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Ever since the coronavirus began its killing spree, there has been a lot of panic among people and various forms of responses from governments around the world. Countries in Africa have not been shy about slamming travel bans on developed countries who have been the most hit by the virus. But Nigeria, in her own special way, always has something funnily different to offer.
Our dear Federal Government, bowing to pressure, started with a very late travel ban on countries with more than 1000 cases of the virus, not effective immediately, but days later. Meanwhile, international airports continued to receive passengers from around the world. The height of recklessness, if you ask me. We've seen that the states, led by Lagos who has the most cases, are putting serious efforts into containing the virus, but our placeholder Federal Government has so far done little or nothing. Even the Senate President recently confirmed that the government was at zero level preparedness, financially and technically. No suitable medical facilities, no concrete plans and with funding being appropriated in lips and tongues.
The other day, I watched on AIT as two confused NCDC help line operators gave two different information when presented with a question of response to a potential case of the virus. That alone is enough to tell you that the Federal Government is by no means taking this virus very seriously. Correct information is not readily available, leaving Nigerians at the mercy of fake news peddlers like that bracket fool the Americans call a president. Instead of simply shutting down the airports, the Federal Government has decided to continue its unnecessary international 'good face', doing a peacock catwalk that nobody's watching, thereby putting the states through a lot of work with contact tracing and testing of arrivals. With a failed healthcare system like ours, such a pandemic is not something we should play ping-pong with. We are mighty lucky that sub-Saharan Africans are not very much affected by the virus, but luck can run out at any time. What would we do then?
While other countries have rolled out stimulus packages to cushion the effect of the virus' impact on citizens and their businesses, Nigeria whose poor citizens and constantly strangled local businesses need such stimulus the most has responded by announcing some half-hearted waivers and 'using shame to style-style' reduce the fuel price by a meager 20naira (US$0.05), even though international oil prices have plummeted. Grand wickedness and outright shameless robbery in all its ugly glory. Even while faced with the threat of a pandemic, the citizens of the failed state called Nigeria have not yet deserved pity from the heartless and lifeless government in Abuja. The question is, what did ordinary Nigerians do to this government apart from making the grave mistake of voting for it? Can't they be forgiven and treated nicely for once??
