Policing lockdown in various states

By Barometer

The clearest indication that Nigeria’s COVID-19 response is devoid of coherence and leadership is how the states are prosecuting the war against the disease and, as they put it, passionately defending their people.  Some states have imposed a lockdown; others have gone one degree or the other towards a shutdown. But whether shutdown or lockdown, many states have inadvertently portrayed Nigeria as a pastiche of independent entities almost to the total exclusion of the federal government. The federal government has not helped matters, as it seems overwhelmed by the disease and scared of its progression.

No one of course expects that states would not have their peculiarities, which should shape their responses to the disease. But due to the inconsistency of responses, it has become harrowing to transport humans and goods across state lines, thereby stymieing economic activities and creating needless tensions. Some states bar or delay trucks conveying agricultural products, with traffic gridlock stretching long distances; while other states turn back travellers on federal highways who are merely commuting through states on lockdown. Ondo State has barred travellers passing through their state, and Niger State has ordered a truck from Lagos en route Kano to return to Lagos. The confusion was avoidable if the federal government had taken the initiative to harmonise the fight against the disease while taking cognisance of local laws and peculiarities.

The federal government has not fared better in harmonising the federal-led fight against the disease. It would, therefore, be hard to expect it to set examples for the states. On his own, Rivers State’s Governor Nyesom Wike has mistaken legitimate commitment in the fight against the disease for fanatical defence of state rights in a health crisis that admittedly has local peculiarities. Ogun and Lagos States should wage a harmonised war against the disease in view of the ties between their economies. But dissonance has crept in. The federal government admitted the existence of such ties, and both states at first seemed to have acknowledged the ties, but almost immediately drifted apart.

The disharmony and lack of leadership in the COVID-19 war are exacerbated by the appalling unprofessionalism of a significant section of the law enforcement agencies, especially the military and the police. When Mr Wike shut down Rivers State borders, soldiers at checkpoints interpreted his orders to mean the complete cessation of movements between the state and other states, irrespective of the economic activities involved. Even newspaper delivery vehicles were barred from travelling between states, with press vehicles disabled and drivers traumatised. Some states have recorded casualties due to the heavy-handedness of security agents who violently confronted those alleged to have defied the lockdown orders. Some other victims escaped with injuries or summary incarceration.

Responding to the violence that threatened to unravel the COVID-19 war, the presidential task force on the disease and other supervising agencies of government at the federal and state levels have ordered the security agencies to be civil but firm in their policing of the lockdown/shutdown. Nevertheless, more than a dozen people have reportedly lost their lives, depressingly almost equal to the number of Nigerians who have lost their lives to the disease. This is, of course, indefensible.

The killings reflect the fault lines exposing the country to the forces of chaos, if not disintegration. The problem is not that the task force or some of the state governments do not have an instinctive understanding of how to police the lockdown; what they are battling with are security agencies whose cultures over the past few decades have become abhorrent and counterproductive to the survival and stability of the country.

Having failed for decades to remedy the professional shortcomings of the security agencies, the country finds itself embroiled in a health crisis that needs sound policies and measures from the governments as well as highly professional and patriotic law enforcement and security agencies. There is no half measure. It is in fact disgraceful that heads of the security agencies had to continue reiterating to their men the need to approach their policing work with the highest degree of professionalism and patriotism, asking them in addition to reserve their strong-arm tactics for criminals who take advantage of the lockdown to unleash mayhem on the civil populace.

Hopefully, the federal government will later do a post-mortem of the COVID-19 war and recognise that one of the problems that hampered the early resolution of the crisis was the behaviour of those asked to police the various panaceas administered to curb the spread of the disease. The authorities should indeed wonder how they would police the next crises, especially the severe ones that need both the right panaceas and professional policing.