Two weeks ago, I anticipatorily celebrated the resumption
of public worship scheduled for 21/6/20, bade bye to my Holy Cross online
Parish and Parishioners and we (my family) started preparing for a return to our Parish (OLSOW, Okota, Lagos).
But it was not to be and as such, on 21/6/20, I was still at my online parish
and TV mass. That Sunday, the ‘popular side’ at a whole Holy Cross Cathedral consisted of just 3 Revered Sisters! Archbishop Martins saw
the continued suspension of public
worship as unfortunate
and sad but reminded us that ‘All things work for good…( Romans, 8:28),
that we should give thanks in all things
(1 Thess,5:18) and to the 3m Catholics in Lagos and indeed to all Nigerians, he
said DO NOT BE Afraid( Mt 10). This suspension of public worship is because
Lagos State and a few other sub-national governments treated all religious
organisations as the same, ignoring the differences in structure and modus
operandi. This approach will continue to elicit resentment, particularly from those
who are willing and capable of resuming public worship. However life goes on.
We experienced an
unprecedented open heavens in Lagos for three
days( 18-20 June) and it appeared that we were in for another ‘Noah scenario’ except that God had promised never to flood the world out
of existence again (Genesis,9:11) But that Sunday(21/6/20) the weather was
mercifully dry and so, I went out for my usual circa 3km daily walk( at an
elders pace). I was alarmed to notice
that 98% of the people I met along the road had no face masks while 95% had no
regard for physical distancing. This is despite the declaration by one Wilfred
Okiche that the face
mask had become the new condom while the saying,
‘united we stand’ has been transformed to ‘separated we survive’.
On 16/6/20, somebody
sent me a message titled ‘a gentle reminder’, showing the CORO numbers for
the 16th of April, May
and June. It was alarming. However I decided to extend it from the 23rd
of Febuary to the 23rd of June and got the following figures
February,0; March, 36; April 873; May,7526 and June, 20919!!! Note the
frightening galloping from April and May and then from May to June. On 18/6, we
had the highest daily record ( 745 new cases) while on 21/6/20, the world had
the highest global record( 183,000/day). Africa now has more than 300000 cases
while Brazil has exceeded 1m cases with
50,000 deaths
These figures ‘no de smile at all’; they indicate that ‘agwo no na akirika’ ( there is a snake
atop the tatched roof). It appears that our people have forgotten that the
easing up( both here and elsewhere) is not because ‘agha-ebigo’ (the war is over); it is because of ‘how-for-do’( we don’t have much option!) and thus they ignore the
recent warning of WHO that CORO is still accelerating! The DG, of National
Orientation Agency, while presenting the 2nd report of the agency’s
sensitization activities, stated that disbelief on the impact and
danger of coro still persists with statements like ‘there is no coro in Nigeria,
our religious leaders say that coro is not real’; high incidence of
non-compliance with distancing, face mask and stay at home and that in the
cities where there was initial high compliance, people are letting down their
guards and most of those who wear
facemasks do so to avoid harassment by policemen (Guardian, 20/2/20). The PTF
also reported(22/6/20) that Nigerians, especially those from the South-East, do
not believe that Coro is real. A townsman who was home about one month ago
reported that our people were convinced that Coro was only for the rich and
powerfil, white people and evil ones! This is sad and saddening.
These figures and other Coro-related reports
show that we have to gird our loins.
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu is down, 13 Imo lawmakers just tested positive; 49
Enugu health workers have tested coro-positive, just like Djokovic, the god of
Lawn Tennis; 20 LGS in Nigeria account for 60% of the cases (with the top 4
from Lagos(3) and Kano1) 80% of those infected with Coro are not in Isolation
centers, in Ogun, state, 104 cases were
traced to one company while in Kaduna a private school was busy conducting
entrance exams under this lockdoown. We need to be more careful.
 |
| With my self-made face-mask |
The DG of WHO also said
that "The politicisation
of the pandemic has exacerbated it. None of us is safe until all of us are safe’.
However, it appears that across the globe and in Nigeria, politicization of
coro goes unabated. Last week, we examined the political dynamics of Coro in
Kano State. That same last week, Governor Ganduje of
Kano state called a World Press Conference to present ‘a well researched, well assembled and well-concluded
report’ which showed that only15.9% of
Kano Mysterious deaths were coro related. He then declared that “The
report by the Technical Committee from the Federal Ministry of Health
indicating that it was 60%, certainly lacked correlation; their data cannot
pass the test of time, reliability and validity… you can as well, throw away
that investigation into an ocean, because it
signified nothing, reported nothing and misled almost everybody. This is an unfortunate bombshell! What was
his motive? To show that NCDC/FMH do not
know what they are doing? To show that Kano was doing it better than NCDC? To
prove that he was not clueless in the war against coro? What did he achieve by
this world news conference? What is the impact of that on the public perception,
especially in Kano, about the war against coro? And he wants or expects the FG
and NCDC to collaborate with Kano in this war?
In other climes, while Trump pretended to be
‘fighting’ with China over coro, his former National Security Adviser has revealed,
in his new book, ‘The Room Where it Happened’ that President Donald Trump
personally asked his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to help him win the 2020
US presidential election. So, in the open, they are at war over coro
but in private, they are jointly strategizing on how to achieve political victtories. The politics of
coro is still raging.
