Crowds in the pandemic

 Nigeria’s case count regarding the coronavirus pandemic appears abating, with confirmed cases averaging at about 400 daily in recent weeks. But members of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on Covid-19 have been quick to dampen hasty euphoria that this country is beating the pandemic already.

Chairman of the task force and Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha said 85 council areas in 20 states were yet to conduct Covid-19 testing and had not reported any case. “Nigeria is yet to reach the peak of the pandemic, therefore, the low test/case confirmation numbers coming out daily should not be misinterpreted to mean that we have overcome. We have over time ramped up testing but more needs to be done to raise the quantum of test per million,” he explained at a routine media briefing by the task force on Monday, last week. Later in the week, he reiterated this admonition, saying it was still a long road out of the pandemic for Nigeria and no time yet for the victory shout.

Speaking at the Monday briefing, Health Minister Osagie Ehanire noted that Nigeria was close to the symbolic threshold of 1,000 fatalities from the pandemic – “a grim reality that should be a wake-up call for us.” With such fatality toll, he believed individual awareness should be more widespread among Nigerians because many would know one or other of those who’ve succumbed to the virus, “and so I ask that we remind ourselves that Covid-19 is still with us and will be for a long time,” he said. The minister warned that “until there is a vaccine, the only options we have to protect ourselves are the non-pharmaceutical measures proven to be cheap and effective, such as appropriate use of facemask, physical distancing and avoiding crowds.”

Also at the briefing, PTF National Coordinator Sani Aliyu granted that the daily infection rate seemed to be easing, but he warned it was yet a long way off to a win for Nigeria. According to him, all non-pharmaceutical protocols must be strictly adhered to by citizens to achieve total success in the fight against Covid-19. Huge crowds at public functions who show scant regard for the preventive protocols have been a recurrent sight, like mass rallies involved in ongoing electioneering in Edo State and the recent burial of Ogun State political stalwart Buruji Kashamu where social distancing was not in the least observed and many people failed to wear facemasks. Aliyu confirmed that the trend was disturbing, blaming it on leaders who do noting to restrain such crowds. “I must say we are dismayed with the level of compliance when it comes to some of these activities. The issue is: we know that Covid-19 does not act like a proper pandemic…We are faced with a pandemic that is an invisible enemy,” he stated.

Unruly crowds pose a negative factor in the drive to tackle down Covid-19 – a factor that affronts the basic prescription of social distancing. Besides, crowd conduct in most cases runs in denial of the pandemic. The acute disregard for preventive protocols that we see in mass gatherings evidence the fact that many people yet harbor the notion that the deadly virus is a hype, or that the battle to contain its spread is already won. The root cause of this, as Aliyu argued, is leadership failure.

Take the crowd at Kashamu’s burial for instance. The late politician was widely reported to have died of Covid-19 complications; yet the way thousands without facemasks body-pressed at his burial suggested that the narrative about the cause of his death was considered irrelevant fiction. That governing authorities did not consider restricting attendance at the funeral and ensure some modicum of adherence to preventive protocols was gross failure of leadership that was not alleviated by subsequent reports that the Ogun State government asked mourners who attended the funeral to go into self-isolation. Obviously, it is sheer self-delusion to expect that people who in the open exhibited such maximum disdain for prescribed precautions would in private take recourse to allied precautions.

‘The conduct of rallies…preparatory to the September 19 governorship election in Edo State betray stock failure of leadership’

But if crowd indiscretion as witnessed at Kashamu’s funeral was one-off, the conduct of rallies in ongoing electioneering preparatory to the September 19 governorship election in Edo State betray stock failure of leadership. Despite new imperatives thrown up by the pandemic, power gladiators perceive as indispensable the political capital implicit in gathering mass crowds at rallies, even when those in the crowds harbor no inkling of fidelity to preventive protocols. The gladiators betray the mindset that the larger the crowd gathered, the bigger the political statement made. Though they themselves manage some semblance of adherence to Covid-19 precautions by donning facemasks – much of the time, tokenistically – it matters nothing that supporters massed up and body-pressing in cramped spaces are not similarly kitted. Neither does it matter apparently that the practice code adopted is in violation of regulations prescribed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) for conduct of electioneering.

INEC had prescribed that parties get creative in how they engage the public for electoral support by adopting techniques that facilitate adherence to preventive protocols stipulated by health authorities. “We expect candidates and political parties to utilise the conventional media, the social media and other creative means of information dissemination in their campaigns and rallies. Political parties should find a balance between the orthodox means of rallies and campaigns and the new realities of face masks, social and physical distancing, hand washing and hand sanitising,” National Commissioner Festus Okoye said in a recent media interview.

In its Guidelines for Conducting Elections During Covid-19 Outbreak in Nigeria issued early in July, the NCDC prescribed among others that based on the present risk level and community transmission mode of coronavirus in Nigeria, political actors should ensure that the number of people gathering together for rallies is restricted to one-third of the actual capacity of whatever venue used. Other regulations prescribed by the agency for politicians include as follows:

“• Avoid utilising campaign venue to full capacity; we recommend one-third of venue capacity (minimum of 2metres should be observed among people at the gathering).

“• If essential, multiple rallies should be conducted with appropriate numbers of people to enable adequate physical distancing in each gathering per time.

“• Hand hygiene facilities including soap and water / hand sanitisers should be made available for people before gaining access to campaign ground.

“• The use of face masks must be mandatory for everyone attending the campaign rally.

“Where applicable, virtual campaigns and rallies are encouraged. This can be done using televised or radio campaigns, and mobile vans.”

With visuals coming out from Edo State, you could bet your last kobo there is anything but adherence to these prescriptions; and it is crucially important to realign in national interest – so to aid efforts at leashing the pandemic. It is failure of political leadership as it were that there is no attention to this objective in the feverish quest for power. The bigger challenge is: it lies within the exclusive remit of political leadership to redress the failure. INEC can’t do it by applying sanctions against players because it is a neutral umpire that must tread warily, lest it falls under suspicion of bias. Neither can security agencies or health authorities who are agents of the government at the centre, for the same reason. Inevitably, the onus falls on the political elite involved to take responsibility. Will they?