Category: Opinion

By Segun Adebayo

Events, especially the bad and the ugly have been happening in very quick succession in this country so much so that as you reflect on one and before you say ‘Jack Robinson’, several others have evolved. Sometimes the events tend to lead you into questioning the essence of your being. They tend to snuff joy, peace and tranquility out of you to the extent that you wonder if it is the same country you lived in the 1960s and 1970s.

As I was ruminating about my check-list of several of these catastrophic and satanic Nigerian situations, I stumbled on a column written by Dr Benedictus Gboyega Kunle Ajayi in his “You & Eye” Column of Nigerian Tribune of January 23. His list helped a lot. Like I had been, he said that he had troubled heart, low spirits and morale such that he could see nothing but gloom all around him. He attributed the cause of his mood change as to negative social media messages and bad news rumbling in his brain.

I quote: “A Catholic Priest has been “executed” another killed and burnt by some unknown people, several people kidnapped. Three young dynamic police officers and one civilian were gunned down by some soldiers, ostensibly to pave the way for the escape of a man described as billionaire kidnapper … suspected Fulani herdsmen had kidnapped a good friend’s son and his companion. To crown it all, the Chief Medical Director of a Federal Teaching Hospital was abducted by unknown gunmen in broad day light and his two security men were killed”.

My own reminiscences in same sphere included the “Amotekun”. Yes, the Amotekun and its being declared an illegality by the Chief Law Officer of the Federation. This same Attorney General had earlier “directed” the government of Oyo State to reinstate the sacked local government chieftains earlier relieved of their position.

A General of the Nigerian Army described as the commander of Lafia Dole was on television telling the whole world that the Boko Haram had been decimated. The reality on ground is that rather, it is the Nigerian society that was decimated and continuously so decimated by the same Boko Haram.

Top on the list of recent murders by Boko Haram was the chairman of Christian Association of Nigeria in Michika Local Government of Adamawa State, Bishop Lawan Andimi. Anyone who had the misfortune, yes misfortune, of accessing the video of the way the Bishop was beheaded may be tempted to query the existence of God.

Remember also, the massacre of farmers in Benue and Plateau states, kidnappings along Ibadan/Ile-Ife road and of petrol dealers in Ibarapaland of Oyo State.

Enter Ibrahim Gaidam, the Senator representing Yobe East Constituency.  In the milieu of the Boko Haram debacle, Gaidam introduced a bill that seeks to de-radicalise and re-integrate ‘repentant’ Boko Haram terrorists (criminals) into the society through an agency to be established that would provide rehabilitative education and social reintegration.

Lest I forget the “Maina pensionmaniac” jest of N2 billion pension fund. He was declared wanted in 2013 by EFCC, fled to United Arab Emirates, hibernated for three years, allegedly met incognito with the nation’s chief law officer, in Dubai in 2016, his name suddenly taken off the “watch list” at the nation’s international airports – just like that, you may want to say; all before the course of law was set in motion

You now begin to wonder, how one can navigate this confused and continuously convulsing terrain of a nation and not turn a psychiatric patient?

And this leads me to a post (SMS) to me by a colleague and former member of the nation’s lower house in our discourse on Nigeria. He had cautioned me on 27/7/2017 thus: “when will you stop pondering about the hopelessness of the country called Nigeria? I had held an unrestrained belief that there is no HOPE for this country more than 12 years ago and till date, that belief has not been proved otherwise. So keep your peace and enjoy whatever you have left of your life and stop worrying. It can never be better than this. In fact, it is going to be worse than you can imagine. This my belief is so sacrosanct to the extent that I have started to propagate it and nobody, I repeat nobody has been able to fault my line of thought and belief system. …”

His message was preceded by mine to him thus: “something worries me about Nigeria to the point of despondency. Have you seen the photos, online, of Tambuwal, Amaechi, Lamido Sanusi, Okorocha & Co at UK graduation of their children?”

Much as his SMS made sense based on his personal experience, I am quick to be guided by the situation in Samaria of old, during a great famine, whereof Prophet Elisha prophesied that come the following day, famine would be a thing of the past. Lo and behold, a palace aide who disbelieved Elisha never benefited from post famine plenty (2 Kings 7:1-20): hence I believe Nigeria will be better, when and how I don’t know.

