By Salisu Nuhu Muhammad
Once again, Kano, Nigeria’s most populous state is in the throes of a raging storm. The Covid-19 pandemic, which originated towards the end of last year, in Wuhan, China, has surreptitiously caught the global community in a state of dizzying paroxysm.
From Wuhan Covid-19, within a twinkle, had spread effortlessly to the wide world.
Its morbid entry into Nigeria through an Italian index case, has undoubtedly sent strong shivers down the spine of the already exasperated and petrified populace.
What started slowly and insidiously like an easy to cure, but deadly disease, has now metastasized into a source of virulent myths and mysticism defying both traditional and scientific remedies in equal measures.
In less than two months from its being declared a pandemic by the WHO, more than two million people have been stung by by this killer virus on a global scale.
While the report of nearly two hundred thousand people recovering from the highly contagious disease gives a lot of prospects for delight, the nearly half million lives already lost to the virus worldwide, have sadly conspired to extinguish the only glimmer of hope rising in the medical horizon.
Included in the above numbers are the sombre records of Nigeria’s rising casualties, distributed in morbidities and mortalities. The subject matter of this intervention, Kano, by all account a late comer, to join the unfortunate league of Nigerian States afflicted by Covid-19, has suddenly come from behind to shoot itself into national attention, as it has overtaken its peers by the sheer scale and symmetry of what may arguably be noticeable fearsome trajectories.
Barely ten days from registering its first index case of Covid-19 in the state, the ominous signals emanating from this ancient centre of commerce are forlornly disconcerting.
With all the vigorous and boisterous mass awareness campaigns for people in the state to guide, guard and protect themselves against corona virus pandemic, being sponsored by the health ministry, department and agencies, an eerie atmosphere of obduracy and obstinacy seem to have successfully combined in rendering these essential messages hopelessly inchoate and palpably ineffective.
Partly because of the widely held erroneous and misleading belief in the potency of spiritual, herbal and local remedies against the virus, a make-believe feeling of invincibility gripped the gullible whose number is sizeable.
There are also many among the notable religious leaders on the state, who see and wrongly interpret the social distancing directive issued by the government as an unspeakable affront against their Islamic Faith.
Against the background of this pervasive laxity, actively fuelled by a deep seated culture of despondency, high level of illiteracy among large sections of the populace and high scale incidence of poverty, it is obvious that winning the hearts and minds of the “Kanawa” to support the battle against the corona virus pandemic, is not for the faint hearted.
Credit must be given to the Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, for the timely and proactive measures he employed in closing all the state borders facilitating entry from different directions into the ever busy state. That singular action with all its inherent imperfections, had gone a long way in decelerating the rate of infections that could have allowed the deadly virus a free reign to ravage the densely communities scattered in teeming markets, crowded mosques and social gatherings.
Some of the weaknesses identified that are associated with the drastic steps in closing the state borders, taken by the governor to curb the spread of the virus, were more the creation of corrupt law enforcement officials, who unfortunately and shamelessly turned the sad situation into a thriving opportunity for gross abuse of their powers and self-enrichment.
In making the foregoing categorical testimony against just the security personnel, one is not in any way, trying to shield the Kano state government from taking its due blame, far from it. On the contrary, reports from the fields by some independent observers, clearly implicated the government and its high ranking health officials, in the shoddy arrangements we saw, in trying to contain the rampaging virus.
Today though, we owe a lot of debts to their valuable insights and priceless findings, as it has become common knowledge that moral integrity was hugely compromised in setting up the Covid-19 Containment Committee, with the inappropriate, but conspicuous membership of His Excellency’s daughter to serve on it.
To proceed, when it appeared as if the people in the state had become helpless in advising the governor to reverse himself on his unfortunate decision, the divine hands of Providence deftly sent the mysterious and invisible virus to chastise the abhorrent team. In no time, exactly half the number of the committee members tested Covid-19 positive, thus, temporarily rendering the state leaderless in the onerous battle against the disease. As we fervently pray Allah (SWT) to cure them and all those afflicted by this disease, it is also our prayer that our country and the entire humankind be rescued and saved from the Covid-19 pandemic.
We scarcely need to beam our searchlight on the deplorable situation in the designated isolation centres, the blighted tales from those centres are widely known, because they have since gone viral.
Perhaps, it is because of this sad Kano situation, with regard to the pandemic that compelled the nation’s leadership to call for the urgent intervention of the PTF and the NCDC, with the view to help overhaul the Covid-19 containment strategy in the state.
The news of this national intervention was enthusiastically received by Kano state citizens, having been confronted by the spectre of the magnitude of disaster that could have befallen them.
Going forward with concerted efforts to curb the spread of the virus, His Excellency, Dr. Ganduje may need to work extra hard to win the trust and confidence of the people, because those two social ingredients have been severely eroded in recent times.
The idea of getting people to comply with simple instructions like the frequent washing of hands, using sanitisers, keeping social distancing and strictly adhering to mask-wearing, may appear elementary at a glance, but in the absence of trust and respect for leaders, achieving such compliance would be impossible.
The damage done to the social fabric through the enthronement of unrestrained culture of stakeholder insensitivity, crass opportunism and undisguised nepotism, has been far reaching in its consequences.
However, one lasting lesson taught us by the debilitating Covid-19 pandemic is the premium we must attach to the supreme value of building the home front. Henceforth, our leaders must ensure that hospitals are well equipped and health personnel adequately remunerated. Doing this would be a disincentive to the phenomenon of health tourism and the attendant massive capital flight.
Above all, it would also afford our country in general, and Kano state, in particular, the capacity to develop the needed human and material wherewithal to confidently tackle any accentuating health risks or circumstances, be they corona virus related, or otherwise.
Comrade Mohammed, former Acting General Secretary of the Nigeria Labour Congress, lives in Abuja and can be reached at: Salisu_50@yahoo.com
