Penn Pandemic Diary Penn Pandemic Diary, Entry #26: Nigeria and COVID-19 - Between a Rock and a Hard Place

Betha Igbinosun is a Master of Laws Student at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Graduate Associate at Perry World House.

As an international student with aged parents residing alone in Lagos, Nigeria, I find myself constantly worrying about whether my home country is doing enough to contain the spread of COVID-19. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, with an estimated population of about 200 million people. Its first case of COVID-19 was reported in Lagos on February 27th. By May 11th, the number of cases in the country has risen to 4,399. While this looks like good news, especially considering statistics from other countries, Nigeria has conducted only 27,000 tests so far, making it impossible to know about the spread of the virus. What Nigeria should do next is fraught with peril. As one researcher wrote, “If basic livelihoods cannot be secured, a comprehensive lockdown is not practical. Poor people will prefer the lottery of infection over the certainty of starvation.” That captures the dilemma Nigeria has found herself in - enforce a “total” lockdown to flatten the curve even at the risk of her poorest citizens dying of hunger; or lift the lockdown and only hope that the curve flattens?

The difficulty can be seen in the recent decision to end lockdown orders in states like Lagos after just four weeks. The country’s leaders arrived at this decision, not necessarily because of any indication of a successful mitigation but because of the economic hardship being faced by residents. Undoubtedly, the poor and indigent in developing countries bear the brunt of mass lockdowns because of their dependence on the informal sector and daily sales of petty items. As such, a day without work is invariably a day without food. While several private sector-led programs and volunteer welfare initiatives have attempted to fill in the gap created by inadequate government palliatives, it remains insufficient.

The lockdown also resulted in a rise in nefarious activities within the country. In Lagos, for example, there was a surge in the number of robberies, resulting in homeowners and private citizens taking up “vigilante” duties to protect their families and belongings from being burgled. Other troubling issues include reports of patients at treatment facilities threatening to discharge themselves due to poor treatment conditions.

There is also a struggle to persuade people about the gravity of the outbreak and the need to adjust social norms. Nigeria has seen infected people absconding from hospitals; and public burials of people identified to have died from the virus. For example, the Chief of Staff to the President of Nigeria died from the virus and his burial was attended by a number of mourners, not all of whom wore protective gear.

Efforts made by the country to spread awareness--for example through news alerts in indigenous languages--have not yielded overall positive results on behavior as interactions abound with people who do not believe in the existence of the virus. The country has currently resorted to curbing the spread of the virus through “physical distancing, use of face masks and hand hygiene”. The adequacy of this approach remains to be seen, and without effective detection and containment measures, the country may simply be hanging onto hope.

In the end, the virus has shown itself to be the ultimate leveler, affecting one of the highest-ranking members in the Nigerian government and infecting other prominent statesmen. It is ironic that people who under normal circumstances, would have traveled abroad to seek medical treatment, are now forced to stay in the country they could have better equipped for such an uncertain time. Although no optimal approach is yet apparent, it is important, now more than ever, to not lose sight of our collective responsibility for each other’s safety and continue to keep faith alive.

The views expressed in the Penn Pandemic Diary are solely the author’s and not those of Penn or Perry World House.