In this first part of our first interview as a publication on Sunday, March 29, 2020, a few hours before the national broadcast by President Muhammadu Buhari, Dr Omotoye Olorode, retired Professor of Botany (insists on being addressed with the academic prefix of Dr, as he said he is now in retirement) explored the socio-economic and leadership undercurrents associated with the Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria.
Prof Olorode needs little or no introduction in Nigeria, especially in progressive circles where he is renown as the ‘The People’s Pedagogue’ for his impeccable academic and radical intellectualism.
Although the discussion was part of an extensive conversation on a range of topics for our maiden edition billed to be unveiled on May Day (Friday, May 1, 2020), we eventually succumbed to an overwhelming impulse to extract this aspect of Comrade Olorode’s scrutiny now that we are in the thick of some degree of confusion in the handling of Nigeria’s response to the novel virus and the attendant existential challenges. Happy reading!
National Record (NR): Good afternoon Prof. In the face of the pandemic raging on now, we can’t have an interview and not afford to begin from reflecting on the coronavirus pandemic which has put the entire world on its feet. In the context of our own situation here in Nigeria, what do you think are our greatest challenges, I mean the challenges facing millions of Nigerians, particularly the vulnerable?
Prof. Olorode: Well, this thing about social distancing and the basic precautions, which of course include social distancing, many people who take these basic facilities for granted don’t know that these basic necessities pose serious challenges for the large majority of Nigerians.
If you take the question of washing your hand with soap; it sounds so simple for many people who have water and soap, but it’s not as simple for a large number of people. You know, people don’t have clean water to drink; that is one leg; to wash your hand with water that is not clean, is another major challenge.
Then of course there is the additional thing about using soap; again, if people have no soap, they have to buy, if they don’t have money; that creates another level of problem. So it’s not as simple as it sounds.
There is also the question of social distancing. Social distancing requires some amount of space around you – they said one metre or so, you know…
NR: (Cuts in), Prof, those are the scientific or hygiene aspects of the challenges; but in terms of the economic variables, the socio-economic dynamics of the coronavirus, what we see being done in a number of countries in the advanced economies where economic benefits or stimulus are being offered to people, not just the vulnerable, to enable them to stay indoors to self-isolate so as to reduce the risk of spreading the virus and give the medical authorities time to contain the infection. Do you think this can be achieved in African countries; or do you think we are in a position to do that in Nigeria?
Olorode: No, no, we are not! I mean, in terms of giving economic succour, like this thing about giving money so that people can buy basic things. I heard that in California, people who are homeless are now getting some support in terms of the state creating some certain environment for people to be able to… of course we don’t have that at all; and that’s a fundamental challenge. Well, you know also, in a sense a whole lot of people are living in subsistence lives; okay?
So, that may be some advantage to our people; people in rural locations for example, who can really live on their environment, there are many people who are not touched by the state, by the government; the only way they are touched is that government built a police station near their village and therefore the police is always there to keep track of people; etc., etc.
But beyond that, nothing; not even the road that leads on to the village, is taken care of by nobody. People live entirely on their immediate environment; they can get to their gardens and get vegetables, basic foods …
NR: (Cuts in) Prof, when you look at the lack of social security in Nigeria, which is almost nil; don’t you think that the coronavirus pandemic should redefine or reshape the trade union struggle in Nigeria or even Africa around the question of social protection?
Olorode: I understand that; I mean, that’s what I am saying essentially. You know, I am just saying that there are these two worlds; there is the world of the urban centres where you have workers, petty traders and so on and so forth. They are directly related in terms of their experiences in relation to the denials, what they suffer, and I agree with you.
Basically, in the urban centres, the trade union movement has to take into account this question that working people are simply abandoned, okay; and therefore the trade union movement has to move in this general direction of how to ameliorate this abandonment. What we discover is that all the so-called charity organisations are, in fact, no more than organisations that just give people the impression that people who are exploiting labour care but in essence, this care doesn’t really go anywhere, it doesn’t go far at all; it doesn’t move an inch in many circumstances.
