Dayo Sobowale
Lockdowns have become the new global life style of human existence nowadays . It was difficult to contemplate before, when it was about foreign lands but when you have lived in it for a week as we have done in Lagos, then you see clearly that it is not at all a laughing matter . Now you understand why those indoors on their balconies in Italy shout ‘idiots ‘at people they see on the streets during lockdown not knowing some of them are medical personnel. Italy for now is second only to the US in terms of deaths in their thousands, as the center of the corona virus pandemic . You can also appreciate why in Lagos state a famous actress and her husband have been fined 1000 naira each for holding a party during lockdown while the police is still searching for prosecution all those who attended the party. In Scotland the Chief Medical Officer attending the daily corona virus briefing with the PM was captured on social media on a visit to her country home with her family; and after protests or maybe even without that. The PM s aked she should just resign as a bad example on the safety and lockdown rules she daily proclaimed .
In real and grim terms, the corona virus has shown that life has no duplicate and that viruses are no respecter of persons. A good example of that is UK PM Boris Johnson who was reported to be fighting for his life in the Intensive Care Unit in the UK. He warned rightly at the beginning of the epidemic that people will die with the grim rider ‘without sugar coating it‘; an expression the US president Donald Trump later adopted when accused wildly by the opposing media against him, that he had downplayed American leadership appreciation of the gravity of the pandemic initially. In Nigeria the Chief of Staff to the President at the powerful Aso Rock has gone on self-quarantine after testing positive. At UCH Ibadan, Nigeria’s oldest teaching hospital the Chief Medical Director has tested negative, gone to seclusion and resumed duty, while the Chairman of the board of the hospital has tested positive a second time and is again gone on quarantine. On this pandemic issue the rules are clear and as the Federal Government spokesman said on the convicted actress case, nobody is above the law.
However despite the real dangers of death by asphyxiation and dry cough, the reported symptoms of this deadly pandemic, it would seem some part of the world is not facing it with a herd mentality inherent in the favourite strategy of lockdowns to contain it. Examples abound of those who simply defy the lockdowns and get away with it or threaten those who try to effect the lock down by law. According to reports there was the usual massive traffic jam in Lekki during this week of lock down such that even a medical personnel allowed to move during the lockdown had to turn back home because there was no road to his destination. The excuse given for the traffic jam was that the police were checking for those violating the lockdown hence the traffic logjam. But since thetraffic jam has always been a feature of the place it is apparent the logjam was caused by lockdown violators . An excuse has been given that those in Lekki are rich people and have large number of cars but they are not above the law and the state should show that nobody is above the law like the FGN said. And indeed, the state should not make laws it cannot keep.
In Ogun state the Governor Dapo Abiodun , obviously got annoyed with protests over the clearance for Dangote trailers and others to ply its borders and roads during the lockdown and asked people to try and be like Dangote, because to the governor, Dangote has helped on the virus finance support and is the richest man in Africa. That peculiar observation on riches is not an original observation of the Ogun state governor as there is a popular song by a rapper that says Dangote does not have two heads to be so rich and he prays to be like him. But that is not the point here and I think the good governor has missed the point of the criticism. The Dangote trailers , tankers and different mechanical contraptions have been a menace on Lagos and Ogun state roads all the time, and to grant them exemption during lockdown makes the public think they are above the law in these two states on which the Federal Government has, from Abuja clamped a lockdown for two weeks . Already the Federal Minister of Information has somewhat gleefully warned that the lockdown will be extended if citizens or residents in the two states do not respond which is an unhelpful and spiteful advice in these testy times. I expect Lagos state to have the same attitude shown by the Ogun state governor on the Dangote issue but one should keep in mind that it is the same FGN which said clearly that nobody is above the law on lockdown violations.
Let us now move to Germany and the US where some people are taking the law into their hands or challenging it in their intention to insist that life must go on as usual in spite of the deadly pandemic . Let me note again that Germany has the lowest rate of deaths in Europe on the pandemic and the US has the highest, being the epicenter of the virus . In Europe Germany has a rate of 1.5 % while Spain which has the largest deaths has 9.5% and Italy has 7.5 percent. Germany’s low death rates has been ascribed to limiting tests to those with symptoms as even some German critics of even this fine performance, have said it would take three years to test all Germans. While the German government has insisted on the lockdowns a fanatic Catholic body took the German government to court on the issue because the government insisted the Churches will not be opened for Easter services this year. A German court backed the government and ruled that the lockdown and closure of churches for Easter do not violate freedom of worship or religion in Germany. The intending violators have argued that if people can be allowed to go out and buy food and beverages in lockdowns, they should be allowed to go to Church. The government lawyers however countered that people stay longer together in Churches and that can make even social distance unproductive in containing the virus. So, for now the law has had its way in protecting lock down and social distance on religious worship in Germany which I hope religious bodies should notice and embrace globally, especially in Nigeria.
In the US, too, a court ruled in the opposite direction to the situation in Germany on lockdown with regard to the state primaries of the Democratic Party in the state of Wisconsin. The Democrat state governor had ordered a lock down and postponement of the primaries, because of the pandemic and was taken to court by the Republicans who argued that the state governor did not have the power to postpone the election unilaterally . But the State Supreme court which has a Republican majority on its bench ruled that the primaries must hold despite the lockdown this week. The Democrats had wanted voting by post which the Republican US President Donald Trump called ‘corrupt‘ in the circumstances. The Republicans could be accused of making an ass of the law or playing politics with it, but undoubtedly in Wisconsin, the Supreme Court or even the Republicans have put politics above public safety and one prays or hope they will not pay a steep price for this later with this pandemic. But then the basis of society is the law and it must be obeyed, lock down or no lockdown. Once again, long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
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