COVID-19: Missed lessons

Hushpuppi has COVID-19 and his greed to blame for losing his liberty. But for the global pandemic, he would still be in Dubai eating his trademark ten-man breakfast. Hushpuppy became Donald Trump’s unwanted guest attempting to cash in on the American Government’s COVID-19 palliatives among a string of suspected previous cyber crimes.

Nigerians believe they were husspuppied by their own government and the evidence is not far fetched. While the other countries Nigeria tried to copy with its lockdown and gradual reopening continue to support their citizens adjust to the new normal, the regime has increased its burden on the people.

Those with bank accounts know that tariffs have increased on mundane transactions. The government claimed to have sold off moribund electricity company, NEPA but it still pulls the corruption strings that emboldens the subsidiaries to keep fleecing the nation. Lately, the regime has increased the pump price of petroleum products.

This regime is the luckiest, daily tightening the noose on the people without opposition. A system that exploits the poor to enrich the privileged has made the failure it succeeded look like success. Even for all the subterfuge that built Oshiomole’s political pedigree, Obasanjo’s regime had to face battles on the streets. Neither labour nor public opinion gave Umaru Yar’adua a breather. Hard tackles made a second term completely unattractive to Goodluck Jonathan. With General Buhari, standards have been lowered to accommodate every imperfection.

With critics disappearing or threatened, activism has shifted to social media and beer parlour chatters. The Nigeria that stoned Jonathan’s shenanigans tolerates Buhari’s assault. From refusing to declare assets to failure to live up to its promises, the APC under Buhari is riding roughshod on the patience of the masses.

Only last week, Rarara, a pro-Buhari singer, raised millions from an unconventional poll on the regime’s popularity. He taxed Buhari’s followers a minimum of N1,000 to release a new panegyric. At a time people were fussing over the price of grains, Rarara grossed over N2 million within 24 hours, an unofficial seal of approval of servitude and oppression.

Nigerians often wonder why critics debate local politics with inference to happenings in the so-called ‘saner climes’. Nigeria does not exist in a vacuum. As sad as it sounds, we are part of a global commune. Our green-white-green flutters where real nations fly even when the component parts are ever so set to disentangle.

The system of governance Nigeria attempt to mimic is not indigenous to it. Democracy is not African. Pre-colonial Africa ran on a monarchical dictatorship with a Spartan form of republicanism called the age-grade system. So, if we must compare apples, we must equate them with pears.

In March, when COVID-19 transformed into a global pandemic, nations took measures to contain its spread and minimise its impact on people, country and economy. Nigeria had closed its land borders before the pandemic but copied the global lockdown with air blockade.

Like other nations, the government announced a list of tokens it called palliatives. Most of them were as fluid as they come and prone to the usual abuse that mints emergency millionaires of government officials and regime lackeys. This is was what led to the talk that Nigeria; an analogue nation distributed its COVID-19 palliatives via Bluetooth. It is a global marvel.

With a few pictures and video clips as evidence, a super minister claimed to have fed millions of children for billions of Naira. The government announced a token of N5, 000 or $14 relief package to the jobless. No Nigerian survives a lockdown on that amount anywhere in Nigeria.

Established nations are still struggling with the pandemic, but Nigeria has switched to post-pandemic mode, eased the lockdown and unleashed an armada of misanthropic policies further strangling the poor. With these increments, no civil servant can survive on his or her salary. That policy thrust has led to spiralling inflation. Grains disappeared from the silos and the government blamed it on middlemen without an arrest as proof.

While the poor groans, the privileged have increased in strength and entitlement. Legislators got brand new SUVs and the presidency would increase its fleet. Globally, a happy people are the bedrock of a buoyant economy, while a disenchanted people are the antidote to growth.

In Canada, the provincial and federal governments buried political and ideological differences to work for the good of the people and the sustenance of the economy.

Before the pandemic, Canada had its unemployment insurance and Canadian citizens and permanent residents afflicted and affected by the pandemic got their cheques in the mail. While Nigerian markets were closed, Canadian grocery stores remained open. The Canadian government understood that when people stay at home they would need electricity, so it suspended its off-peak-on-peak electricity tariff. It enabled people to cook and relax indoors without the fear of crippling electricity bills. In Nigeria, electricity companies were fleecing the people just as the police were killing and maiming people on the streets.

Canada announced a rent-forgiveness program where landlords were prevented by law from sending out defaulting tenants. Owners of commercial buildings were obligated to temporarily drop 60 percent of rents on those properties to help businesses coping with the lockdown. Nigeria has no public housing and couldn’t convince anybody to lower rent. The interest rate on loans and the collateral makes it impossible for Nigerian small businesses access to loans.

Access to loan by Canadian businesses has seen a substantial chunk of closed businesses reopen and is hiring back its workers. Only last Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced specific programmes to help black businesses and people of colour access loans to sustain the rainbow on the business landscape.

Little wonder, the Canadian economy has weathered the global storm with confidence and calmness. Unlike in Nigeria where the government is about to monopolise the supply of oxygen due to lack of ideas, the Canadians refine their oil.

It is a global truth that you cannot build something on nothing. Without a reliable headcount, Nigeria plans on conjecture. Few things are constant in Nigeria – the number of ministers sustained by the regime with the jumbo perks; the burdensome legislature at federal, state and local government level. We have agencies and boards contributing little or nothing to the commonwealth and draining from it. This house may not have fallen, it has tilted and its sustenance is threatened.

Without a credible database, it is not difficult to hear that the few farmers given loans have disappeared with them. That won’t happen in Canada, or anywhere in the Western world because from birth to death, anywhere you are, big brother has your number.

When people know they can expect their tax returns, they keep a steady address. When health cards grant access to hospitals they voluntarily update records as they relocate. When they know that a healthy credit rating grants access to loans and assistance, people don’t disappear like deadbeats.

Nigeria under APC multi-taxes anyone with a traceable address but grants nothing by way of rights or privileges to any citizen. This is why Nigerians feel no scruples ditching their passports for any other.

Nigeria copied the lockdown with no thought whatsoever to the survival of its citizens or its economy. It has learnt nothing from the pandemic. Nobody was beaten to death in Canada for not wearing a mask, but many got tickets and corporate defaulters got heavy fines. Wherever you break the law, justice trails your address and serves you notice. In Nigeria, if you’re privileged, you can break the law and get applauded by the system. Who trusts a system that murders criminals in lawful custody? Let’s blame COVID-19 for nothing if we have learnt nothing from its impact. We have missed another golden opportunity to lay a foundation.