Akinwunmi Oke
“Sweet are the uses of adversity” is a quote from one of Shakespeare’s classic works and could be a fitting metaphor for the possibilities these trying times offer our dear country.
The past few weeks has been filled with sobering moments for the global community. The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) and the pandemic it brought along in its wake have literarily paralysed the entire world. While the developed nations have deployed all kinds of policy interventions to contain the spread of the virus and minimise its impact on their economies, I believe most developing countries (particularly in sub-Saharan Africa) have followed suit with similar actions to stave off the potentially damaging effects of the virus on their populations – without a thorough analysis of their peculiar contexts.
Copying from the playbook of wealthy, economically sophisticated nations should not be the focus of developing countries, but the interventions should be accompanied with significant changes that reflect local contexts. This piece seeks to challenge the general assumptions about living through the pandemic in Africa’s largest, but underperforming economy by highlighting the need to use this crisis as an opportunity for exploring possible pathways for a sustainable post-pandemic future.
The fact that a country of approximately 200 million people has just a little over 300 ventilators (the numbers are still being disputed, as the actual numbers may be far less than 300), fewer than 500 ICU beds, and little capacity for local production of the basic essentials needed to support healthcare workers leaves one wondering as to how it intends to manage a full-blown pandemic. Put in this mix the fact that over 50 million Nigerians do not have access to safe water for daily subsistence needs, and these citizens live in overcrowded conditions in largely unplanned spaces (slums) scattered all over the country. Obviously, practising social distance is completely out of the question for these Nigerians! This abysmal scenario is why a knee-jerk reaction to this crisis is dangerous, and may becloud the need for real fundamental changes needed to seize the opportunity for reset.
Nigeria has responded to the COVID-19 threat by following expert (WHO) recommendations on social distancing and lockdowns – at least in the major cities and hotspots of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states. This has been supported by a raft of policy statements and promises <https://country.eiu.com/article.aspx?articleid=987167082&Country=Nigeria&topic=Economy&subtopic=Current+policy> of fund injection into the economy to cushion the effects of the global pandemic on businesses and vulnerable individuals. Private sector players, multinationals and wealthy Nigerians have thrown their financial weight behind the efforts in a strangely unprecedented manner (such large donations by private individuals have only been reserved for political endorsements in the past). A total of about $200m has been pledged by both government ($135m approx.) and private donors (approx. $39m) towards the fight against COVID-19. Although this immediate reaction has been lauded by many, I posit that the COVID-19 induced panic presents an opportunity that Nigeria cannot afford to waste away. This situation is now further confounded by the devastating drop in oil prices arising from the Saudi-Russia spat in the weeks of March 2020.
This double-whammy of sort means simply copying economic interventions without a thorough analysis of the contextual differences among nations is a recipe for failure and could a quick post-pandemic recovery unlikely in the near term. It also could mean a lost opportunity for making economic progress, as the case of Nigeria clearly needs a more robust interrogation of how we got here in the first place. The country is in a position where it cannot muster any significant domestic interventions to the current crisis due to decades of neglect of its public healthcare institutions, pillaging of its economy through unbridled corruption and an unequalled resistance to change in its leadership thinking and governance. I say this because throwing money at a nearly non-existent health care system, or distributing N20,000 <https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/385440-nigerian-govt-pays-n20000-to-5000-abuja-households-minister.html> ($50 equivalent) to a few hundred households already living in multidimensional poverty – just doesn’t help prevent economic disaster in the long term.
Nigeria’s leaders at all levels (in public and private governance structures) need to reset their thinking about how the nation emerges from the social and economic impact of these two events. Navigating a global pandemic and loss of national revenue requires that leaders and citizens need to ask pertinent questions. Questions such as how does the country build resilience against future shocks – either in the health, economic or social sectors? What are the pathways for building a new economic model that guarantees opportunities for alleviating poverty, and improving socio-economic life? How will the country fund the infrastructure needed to bridge the current gaps in the healthcare system? So that it can reduce the number of deaths from endemic diseases (malaria, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, diarrhea, pneumonia and malnutrition) – our other ‘forgotten’ epidemics. These ‘forgotten’ epidemics that are simultaneously ravaging the country, and which incidentally claims more lives daily than COVID-19 has done in Italy or Spain.
The answers to these questions should inform Nigeria’s next economic development strategies. It is worth noting that the last attempt at a national economic development plan was the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan which was developed by the current Buhari regime as a Medium Term Plan for 2017 – 2020. Its stated purpose of “restoring economic growth while leveraging the ingenuity and resilience of the Nigerian people” remains valid in the current scenario. Taking on the lessons from the ERGP as it ends in a few months’ time will be crucial for whatever new economic plan the nation’s leaders come up with.
Nigeria must not let slip another chance for turning things around positively for the over 200million people inhabiting the most populous black nation on earth. This requires exceptional, visionary leadership in a nation often characterised as living in a ‘leadership vacuum’. This is indeed a crucible moment for the emergence of “activist” leaders to champion a new course, by using this crisis to create opportunities for the improvement of the human condition in Africa’s largest economy.
Dr. Oke, a leadership and governance expert based in Abuja, wrote in via akinoke@easydataltd.com Tel: 07057501160