Of course we always know that the trade unions simply are not prepared at all fundamentally for the challenges facing workers, even without coronavirus. I have talked to some young people in the aviation industry, those who work for airlines, and those who work for banks. In the last one month or so, I have encountered at least ten people who had been summarily sacked, and I asked them, especially those in the banks. You know, the bankers union used to be the strongest union in town, and I asked them; do you have a union? Most of them just smile at me, laughed and said; “Union? Nobody talks about union in the banks…!”
NR: (Cuts in) Are you saying that since the coronavirus started people have started losing jobs; that the banks have started sacking their workers?
Olorode: No, no, no! I am saying that even without coronavirus, sacking of workers has been happening.
The fact that many groups of workers have simply been abandoned by their unions, and they themselves in fact don’t seem to know that their union power can rescue them from this constant fear of just been laid off. That’s why I cited the example of people working in the banks.
That’s another level, but of course the whole privatisation policy and even the law that doesn’t make it mandatory for certain employers to allow their workers to form trade unions also create another level of problems because there is a minimum number of workers that an employer needs to have for the right to form trade union to be enforced; isn’t it? So the whole thing about privatisation itself is against unionisation, it is geared towards removing the organised power of workers. At that level also, a whole lot of people are simply abandoned to their own means; and again this is not just about health facilities like private health providers or the privatisation of education at primary and secondary levels where many people are employed by private providers of education; many people, including universities, many people are not in any trade union and neither the trade unions, the relevant trade unions, nor the victims of this condition seem to be aware that they can change their own situation. So, it is a serious challenge at that level too.
NR: There is this dominant feeling in our political economy where government always act first in favour of big business, big national and multinational corporations, at the expense of the working class using public resources. Don’t you think that the coronavirus pandemic should significantly alter this dynamic towards social protection for citizens as a buffer against the economic challenges and other social emergencies that are bound to come or to force government to make fundamental interventions in the health and education sectors?
Olorode: Precisely, of course, the trade unions should have interest in forcing government but we also need to know that government as the custodian of the state power is implementing a class agenda, and therefore the ultimate business for trade unions to know is to change that situation. The working class has to aspire to control the state either by making it impossible for the ruling class to implement its class programme against the working people or by physically taking over the apparatuses of the state.
It is not as if people in government do not know that their programme, their policies, victimise a class; they know! So, it is not because of lack of knowledge; it is an ideologically directed state policy.
NR: There is this comic angle to the coronavirus pandemic where many people post videos and texts suggesting, perhaps in a trivial way, that the coronavirus pandemic is bound to redirect the mind-set of our leaders towards good governance against the fact that they are not able to go abroad for medical treatment and therefore would be forced to invest and develop the health care sector in the country. Do you think that the character of our leaders will radically change after this pandemic in line with these trending jokes?
Olorode: Well; it may and it may not!
But even if it does, their tendency will be to put resources in facilities that care for them, not necessarily in facilities that take into focus the entire population.
You know, they can always invoke this no-money excuse for why they can provide only such limited facility, but they are going to be the first set of people in line to benefit from such facility; it won’t be available for the ordinary people; okay?
And if you look at where people have been able to address this question at a broad national level, they are places where public purpose has been the dominant ideologically. In such locations like China and Cuba, for example; they are not only able to address but also send help to people outside their own territories. So it is not sufficient for our people to just sit around and say, well, now that these people cannot go out any more, they will establish facilities!
Yes, they may establish facilities but I assure you that a lot of those facilities will not just be available for ordinary people!
Look at what people who have money have been doing. They went to pharmacies and bought off all the drugs that are being suggested as possible cures or possible preventive drugs; drugs like chloroquine. I was reading from the social media the other day that a pack of 28 tablets of chloroquine now goes for about N20,000. Yes! So, if it is true that this induces scare in the members of the ruling class, if they will be scared to develop healthcare, that fear will induce some programme of establishing very few local health facilities.