So far, the thinking of a reasonable man reading this piece is likely to be where does all this lead us? The answer is in a piece I wrote in some Nigerian dailies, five years ago.

In the piece, two things happened contemporaneously. One in Singapore, Southeast Asia, the other in Eruwa, Southwest, Nigeria. Lee Kuan Yew, Singaporean Prime Minister, described as “one of the great giants of history” by President Barack Obama died and was buried while Oluyombo Adetilewa Awojobi a medical icon described as “the caring physician of the world” by the World Medical Association , was also buried in Eruwa May 15, 2015. Both were change agents as they changed, radically, the faces of their respective environments.

And so on June 26, 2014, my soul was troubled following the kidnap of Chibok girls. I suffered insomnia for the reason of lackadaisical attitude of the Nigerian government towards the fate of the girls and I sent the following SMS to Awojobi. “I am traumatised by the situation of these Chibok girls about whom Nigerian government appears complacent and without any identifiable efforts to rescue them. Any of these girls could have been my own daughter”. His reply, which has so far sustained me in navigating the tumultuous Nigerian ocean and without dropping dead goes thus: “Please say this SERENITY prayer and act in reverse order: God grant me the courage to change the things I can, serenity to accept that I cannot change and wisdom to know the difference”.

Before then, he had always told me that he would not allow the Nigerian situation to kill him,  the way his late elder brother, Prof. Ayodele Awojobi, the stormy petrel of the University of Lagos allowed Nigeria to kill him. If I have survived the inclement Nigeria situation in the past one decade, it is due to the admonition of my friend, my look-alike, my “twin brother”, my Kehinde, (an appellation given to him by my mother) meteoric enigma and phenomenon, Oluyombo Adetilewa Awojobi (March 1, 1951 – April 17, 2015).

At his burial which I had the honour and privilege to superintend, Eruwa played host to people from all over the globe representing diverse interests to pay last respect to his titanic, indelible and unprecedented accomplishments.

This piece is therefore my deliberate effort to relive his memory exactly five years after. Oluyombo Awojobi, may you continue to have blissful rest. The team you left behind at Awojobi Clinic Eruwa, ACE, a.k.a. a private hospital in the public service led by Tinu, your very dear inamorata is coping very well. Your legacies shall not go into oblivion)

• Adebayo, Ibadan-based Attorney-at-law was Dr Awojobi’s neighbour and friend of three decades.  

By Alade Fawole

Donald Trump is such an intriguing, yet so predictable, personality, and a subject too tempting for analysts to ignore. After several articles in the last four years, I have refrained from obsessing about him. But seriously speaking, ignoring writing about him, his character, idiosyncrasies, politics, leadership style or lack thereof, his uniquely illiterate and jaundiced worldview and the foreign policy which proceeds from it, is difficult for any analyst of world affairs. No matter how much you try to ignore him, he has his way of insinuating himself and intruding into your consciousness when you least expect. When he is not fear-mongering or engaging in his characteristic xenophobic vituperations, he is dutifully engaged in a war with the mass media, or grating on everyone’s nerves accusing other countries of being ingrates unworthy of America’s friendship. As for African states, he simply ignores them for the ‘shitholes’ that they are, more so that he has a bigger fish to fry with China as his scapegoat for the coronavirus pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic has undoubtedly spiralled out of control in the US, consumed the lives of thousands of Americans, with no hope of a respite in sight, and has exploded the myth and emptiness of America’s boast of having the best medical and healthcare infrastructure in the world to handle epidemic outbreaks. It has also allowed the whole world to see Donald Trump’s shocking personal deficiencies, and the spectacular poverty of his leadership in crisis management. History’s great leaders have always been defined by how they lead in times of crisis. Not so for Trump, the current crisis has severely tested his puny leadership skills to their limits. Rather than exercise leadership and take responsibility for anything, his natural instinct is to blame others for his failures and inadequacies. And he has cultivated his own array of whipping boys for this purpose. If it is not opposition Democrats, then it must be the mainstream mass media which he brands as fake news, or China or any other country or institution that suits his fancy. Deep down, Americans must think of themselves so unfortunate to be led at this critical juncture in world history by a man so obviously bereft of imagination, strategic vision and integrity. But then, in a democracy, who you elect is exactly who you get!

