By Chris Paul Otaigbe
Crisis of confidence is currently rocking the management of Nigeria’s Covid-19 publicized plan to battle the pandemic, as some Nigerians complain about varieties of unpleasant treatment they experience in the hands of the officials.
Ranging from the inaccessibility of the testing services, ineffective front desk relations with the public, thus depriving potential patients’ opportunity to make inquiries, disputed test results to the unceremonious shutdown of centres.
Following his SOS message that went viral, Ebun Adegboruwa, a popular Lawyer finally succeeded in getting help for his friend who developed COVID-19 symptoms.
The Lawyer had disclosed this in a phone conversation to our Reporter, Sunday, April 26, 2020. According to him, the SOS letter he posted on social media got the attention of some well-meaning Nigerians with connections to the high command of the nation’s COVID-19 management quarters. They were the ones, he said, who got his friend the assistance he needed to get tested and treated.
Now that his efforts to help his friend get tested has paid off, Adegboruwa still holds the view that one needs connection in Nigeria to get tested, affirming that his experience confirmed it.
“As I just told you, I said due to my message that went viral on social media, Nigerians with connections in government were the ones that made it possible for my friend to get tested,” he said.
Concerning the readiness of the country to combat the pandemic, he said facts on the ground show that Nigeria is not equipped enough to battle the virus.
“As at today, the number of confirmed cases was over one thousand out of more than ten thousand Tested patients. In a country of more than 200 million and you have tested only 10,000 in how many months since this pandemic hit us… “said Adegboruwa.
For the Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), it would take far more time to get the number that is reflective of the true state of Nigeria’s COVID-19 status.
“By the time we do the test that will reflect our true COVID-19 statistics, we may end up having about 20 million Nigerians testing positive to the virus.” He said.
Over the weekend, Adegboruwa had posted a message on the social media stating the frustrating experience he went through trying to get his friend tested.
In the letter, titled Urgent SOS: The Truth About Covid- 19 In Nigeria, Adegboruwa stated that a friend called him “he told me he was having difficulty breathing, he’s been weak and has pains in the heart. I immediately told him to race to Landmark isolation Centre in Oniru, Victoria Island, Lagos. He went there straight but was turned back, as he was told that it’s only meant for those who have tested positive already. I encouraged him to wait till daybreak so he could go to Yaba, the main COVID 19 centre in Lagos.” he stated.
In the letter, they reached out to the central COVID-19 centre at the Mainland Hospital at Yaba, his friend was told to describe his symptoms on record by way of sms and send it. In response, Adegboruwa’s friend was told that he could not be tested that particular week as the Center was already booked for the week. He was then scheduled for the week after, to have his test. “So, what happens to him between now and next week?” Asked the SAN.
According to him, a similar situation was reported in Ajah early in the previous week, in which the affected Resident called the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) in Lagos “and they kept postponing the test. By the time NCDC officers got to Ajah the man had died and the family resisted them from carrying the corpse. So, the reality is that Nigeria has no capacity for COVID 19 presently and the govt is not telling us the truth. Please do all you can to stay safe, to be sure that you’re not infected at all, as it now takes prayer and connection to even be tested how much less get treated,” he advised.
As at April 26, 2020, over 1,182 cases have been confirmed, with more than 35 deaths, while close to 250 had been discharged.
While some Nigerians may argue that the Adegboruwa’s experience is contestable since thousands are getting tested in the Lagos centers, the SAN’s encounter sheds light on another dimension of the discomforting crisis of confidence confronting the country’s COVID-19 combat plan and infrastructure.
Adegboruwa is based in Lagos where the main Test Centers for the country are located. Besides his encounter, Residents in the State desirous of checking their status have their tales of woe to tell.
A young lady (name withheld) desperately tried to reach the NCDC to get tested. She reportedly called all the advertised numbers of the Covid-19 Agency. She said her messages to the WhatsApp, SMS numbers were not replied while the call numbers did not go through. Out of frustration, she surrendered herself to the Adekunle Division of the Lagos State Police Command, on Saturday, April 25, 2020, to report her status to the Police there.
Confirming the story, the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Elkana Bala said the young Lady was escorted to the Test Center where she was finally attended to.
KaftanPost’s sister station, Kaftan Tv, tried the numbers and got no response too. The call numbers went through but no one picked the call. Some Lagosians who tried those numbers got a similar response, or ‘no response’ as the case may be.
The other level of crisis is one in which the integrity of Test results is called to question. The possibility of a State government tinkering with test documents, just to score points to be counted as a credible COVID-19 ‘citizens harvest’ centre, came to the fore in the case of one of the North Central States.
This is the story of the highly-publicized Susan Okpe’s encounter with the Benue State COVID-19 management.
As if welcoming an international celebrity into the State, the Governor of Benue State, Governor Samuel Ortom, just like his other colleagues across the country, made public the name and test result of the index case. This he did on March 28, 2020, in line with the advice of members of the Benue Action Committee (BAC) on COVID-19.
