Waster syndrome

Tunji Adegboyega

Last week was a pretty busy one for Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, no thanks to the new coronavirus (COVID-19) that is ravaging the world. The governor assumed the role of what some people have referred to as ‘village headmaster’ in his effort to keep his state relatively free of the rampaging virus; at least so it seems. Mr Wike had imposed a five-day lockdown on the state from May 7, leaving residents with only two days of respite to restock and do whatever they have to do before lockdown begins again. The relaxation has however been extended by another five days, as a result of difficulties faced by residents in getting money from the banks. The lockdown resumes at 8.00 p.m. tonight. Indeed, to underscore his seriousness on the matter, the governor who personally moved around in the first three days of the lockdown to monitor compliance said he was satisfied that people were obeying.

No one who is aware of the havoc that COVID-19 has wreaked worldwide would blame Governor Wike for being hyper-sensitive in his anti-COVID-19 war. Whether we like it or not, COVID-19 is war of a kind. This is a pandemic that has claimed over 300,000 lives, with 1.6 million recoveries of the over 4.3 million confirmed cases globally. In Nigeria, we have about 5,162 people that have tested positive; with about 1,180 recoveries and 167 deaths. In Rivers State, specifically, 33 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported, with five recoveries and three deaths. This figure is low, compared with what obtains in many other states of the federation. But, should the governor wait before taking measures to stem the tide? Definitely no.

One other thing we should not lose sight of is the fact that some Nigerians cannot just obey simple instructions, even for their own sake. They need to be pushed or compelled as we have seen in the coronavirus directives. A simple thing as face mask many of them will not wear. It is still happening in Lagos where the five-week lockdown ordered by the Federal Government was relaxed about two weeks ago. Commercial bus drivers keep crowding their buses without regard to social-distancing rules. Many passengers also behave as if they are going to wear the face masks in some other people’s interest. Whereas inter-state travels are banned nationwide, some people try to be clever by half, by alighting from vehicles that took them to state boundaries and trekking to their destinations. This is at the core of the community transmission stage that is ballooning the number of people testing positive for the disease in the country. The situation is not different in many other states. And this is giving both the Federal Government and the respective state governments sleepless nights on how to respond to these cavalier approaches to the pandemic.

Confronted by these and other challenges, it is difficult to want to blame governments that punish these irresponsible attitudes with equally seemingly draconian measures.

But then, there are laws that govern behaviour in a democracy. Fair hearing is an indispensable right that should not be abridged by anyone, no matter how highly placed. Many of us merely made the governor an object of jokes on the social media when we saw how he personally assumed the role of monitor, asking people to identify themselves, giving some the right of way and ordering that others that he was not satisfied with their excuses for hitting the road in a state observing lockdown, should be driven straight to the isolation centre. As a matter of fact, some Nigerians felt the governor was doing the right thing even if somewhat high-handedly. Indeed, some people that I least expected to agree with the governor said they were beginning to like him. That was a few weeks back when he got two Caverton pilots arrested for flying into the state in violation of his Executive Order 6 and promptly arraigned them before a magistrate’s court. He also ensured the arrest  of 22 ExxonMobil workers only to back down in the face of opposition, with oil workers threatening to suspend work. But, I think rather than the commendation being a true reflection of their love for the governor, what those people were applauding was his audacity to confront the federal authorities that many Nigerians are beginning to doubt its capacity to take the country to the next level. So, in a sense, my enemy’s enemy is my friend.

But their position on the matter changed when Governor Wike ordered that two hotels, Edemete Hotel and Prodest Home, be pulled down last Sunday. The governor said the operators had flouted an order that hotels should be closed adding that people who had tested positive for the virus had been found in hotels across the state. But he did not say if any of them had been staying in either of the demolished hotels.

I have no issues with the governor being worried about COVID-19 as I mentioned earlier. As a matter of fact, I have no problem with governors, as chief executives, taking actions that they deem fit to bring sanity to bear on their respective states. But I have a problem with what I consider the waster spirit in some of these executive actions. This is not about Governor Wike alone. Our governors generally seem too excited to bring down. They are always in a hurry to demolish. Ours is a country where buildings are put down on executive orders that are standing on nothing, or over frivolous excuses. In a country where we have an acute housing deficit, this should not be the case. Those buildings should have been used for better purposes, following the rule of law.

Just last week or so, the Federal Government was asking people to donate their buildings as testing/isolation centres for COVID-19. Many Nigerians and organisations, including churches, have been responding to this call. Now, we have structures that the Rivers State government saw as possible hideouts for people who have tested positive for coronavirus and those structures were demolished with the governor personally supervising the demolition. There were no attempts to substantiate this claim. This was despite the fact that the owners of the hotels had been arrested. And despite the claim by the owner of Prodest Home that his hotel was not functioning at the time the COVID-19 team came and that the officials were asking for bribe to allow the hotel continue to function. The state government denied this, though.

Governor Wike’s decision to build a primary school at the site of Prodest Home would be an afterthought and more of a way to tone down the public angst against his demolition of the hotels. Still, it was a clear attempt to inflict a somewhat maximum pain on the home’s owner, apparently for allegedly unleashing thugs on the government officials that came to the hotel. No reasonable person would support unleashing thugs on public officials, especially when on duty. That one of the injured officials has died from injuries sustained during the attack has already compounded the woes of the hotel’s owner. Still, that did not justify pulling down the building. What stopped Governor Wike from refurbishing the hotels to serve as isolation/testing centres for coronavirus patients? The governor hinged the powers to do and undo on an Executive Order 6 which some residents of the state said they were not aware of. Even then, would that have legally granted the governor the power to demolish people’s buildings without fair hearing? As Ahmed Abass, a lawyer told the BBC, an executive order cannot give the governor powers to demolish a building. “An executive order is made by the president or governor in furtherance of existing laws,” he said, but this cannot go beyond the constitution which guarantees a fair trial. Where is fair hearing in all of these? The lawyer aded: “What (Mr Wike) should have done was to have arrested the (hotel owners), take them to court and the court would have prosecuted them.” As the lawyer rightly noted, demolition of the hotels is probably the height of “executive recklessness and an abuse of office”.

Granted that Governor Wike has been consistent in moving again anything that he considers an obstacle to his efforts to keep COVID-19 cases in his state very low, a thing we cannot crucify him for, the governor has to realise that rule of law, though slow, is still the way to go in this kind of circumstance. The point must be noted still, that there is no way such enforcement could be done without some people complaining. I have likened the battle against coronavirus in the country to the legendary tale of a father and his son that were travelling. It is one of the evergreen songs of Commander Ebenezer Obey. When they started, the man first mounted the horse and people wondered why he should have done that, leaving his son to trek beside him. The man dismounted and put his son on the horse while he trekked along. People still complained, wondering why it should be that way. The man then brought down his son from the horse and both of them started trekking, while the horse all alone followed them. Still, people were wondering what manner of father and son would be trekking when they could have mounted their horse!

While the people of Rivers State are asking for COVID-19 lockdown with a human face like that of Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), many others have said the lockdown relaxation in those places was premature. Such is life.