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COVID-19: NIGERIAN SCIENCE AT THE MARGINS

by Ayo Olukotun

Expectedly, a flurry of scientific activities targeted at finding vaccines and cures for the Coronavirus pandemic has assumed centre place in the last couple of months. Across the globe, there are over a hundred research projects going on in such countries like United States, United Kingdom, China, Germany and several others. A recent output is the experimental drug, REMDESIVIR, announced a couple of days back by the United States National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, as possessing the capacity to shorten the rate of recovery of people who come down with the pandemic. Though, as the scientists admit, it is far from being the anticipated wonder cure for the disease. It constitutes a respectable advance in the continuing frenetic search for remedies, therapies and cures. Given this background, the question naturally pops up, what is the location of Nigerian science and scientists in the global map of innovative medical and pharmaceutical research? Well, a tentative answer is that Nigerian scientists, this time around, are not completely absent from the picture, even though, obviously, they remain at the margins.

Attracting acclaim from the global scientific community, for example, are the efforts of two institutions devoted to genomics of the infectious disease, namely, Redeemers University at Ede, Osun State, which warehouses the African Centre of Excellence for the Genomics of Infectious Diseases, as well as the Centre for Human Virology and Genomics, located at the Nigerian Institute for Medical Research, Lagos. A few days after the first confirmed case of the COVID-19 in the country, Nigerian scientists working in these institutions in collaboration with the Centre for Disease Control, developed the first genome sequence akin to DNA, of SARS-CoV2 from Africa, making it available to the global scientific community. Interestingly, it took only three days to traverse the journey from receipt of the Nigerian sample to producing the sequence genomics, suggesting, as has been widely noted, an appreciable level of technical competence and scientific rigour. It can be predicted that, especially with the possession by Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, of national biosafety laboratories, that Nigerian participation in problem solving regarding future viruses will no longer be as desultory as it was during the Ebola outbreak of 2014. That said, there is little doubt that, in spite of the gains made by top scientists working in elite institutions, our universities and research institutes are largely absent from the cutting edge of research connected with the pandemic. Why is that so? In search of an answer, this columnist called up two senior academics engaged in medical and pharmaceutical research, namely Tiwa Olugbade, a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, and Jones Moody, Professor of Pharmacognosy at the University of Ibadan. Olugbade alluded to the crash programme approach which the nation is taking to such issues which normally require years of patient and sustained investment in primary and applied research. According to him, ad-hoc solutions will not work, but rather, purpose based facilities such as virology laboratories, decent infrastructure that can sustain high level research, highly motivated personnel, and a political leadership, knowledgeable about and committed to scientific research. For far too long, Olugbade maintained, we have merely paid lip service to research, while underfunding our research institutes. The scholar’s point here is buttressed by the virtual desolation of our 26 research institutes owned by the Federal Government, which in 2018, embarked on a 4 months strike over poor welfare conditions and consistent underfunding (see for example, Ayo Olukotun, ‘Researchers’ Strike and a Disappearing Research Culture, The Punch, Friday, 16^th March, 2018).

One of the institutes affected by the strike is the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Abuja, which in its heyday, pioneered experiments and discoveries in the treatment of sickle cell anemia and several other diseases. It is to be lamented that such a cornerstone research outfit was allowed to decay to the point where very little, if anything at all, is heard from it. Contrast this scenario with Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory at Winnipeg, which came up, in the throes of the Ebola crisis, with the life saving drug, ZMapp, providing, thereby, a cure and a remedy for a global pandemic. Also take into account, the fact that Canada, according to statistics collated a few years ago, funds medical and pharmaceutical research to the tune of 1 billion dollars annually.

My second respondent, Moody, submitted that as far as natural and human resources go, Nigeria possesses the abundance to have jumpstarted a global scientific role. The problems are, however, Moody insists, a dire lack of infrastructural support for research, and a shortage of the political will to collate and harness natural and human resources for takeoff. Amplifying the point, the scholar gave the example that the Chemistry laboratory he conducted experiments in, in the course of his Higher School Certificate at the famous Titcombe College, Egbe, Kogi State is of a higher quality and better resourced than what currently obtains in any Nigerian university. The aphorism that it takes a million dollars to ask a question at the frontiers of scientific research comes to mind here. Put in another way, how can Nigerian scientists working in decrepit and ill-maintained laboratories be part of a global dialogue in breakthrough research in the medical and pharmaceutical sectors? To the point here is the fact that the well equipped laboratory at Ede, from where samples collected from Nigerians are being tested for COVID-19 is largely a private sector initiative, in conjunction with the World Bank, rather than a deliberate government creation to up the ante in scientific research.