She was said to have arrived at the State from London for a burial ceremony and had sought medical attention at a private hospital in Makurdi, after falling ill.
Her health condition was said to have attracted the attention of the Benue COVID-19 committee who subjected her to the COVID-19 test according to the National Centre for Disease Control, (NCDC) rules. From the result of the Test, she was allegedly confirmed Coronavirus positive.
Mrs Okpe who insisted, however, that she was not sick, yet was moved to the isolation and treatment centre at Benue State University Teaching Hospital, (BSUTH) after much persuasion by the Chairman of the Committee and Benue State Deputy Governor, Mr Benson Abounu.
On April 4, Benue State Commissioner of Health, Dr Sunday Ongbabo told newsmen that the Federal Ministry of Health wrote to the Committee requesting that the patient be transferred to Abuja, and the Committee obliged. “So, she was moved to Abuja,” Sunday said.
It was gathered that the request to move the Susan to Abuja was prompted by her insistence that she was not sick and alleged refusal to cooperate with the medical team at the BSUTH treatment centre.
The patient took to social media in a two and half minutes’ video recording asking the Federal Government to release her from “incarceration.”
The tone in the video is a cry for help from people who, ordinarily, should be saving her from a plague. The message, she was inadvertently sending, was that the BAC on Covid-19 was attempting to use her as the State’s contribution to Nigeria’s basket of the global pandemic pool of coronavirus positive Patients, perhaps to qualify for some largesse from the Federal Government as a COVID-19 State.
The globally acceptable period for isolation is 14 days, after which the patient is discharged. Unfortunately for Susan, her case required the BAC to detain her for two more days and this may have sparked off a morbid fear in her. She must have seen herself as the State’s COVID-19 ‘donation’ for Nigeria to make up the numbers in the race to become Africa’s ‘epicentre’ of the dreaded plague.
So, she took to the social media, once more, to cry louder for help:
“I am pleading with everybody to please tell the Nigerian government to let me go. This is my 16th day of incarceration. What have I done? What have I done? Benue State lied on me that I have COVID-19. I just got the result yesterday after 15 days and the result is a stage play with different birthdays, different recordings which they know and (are) trying to put right. That’s left to them but please I want to beg Nigerians to also beg President Buhari, Osinbajo, Health Minister Osagie and whoever is in charge to please let me go out of this place,” said Susan.
What is worrying is that Susan, out of distrust for the BAC’ s handling of her case, now feels like a trapped animal about to be sacrificed to the COVID-19 god. Why? The State should have done everything possible to, short of pampering her as its pioneer COVID-19 Patient, make her as comfortable as possible. Rather than treat her like a Police squad that has caught a priced criminal.
In normal Patient-doctor or health management relationship or environment, Susan was supposed to surrender herself to and cooperate with the State. But in a situation where she is suspecting the State, that becomes scary. Because what she may have implied, is that even if she does not have the symptoms or the virus itself, the State would do everything to force her to have it, just to justify their efforts.
Otherwise, a woman of such education and exposure would have had no reason to argue with her State if she had the confidence that the case would be treated justly, fairly, transparently and honestly by the Covid-19 BAC officials.
“I am tired; I am fed up. I am exhausted and I don’t know what to do anymore. I don’t know why they are keeping me. That they want to treat me? Treat me for what, what are they treating me for?” she asked.
According to her, she had no symptoms of any strange sickness as certified by the first set of results, which she claimed proved negative.
“I am not sick. They have seen the result that they lied and they are not letting me go. They want to trick me because I don’t even trust Nigerians; I don’t trust anybody. If you’ve been lied against if results have been falsified how do you trust anybody to treat you with anything? Do I just sit down and start taking medicine?” She queried.
Her distrust for the system got to the point where she began seeing herself as a prisoner rather than a Patient who should be treated with care and love. This can be said to be the reason why many Nigerians who may have developed the symptoms would not want to come out to be identified with the disease let alone contact the NCDC to come for them.
The next challenge to the Nigerian Covid-19 war is even more fatal and has taken Lives with it. But the one that is already in the public domain as documented in the social media was the cry of a bereaved grandmother.
A distraught 70-year-old woman, Mrs Bello, lost her very promising Son-In-Law to Kano’s unwellness.
She recorded a voice note and cried out for her daughter and grandchildren to be saved from the COVID-19 death that killed their breadwinner. Did anyone listen?
In her voice note, she said she severally called the Abuja NCDC officials who kept assuring her that the Kano NCDC personnel would soon get to attend his dying Son-In-Law. By the time, the problem got too serious and Kano NCDC was nowhere to be found, she had to force the Abuja official to tell her the truth. To her shock, she was informed, the Kano NCDC had shut down due to lack of facilities.
In the end, her son-in-law died and now she is desperate to save her daughter and grandchild.
This is one other class of issues currently plaguing the nation’s battle against the pandemic. There are some NCDC centres or first aid infrastructure that may have either broken down or in the process of shutting down.
