By Rotimi Fasan

Since the Nigerian government woke up from its selfish slumber and decided to ramp up its response to the ravages of COVID-19 nearly three weeks ago, a lot has been revealed about what Nigerians actually know about themselves, their lifestyles and what it means to be imprisoned in the bubble called government.

Once the lockdown was imposed on Lagos, Ogun and the FCT, the message that Nigerians are a special breed of animals with most of us being of the goat family was further brought home. This showed in the manner many people in the states under lockdown decided to observe the lockdown in the breach.

A lot can and has been said about how the nature of our communities make the lockdown and its attendant policy of social distancing extremely difficult if not impossible to observe.

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Much of the problem connected to this can be traced to the informal nature of the Nigerian economic structure, our culture of disregard for collecting useful data on ourselves and above everything else the unbearable level of poverty in the land.

Most of what Nigerians have had to say in their rejection of the lockdown has been about how to navigate the demands of survival, keeping body and soul together in a country where most of the poor depend on a daily wage.

How also do you shut down markets that are built right in the middle of inhabited spaces, where there are neither doors nor barricades separating stalls from people’s homes? How, in fact, do people observe social distancing in a crowded compound of five, six families where each family is made up of 12 or more members?

These are clear problems that compound an already sluggish response to a pandemic that has destroyed families, communities and entire countries around the world.

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As much as these are problems that need to be addressed, the matter could be overstated in certain respect. The problems, serious as they are, could be ameliorated but for a certain culture of disrespect for rules and organisation among Nigerians.

While many Nigerians would of necessity go to work daily to earn their living, many of those that have been caught violating the lockdown in concerned states were nowhere close to looking for how to earn their keep.

Nigerians struggling to earn their living will very likely be found in their homes lamenting their condition or knocking at their neighbours’ or relations’ doors. Not going out in scores to play football on the vehicle-free roads.

There are people I know who not only deny the existence of the disease but spend this period attending crowded activities like parties of different kinds and have showed no inclination to slow down in spite of advice. Yet they cannot withstand the consequences of their behaviour without involving others should matters come to that.

Truly hungry Nigerians, say those who have to hawk in the early hours of the morning to make a few naira to enable them put together a manageable breakfast, will not be found loitering in open spaces or clustered in noisy worship centres during a lockdown. Difficult as it must be, some who engage in the hawking business, for example, will still go on with this activity in their neighbourhood without violating curfew.

If one could understand the situation of people who must earn money daily in order to eat, how do we explain the behaviour of people who see the lockdown period as opportunity for leisurely car drives or exercising to lose fat accumulated over many years of irresponsible eating habits? Which is the case among many middle-class Nigerians who would be expected to know better than seeking attention under the guise of shedding calories.

At what should be the height of the lockdown, many parts of our cities are suddenly flooded with overweight men and women, putting in open display parts of the body that are better covered as they grunt in sweat clothes under the illusion of shedding weight.

Why should Nigerians come to a realisation of their keep-fit nature at a time of mortal danger? Is this their own way of teasing death? Seeing how flat-footed far better-equipped countries have been caught by the coronavirus, should the educated and supposedly enlightened among us go out taking a risk in this manner? To what does one ascribe such murderous irresponsibility?

What the excess of flesh put on display by these overfed Nigerians prove is a career of self-abuse and reckless abundance. Neither want nor hunger much less a drive to earn a living would push them on the street at a time of a highly infectious pandemic.

The Chinese city of Wuhan was on lockdown for eleven weeks, nearly 80 days when people were locked up inside their homes. They did not die and are the better for it today.

For how long has Nigeria been on lockdown and in how many states to warrant the noises going around or the populist game of relaxing a lockdown that was hardly enforced by some governors? Are we doing this because we have not got to the point where people are being buried in their thousands daily as is the case now in America?

If the so-called world’s greatest power is this humbled by a disease how much more a country where virtually everything is programmed to fail? The shame of our medical system is now evident to the so-called leaders who can no longer at this time travel abroad for medical attention.

This is no time to predict the end of a disease that is yet to run its course. The doctors, nurses, pharmacists, virologists and other medical personnel on the frontline of combating this disease do not have the luxury of what some overfed Nigerians are up to.

They are engaged in a life and death battle and do not need anyone to make a tough task even more difficult. And the major part of responsibility for the misconduct of lockdown violators belongs with the government that imposed a curfew it was not prepared to enforce.

When followers fail to do what is right, those who have the authority to make them do the appropriate thing should be seen doing that. But after a slow start, Abuja is allowing itself to be distracted by the antics of peddlers of fake news which, it must be admitted, has been evident in recent weeks.

Yet a government determined to do right by the people and is doing it will not allow itself to be distracted by their fellow politicians or their hired hands.

Fake news thrives in an atmosphere of secrecy where authentic news is either unavailable or is stifled. That is when a government worry about fake news – when they know they have not been doing the right thing.

Vanguard