Other Matters: Buhari’s June 12 Speech: A Front-Page Analysis
Front-Page Analysis( FPA) is a method of
socio-economic research that I discovered and embraced two years ago. Research works usually start with vast, deep
and wide literature review, paying homage to those who have made significant
inputs into the subject matter. The more the citations the better and at times,
these citations and references obfuscate the issue at stake. I am involved.
However, about two years ago, I designed the FPA (still being finetuned), which
involves simply analysing an issue by examining current and relevant media
reports on the matter, rather than lengthy citations. So, anyone who wants to
research on (in) security in Nigeria, will just read related media reports of
the past, say, 30 days and the matter would have settled itself. So, my
analysis of PMBs June12 speech is based on
modified FPA technique because I
will just look at one news medium report on a day
Presidential
speech was a BIG thing in those days. People usually closed from offices and
shops, rushed home and went to the neighbouring bigman’s abode to watch and
listen via his Black & White TV, and
they did so with rapt attention. And by the time the speech was over, a lot of
hope-building quotable-quotes would have
been extracted. Gradually, the gap
between the rulers and the ruled widened; the speeches became more exclusive
and about self-adulation, warnings and threats and most often, there were no
more quotable quotes. So, these presidential speeches lost relevance. Since the
‘I
belong to nobody’ declaration, I had never sat down to listen to PMBs speech. Even
before then, I no longer bothered about presidential speeches. On 12/6/20, however, I decided to listen and I just don’t
know why. My wife actually wondered why I should put on the tuke-tuke generator’
in this covidious hard times for that
purpose. But I did and when it was over,
she asked: how did it go? I responded: ‘the same thing; he said everything was
OK’. I left it at that.
A few days later,(17/6/20) I decided to revisit the
June 12 Speech. I assume most of my readers had read the speech, which showed
that we are making serious efforts and achieving significant improvements in
all areas of our socio-economic life. The president commended the dedication of
our frontline workers, gleefully announced that
‘We
have recorded notable achievements in the course of implementing our nine
priority objectives and are establishing a solid foundation for future
success’; that we have, achieved 11 quarters of consecutive GDP growth, with
enviable improvements in external reserves, agriculture, non-oil exports, Ease of Doing Business , the power
sector(11,000 Megawatts by 2023). He also announced that we were growing the
stock and quality of our road, rail, air and water transport infrastructure,
restored peace in the Niger Delta Region and maintained our oil production
levels, remained committed to expanding access to quality education, boosted
affordable housing , ensured stainable access to safe and sufficient water,
prioritised the end of insurgency,
banditry and other forms of criminality across the nation, reduced social and
economic inequality through targeted social investment programmes, created 774, 000 jobs, strengthened auditing and
accountability mechanisms and recorded excellent performance by Anti-Corruption
Agencies. He also assured that Nigeria would always be governed by the Rule of
Law and expressed deep appreciation to
NASS for their invaluable support at all
times as well as the press As I summarised
about 8 am on 12/6/20, the president in effect said that all was well. That was
in line with the views of his various oti-nkpu’s ( praise-singers). I wondered whether I was/am a part
of Nigeria where everything was(is)
going up-up!
Beyond sundry online and social media sources (which usually force themselves
on me) my core news sources are BusinessDay (daily), Guardian (Saturdays and
Sundays) and Channels TV 10pm news ( Daily) Later that day( 17/6/20) I listened
to Channels 10pm news and here were the
news highlights. Obaseki and deputy resign from APC( under which they captured
power); Appeal Court sacks Oshiohole as APC Chairman; demonstration in Kastina
State over insecurity (Buhhri’s backyard; PMB said we have prioritized security),
meeting between the Federal Government and Nigerian Association of Resident
Doctors deadlocked( strike over lack of PPE and non-payment of hazard
allowances) NNPC says it cant meet the oil production quota( PMB said we have
met our oil quotas) while NASS noted that NNPC violated the constitutional
provision in some financial decisions( PMB said we have strengthened
ourauditing systems). Other headlines included that Nigeria would spend 18% of
its GDP on infrastructure( but we have grown the stock and quality of our
infrastructure), Lagos postponed the
resumption of public worship, electricity tariff hike to take off in July,
African Oil Producers relocate their HQ from Nigeria to Congo and Debt service
consumed 100% of our revenue in the
first quarter of 2020.
Just compare these news headlines with the presidential speech of a few
days earlier. This is a modified FPA because I just took one news bulletin from
one medium in just one day. If I had
done that for 30 days and from various media or even for 1 week, the outcome
would have been ‘horriterrible’
Just the other day, somebody reminded me of my HSC European History
Class when he or she stated that King
louis14 of France was FAR removed from the sufferrings and yearnings of his
people while Nosa Igiebor on 1/6/20) had lamented that it was
MOURNING in Nigeria because ‘The Buhari
administration in a parallel world where alternative facts rule and reality is
totally distorted….. their narrative, despite the clearly incontrovertible
evidence, collides violently with our own reality.
I did not say
any of these things and I believe that
the PMB government is far removed from we, the people and that their own
reality collides violently with our own.
It is well.
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