What is the government doing about it? Should NCDC not be telling Nigerians which of its offices across the country is working or shutdown so desperate citizens in need of their service can know who to call, where to go and how to go about getting help?
Obviously, the Kano grandma was deprived of this service and made to lose her Son-In-Law to a pandemic that has now landed like a Hawk on the roof of Kano, devouring her citizens in the hundreds.
Clearly, the case of Mrs Bello draws attention to the lackadaisical attitude and approach of the Kano State government worsened by a cruel cluelessness coupled with the lack of capacity to curb or contain the spread of the coronavirus among its people.
Regrettably, the ignorant and innocent mass of the people of the State is the ones paying the price of a government’s ineptitude in the face of a murderous pandemic.
Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje’s dismissal of the disease, last week Wednesday, as false, aggravated the scourge of the pandemic, as both rich and poor Residents of the State have been falling, like flies, to the deadly claws of the plague.
At over 640 deaths, Ganduje’s naive disposition to the presence of the virus in his State has cost Kano some of its elite.
Some of the highest demographics in the population of the dead include respected members of the academia:
The late Prof. Ayagi was a Commissioner for Economic Development in the State from 1975-1978, just as he was also a former Director-General of Kano Foundation from 1987-1990. Ayagi, who is also the proprietor of Hassan Ibrahim Gwarzo College in Kano, died on Saturday, after a protracted illness at the age 80.
Prof. Aliyu Umar Dikko was former Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) at the Bayero University Kano (BUK). He was involved in the opening of three faculties of Medicine/Basic Medical Sciences in Bayero University, Kaduna State University and Yusuf Maitama Sule University.
There was also the sad story of Lawal, the First Bank Regional Manager in Kano, who died from a suspected case of COVID-19.
Thankfully, the voice of reason came from the immediate past Governor of the State Alh. Rabiu Kwankwaso, who rose above political sentiments to appeal to President Mohammadu Buhari for urgent intervention to arrest the trend of death in Kano.
This rare display of apolitical compassion by Kwankwaso, a People Democratic Party (PDP) Chieftain seems to have brought the needed succour to the State, because his call got the attention of the President, as reflected in Buhari’s third broadcast to Nigerians since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In his speech, the President ordered a total lockdown of Kano for two weeks in the first instance. And so, should this presidential measure stem the tide of fatalities in the State, Kano Residents would have their former Governor and not the incumbent, to thank for bringing the solution that has prevented Kano from losing more its citizens to the virus.
Ganduje’s lacklustre response to the plague reminds of the US President, Donald Trump’s dismissal of the disease as a none health issue that would soon go away. At the time, the number of confirmed cases were still in the double digits, while less than 20 Americans were reported to have died at the time.
Less than three weeks later, the pandemic exploded in Trump’s face and began taking the Lives of Americans in their tens of thousands, with the number of infected shooting beyond the five digits range.
Today, the world’s most powerful nation has overtaken the world as the nation with the highest COVID-19 situation at almost one million confirmed cases coupled with almost 70,000 deaths.
The Kano scenario is indicative of the surge that is about to assail not only the State or the Northern region but the entire country.
With over ten thousand tested, close to two thousand cases, over 1,337, about 255 discharged and 40 deaths so far, Nigeria remains within the bracket of least affected countries.
However, this number may not really represent the true state of play of the plague in the country, especially when one considers the status of Kano in the scheme of the pandemic.
According to NCDC records, the State has 77 cases and one death. Without a doubt, the current statistics as published by the nation’s COVID-19 management parastatal cannot be said to be entirely correct.
Considering that the State has lost close to 700 indigenes and Residents to the virus with a countless number of hidden cases, the total figure of fatalities resulting from Covid-19 attack on the country as a whole should read:
Kano’s reported 640 deaths plus the 40 recorded across Nigeria to give 680 deaths in the country. In order words, this should be NCDC statistics of the true number of Covid-19 dead in Nigeria.
Besides the imbecilic argument advanced by the State government that it cannot confirm the source of the disease killing Kano citizens, there is no other credible reason to discredit this statistical assertion as the true state of the COVID-19 dead in the country.
As much as one strains to concede that Nigeria’s Covid-19 plan may be working to some extent, the penchant for Nigerians to politicize every policy of government plus the insensitivity and insincerity of some government officials, in the delivery of service to Nigerians, make the effort to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, one that is rocked by the crisis of confidence.
Unbridled corruption, across all levels of government and levers of governance in which virtually all Operatives of State see their service and position as an opportunity to collect their share of the national cake, dangerously depletes products and services meant to serve the citizens.
Worse still, it daily depletes, destructively so, citizens’ confidence concerning the country’s COVID-19 crisis management.
Nigeria would be leaving in denial if she believes the current NCDC figures give a true picture of the pandemic in the country. The Kano story is a vivid signal that she is already becoming a major EPICENTER among the world’s worst-hit nations… Because, by the time the real face of coronavirus is unveiled, it would be discovered that Nigeria may have joined the league of countries with cases running into hundreds of thousands and deaths hitting in their tens of thousands.
