By Idowu Akinlotan
Less than two months after Nigeria first reported a case of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ogun and Lagos States, the glacial calmness that had suffused the country as the rest of the world pined under the disease has all but disappeared. That calm is now replaced by a feeling of seething anxiety and fear of apocalypse. Nigeria’s response was at first slow and ineffective; but it began to escalate only when horror seemed to knock at the door. By mid-March, when Abba Kyari, Chief of Staff and fulcrum of the Muhammadu Buhari’s government, was sidelined by disease, analysts began to notice that chaos loomed over the presidency. Mr Kyari has passed away, and the presidency, which was yet to take firm and effective control of the many crises triggered by the new disease, is now faced with the onerous task of finding a replacement. That replacement, they expect, must have the confidence of the president and, hopefully, assuage the misgivings of many Nigerians who had accused the departed presidential aide of usurping and amassing more power than he could conceivably manage.
Despite empanelling a task force to tackle the disease, and co-opting the Central Bank of Nigeria and the Ministry of Finance to manage the economic dimension of the crisis, not excluding the economic sustainability panel headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the presidency has been unable to reassure the public that the presidency had taken complete control of the COVID-19 war. In the weeks ahead, it will become clearer whether the presidency’s weaknesses are only a temporary manifestation of its initial confusion and paralysis, or whether it is in fact a reflection of the character of the government. The country faces an existential crisis like never before, and the scale of the impact of the disease can only be imagined. The late Mr Kyari had been briefly sidelined by the disease, and the president, other than his lockdown addresses and occasional and brief appearances, was yet to begin to drive the response like other world leaders. It was not a question of style, as some of his aides speciously argued. It was a question of absence of imagination , substance and appreciation of the urgency of the moment.
It is not clear what impact the hiatus created by Mr Kyari’s departure would leave upon the presidency, or how soon his replacement would be found, or whether the replacement itself would be exemplary. But given the scale of the COVID-19 crisis assailing the country, not only should Mr Kyari’s replacement be found quickly and be probably far more suitable for the office, the presidency must also find a way to make the president drive the response to the disease, and drive it with gusto despite his private battles with his own health demons. He will miss his loyal friend and confidant, but he has a country to run, and will have another opportunity to look at the structure of his presidency that must, going forward, preclude him from devolving his powers riskily and indefensibly to just one superman. True, he needs a clearing house, in view of his extensive limitations, but much more, he needs a very able, brilliant and deep kitchen cabinet whose preoccupation is not how presidential or sectional power is projected, but how the country is inclusively and expansively administered for today and for the day after tomorrow. The demands of the 21st century are so huge and complex and nuanced that the inattentiveness and complacency of the past would, if sustained today, amount to criminal negligence. The situation is bad already, particularly with how the country’s social dislocations and economic structure have combined to limit the options of the government in the face of a worsening pandemic; but better late than never. It had taken the presidency about a month to act after the virus hit Nigeria, and when it finally acted, the response had lacked oomph, direction and conviction. Change must be encouraged.
Two days before the president extended the lockdown order on Lagos and Ogun States and the Federal Capital City (FCT), one of his spokesmen, Garba Shehu had released a loaded statement that foreshadowed the extension. The first lockdown was almost two weeks old when Mr Shehu’s statement was released. Among other things, it gave an insight into why the presidency was minded to add another extension. “The freedoms we ask you to willingly forsake today,” Mr Shehu said blithely, mirroring the mind of the president, “will only last as long as our scientific advisers declare they are necessary. But they are essential world over to halt and defeat the spread of this virus.” Thankfully, the statement seemed only like a testing of the waters, for the president, in his extension speech, vouchsafed no such sweeping powers to the scientific community, even if he obliquely suggested it. In the event, Mr Shehu’s April 11 statement was really unnecessary. It added nothing to the president’s speech two days later. The president’s first lockdown speech was without doubt exceedingly officious. After seeing how Nigerians had suffered under both the disease and the first lockdown, it was expected that the second lockdown speech would be inspiring and emotive, or at least proffering more concrete solutions — beyond expanding the number of beneficiaries of financial relief by one million — to the social upheaval the first lockdown was spawning. The second address did neither of the three.
