Nigeria’s fight against COVID-19 appears to be more of political paparazzi than rescuing the lives of the common man that are already exposed to the danger of COVID-19 and poverty.
This is evident in some statements made by top government officials who are at the forefront of the fight against COVID-19 and what is being reflected in the policies that are being put in place.
About two months ago, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Mr. Boss Mustapha said he was not aware of the bad state of the Nigerian health sector until he became the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.
Mustapha made the statement during a meeting with the National Assembly, where he led other members of the task force to brief the legislature on its activities in the fight against COVID-1.
Mustapha then reiterated the importance of improving the health sector when he said, “If developed countries of the world are stretched despite their good capacity, then Nigeria needs to improve its own.”
Also, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanihe, when he was asked whether the health workers would be paid a special allowance for combating the deadly COVID-19, the minister responded that he is not aware if they are being paid of hazard allowance or not.
It appears that after all these unhealthy statements, that the Federal Government of Nigeria would get serious with the health sector and work towards improving the health sector. However, the reverse is the case in policymaking as it is recently shown.
One of the recent policies of the FG that will have great implications on our deteriorating health sector is the recent slashed on the primary healthcare centers’ budgets from ₦44.4b to ₦25.5b which is equivalent to 42.5% reduction.
However, the same FG also cut the budget of the renovation of the National Assembly from ₦37b to ₦27.7b while it slashed Universal Basic Education budget from ₦111.7b to ₦51.1b which is more than 54.2%; also, the budget of the National Assembly was slashed from ₦128b to ₦115.2b which is equivalent to just a 10% cut.
The vivid summary of the inadequacy of the FG to suspend the renovation of the National Assembly and focus on improving our health sector, especially the primary healthcare which is closer to the people, is that we should all know what our government prioritizes. Politics or people?
Primary healthcare is very important as COVID-19 is a pandemic and there is a possibility that the anti-COVID-19 vaccine will be invented just as it was invented for polio outbreak. Thus, if we did not embark on the journey of improving the primary healthcare sector, we may end up not preparing to move with the rest of the world in eradicating COVID-19 in the Nigerian communities.
Definitely, the government prioritizes politics than the people. This is evident in the sharing of the palliatives who have made many poor Nigerians not to comply with the lockdown directives.
Nigerian government heard that countries around the world are locking down, so we went on lockdown without putting in place what other countries are putting in place. When countries around the world started easing the lockdown, the Nigerian government also quickly ease the lockdown and reopen the economy.
Thus, the common man is faced with the struggle of poverty and COVID-19. Because many people relied on daily income for survival, the fight against poverty is a daily struggle. Also, because the primary healthcare is in the dying state, the fight against COVID-19 is a daily struggle by the common man. Unfortunately, the government has prioritized the renovation of the National Assembly as being more essential than these two wars.
In addition, the government reopening religious gatherings seems more political than health. Although some religious figures have been putting pressure on the government to reopen the religious houses, the inability of our government to understand that religious gathering in Nigeria is always a large gathering is another concern as such is against the social distancing rule.
One of the religious leaders in Nigeria, Pastor Sam Adeyemi, when reacting to the Government decision on the second phase of the ease of the lockdown, posited that it is somehow political. He said this via his verified Twitter account. He is his tweet:
At this juncture, the Nigerian government really needs to change its body language by cutting the expenses of the public holders and its facilities rather than slashing the budget of public development. Primary healthcare and UBE are very key to human development in any society that wants its people to manage its capital project.