Just like our hospitals are in such disrepair that their credibility is doubted, the infrastructure which ought to buttress scientific inventions is tattered and desolate. Some scholars and analysts have recently written about the need to ginger up alternative medical research through the rediscovery of medicinal plants; it is doubtful however, whether we have demonstrated the required gravitas and investment to arrive at such a destination in the midst of a crisis. Committees upon committees have been set up on alternative medicine, but, have their recommendations become policy?

To make a turnaround in the contributions of Nigerian science and scientists to such pandemics as Coronavirus, it is suggested that some of the funds donated by the private sector, as well as some earmarked for relief, be diverted into groundbreaking research in those universities that have the potential to conduct fundamental research. Furthermore, and considering that important researches take time to gestate, we must take another look at what is going on at the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, where presumably, a lot of idle funds are locked up in a bureaucratic gridlock, while our universities and research institutes are on a shoestring. Ultimately, a country gets the kind of research that it is willing to pay for and maintain. Our politicians can quickly raise billions of Naira on the eve of an election, when they have a mind to do so. We must now reeducate them that research directed at saving and prolonging human lives is far more important than their electoral triumphs, which seem not to redeem the human condition.

Finally, our scientists should be encouraged to cultivate international partnerships and collaborative projects that can better situate them in front line basic research.

- Prof. Ayo Olukotun is the Oba (Dr.) Sikiru Adetona Chair of Governance, Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye.

[Ayo Olukotun]

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CORONAVIRUS: RETRENCHMENT AND PAY CUT BLUES

by Ayo Olukotun

“No matter where in the world or in which sector, the crisis is having a dramatic impact on the world’s workforce” – International Labour Organisation document, April 2020

The International Labour Organisation document cited in the opening paragraph alludes to the unfolding impact of the Coronavirus pandemic on the economy and society worldwide. The ugly scenario is buttressed by recent news coming out of the United States depicting what has been called the worst job report since the Great Depression of the early 1930s. It is estimated that close to 20 million private sector jobs will be affected in the United States, while the spate of lay-offs is indicated by the recent worker retrenchment by Uber, which just shed 14% of its workforce, outdone narrowly by its closest rival, Lyft, which had sacked 17% of its work strength. Several other countries in both the developed and developing world are equally hard hit. One projection for the United Kingdom by modeling technocrats informs that over one-fifth of labour in that country is unlikely to survive the pandemic downturn. In what has been described as a pandemic of hunger, a challenge to existence is overlaid by, or competing with another existential threat to the livelihood of workers.

Nigeria, which was already in a sense, on the brink of another recession before the health emergency is clearly in the throes of economic and social crises symptomised by pay cuts of between 20% and 50%, as well as retrenchment blues. Earlier this week, the Central Bank of Nigeria averted, at least for now, a looming mass sack across the banking industry. As the lender of last resort, the Central Bank could do this because commercial banks are required to clear such issues with the regulator. What is not clear, however, is whether the fiat of the apex bank suffices to resolve what, in some cases, may well be underlying structural issues. There is also the case of pay cuts affecting bank workers across the industry in the month of April. Besides, the practice, as well as outright retrenchments would appear to have been widespread in several corporate organizations, with some of them claiming to have posted severe losses because of the lockdown. For example, it was reported earlier this week that 400 members of staff were laid off in one fell swoop at the American University of Nigeria, Yola. Depending on the organization, retrenchment of various sizes and hues would appear to be the automatic response of employers to real or exaggerated distress caused by the pandemic.

