Festus Eriye
As the initial 14-day lockdown ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja, drew to a close last week, pent up frustrations began to boil over. One 30-something man’s road rage captured in a viral video somewhere in the federal capital summed up the feelings of many.
Security agents had just impounded his taxi for breaching the stay-at-home order to eke out something for his family to feed. Cue the most unusual one-man protest you would ever see. Ranting and raving about the injustice that had been meted to him, he starts shedding clothes until he was left with just his boxers.
Reporters who recorded the bizarre striptease asked why he was out when the government had expressly asked people to stay home. He retorted that he couldn’t remain indoors as he had a wife and two kids to feed.
Reminded that the lockdown directive was for his wellbeing, he replied that he wasn’t worried about death by coronavirus as the ‘hunger virus’ would probably finish him off before Covid-19 has the pleasure.
In another surreal video filmed in Igbore, Abeokuta, Ogun State, an elderly woman of indeterminate age was captured offering sex to any man who would pay N500 so she could feed her children! The footage was posted last Friday by journalist Kolawale Atanda Adejojo on his Instagram page.
Incredulous, her interviewer wondered if she could still be involved in such amorous activity at her age just to feed. “Why not”, she replied matter-of-factly. This poor woman’s desperate deployment of her last remaining asset just to keep hunger at bay for another day attracted the attention of the likes of celebrity music producer, Don Jazzy, who despatched N100,000 to her as an act of mercy.
The lockdown threw up many other acts of desperation revolving round the themes of hunger and poverty. In the last 72 hours newspapers were awash with tales of street gangs swarming all over neighbourhoods in Lagos and Ogun States, dispossessing hapless citizens of their possessions.
Some of these teenage criminal gangs with names like ‘One Million Boys’, ‘Awawa Boys,’ are not spontaneous by-products of the coronavirus crisis. They have long operated in different areas of Lagos where they are noted for their proclivity for violence.
For those who had been groaning about the deprivations of the shutdown, the sudden rash of robberies was the perfect storm of misery. Many cowered in their homes and sent SOS to the police who most times were of no help. In one particular case, a caller got through but was told that their cells were already full!
Quickly grasping that help wasn’t coming from the security agencies any time soon, communities rose up as one in self-help. Young and old turned vigilantes patrolling their streets all night to ward off would-be invaders. By weekend many who had been moaning about hunger now had sleep starvation to add to their woes.
Underlying these dramatic incidents is the very real dilemma of how to balance the benefits of the lockdown against the need for people earn a living. Several countries are battling with this. There have been protests in India where the nationwide lockdown has been extended to May 3; in the US people who are conscious of the dangers of the virus, are just as terrified of losing their jobs.
President Donald Trump doesn’t want to see too many deaths arising from the pandemic, but is concerned about the damage being done to the economy by the extended shutdown. He has openly wondered whether the cure may not be more devastating than the ailment.
It was the same question President Muhammadu Buhari had to address in his second national address in two weeks. Acknowledging the sufferings of millions who survive on a daily income, he warned that the pandemic was ‘not a joke’ and called on people to endure.
To underline the seriousness of the situation, he pointed to examples of mosques in Mecca and Medina which have been shut throughout this period, as well as the Pope delivering his Easter homily to an empty St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
But his examples were foreign ones too far-removed for millions of his listeners to relate. In today’s Nigeria not too many are impressed about the severity of Covid-19. It doesn’t matter how much preaching is done by public officials.
A colleague told me of an encounter with a middle level police officer mid-week. He was dismissive when she made a case for sustaining the current measures. His every word dripping cynicism, he asked if she had encountered any Covid-19 patient. He then declared that it was just a ruse by people in power to embezzle money!
We face a massive task of getting people to take the pandemic seriously. Evidence all over the world suggests that many don’t stop to take notice until things get to a crisis point.
Even in the UK where people are dying by the hundreds every day, newspapers have been forced into shaming ‘covidiots’ who keep flouting lockdown guidelines. Imagine how much harder it is to drive home your message when officially total fatalities in Nigeria are just 10.
Even worse, I sense dwindling enthusiasm for enforcing the restrictions on the part of security agents. If the lockdown is being increasingly compromised you wonder what good it is doing. Are we just going through the motions or truly aiming to achieve an end?
Buhari and the Presidential Task Force on Covid-19 have stated that great progress was made slowing the spread of the virus in the last fortnight. This suggests that more of the same medicine in the next two weeks could result in further improvements.
Unless there is a sudden deterioration, we must begin to prepare for life post-shutdown.
Given the strains and stresses on the populace in the areas affected by the lockdown, it is hard to see how this measure can be sustained for much longer. Irrespective of the uncertainties, pressure is bound to increase on government to ease the restrictions unless it can show that things are worse than we thought.
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