There were accounts of healthcare workers falsely diagnosing ailments like malaria and cough as Covid-19 disease so as to reach set targets and claim money set aside to fight the disease. Third, the implementation of the fight against Covid-19 disease in hospitals and isolation centres was accompanied by dubious activities. If I were in authority I would have ensured that essential services like food and medical supplies delivery continued smoothly through the lockdown. As a result farmers suffered losses, market women lost economic opportunities and people suffered from hunger in their homes. During the lockdown many food items perished in the farms because the means of distributing them to people willing to buy them were restricted. Furthermore, the security operatives who were charged with enforcing the lockdown ended up killing more people with their guns for disobeying the lockdown order than the coronavirus itself. In practice these distributions were characterised by corruption as most of the palliatives did not get to the people who needed them the most. Politicians took charge of distributing food items and cash to the poor. Second, the Nigerian government’s efforts to ease the suffering of Nigerians during the lockdown by distributing palliatives were hijacked by politicians. Sweden’s Covid-19 response was led by Anders Tegnell, an epidemiologist, and today they appear to have the pandemic under control while other European countries are still struggling to contain Covid-19 spikes after eased lock down. The Swedish government chose to go this way and did not lock down despite strong criticism from other European countries. If I were in a position of authority I would have asked competent professionals in Nigeria’s science and medical community to advise the best way to tackle the pandemic from the outset. If the Nigerian science and research community had been up and doing it would have observed one or two months after the lockdown that the coronavirus was not as lethal in African countries as it was in Europe and America. However, the correct approach to tackle the pandemic should have been science based. The Federal Government shut down the Nigerian land borders, airports, schools and public places in March 2020 as a measure to fight the Covid-19 pandemic. Even China where the novel coronavirus was discovered implemented lockdown measures. There are lessons that can be learned from the experience that will not only help to improve Nigeria economically but also medically and scientifically.įirst, the lockdown was almost inevitable because the World Health Organisation recommended it as an effective measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus and many advanced countries like Britain, Germany, France and the United States of America had implemented it. However, the implementation and the duration of the lock down exposed many shortcomings in the way Nigeria runs as a society. I think that the lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic was an essential measure in spite of the hardship it brought economically.
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