Restiveness and the pandemic

Since lockdown was imposed across this country over the Covid-19 pandemic, restiveness by citizens has posed a volatile terrain for enforcing the order. The most notorious flashpoint has been how security personnel handle breaches of the stay-at-home rule of social distancing aimed at flattening the infection curve.

President Muhammadu Buhari had on 29^th March imposed a 14-day lockdown, effective 31^st March, on Nigerian epicentres of the pandemic namely Lagos State and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), and as well on Ogun State for its close inter-connectedness with Lagos. Ogun delayed implementation of the lockdown by four days, though. Whereas other states of the federation were not included in the presidential lockdown order, governors have headed up similar curbs on their respective domain and raised task forces comprising police, military and paramilitary personnel to enforce the stipulated restrictions. In doing that, however, indications are rife that security operatives have not withheld from extreme measures to enforce the lockdown.

There have been reports and video footages of brutality by security personnel against citizens who infringe the stay-at-home rule. In this age of pervasive fake news in public discourse, we can’t afford to take all narratives on the social media without reservation. But there have been footages showing people being horsewhipped and harassed for straying outside their homes. Other footages showed law enforcers destroying the wares of small business owners caught in violation of the lockdown. Worse, there have been confirmed fatalities.

Early last week in Kaduna State, no fewer than four persons were reported killed in Tirkania community, Kaduna South council area, as police personnel sought to compel compliance by traders with the stay-at-home rule. About 10 other persons were reported injured. The burst-up came against the backdrop of a subsisting order by Kaduna government shutting down social and economic activities, including markets, in a bid to leash the spread of coronavirus in the state.

Reports said the traders converged on a temporary market in Tirkania following police shutdown of the Monday market in Kakuri. According to police accounts, rather than return home, the traders relocated their wares to Tirkania to continue with business. They were, however, intercepted by members of the local vigilante, who in a bid to enforce the lockdown came into confrontation with Tirkania youths and had to invite police assistance in shutting down the makeshift market. Eyewitnesses were reported saying the police fired teargas canisters to disperse the crowd, and when they were pelted with stones in retaliation, they resorted to using live bullets. The police, on the other hand, said  it was the confrontation between the traders and local vigilante members trying to disperse them that resulted into a bloody clash in which lives were lost and others injured.

Days earlier, a soldier was reported to have shot dead a motorist named Joseph Pessu in Warri, Delta State, for allegedly flouting the state government’s stay-at-home order. The killing of Pessu ignited mob outrage in the oil city, which was attributed with reprisal killing of a soldier by rampaging townsfolk. Consequent to that reprisal, two soldiers were captured on a video footage that eventually went viral threatening rape spree with complement of HIV infection against Warri women, and using extremely foul language against the townspeople. The Army later made known it had arrested the two soldiers and would probe the circumstance of their conduct, vowing that it would not “tolerate any form of irresponsibility and indiscipline on the part of its personnel.”

Besides those incidents of fatality, there were reported collisions between security agents and citizens in diverse locations, including presumably essential services providers seeking a way around the paralysis occasioned by the lockdown. In Lagos, the state chapter of the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) and the Medical Guild alleged undue harassment of health workers by police personnel. But the police rejoined that many health workers were exploiting the exemption accorded them under the lockdown order to pursue private businesses that were not in the least essential, and that the exemption cover is not absolute.

In other instances, citizens apparently got so bored with staying at home that they took to deserted urban streets to get some air – as in Lagos where keep-fit enthusiasts turned the expressway into a gym site until they were arrested by the police and herded before a magistrate’s court, which sentenced them to a 14-day quarantine as penalty. There was, of course, that notorious case of a popular celebrity and role model who hosted a crowded house party to celebrate her spouse’s birthday and relieve the boredom, in flagrant violation of the social distancing rule.

‘Every extension of the lockdown portends increasingly restive temper in the citizenry as makes compliance all the more dicey’

But the restiveness resulting from idle boredom is indeed the easy part under the circumstance. More virulent is restiveness arising from desperation by many Nigerians for subsistence living and economic survival, which are gravely threatened by inaction under the lockdown. Reports have shown that barely seven days into the lockdown projected to last two weeks in the first instance, gridlock was back on suburban highways in Lagos and the FCT. In satellite settlements of these metropolises, it has been business as usual for most residents in their unruly desperation for survival. Near the Lagos end of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, last week, throngs of youths stormed an upturned fuel tanker to scoop its highly inflamable content in suicidal disregard of possible mass incineration at the slightest spark. In that circumstance, social distancing was sheer myth.

And that is to play down the bristling impatience of youths on forced holiday, who are currently tethered to suffocating oversight of parents or guardians until God-knows-when – virtual tutorials notwithstanding.

A blogger, Mokokoma Mokhonoana, says “When you are unemployed (read that as when you are locked down), weekends are seven days long.” Going by the presidential order, from which unilateral declarations by state governors take bearing, the restrictions ought to be lifted at the end of today, 13^th April. There have since been hints by government, however, that it is a long night considering the lingering potency of the pandemic. The catch is, every extension of the lockdown portends increasingly restive temper in the citizenry as makes compliance all the more dicey. Yet we have a formidable enemy – coronavirus – that must be defeated, and the earlier we do this is the earlier we get back to normal lives. The path is circular, though: compliance with lockdown regulations takes the country faster to the bend out of the lockdown, while every extension of the lockdown makes compliance more difficult.

Another blogger, Sharon Vargas, says what to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging. And that is to say, it is incumbent on the Nigerian public to ‘#TakeResponsility,’ as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) sloganeers, by complying strictly with regulations aimed at flattening the curve.

Truth remains, however, that some citizens are hard put to stay home, even with their best intention and efforts. And this is where efficient application of palliatives by government becomes warranted. In most countries where there is enthusiastic compliance with the lockdown, you would find an efficient social security system in place. In Nigeria, however, it is a far cry from such efficiency, offering no motivation for the economically distressed to give up their survival struggle.

Unless government gets a firm handle on delivering palliatives to the vulnerable, there is a looming showdown between enforcement of lockdown regulations and survival-motivated civic resistance.