One eye open

Doctors have advise that we should avoid excessive exposure to sad and depressing information and communication as much as possible. In our circumstances today, this is virtually impossible when every minute and everything we do is related to COVID-19. Our lives have been taken over by a power greater than any, except God. We are […]

Doctors have advise that we should avoid excessive exposure to sad and depressing information and communication as much as possible. In our circumstances today, this is virtually impossible when every minute and everything we do is related to COVID-19. Our lives have been taken over by a power greater than any, except God. We are fighting back, or keeping our heads low, but we cannot be sure if it is enough. You will have to lock yourself up. Wear a mind mask. Remove the TV and all gadgets that communicate from your life. Do not read the papers. Do not discuss the pandemic with anyone. Pretend that the new normal was the old normal. Do not complain. Go through life as if it is all you have always known.

Look for good and cheerful information, it is advised. Today, this  is like shining a torch with weak batteries in search of something in pitch and total darkness, but you do find something. For instance, you would hear faint sobbing and prayers for relief. It is not from a victim of the virus or their relation, but from Abubakar Shekau. Yes, him with the famous series of videos deriding the effort of the Nigerian state and its neighbours to eliminate him. The leader of the oldest faction of Boko Haram is on an audio recording lamenting the damage from the onslaught of Nigerian troops on his holed-up fighters. Apparently, General Tukur Buratai’s personal presence around the many fronts in this prolonged fight is having an impact. It has Shekau calling on Allah to intervene and stop the assault on his fighters. Two things here: one is the hope that this audio is genuine and not a propaganda piece. Second is the hope that this push-back will be sustained, and at least the Shekau faction defeated.

Another cheery news is awaiting confirmation as I write, but it looks certain that President Buhari has decided to replace the late Malam Abba Kyari with Professor Ibrahim Gambari, his former Minister of External Affairs when he was a military head of state, and a former Nigerian Permanent Representative to the UN. The decision will assuage concerns that the president will be his characteristic old self, choosing when to take a major decision, and then deciding at the point when much of the value has been eroded and delivering an anti-climax. The choice of Gambari, an exposed, respected suave and personable age-mate of the president will suggest that the president has an eye on a nod on many issues from the global community.

There will certainly be concerns over how much of the shoes of the late Kyari Prof. Gambari can fill. This is a man reportedly severely lacking in tough and mean streaks, the type you need to be Buhari’s gatekeeper and take bullets from all angles. Perhaps President Buhari has decided to allow the powerful office of chief of staff to die with its predecessor. In any case, the  ambassador at the gate will remind the nation that it is effectively a gerontocracy; a state run by old or elderly people, some with defined roles and others deciding how they exercise those roles. Age has a value in Africa, but it comes with concerns regarding health status, capacities to carry huge burdens and the willingness to accept to change when it becomes necessary.

What else is good news? Oh yes, Nigeria is waiting for its allocation of a few bottles of a concoction from Madagascar which is supposed to stop the COVID-19 in its tracks. Presumably, the few bottles will be tested on a few patients, and if they rush home all hale and hearty, we will embark on either a feverish mass importation of the elixir or lead the world in its  production since we have the basic ingredients growing all over the land. There are a few gloomy faces around professional medical circles over this decision, but the mere fact that it has been described as bold, a word not often associated with many of Buhari’s decisions, is worth giving a few bottles a try.

And now we are back to discussing the pandemic. The problem here is that there are many grey areas which make it difficult to say whether a development is good or bad news. Kano is extending its lockdown by a week and massively improving capacities to handle infected people. Just  to be clear, though, this is an extension of a relaxed lockdown that was never really a lockdown in the first place. Kano is not the first to call a door that is ajar and a lockdown. It has received the most attention since the alarm raised by the deaths of many prominent people (and quite possibly many more less-prominent people) and its many gaping holes in its response to the pandemic. Like the rest of the nation, Kano has to wait to see the effect of its policy flip-flops on the population, and how much it has to pay for its (and its neighbours’) inability to stop inter-state travels.

Kano’s Gov. Ganduje and Kaduna’s El-Rufai who is full of energy having recovered from his own infection from the virus traded words over the discovery that most of the almajirai deported to Kaduna from Kano had tested positive for the virus. Ganduje defended himself by reference to a decision of all northern governors to deport almajirai to their home states, and that Kano had also received infected almajirai without making a song and dance about it. Whatever informed the decision to “deport” vulnerable Nigerians, this has merely ended up moving the infection around, and there is no one around to confirm that almajiri is a major vehicle for transporting the virus. If it was, you would have thought local isolation or quarantine are better options than sending it away.

Many states from the South also put up barricades and turned back  northerners that looked like almajirai, or any northerner at all. And why not? This particular category has been fingered by its own communities as mass virus carriers, and all the world is witness to the frenzy of “deportations” and “counter deportations”, isolations and quarantine of the almajirai. Governors and security personnel comb lorries looking for, and turning back northerners. A governor from the South has just banned the importation of cattle, goats and sheep and ordered markets closed. Tensions are rising between communities, and it seems everyone is looking to re-start old battles that target “settlers”, this time mostly from the North. When the irascible Coalition of Northern Groups wades in with the only weapon in its arsenal, which is threats of counter measures, and saner voices stay mute, you know that this virus has created many victims.