Armed robbery in broad daylight: a government of the people and by the people, literally

In an address by Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, on April 13^th, he communicated the decision to extend the lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, for another period of two weeks, due to the Coronavirus. He also stated that pallative measures had been approved and delivered to 2.6 million households, and that these pallatives will be sustained, with another 1 million households included in the scheme during the next two weeks.

As has been seen all over the world, shutdowns such as we currently have in Nigeria come at great costs to the economy, and the President has demonstrated exemplary leadership by extending the lockdown, despite the short-term costs to the economy. Of course, an alternative course of action would result in consequences of catastrophic proportions.

Unfortunately, making the right decision does not always result in good outcomes. The tendency for good decisions to lead to terrible outcomes is even greater when the decision maker, whether individual, organization or government, struggles with implementation. As mentioned in this article, the Nigerian government, like many governments in developing countries, has always struggled with implementation.

I asked about how these pallatives will be delivered to the right people, people who are most in need of them – the vulnerable and poor in the society. My concerns were born out of the absence of any database with adequate information to identify and locate the vulnerable or poor in Lagos and in other states. How the President and his team have managed to identify the 3.6 million households mentioned in his address remains a mystery because millions of Nigerians simply do not exist on any system.

I reached out to a few people I know in Lagos - the state with the highest number of Coronavirus cases and Africa’s most populated city - to find out if anyone I knew received any of the relief packages from the government and, to my surprise, an old colleague who works for one of the Big Five Accounting and Consulting firms in the country, and who lives in Dolphin Estates - home to middle class and high-income earners - received a package consisting of basic food items from the Lagos State Government.

However, the car mechanic who always fixed my car when I lived in Lagos, and who lives in Mushin, a largely congested area with low quality housing, was yet to receive anything from either the state government or the federal government. He fixes cars for a living and if cars are grounded for a month, he would not earn a living for a month.

Another question is whether all of the 3.6 million households will be from states that have been placed on lockdown by the Federal Government or whether they will include households from states where the Governors have voluntarily restricted movement? Given the important roles that Lagos, Ogun and Abuja play in the Nigeria’s economy and how much impact a lock-down such as this would have on economic activities in other states, will it be fair to extend relief packages to other states?

There is indeed a case for relief packages to be extended to as many states as possible. For example, I called my grandmother who lives in Benin City (Edo State) on Sunday and after we talked about what I made for dinner, she mentioned that she could not make the dish she had planned for Easter day because she was unable to get all of the necessary ingredients (she made a different, equally delicious, meal). Some of these ingredients are grown in Northern Nigeria or brought into the country through Lagos before they are delivered to the South-South region. The trader who would have sold her those ingredients had his / her supply chain completely broken due to the Coronavirus and, as a result, has lost the revenue needed to cater for his / her family.

Last week, I wrote about how many Nigerians would have to choose between obeying a lockdown order imposed by the federal government to prevent the spread of the Coronavirus, and watching their families go hungry because such a lockdown would prevent them from earning a living. By all indications, millions of Nigerians have already had to struggle for these two weeks to provide food for their families, without support from the Government.

This situation has now been made worse because, as we come to the end of the second week of the lockdown, there have been numerous reports of armed robbery and looting going on in poor and middle-income neighbourhoods across Lagos State and in some parts of Ogun State. The perpetrators have not only managed to defy the stay-at-home orders enforced by both State and Federal authorities, they have also managed to rob and maim innocent civilians in broad daylight, without consequences.  As a result, people in some of these neighbourhoods have, once again, taken up the responsibility of government – to provide security of lives and property of its citizens.

Nigerians are no strangers to taking up the responsibility of government. Most of the Nigerian homes with clean running water have had to develop the entire infrastructure by themselves (water supply, independent of government), most Nigerian homes and businesses own generators to provide electricity for their households and businesses (power supply, independent of government), many Nigerian households have had to contribute money in the past to repair or maintain roads leading to their houses or to construct drainage systems in the neighourhood. Now, during a pandemic, Nigerians are having to resort to setting up vigilante groups to protect their homes and safeguard their loved ones (security, independent of government).

As the lockdown enters its third week, and as more states continue to restrict movement voluntarily, the economic and security situation in the country is unlikely to improve soon. This is particularly worrisome when you consider that many employees of small to mid-scale organizations, who did not have to rely on daily wages, would now have to worry about whether their employers will pay them for the month of April - a month in which they will have stayed at home for its entirety, with no work to do.

A number of these small and mid-sized organizations are also likely to let go of some of their employees in the next couple of days, as the lock-down is prolonged for two additional weeks. With salary-earners joining workers in the informal sector, the number of potentially vulnerable households has increased by, at least, a few million people.

The Coronavirus has and will continue to expose lapses in governance in many countries, from so-called developed countries such as the US, to developing countries such as Nigeria. In the US, the government has repeatedly thrown money at the Coronavirus, with hopes that the problem goes away, but the number of deaths among minorities, compared with the entire population, has lead many, including the BBC, to point to structural racism in the US.

In Nigeria, the virus is exposing a healthcare system that has been left to rot by leaders who, for far too long, had constantly sought healthcare abroad, at the expense of their constituents. It has also exposed the lack of a useful database in a country of over 200 million people, as well as the poor security situation in the country.  

Furthermore, in the next two few weeks, the lack of a functional social / welfare system, in a country with around 90 million people living below the poverty line, will be exposed. Finally, with the number of people who are likely to be rendered jobless in the coming weeks, without severance payments or health insurance coverage, and with no guarantees that they will be re-hired after the lock-down, the need to re-visit Nigeria’s labour / employee protection laws has never been more evident.

Some of the problems highlighted above are, perhaps, problems for another day – for now, let us survive the Coronavirus. What is most important, for today, is to ensure that poor and vulnerable Nigerians do not starve and that innocent Nigerians are not maimed and killed by other poor Nigerians in search of food. Taking away the livelihood of millions of people without ensuring that the basic necessities are available for their survival is a recipe for disaster, more so in an already agitated environment like Nigeria. Someone said Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gun-powder and, unfortunately, I agree.