It would appear, going by economic forecasts, that many State Governments may be incapacitated from paying wages to their workers from the month of June, while some others like Kogi are already openly dangling the axe of retrenchment as a way of tidying over the economic downswing. To be sure, institutions, public or private, that do not survive or introduce survival strategies early enough may go down in the anticipated recession projected to bite deep into an already fragile economy. Nonetheless, however, it is suggested that massive lay-off of workers such as occurred at the American University of Nigeria, be avoided, or at the very least, undertaken in phases in order to mitigate the suffering of workers struggling to endure the ravages unleashed by the global pandemic.

All too often, and as human resources experts never tire of pointing out, resort of employers to lay-offs and deep wage cuts never seem to translate to profitability, especially in the absence of corporate reinvention. Take for instance, the outcome of a research project whose findings were published a few years back, in the Wall Street Journal, concerning 1000 firms in the US which had downsized through job layoffs. The study found out that only 46% of the firms actually managed to reduce expenditure with 32% realizing a bulge in profit, 22% experienced increases in productivity, and 22% successfully reduced bureaucracy. Worse still, there were negative spinoffs such as public image deficits, loss of morale and fear of being sacked among the workers who survived, as well as psychological dislocation evident among survivors, and of course, those who were laid off.  It is for this reason and the fact of choking up an already congested labour market that experts increasingly suggest alternatives  to mass sack or where lay-offs become inevitable, investing the exercise with a human face. Corporate best practices in this area include offering workers job placements within the organization that would throw them a lifeline, setting up counseling and mentoring sessions aimed at easing career lockdowns and the angst of adjustment, as well as, as part of corporate social responsibility, helping those affected to set up themselves in business. Others include transparency and clear public communication regarding such events and democratic decision making as far as this can go. Obviously, struggling enterprises on a shoestring may be unable to afford some of the processes and cautionary routines enumerated above; the bottom line however, is not to be oblivious of the need to balance corporate profitability with human rights and the psychological consequences of retrenchment, especially when they are done on a large scale.

The significance of the Central Bank intervention on the proposed retrenchment in the banking sector, was to teach the lesson, from a governmental point of view, that there are wider social concerns that need to be taken along before embarking on such journeys. For instance, while in any context, retrenchment and pay cuts carry with them, deleterious consequences for individual workers, in the Nigerian and African circumstances, it is even more so for a variety of reasons, cultural, social and economic. For countries and climes that have social safety nets, there is a mitigation of the impact of job losses with the corollary that where they do not exist, or are fickle, retrenched workers are out in the cold. That is even more the case where we have the double whammy of a medical and economic emergency. Connected to the discourse are such factors as the escalating inflation rate which last month reached 12.26%, the bureaucratic jungle that surrounds efforts to raise loans from our banks, the cultural symbolism and reality of retrenchments being the equivalent of a social earthquake affecting relations and dependants, as well as the practical difficulty of finding alternative jobs in a situation where many who were qualified have been on the job queue for years. Add to that list, the well known woes of infrastructural deficits which make startups uphill undertakings and you get an idea of the magnitude and depth of the problem.

In order to avoid a basket situation which will compound an extremely vulnerable situation, it is suggested that job cuts and pay cuts be calibrated in ways that do not leave workers to their own devices and with evident show of social responsibility that can douse the fires of frustration. Of course, government cannot stop employers from implementing policies which they believe to be crucial for their survival, nonetheless, it can restrain them from excesses and practices that can have serious consequences for human survival.

In conclusion, what is advocated in these lean times is to walk the tight rope between profitability and social practices that can keep us all afloat in the midst of multiplying challenges.

[Ayo Olukotun]

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AWUJALE ADETONA AT 86: GOVERNANCE LESSONS FOR A NATION ADRIFT

by Ayo Olukotun

“Another thing an Oba needs (to survive and succeed) is a stubborn and unwavering refusal to compromise the truth or the integrity of the Obaship institution, whatever the occasion” - Oba (Dr) Sikiru Adetona cited in ‘Awujale: The Autobiography of Alaiyeluwa, Oba S.K. Adetona, Ogbagba II.