What I am just saying is that given the general class tendencies of the ruling class, the best that can be hoped for; if the working class doesn’t begin to become dominant players in formulation of state policy, the best to hope for will be some trickledown effects, the establishment of few local facilities. Beyond that, there won’t be much!
NR: When you talked about sudden rise in the prices of some drugs, are you saying that is directly linked to a conscious state policy or design of the ruling class? I asked this question because we understand that prices of a range of food items like bread, gari, yam, rice, beans, etc., have also gone up in the markets since the index case of the coronavirus in Nigeria. Don’t you think this is directly linked to the character of Nigerians rather than that of the leadership?
Olorode: No, no, no! Look, Nigeria is not the only place where people eat rice or where people eat beans or where people eat bread.
What I’m saying is that the overall policy and the ideology of the ruling class also trickle down. You know, people who sell rice, of course because of the dominance of the ruling class ideology, and also as victims, they imbibe the ideology of the ruling class; the ideology trickles down. So you cannot really expect a different behaviour. As we are talking now, there are people who are building houses; they have facilities to build houses and so on and so forth; and some people are unemployed or losing their jobs, or are unpaid even when they are employed.
And of course, there are also economic reasons why prices go up. If there is less number of vehicles on the road and many commuters want to move to different locations, prices will rise. There are basic economic reasons why prices will rise. Apart from the tendency of people just trying to make profit because of the overarching capitalist ideology that has percolated the society, you know that people cannot sell below the prices that they need to restock their shops from the market. So there are these various levels at which we have to understand what is likely to happen or not happen.
NR: What is your opinion on this lack of visibility of President Buhari in appealing or talking to Nigerians with regard to the challenges they face in this time of global pandemic, which is unlike what is happening in other countries. For instance, in South Africa, President Ramaphosa had talked to the people a number of times through national broadcast, in Uganda, in Ghana, their leaders have been out appealing to the fears and emotions of their citizens on the coronavirus but here we are, our president is missing in action?
Olorode: I understand what you are saying, but this is not just a Buhari affair; it is characteristic of the ruling class that has lost touch with the people that they say they govern. I don’t know, for example, how many state governors or local government chairmen that have talked to their people directly on this matter. I mean, this is not new; it is all part of the crisis on ground.
People that have not been visible to their people even when there is no crisis are not likely to become suddenly visible when there is crisis; they just don’t know how to do it, you know.
Look at the crisis in education! You know; all that government has been trying to do at every opportunity is to tell people, especially in the universities where there is a lot of agitation by ASUU, that government cannot handle education alone, people should go and look for internally generated funds. At every given opportunity, in convocations, that is the message Buhari sends to people; that is the message that all these leaders at various levels send to the public. Of course they have nothing to say!
This invisibility, I am saying, is not new; what are they going to be saying; I mean, there is nothing to show!
If you go to the general hospitals, very few of them can tell you that they have facilities to handle any emergency. I was just reading something on this from the University of Ibadan on its readiness or lack of it with regard to coronavirus infection.
All they are saying everywhere is appealing to people to donate resources. So it’s just that only very few people have been trying to address the Nigerian crisis even before the coronavirus pandemic arrived and they are the same people who have been raising questions about the inevitability of the reinstatement of public purpose rather than this arguments about privatisation, about poor people going to provide employment for themselves and all that baseless economic arguments.
In which modern society does a large majority of the people employ themselves? And, you know; this had become an ideology; they imposed it on universities. Even the vice chancellors have internalised it; ordinarily the people who should understand and defend public-purposing!
There is no modern society in which everybody employs herself or himself. Ordinary people have internalised this and they are saying it! The victims have imbibed the ideology of their exploiters, the ideology of their class enemies – the explanations and ideas, the ideology that oppresses them, and imprisoned them at the level where they are; that’s the point that I am making.
