter before the former fired her salvo.
Better still, it was most unlikely that the response was well harmonized and articulated to give Nigerians the true picture. In any case, the SIP, according to Mrs. Uwais herself, was transferred to the Ministry in October 2019. This means that what Nigerians would have expected was that the explanations by the special adviser should have come from the minister.
Even though the revelations by the special adviser are quite interesting and requires further interrogations, as I have already noted, the incident leaves room for some skepticism over the relationship between the two top functionaries. Interestingly, the media slant on the controversy was that Mrs. Uwais was responding on behalf of the presidency. So, is there a difference between the presidency and the ministry? Still, the next day, the same NASS leadership issued a statement denying “attacking” the presidency over the SIP, further confounding Nigerians.
Or take another ambiguity: The arrest of two helicopter pilots in Port Harcourt on the orders of the Rivers State government and the counter by the federal government, through the minister of aviation, Hadi Shirika that the pilots were on a legitimate assignment. As I write, the debate on which side is right is still on but what strikes Nigerians is that the matter arose at all; at a time when governments at all levels are expected to work in unison. Not a few Nigerians felt that the sharp disagreement between the federal and the Rivers State governments is a negation of the spirit needed for the fight against COVID-19.
From Cross River state came yet another set of ambiguities. The governor, Ben Ayade, gave a directive that nobody should venture outside without wearing a face mask. Yet, both the World Health Organization and the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have maintained that face mask is not necessary unless one is showing symptoms of the coronavirus. Up till this moment, the state government is unable to produce enough face masks to go round an estimated population of close to four million people, even though it is also said that a mask can only be worn once. Is Ayade’s no-mask-no-movement policy popular even among his people? Most unlikely; which means that it is one of those instances of high handedness many state governments are being accused of in the COVID-19 war.
Talking about state governments, the few days before the recently marked Christian festival of Easter further confounded many observers over the pervasive incoherence in the Covid-19 war. At least three state governments – Rivers, Ondo and Kogi “relaxed” restrictions on movements to enable Christians prepare for Easter. The three states in particular gave the nod, apparently under pressure from some religious leaders, for churches to hold normal services on Easter Sunday. But it soon backfired as their governors came under severe criticism. In one very interesting case, the leadership of Catholic Church in Rivers State told its faithful to disregard the state governor’s ‘magnanimity’ and remain indoors on Easter Sunday.
Promptly, the Rivers State government recanted. Ondo State followed suit. Needless to say, not only were the directives not well thought out but they clearly suggest a cut-and-paste approach by the political leadership across the country. Not even the presidency can completely exonerate itself on the apparent lack of tenacity. On Sunday, March 29, President Buhari gladdened the hearts of many Nigerians when he gave clear directives on the total ban of movements in two states – Lagos and Ogun – and the federal capital territory. From every account, that directive, which is more popularly known as “lockdown”, has been observed more in breach than in compliance even to the third position in a scale of one to 10. Two main reasons accounted for this. One, the government did not take plans to, ab initio, school the enforcers of the presidential directives on the rules of engagement.
Consequently, some of the enforcers overdid it as we saw in Warri, Delta State. Two, and a corollary, the Nigerian factor came in, like in every other thing of this nature in our clime. The enforcers saw opportunity for self-help. As has been widely reported, hundreds of passenger-laden buses empty into Lagos and Abuja every day; each vehicle paying up to N1000.00 per ‘toll gate’, of course after making the travellers pay more than quadruple the usual fare.
Finally, not even the religious leaders are spared from the haziness. Witness the exchanges between some leading Pentecostal church leaders over the alleged relationship between “5G” and COVID-19. We need not name names here since the story is too well known but there can be no doubt that not a few are worried over this apparent lack of consensus even among knowledgeable top religious leaders on a matter as serious as this.
Nobody, the world over, can say how long this human tragedy will last but it is striking that even in climes where the pandemic has proved far more catastrophic than we have here and, may, by the grace of God, ever have, leaders there have shown more consistency, coherence and steadfastness. For obvious reasons, we in Nigeria may not achieve the same level of composure but there is definitely a need to start trying.