Barely a week after the first lockdown, the controversy over whether the president had the legal backing to do what it did had happily been settled. If there was any argument about the extension speech, it was not about its legality, or even about whether it was a discordant vignette of what the many panels saddled with the COVID-19 war thought. Having watched as the infection rate rose alarmingly from one infected person in late February to over 400 less than two months later (without comprehensive testing), and the fatalities also rose from zero to 17, Nigerians had begun to wonder whether a national lockdown, of course backed by legislation, was not a more rational option. Some states have argued that a national lockdown could lead to an explosion of unfathomable proportions, an explosion that could defy control, given the millions of Nigerians, some 70 percent, who depend on daily wage or income. And some other states have reacted hysterically and seemed to carve their states into independent republics. Yet other states have shown, by the protests and chaos that have attended the restrictions, that further lockdowns, especially one not balanced against the economic needs of the people, could precipitate disaster far more consequential than the disease the measures purport to fight.
It is in the midst of this crisis, one that requires a president that is as driven as his team is intellectually deep, that President Buhari lost his right-hand man, and is expected to now take far-reaching decisions about the crisis and the future of the country without delay. The Federal Executive Council (FEC) is unadvisedly not meeting weekly as it should; the legislature has scaled down its activities but promised to convene if urgently required to do so; and the judiciary has all but closed shop. Regardless of these limiting conditions, the president must very urgently cast his net far and wide to find a few people who can meet minds with him and give direction and impetus to the war, not to talk of inspiring Nigerians to believe they can surmount COVID-19 without submitting to the gloom and disaster predicted by the international community, including the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations (UN).
The presidential task force led by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, has worked very hard to rein in the disease, and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has risen admirably to the occasion after its initial perplexity. But as Mr Mustapha said during his interaction with the parliament, there is little coordination in the COVID-19 war, especially in terms of managing the donations made by individuals, corporate organisations and agencies. Without meaning to say so, and he can even insist he did not imply it, Mr Mustapha was, however, referencing the absence of overarching control of the anti-coronavirus war. Whether they like it or not, that control must be found and imposed. They have little time to do so, if the crisis is not to spiral beyond their control.
Given the anomalous and conflicting responses of many state governments, some of which manifest paranoia, irrationality and incompetence — with no state excluded — it is time for the president to cobble together a national response that allows for local peculiarities. The government should stop looking at the United States for example or inspiration. And neither the United Kingdom, nor Spain, nor Italy, nor France, nor Russia is a great example. Few Nigerians are confident that the president understands all the issues involved in the COVID-19 war, seeing that he has neither chaired any extensive meeting on the crisis nor addressed the media, nor yet interacted with the public. He is in fact thought to be vulnerable to the disease because of the underlying health challenges he has battled for some years. But he can still control the crisis even without visiting the afflicted, and he can at least be open about his feelings, fears and expectations.
He has addressed the country twice; but he has not been open about his own health status, nor spoken about his late Chief of Staff’s inadvisable trip to Germany and Egypt, refusal to self-isolate, and how unusually he sought private treatment while defying the quarantine law until he died. It is one thing for the president to be naturally reclusive; it is another thing to be excessively secretive. The president may not enjoy the best of health; but so do many of his compatriots. That should, however, not deter him from opening up about himself, his family, his team and the crisis. It is time he abandoned his taciturnity and secretiveness. The country is on the cusp of a disaster; it requires the president to act openly, tactfully and decisively, but more crucially, wisely. Yes, wisely. And the place to begin is to see how a national lockdown, coupled with aggressive anti-COVID-19 measures, can be balanced against the deprivations suffered, and may still have to be endured, by more than 70 to 80 percent of the population.
The president needs to be aggressive in sustaining businesses, ensuring retrenchments are kept to the barest minimum, and nearly everyone, including salary earners, made to receive substantial financial palliatives. This is no time for exclusions or tokenism. The law enforcement agencies have sometimes been heavy-handed; it is time the president read the riot act to their commanders. The president needs to know that the country is in fact heading towards a major crisis far more dangerous than the virus itself if the presidency continues its ham-fisted approach to the virus. The country’s political structure leaves him with few options. But he should take advice and act and spend proactively and decisively. He doesn’t have tomorrow. The scientific community, which Mr Shehu spoke about so eloquently, cannot decide alone when the president should end or extend a lockdown. It is a decision that must be guided by politics, science and the economy. Indeed, there should even be a trade-off if the country is not to submit to anarchy.
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