Now to the main issue under focus here: Donald Trump’s foreign policy as it will impact on the presidential election this November. It is well known that, since the end of WWII, foreign policy successes have played significant roles in US presidential election victories. Contrariwise, spectacular failures in foreign policy have also worked against incumbents of the White House seeking re-election, Jimmy Carter’s defeat by Ronald Reagan in 1980 being a case in point. Carter lost that election substantially because he could not obtain release of 54 American diplomats who were held hostage in Tehran by Iranian revolutionaries. Like Carter, Trump is also seeking a second term in office in the midst of a crisis situation, and is thus not unmindful of the importance of foreign policy on electoral victory. For example, to win the 2016 election, he went full throttle against China, the Iran nuclear deal, the Paris Climate Accord, NATO, the UN, all of them foreign policy matters. He raised hell against Muslims, vowed to build a wall against Mexico, stigmatized African immigrants, and denounced America’s European partners as freeloaders. And for all these he got the adulation of his base and received their votes. Since he came to power, he has successfully gotten rid of the Iran Nuclear deal, exited the international climate accord, degraded US trans-Atlantic relationships and cooperation, repudiated NAFTA and other economic pacts. Unfortunately, China has remained a hard nut to crack.

He has fulfilled some of campaign promises, but he has also in his characteristic braggadocio, added North Korea, and Iran and Venezuela to the potent mix of foreign adversaries, the last two where he had hoped to fulfill his wish for regime change. All his efforts and use of killer sanctions to instigate regime change in Iran and Venezuela have failed woefully; he backed off from threatening North Korea once that nuclear-armed state showed it didn’t take kindly to external bullying. In Venezuela, his adopted Trojan Horse for regime change, Juan Guaido, has turned out a spectacular disappointment. Trump also flirted with instigating a war with the Islamic Republic of Iran, even assassinated its top army general, Qassim Soleimani, but also had to swiftly back out when that country revealed its vast capabilities for asymmetric warfare in the Middle East and beyond. So far, most of the foreign policy successes he desired have thus failed to materialize, making him desperate for a breakthrough before the November elections. Now that the Covid-19 crisis has prevented political campaigns, he has turned to relentless China-bashing and spreading Sino-phobia as a substitute.

Could this string of failures and the attendant desperation provoke him to some dramatic foreign policy action, possibly an audacious attack on a foreign country to improve his rating as a ‘strong leader’ Americans should re-elect? Remember, it is the lot of politicians to worry about the next election. What will Trump likely do to shore up his flagging legitimacy ahead of the presidential election due this November? As a power monger, he seems more fixated on the coming election for now than actually governing America and this intractable coronavirus pandemic that seems like a huge distraction he wished he never had. Arresting the spread and stanching the deaths across the country is a gigantic task seem far beyond his ken. Unfortunately, it’s not one he can wish away by blame game and escapism. If anything, the pandemic has severely exposed the limitations of America’s vaunted world’s best medical facilities. America has had to swallow national pride to accept medical assistance from countries like China and South Korea! So much for the myth of American exceptionalism!

Now that the national lockdown and compulsory social distancing would not allow Trump to hit the campaign trail that he so loves, he has instead taken over the job of the medical and health experts, controlling the daily national briefing to keep himself permanently visible to his base, spinning the narrative to suit his political interests and cover his crass incompetence, spewing his characteristic ego-boosting and usually incorrect assertions, bragging about his leadership and pouring vitriol on perceived opponents, taking potshots at journalists from the mainstream media whose questions he finds inconvenient.

Fast losing face at home over his poor handling of the pandemic, and failing woefully abroad, and with the scary prospect of facing Joe Biden that he dreads as opponent in the election, could Trump be pushed to consider something audacious, like a foreign invasion perhaps? A war with China is out of the question, North Korea has successfully caged Trump, Iran is too dangerous a regional adversary to be taken on headlong, which leaves Venezuela the most vulnerable target for him to fulfill his desire for regime change that can be touted as a foreign policy success. You cannot put anything past a politician who believes he is sinking. I sincerely hope he won’t be that desperate.

By Pam Russ

This Sunday morning is so quiet as I get up with the rising sun in the rural town of Shasha located in the state of Lagos, Nigeria.  Before the onslaught of Coronavirus, these morning hours would be filled with a cacophony of loud exhaust-spewing generators draining themselves minute by minute of petrol because church services would be starting and no one can depend on the scare electricity to last all during the worship prayers.