For three consecutive years, Alaiyeluwa, Oba S.K. Adetona, the Awujale of Ijebuland had celebrated his birthday which falls on May 10, listening to a Public Lecture, delivered statutorily by this columnist, in his capacity as the pioneer occupant of a Chair of Governance, endowed in 2016, by the monarch. Warehoused in the Department of Political Science, Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye, the endowment, managed by a Board of Trustees of remarkable forte is, perhaps, the largest of any such undertaking in Nigeria and beyond. This year, however, what was planned as a double celebration of 60 years of Obaship and 86^th birthday, had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond ceremonies and edifying rites, a nation of slow learners that is also extraordinarily challenged in the areas of leadership and governance ought to be gainfully occupied teasing out important takeaways from our heroes past and subsisting. This is more so because an overwhelming majority of our leaders flaunt pomp, elevated circumstance and optics, rather than the kind of purpose, gravitas and achievements that will continue to resonate and inspire long after they are gone. In the vast gallery of history, there will be little said about the majority of our leaders beyond the facts of being adept at winning elections, occupying office with a photo library and parade of world leaders that they had dinner with.

There is a thin crust of leaders, however who spend precious time holding and moulding lives, erecting monuments of lasting fame, guided by the passion to transform their communities and their oysters in abiding ways. Awujale Adetona, one of our most revered monarchs, with a reputation that straddles several continents belongs, in my opinion, to this latter extraction. Take, for example, his educational forays. Like most of our leaders, Adetona had long lamented educational decay and its pernicious consequences. He had written, “our educational system requires very special attention. The root of all our developmental problems, our stifled national growth and shortcomings in our national behavior can be largely traced to the weakening of our educational system”, but unlike most others, he did not merely stop at lamentation, rather, at every opportunity, he poured his soul into redemptive activities capable of changing the tide. The professorial endowment befitted by a grand edifice on Ago-Iwoye campus is a telling illustration of the value placed by him on higher education.

More recently, he has been involved in a series of planning activities targeted at the establishment of an Institute for Governance with the stated objective of making it the best available in these parts and beyond. In this and other connections, observing him at work is like watching a movie in which the director gives himself no rest until he has pored over every detail, organized the necessary connections, rallied his followership and clientele, ensuring that everyone played his/her part in the cast. It is these qualities of relentless executive energy, vigorous implementation steps, as well as monitoring that distinguishes him from others who did not cross the pathway from lamentation to remedial action. This brings us to the question of character and moral compass. In the opening quote, he had admonished a dogged refusal to compromise the truth and integrity of the Obaship institution. Conscious, however, that adherence to principles do not grow easily in the crucible of poverty and necessity, the monarch insisted that traditional rulers and others who wish to make a mark should have their own independent financial means so as not to be captive of political forces capable of subverting the best moral ideals. Obviously, Adetona took his own advice, becoming in the process, one of the best financially resourced traditional rulers in the country and beyond. So, what plays out here is the excellent combination of nature and nurture that has enabled him, over time, to speak truth to power, holding his head high where several of his contemporaries have been caught out in shabby compromises. To be cited in this regard is his noble, almost heroic role, during the June 12 debacle, the Abacha dictatorship and its corrupting spin-offs, as well as during the Goodluck Jonathan administration, when he politely rebuffed insinuations that he should enlist in the campaign for the return of Jonathan to power.

The lesson here for all those who wish to matter in the rapidly shifting kaleidoscope of national events is the need, indeed urgency, of developing a corps of leaders who cannot be turned aside or bought over by alluring financial inducements. All too often, our political space resembles a circus show dominated by men of straw and jesters who do not take themselves, much less the people they lead, seriously. Granted, the political arena is not a Republic of Virtue and does not need to be a copycat of Thomas More’s Utopia to be effective. Nonetheless, a certain threshold of morality and observance of standards is necessary to rescue Nigeria from the current political doldrums. This is perhaps the crux of the Adetona legacy in the areas of values and character. Being human, he is not without weaknesses; this writer insists, however, that a renascent Nigeria has a lot to learn from him.

