It seems that the federal government decision to lift restrictions on inter-state travels and domestic flights was driven more by frustration and desperation than by the realities of the Covid-19 pandemic in our country and the unpleasant experiences of developed countries that took the same step, obviously, for the same reasons.
Daily bulletins from the National Centre for Disease Control give no reason for cheer at the moment.
The daily rate of infections remains progressively high, frightening and disturbing.
Normally this would make lifting the restrictions unwise.
That suggests that the decision was more sentimental than hard-headed; nevertheless it was an option in the hard choices before the federal government.
Was it right and reasonable? Time, as it always does, will tell. It is a messy catch-22 situation.
There is a price to pay for continuing with the restrictions and a price to pay for relaxing or ending them.
Lifting the restrictions could lead to a possible sudden surge as recently happened in 22 states in the US that lifted the restrictions when they thought it was safe to do so.
The authorities were instantly confronted with a surge that forced them to re-impose the restriction to contain the rate of infections and deaths. It is a choice between the head and the heart.
In the circumstances, frustration was bound to creep in. And it did.
No one can as yet see some flickering lights indicating the end of the dark tunnel is within reach.
The nightmare appears prepared to go on and prevent nations and their citizens from getting back on their feet.
No country, developed or developing, has a grip on the virus yet. Medical scientists are still unable to come up with medications to treat it or vaccines to stop it.
No one knows for how long we will depend on the face mask and the hand sanitation as protective measures.
The positive side of this is that the face masks moderate our tendency to converse rather loudly.
Leaders of nations have now reached a stage at which frustration has been compounded by desperation in the Covid-19 challenge.
They cannot ignore the need to let the air into the stuffy lock down policy.
The people need some relief.
No nation can afford to keep its citizens locked away in their homes for any length of time without risking massive protests, something that democratic leaders mortally dread.
People need to engage in economic activities to survive.
On the other hand, the spectre of the virus out there in personal contacts and in the crowds, makes the lifting of restrictions rather iffy.
Should a national leader give in to sentiments and inadvertently expose his citizens to the clear danger of a surge in the rate of infections by granting them unrestricted freedom of movement and association?
Perhaps, the question should be: which price would be lighter or heavier for a nation to pay in the circumstances?
It is a hard decision but one that must be taken. And must be taken in a manner that gives the head the right to rule the heart.
Sentiments must be constantly weighed against the realities experienced by other nations in a similar situation with us. That is not always an easy thing to do because politics is actually a sentimental game.
Political leaders need public applause as a fuel to propel them forward; they are driven by the sentiment of pleasing the people or at least showing that they are men of the people, always looking out for their interests.
You can’t keep sentiment out of political and social decisions but you can moderate it and prevent it from sabotaging hard-headed decisions.
Neither the lockdown nor the inter-state and air travels could be sustained much longer in the face of the unbearable pains visited on the people.
We cannot blame the government for refusing to make our homes our prisons.
Nigerians are great travellers.
They rendered the policing of the inter-state travels ineffective and the security agents handsomely profited from the people’s desperation to beat the system and go where they wished.
I just hope the need to re-impose inter-state travels would no longer arise because it would be stoutly resisted, no matter whatever dangers of Covid-19 spread they might pose to the rest of the country.
The lifting of the restrictions does not give the government the right to sleep with its two eyes closed.
We are not out of the woods yet.
The challenges remain as critical as ever.
PTF and other agencies must continue to monitor the situation and when the red light goes up (perish the thought), the government must respond with a measured sense of urgency and purpose.
The relaxation of the lockdown and the lifting of the restriction on inter-state and air travels must be constantly balanced against the more critical need to protect the people against the dangerous virus and make them stay alive to witness the end of the pandemic.
Striking a reasonable recommends itself as an option.
However, the problem is how to achieve a reasonable balance to prevent the scale from tipping dangerously either way.
No one said it would be easy.
It would be made relatively easier if we let the head trump the heart in the decision-making process.
It is still a long trek through the dark tunnel of the coronavirus challenge.
But no matter how long it takes, it will eventually submit to the will of the medical sciences and become only a blip on the screen of world history.
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