There is electricity here in Shasha, but it is limited by unknown people in the electric company to allocate the hours given of precious light every single day.  Not having electricity means no TV, no refrigeration, no air conditioning…  All normal creature comforts taken for granted in the ‘civilized’ world.  Does this mean that Nigeria is not civilized?  Certainly not as we have telecommunications, cell phones, cars and mass transit…  And now we have Coronavirus.

We are currently on lockdown and for many Nigerians, this has totally changed their lives.  They cannot take public transportation to work and must pay for private cars if they are allowed to go to work as an essential worker.  Everyone I know lives from paycheck to paycheck, so the cessation of income due to Coronavirus precautions has become devastating to our daily lives.

The statewide lockdown has provoked many honest conversations of how Nigeria is doing.  Why has Nigeria suffered from lack of light for so many years?  No electricity means no refrigeration resulting in wasted food and possible food poisoning.  I was told things were better 10 years ago, but due to political corruption, nepotism and greed, the infrastructure has deteriorated and the electric company plays the petrol-electricity game every day at the expense of local residents who can barely afford their monthly electric bill.

Here in Shasha we get light from about 7AM until 11AM and then no light, no refrigeration, no TV or newscasts until 4PM.  Hopefully the light will remain until about 6PM, right at the update of daily news and then shuts off abruptly leaving us in the dark physically and emotionally.  Immediately all neighbors turn their loud generators on, drowning the sunset in air pollution, heat and noise pollution.

Cooking aromas slowly fill the air as Nigerian dinners are prepared of jollof rice or tomato pasta, boiled eggs, amala and Egusi soup.  Local Titus fish, chicken or goatmeat is added for protein as Nigerians enjoy their national food.  Magically the light will return around 8PM until 11 PM, just in time for the worldwide broadcast of Coronavirus and its terrible infection slithering unseen and bringing death into every country on earth…  A first-time global pandemic.

The nightly TV broadcasts update those who can afford the luxury of modern electronics in their own home or apartment with American, European and Chinese news.  I watch CNN and BBC for worldwide news and Arise Africa and TVC for news of Nigeria, as two of my close friends work there.  In Africa, the Coronavirus is spreading slowly because of mandated social distancing, lockdowns and facemasks.  But this crucial information is gleaned from several national health resources and not from a national single source directive.

Every night I see President Trump and Governor Cuomo discussing the terrible health plight of New York and the United States.  I can’t imagine the stress of daily broadcasts of doom and politicians trying to figure out how to save their constituents who are still alive.  In the middle of all this up-to-the-minute information I must ask, “Where is our President Buhari?  Why isn’t he doing a nightly broadcast to update Nigerians and give them the hope of strong leadership that he promised upon election?”

Before Coronavirus, Nigerians lived under the attitude of ‘Me first, maybe you.’  This attitude was seen in daily traffic where drivers turn in front of other drivers without consideration of the ensuing traffic jam made by stupid driving decisions.  In January, there was a decree that motorcycles and three-wheeled small taxis (Kekes) were banned from the larger cities of Lagos the day before a new internet car service (InDriver) was introduced, giving more competition to the internet car services of Uber and Bolt.  So, I wonder who put their interest first of paving the future income stream for InDriver by eliminating cheaper public transportation of motorcycles and Kekes?  Hmmm…  Me first, maybe you…

Now Coronavirus has changed all that because tragedy erases events that matter little.  Many years ago, Nigeria was known as the proud jewel of Western Africa, but that is no longer true.  Pride of being a Nigerian has disappeared under the constant corruption of an ineffective government gaining wealth daily at the expense of poverty-stricken Nigerians.  Maybe this global event will unite Nigeria in some way that we can have light 24/7 and stop the noise pollution and air pollution of ubiquitous generators and allow people to consider their neighbour’s well-being before their own…  Is this possible?  Why don’t we all ask President Buhari that question?

• Russ, American is an author and publisher currently lives in Nigeria.  She can be contacted at PAMRRRS@gmail.com.