Innovatively, he has turned Regberegbe, the age group associations for which the Ijebus are famous into a power house of deliberative democracy and development. Several of his construction projects including the renovation and extension of the palace were the handiwork of these age groups which voluntarily mobilized, taxing themselves to donate to the projects.  One often marvels concerning the extent to which social capital has been unleashed to the point of becoming a notable engine of growth. Of course, the homogeneity of the Ijebu displayed spectacularly in the cultural fiesta of Ojude-oba has something to do with it. Future historians will give credit, no doubt, to the monarch for the outstanding cultural and political-economic uses to which he has put these associations. Equally worthy of mention, in a related vein, is the uniquely beneficial programme of poverty alleviation, driven by the monarch’s passion for relieving human suffering, intellectual inputs from eminent scholars such as Professors Akin Mabogunje and the late Adebayo Adedeji, as well as, again, the pressing into service of communal values at the grassroots. Consequently, the programme has become international and a model currently being studied at home and abroad, with a view to copying its successes. It has created jobs, empowered artisans, as well as constructed far flung agricultural enterprises in pineapple, maize, poultry, piggery and fish farming among others.

Considering that traditional rulers and other leaders of this calibre are few and far between, our country, as a nation adrift, obviously has a lot to learn in the governance architecture of a monarch who has succeeded in rebranding the chieftaincy institution, providing in the process, an umbrella of excellence around which his people and others far beyond can identify with and affectionately dote upon.

Here is wishing the monarch, happy birthday and many more eventful years of purpose-driven leadership.

[Ayo Olukotun]

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CORONAVIRUS AND INSTITUTIONAL DECAY

by Ayo Olukotun

Emergencies bear resemblances to academic examinations in that they test the quality of acquired knowledge, as well as the preparation or lack of it, of the examinee. Unlike exams, which are scheduled, however, emergencies such as the running and ravaging COVID-19 epidemic are unscheduled, arbitrary, and tyrannical, in terms of scope, severity and duration. Obviously, no country, even the most sophisticated, can fully prepare for a health emergency on the scale of Coronavirus, about which the state of medical knowledge, at least at the outset, ranged from non-existent to rudimentary. For instance, even the World Health Organisation has reversed itself, at least on one occasion, concerning the ways and manner in which the virus is transmitted. What is not in doubt, however, is that, broadly speaking, capable states with strong and resilient institutions stand better chances of weathering the storm and returning faster to normalcy, than those with disheveled institutions performing sub-optimally. Leaving aside for the moment, the state of our much lamented health institutions, take a peep into the workings and the handicaps of the Police in the season of the current pandemic.

The Punch reported on Monday (May 18, 2020), the crucial resource gaps facing the police as it sought to undertake its assigned role of patrolling interstate borders, in keeping with Federal Government directive. According to the narrative, the Police is patrolling the interstate boundaries without the provision of face masks, gloves, hand sanitisers and a mandatory allowance to facilitate the assignment. Consequently, as was the case with medical personnel, some policemen, including a deputy commissioner of police had succumbed to the pandemic. Other observers have reported that most policemen go about their duties without adequate equipment including the wearing of facemasks. The problem would appear to have been mitigated by donations from civic organisations but it would have been nicer if the organisation could source its needs either from within or within the Presidential Task Force. Quite often, state officials have complained that the interstate lockdown was being subverted by Police and other security forces. It is conceivable that the illegal traffic has reached the level of an underhanded commercial transaction in which those crossing the borders pay a fee to the Police and other cognate security institutions in order to be allowed to cross. The other side of the coin, however, is that the Police were sent on the crucial assignment, without adequate or protective equipment; this, however, is not a justification for undermining a delicate health project in which the stakes are enormously high.

Equally baffling, even though not directly related to the pandemic, is the recent report that citizens in Sokoto State harassed by bandits are now employing (presumably for fees) Nigerien security personnel to protect them. In other words, what they fail to get from Nigerian security, they now purchase across the border, fortunately, Nigeria is not at war with its neighbor but one can imagine how distressful the scenario could become in the event of a tussle. At any rate, the report also underscores institutional decay in a season when the vitality of state institutions is required to win the war against the pandemic. Returning to the Police, its battles with shortages of diverse kinds have been legendary. These range from up to date ammunition to shortage of personnel, as well as consistent underfunding on such a scale that a police officer once admitted that they use bribes to make up for under-budgeting and shortage of facilities. There is nothing really new about this because, in November 2018, our President, Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.) admitted that, ‘from Taraba to Sokoto, to the South-South, people don’t feel secure until they see the military’ (The Punch, Tuesday, November 27, 2018). Buhari’s statement was made on the of approval of a pay rise, it is not known, however, whether the pay rise, if it had been implemented, had translated to more effective performance.

