Barometer
In the coming weeks, notwithstanding the incidence of the coronavirus infection in Nigeria, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) will find it increasingly difficult to control public and private responses to the virus. It is beginning to look like Nigerians have taken the measure of the disease and are no longer afraid of it. But remarkably, these curious responses are being inspired by governors and public officials, not by private citizens.
Over 5,000 people have been infected so far, according to the NCDC, and close to 180 have died. More than 3,800 people are still receiving treatment. The situation, therefore, remains a little tense. But despite these, four governors in the North, to wit, Borno, Gombe, Zamfara and Adamawa have eased lockdown measures and given guarded approval for religious groups to resume worship.
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The federal government is appalled, and many Nigerians sneer at the affected governors. But it is likely the governors were merely responding to pressures from their publics.
Whether easing lockdown in the four states is reasonable or not, the NCDC and the federal government should gird their loins and be prepared for more egregious responses from other states. More, they had better find ways of being in control of the easing process than to engage in a titanic effort to enforce what may soon become unenforceable.
The world is gradually ending the lockdown measure, resisting being locked down interminably, regardless of the rising incidence of a disease the World Health Organisation (WHO) has said humanity must find ways of living with for the foreseeable future. Nigeria should, therefore, find ways of doing same without hurting the system too much. There is a limit it can swim against the tide.
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