By E.T Okere

There is no gain saying the fact that the ordinary Nigerian is confused over how exactly to go about the fight against COVID-19. The reason is simply that our leaders, political as well as religious, are not speaking with a singleness of purpose. Take one of the most controversial issues of recent: The coming of a team of medical experts from China. Amidst protest by some individuals and groups of professionals, particularly health workers, Minister of Health Osagie Ehanire, said it was not the federal government that invited the team. On a second breath, he said: “we are not unhappy that they are here”. How does the average Nigerian interpret this?

Apparently, what the minister meant was that the federal government did not on its own invite the team but that it was the Chinese construction giant, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation limited (CCEC) that brought it. But it was with the government’s approval or was it not? The equivocation is uncalled for. One, it suggests an indirect attempt to wash the federal government’s hands off the controversy. Two, and more disheartening, it was an apparent admission that the government had no option than to give approval to the request by the construction company. This is not a good impression to give, whether or not it is wrongly perceived.

Next, take the altercations between the leadership of the National Assembly and President Buhari’s Special Adviser on Social Investment, Hajiya Maryam Uwais. The NASS leadership had, at a meeting on Tuesday, April 6, at which Senate President, Ahmad Lawman and House Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila, were present – with the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management, Hajia Sadiya Farouq, sought some clarifications on the disbursement of cash to “the poor and most vulnerable” as palliatives to the hardship brought about by the lockdown and as directed by the president

In effect, the NASS leadership expressed dissatisfaction over the handling of the disbursement and sought for legislation that will guide the Social Investment Programme (SIP) in future. Remarkably, there were no altercations between the top NASS members and the minister. But just the next day, Hajiya Uwais fired at the former. She made several claims which included that members of the National Assembly had all this while been wanting to teleguide, manipulate or even hijack the SIP.

While the revelations by Uwais are quite weighty and stands for a topic of its own, the thing to note, in the time being, is that it was an entirely different functionary, not the Minster of Humanitarian Affairs, that came to the defence of the executive arm. Interestingly, Mrs Uwais’ response came in less than 24 hours after the meeting between the minister and the leadership of NASS. Which means that it was most unlikely that the Special Adviser (Uwais) and the Minister (Farouq) had discussed the matter before the former fired her salvo.

Better still, it was most unlikely that the response was well harmonized and articulated to give Nigerians the true picture. In any case, the SIP, according to Mrs. Uwais herself, was transferred to the Ministry in October 2019. This means that what Nigerians would have expected was that the explanations by the special adviser should have come from the minister.

Even though the revelations by the special adviser are quite interesting and requires further interrogations, as I have already noted, the incident leaves room for some skepticism over the relationship between the two top functionaries. Interestingly, the media slant on the controversy was that Mrs. Uwais was responding on behalf of the presidency. So, is there a difference between the presidency and the ministry? Still, the next day, the same NASS leadership issued a statement denying “attacking” the presidency over the SIP, further confounding Nigerians.

Or take another ambiguity: The arrest of two helicopter pilots in Port Harcourt on the orders of the Rivers State government and the counter by the federal government, through the minister of aviation, Hadi Shirika that the pilots were on a legitimate assignment. As I write, the debate on which side is right is still on but what strikes Nigerians is that the matter arose at all; at a time when governments at all levels are expected to work in unison. Not a few Nigerians felt that the sharp disagreement between the federal and the Rivers State governments is a negation of the spirit needed for the fight against COVID-19.

From Cross River state came yet another set of ambiguities. The governor, Ben Ayade, gave a directive that nobody should venture outside without wearing a face mask. Yet, both the World Health Organization and the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have maintained that face mask is not necessary unless one is showing symptoms of the coronavirus. Up till this moment, the state government is unable to produce enough face masks to go round an estimated population of close to four million people, even though it is also said that a mask can only be worn once. Is Ayade’s no-mask-no-movement policy popular even among his people? Most unlikely; which means that it is one of those instances of high handedness many state governments are being accused of in the COVID-19 war.

Talking about state governments, the few days before the recently marked Christian festival of Easter further confounded many observers over the pervasive incoherence in the Covid-19 war. At least three state governments – Rivers, Ondo and Kogi “relaxed” restrictions on movements to enable Christians prepare for Easter. The three states in particular gave the nod, apparently under pressure from some religious leaders, for churches to hold normal services on Easter Sunday. But it soon backfired as their governors came under severe criticism. In one very interesting case, the leadership of Catholic Church in Rivers State told its faithful to disregard the state governor’s ‘magnanimity’ and remain indoors on Easter Sunday.