All told, it would appear that the dire shortages frequently reported in the media have continued to handicap the Police, as well as other security institutions, in the performance of their duties with regards to the global pandemic. More crucially affected are our health institutions, where one of the experts, a former president of the Nigerian Academy of Science, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, has likened our responses to the COVID-19 emergency as, ‘making ammunition at the warfront’. That is another way of saying that we confront the emergency totally unprepared, in terms of the state of health infrastructure as well as institutions. That was why most health experts counseled at the onset of the crisis that our best bet is a preventive strategy, that does not test our health institutions to the very roots, as they are unlikely to stand up to such tests. Similarly, it was for the same reason that the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 panicked when it appeared that the emergency was moving to the stage of community transmission. Regrettably, the opportunities that we had to build and develop our health facilities were bungled.

Even as we speak, there are still threats of strikes from unions of medical personnel because of the failure to implement agreed improvements. Considering that several countries, including the United States, have openly advertised for doctors from Nigeria and elsewhere, it is not known how big the hemorrhage of medical personnel will be in the near future. To be sure, institutional decay which is another name for governance failure has been with us for quite a while now, featuring countless missed opportunities for remediation, even as new dimensions and variables deepened the decay. It is not confined to the security and health departments alone as there is hardly any institution that has not been affected by regression. The political elite continues to major in the thrills and excitements of political competition given that the urge to capture the spoils of office is irresistible, more so in an economically depressed terrain, where the proverbial national cake gets smaller and smaller. Regarding governance and a state building project which will revamp our prostrate institutions, they score very low, given that they merely skirt around the problem or side-step it for the glamour of winning and retaining power.

As many have recognized, every crisis contains within it, the seeds of opportunity for reset and rebuilding. It may be more demanding to rebuild institutions while the nation is grappling with multi-pronged challenges, especially in the health and economic domains symptomised by a subsisting pandemic, worsening poverty and unemployment figures hitting the roof. All is not lost however. We must struggle to make the small spaces and prospects for reforms count, even if for now, we cannot access the bigger terrain for change. Considering that the future of Nigeria, as indeed of any other country, will be determined by the health and firmity of key state institutions, the agenda to rebuild them must, against the odds, begin right away. Suggested practices would include, depoliticisation of these institutions in favour of a merit-based approach, yoking promotion to productivity more clearly, enunciating and implementing sanctions for untoward behaviour, aiming at best practices, and the last but not least, introducing a motivational framework which would undergird activities, as well as propel forward movement.

[Ayo Olukotun]

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ANNIVERSARY WITHOUT CYMBALS

by Ayo Olukotun

Nothing brought into focus, the people-centred dimension of a vibrant democracy more than the rage and spontaneity of the ongoing protests in Minneapolis, United States. A couple of days back, George Floyd, a middle aged black man had passed on as a result of a police officer putting his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly 5 minutes during which other policemen in the vicinity looked non-challantly on, ignoring the victim’s wails and anguished cries for help.

The firing of the offending and colluding policemen in the seemingly premeditated murder of Floyd had done little to appeal the outraged protesters who defied the ravages of Coronavirus to register their displeasure. The point here is that a democracy without the demos (the people) is not a real one given that the people are the trustees and the sovereigns in whom reside the democratic essence. So, when Nigerian governors and presidents read speeches on democracy anniversary day, which will henceforth, hold on June 12, there is no dialogue and there is no connecting thread with people outside of the captive audience of party loyalists, contractors and henchmen. This year, there would be no such ceremonies because of the Coronavirus pandemic, but since it is exactly one year today that the Chief Executives of Federal and State Governments were sworn in, there is likely to be virtual anniversaries mediated by digital communication. It is worthwhile, therefore, to ask about what important changes, if any, have taken place at federal or state levels in the past 12 months, and in the context of Nigeria’s persisting governance woes. To be sure, the pandemic has taken the shine off any other serious governance endeavour, but it is obvious that even our responses to it are a function of earlier dysfunctions.