Promptly, the Rivers State government recanted. Ondo State followed suit. Needless to say, not only were the directives not well thought out but they clearly suggest a cut-and-paste approach by the political leadership across the country. Not even the presidency can completely exonerate itself on the apparent lack of tenacity. On Sunday, March 29, President Buhari gladdened the hearts of many Nigerians when he gave clear directives on the total ban of movements in two states – Lagos and Ogun – and the federal capital territory. From every account, that directive, which is more popularly known as “lockdown”, has been observed more in breach than in compliance even to the third position in a scale of one to 10. Two main reasons accounted for this. One, the government did not take plans to, ab initio, school the enforcers of the presidential directives on the rules of engagement.

Consequently, some of the enforcers overdid it as we saw in Warri, Delta State. Two, and a corollary, the Nigerian factor came in, like in every other thing of this nature in our clime. The enforcers saw opportunity for self-help. As has been widely reported, hundreds of passenger-laden buses empty into Lagos and Abuja every day; each vehicle paying up to N1000.00 per ‘toll gate’, of course after making the travellers pay more than quadruple the usual fare.

Finally, not even the religious leaders are spared from the haziness. Witness the exchanges between some leading Pentecostal church leaders over the alleged relationship between “5G” and COVID-19. We need not name names here since the story is too well known but there can be no doubt that not a few are worried over this apparent lack of consensus even among knowledgeable top religious leaders on a matter as serious as this.

Nobody, the world over, can say how long this human tragedy will last but it is striking that even in climes where the pandemic has proved far more catastrophic than we have here and, may, by the grace of God, ever have, leaders there have shown more consistency, coherence and steadfastness. For obvious reasons, we in Nigeria may not achieve the same level of composure but there is definitely a need to start trying.

By Onofiok Luke

All over the world, events we could only have imagined are gradually emerging as our new reality. COVID-19 has kept us contained in our homes, deflated our economies and has defined a new social habit alien to our values of coexisting and integration.

This new reality has left most of us with feelings of distrust, suspicion and uncertainty even as we possess the faith that we will overcome this pandemic. Most of these new attitudinal changes will form a better part of our lives and relationships even in a post COVID-19 world.

In Nigeria, the federal and state governments have taken measures to halt movements into the country and the various states and had given directives to tertiary, unity and all schools to close down temporarily in a further approach of containing the spread of the COVID-19. As a nation, we have to realize that this pandemic will most likely leave our leaders with few choices to make, some of which may be agonizing but expedient.

While the threat to our health is undeniably the priority now, we must similarly be concerned about the potential crisis that academic research and studies face as a result of the constant rescheduling of our academic calendar.

Every crisis exposes cracks in a social safety net especially for the most vulnerable in our society and this pandemic has exposed ours. The risk-control measures by government will definitely cause a degree of inconveniences for our students but I believe crisis also presents opportunities.

This pandemic should serve as a fine moment for us all to prompt for a new aggressive model of education driven by technological innovation and even a better research culture.

Today all over the world, schools have shut down yet students have immediately switched to remote learning through online academic hours to complete assignments and sessions. Health professionals and nations are relying on high-end research outcomes from educational institutions to end, or at least, abate the coronavirus crisis.

The advantage these countries have over us is simply technology. In most cases, these are simple affordable technologies which can facilitate remote learning in a time like this. The complication for us is not just the lack of the technologies but poor inclusivity.

The slow pace of technological inclusiveness in our academic learning environment is a cause for concern. The time has come for us to evolve out of old lecture-based approaches of teaching, entrenched institutional biases and outmoded classroom learning modules and begin to adopt practical and tailor-made approach in educating our children.

The rapid spread of COVID-19 has demonstrated that we cannot further afford the cost of refusing to toughen our social fabrics, one of which is our educational system. It presents an opportunity to rework the defining structures that will build new relevant skill sets that will respond to emergencies in today’s unpredictable world. As nations turn to their labs and techies amidst this crisis, we must learn and act by building the capacity of our next generation. Technology is paving the way for others; it is influencing informed decisions, creative problem solving, and perhaps most importantly, adaptability.

In running into challenges such as what we face today, like other countries, the first point of call for solution would have been our educational institutions. They would have answered the probing questions first: has this happened before? Has a predictable pattern been established? Can it be analysed and solutions found to prevent future occurrences? The mobilisation of human and material resources to respond to the outbreak would have been informed by these research institutions.

As we look to recreating our approach to governance, we must reconsider the call for improved budget on education and be intentional in spending on education technology. We must budget to support research and accommodate technological inclusiveness for our educational systems to save the future of our children.

Be it as it may, academic institutions which have the technology capacity to at least experiment online teaching should do so as we stay locked down. Such supplemental engagement can prove to be useful pilot testing for future massive online learning. Elementary resources should be designed to help young students learn at home with interactive activities that encourage participation through entertaining and stimulating digital content.

The element of communication becomes pivotal at this point too. Parents and teachers should be in constant communication to see how the children who are out of school can be adequately assisted to learn. This is the time technological advancement tools could be of great benefits to us such as WhatsApp, Skype and Zoom.

Increased homework and coursework could be used to replace sit-in examinations and handicrafts could be encouraged in the pursuit of skills development as we observe social distancing.

I also acknowledge that majority of our school teachers and students do not, and will not have access to broadband services to maximize the digital opportunities of advancing their academic schedules and supporting research. The challenge facing our rural communities are even more. As a government, we must be deliberate in advancing means to reach out to our rural communities by building enough infrastructures that will support firstly, a conducive learning environment and then gradually introduce them to modern technology applications needed for contemporary developments.

With the integration of a research culture at that level, we would have begun a journey of equipping the younger ones with the requisite skills for problem solving needed for the future of complex problems, such as COVID-19.

As we emerge from this pandemic, it will become incumbent on us to push for targeted spending for the numerous indigenous technological hubs serving as incubators and technological accelerators in the country. I have always harped on this. Edutech companies can leverage this funding and build platforms to integrate our learning modules and support research in our educational institutions to meet up with changing contemporary realities. There is no way we can achieve advancement in technology if we continue to ignore the finding of tech startups. We have sufficient lessons to learn from India and Singapore for instance.

We will defeat this pandemic and come out stronger than ever but we must prepare ourselves for the realities of living in a post-COVID-19 world; a world where technology will dictate the pace of developments and it will become even much arduous for developing nations to catch up. There would be too much price to pay if we get left behind.

The education and health budgets of our nation will no longer be in a familiar territory of neglect. As we work hard to defeat this pandemic, the lessons must not be overlooked so that we can emerge stronger as a nation that places high premium on research and education, health and welfare through innovations from technology advancement and its attendant benefits.

• Luke is a member of the House of Representatives.

By Kayode Robert Idowu

Since lockdown was imposed across this country over the Covid-19 pandemic, restiveness by citizens has posed a volatile terrain for enforcing the order. The most notorious flashpoint has been how security personnel handle breaches of the stay-at-home rule of social distancing aimed at flattening the infection curve.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on 29th March imposed a 14-day lockdown, effective 31st March, on Nigerian epicentres of the pandemic namely Lagos State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and as well on Ogun State for its close inter-connectedness with Lagos. Ogun delayed implementation of the lockdown by four days, though. Whereas other states of the federation were not included in the presidential lockdown order, governors have headed up similar curbs on their respective domain and raised task forces comprising police, military and paramilitary personnel to enforce the stipulated restrictions. In doing that, however, indications are rife that security operatives have not withheld from extreme measures to enforce the lockdown.

There have been reports and video footages of brutality by security personnel against citizens who infringe the stay-at-home rule. In this age of pervasive fake news in public discourse, we can’t afford to take all narratives on the social media without reservation. But there have been footages showing people being horsewhipped and harassed for straying outside their homes. Other footages showed law enforcers destroying the wares of small business owners caught in violation of the lockdown. Worse, there have been confirmed fatalities.

Early last week in Kaduna State, no fewer than four persons were reported killed in Tirkania community, Kaduna South council area, as police personnel sought to compel compliance by traders with the stay-at-home rule. About 10 other persons were reported injured. The burst-up came against the backdrop of a subsisting order by Kaduna government shutting down social and economic activities, including markets, in a bid to leash the spread of coronavirus in the state.