The repetititive character of our setbacks and lacuna are legendary, for example, on the eve of the swearing in of the President and the Governors, preoccupation was with insecurity symptomised by the Boko Haram challenge, rising banditry in several parts of the country, surge in kidnappings, among other bedeviling factors. A fortnight to last year’s May 29 ceremony, Emeritus Professor of History, Akinjide Osuntokun had lamented, “to repeat Chinua Acehbe, there was a country. Only God knows, what we have now, when major roads connecting our most important cities… are under the siege of kidnappers and terrorists and the Northeast and Northwest of our country are besieged by bandits” (The Nation, Thursday, May 16, 2019). What is the situation a year later? A frank assessment would reveal that little has changed as far as banditry, kidnappings, and attacks by herdsmen are concerned. Aside from the pandemic, insecurity of lives and property remains a front burner issue, illustrated by the fact or scandal of frightened citizens in the Northwest going across the border, to Niger Republic, to pay the military for protection against bandits.

A week or so ago, a senior lecturer at the University of Jos was brutally murdered at the University Staff Quarters where he resided, by unknown gunmen. Round the bend, there have been sporadic or coordinated attacks in such states as Kaduna, Benue, Kogi, Zamfara, Delta, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna, Pleateau among several others. That is why, when recently, our President, Major Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd) instituted a military task force to clear the bandits in his home state, Katsina, several commentators observed that Katsina is perhaps only a worst case scenario of the spreading contagion of raging insecurity, recommending that special purpose institutions should be created across the entire spectrum of the Northwest and the North-central. Do you want to look at erratic power supply, where marginal increases have been quickly followed by downswings in the stability of power? On Wednesday, The Punch reported that 10 power plants are sitting idle, while power generation has fallen below 3,000 Megawatts. This, of course, is an old story, as this particular shortfall is not only endemic, but has become the defining albatross of our underdevelopment. According to one source, only 6 out of 10 Nigerians have household access to electricity, leaving almost 80 million others in the dark and in the lurch. Compared to Brazil which has roughly the same population as Nigeria, but generates over 100,000 Megawatts, our 3,000 Megawatts is dismal indeed. Hopefully, if and when the proposed deal with some German companies comes through, there might be some improvement in the power situation, which also defines several dimensions of economic underperformance and underdevelopment.

It is interesting that the Nigerian Senate has opted to probe the N1.5 trillion spent by the Federal Government on so called intervention between 2013, when the privatization of the sector commenced, and this year. Whatever the results of the probe are, it is obvious that the country cannot go on in this manner because time is not waiting for us to catch up with the rest of the world. Needless to say, and especially in the wake of the pandemic, that the economy has suffered a further dip, and is approaching another bout of recession. For example, inflation, according to the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics, is currently at a 2-year high at 12.34%, while the spinoffs of COVID-19 are obvious in the areas of job losses, declining productivity and an upward cascade of our debt stock and debt servicing, which before the pandemic, were already extremely high. What we have, therefore, will appear to be a sinking deeper into crisis, the full implications which we cannot at the moment, compute. Illustratively, it is estimated that, in the past 6 years, the public debt had sharply increased by 214.9%, while debt servicing had grown to over 60% of our independent revenue. Doubtless, all of these will impact on the capacity of government to translate its laudable poverty reduction programme of lifting 10 million people per year, out of poverty, into reality. If we take a look at the quality of life of Nigerians, as measured by the United Nations Human Development Index, we find a similarly sorry picture.

This columnist has written so much about the health sector that one is beginning to sound like a broken record. However, much of what was lamented became troubling and defining reality when the pandemic broke out suddenly and it now mattered what the quality of that sector was like, especially in view of the fact that our itinerant VIPs could no longer access overseas medical institutions. Would we learn the lesson that the pandemic is teaching, namely, that charity ought to begin at home? Time will tell but the omens are not very bright in this direction. Similarly afflicted is the education sector riddled with truncated calendars, broken infrastructure and myriad other problems which continue to downgrade it. As we speak, it is not clear whether when the Universities finally reopen, the strike of Academic and Non-academic Unions will not take over from where the pandemic has stopped. It is a pity that we allow issues to degenerate before we continue to seriously tackle them.

However frustrating things become, we must keep hope alive, drawing upon our famed ability to bounce back after every crisis, even if the bounce is getting smaller all the time. In this light, therefore, we hold out the hope that new opportunities can be created innovatively in a post COVID-19 Nigeria.