Reports said the traders converged on a temporary market in Tirkania following police shutdown of the Monday market in Kakuri. According to police accounts, rather than return home, the traders relocated their wares to Tirkania to continue with business. They were, however, intercepted by members of the local vigilante, who in a bid to enforce the lockdown came into confrontation with Tirkania youths and had to invite police assistance in shutting down the makeshift market. Eyewitnesses were reported saying the police fired teargas canisters to disperse the crowd, and when they were pelted with stones in retaliation, they resorted to using live bullets. The police, on the other hand, said  it was the confrontation between the traders and local vigilante members trying to disperse them that resulted into a bloody clash in which lives were lost and others injured.

Days earlier, a soldier was reported to have shot dead a motorist named Joseph Pessu in Warri, Delta State, for allegedly flouting the state government’s stay-at-home order. The killing of Pessu ignited mob outrage in the oil city, which was attributed with reprisal killing of a soldier by rampaging townsfolk. Consequent to that reprisal, two soldiers were captured on a video footage that eventually went viral threatening rape spree with complement of HIV infection against Warri women, and using extremely foul language against the townspeople. The Army later made known it had arrested the two soldiers and would probe the circumstance of their conduct, vowing that it would not “tolerate any form of irresponsibility and indiscipline on the part of its personnel.”

Besides those incidents of fatality, there were reported collisions between security agents and citizens in diverse locations, including presumably essential services providers seeking a way around the paralysis occasioned by the lockdown. In Lagos, the state chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and the Medical Guild alleged undue harassment of health workers by police personnel. But the police rejoined that many health workers were exploiting the exemption accorded them under the lockdown order to pursue private businesses that were not in the least essential, even though the exemption cover is not absolute.

In other instances, citizens apparently got so bored with staying at home that they took to deserted urban streets to get some air – as in Lagos where keep-fit enthusiasts turned the expressway into a gym site until they were arrested by the police and herded before a magistrate’s court, which sentenced them to a 14-day quarantine as penalty. There was, of course, that notorious case of a popular celebrity and role model who hosted a crowded house party to celebrate her spouse’s birthday and relieve the boredom, in flagrant violation of the social distancing rule.

But the restiveness resulting from idle boredom is indeed the easy part under the circumstance. More virulent is restiveness arising from desperation by many Nigerians for subsistence living and economic survival, which are gravely threatened by inaction under the lockdown. Reports have shown that barely seven days into the lockdown projected to last two weeks in the first instance, gridlock was back on suburban highways in Lagos and the FCT. In satellite settlements of these metropolises, it has been business as usual for most residents in their unruly desperation for survival. Near the Lagos end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, last week, throngs of youths stormed an upturned fuel tanker to scoop its highly volatile content in suicidal disregard of possible mass incineration at the slightest spark. In that circumstance, social distancing was sheer myth.

And that is to play down the bristling impatience of youths on forced holiday, who are currently tethered to suffocating oversight of parents or guardians until God-knows-when – virtual tutorials notwithstanding.

A blogger, Mokokoma Mokhonoana, says “When you are unemployed (read that as when you are locked down), weekends are seven days long.” Going by the presidential order, from which unilateral declarations by state governors take bearing, the restrictions ought to be lifted at the end of today, 13th April. There have since been hints by government, however, that it is a long night considering the lingering potency of the pandemic. The catch is, every extension of the lockdown portends increasingly restive temper in the citizenry as makes compliance all the more dicey. Yet we have a formidable enemy – coronavirus – that must be defeated, and the earlier we do this is the earlier we get back to normal lives. The path is cyclical, though: compliance with lockdown regulations takes the country faster to the bend out of the lockdown, while every extension of the lockdown makes compliance more difficult.

Another blogger, Sharon Vargas, says what to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. And that is to say, it is incumbent on the Nigerian public to ‘#TakeResponsility,’ as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) sloganeers, by complying strictly with regulations aimed at flattening the curve.

Truth remains, however, that some citizens are hard put to stay home, even with their best intention and efforts. And this is where efficient application of palliatives by government becomes warranted. In most countries where there is pervasive compliance with the lockdown, you would find an efficient social security system in place. In Nigeria, however, it is a far cry from such efficiency, offering no motivation for the economically distressed to give up their survival struggle.

Unless government gets a firm handle on delivering palliatives to the vulnerable, there is a looming showdown between enforcement of lockdown regulations and survival-motivated civic resistance.

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