Nigeria was a hero in its handling of the Ebola crisis. But this time, Nigeria needs to follow Ghana’s lead in navigating this coronavirus crisis, and lift the lockdown. Quickly. Time is running out. Our people shouldn’t have to choose between possible death by coronavirus and certain death by hunger!

Just yesterday, after three weeks of lockdown, Ghana lifted restrictions in Accra and Kumasi, two of its largest cities. Here’s what Ghana did in those three weeks: they ramped up testing significantly, put in place strict contact-tracing protocols, and expanded the number of treatment and isolation centers.

Meanwhile in Nigeria, President Buhari extended the initial 14-day lockdown announced on 30 March by another two weeks. Oddly enough, Nigeria’s lockdown focused only on the dense conurbations of Lagos, Ogun and Abuja. But only last week, the highly populated northern state of Kano also imposed a lockdown on its citizens. At the time, Nigeria had only 373 confirmed cases of the virus. As I write this one week later, that figure has doubled to 665 and 22 deaths, a 3% mortality rate. Cases are on the rise in spite of the lockdown.

1. The Lockdown isn’t Working

Assuming the lockdown is in place to save lives from the coronavirus, in Nigeria, other threats to life and property severely undermine the effectiveness of government actions regarding the coronavirus. Lockdown measures that are effective elsewhere have generated a slew of unintended consequences.

Behavior & Belief: Naturally, a vast majority of the population does not believe the coronavirus will affect them — “coronavirus is a problem for the rich.” Closing ubiquitous institutions as schools and churches was effective in enforcing the lockdowns. One prominent cleric argued that schools and churches were the most effective spaces to educate about the virus, and implement precautions and relief efforts more reliably.

Overcrowding: Lockdown measures are leading to overcrowding, beyond initial rush observed in other countries. Regular hand-washing can prove challenging for low-income communities. With limited access to potable water at home, people in these communities crowd at the community taps to fetch small amounts of water for home use. Government relief efforts such as distribution of bags of rice are another point of overcrowding, completely rubbishing the social distancing objective the lockdown was instituted to achieve.

Security: In Lagos, for example, civil unrest (#AgegeUnrest) incited by a notorious One Million Boys street gang has cost residents sheltering in place at home lives and property. The underfunded police foiled one incident but do not appear to have people’s confidence that they can keep up. While the crisis is exposing the fault lines of society in every country, Nigeria has been sitting on a powder keg of youth unrest for a very long time. To avoid a complete breakdown in the fabric of society, the government needs to ease or lift the lockdown restrictions, in favor of effective but appropriate measures, such as curfews (as suggested by Gyude Moore).

2. Nigeria can’t do it well & insufficient

Poor distribution: Poor infrastructure and a weak tax system make it close to impossible to achieve a distribution of relief efforts that is wide enough or sufficiently equitable to stave off civil unrest. A weak tax system even in Lagos, low bank penetration, poor data on households and non-existent identification systems make it difficult to implement any safety net measures.

Livelihoods: The economic pinch hits harder. Over 70% of the population is in informal work, living on day-to-day income. Many have claimed that “hunger will kill me before coronavirus gets me.” The government’s plan for conditional cash transfers to the poorest is meaningful in theory but when only 36% of the population is banked, it is not likely the government will achieve its objectives to maintain the lockdown.

The private sector is involved in the fight. Aliko Dangote, Africa’s wealthiest man and other business leaders established Coalition Against COVID-19, a private sector collaboration now at $60million to help government fight the virus. In an interview with Stephanie Busari of CNN, Herbert Wigwe, the chief of Access Bank reports that they strong governance and transparency systems in place. Other coalitions like WeAreTogetherNG (raised $44,000) and Neighbourlink have sprung up to make direct cash transfer grants to whom they deem deserving. [Please support them!]

But these mushroom efforts cannot mobilize the $300bn estimate that Nigeria will need or be sustained for the months required to keep the lockdown in place. It is why early, the lockdown must be lifted and resources channeled to public education, boosting local healthcare capacity community-based testing & contact tracing protocols, improving bed capacity in treatment centers, procuring PPEs and acquiring medical professionals to fight the virus effectively.

3. Nigeria can’t actually afford the lockdown

Policy responses, both fiscal (interest rate and money supply) and monetary (taxes and government spending) is very sensitive to prior policy space, particularly in the long-run. When you hit a crisis point, you can more aggressively utilize monetary and fiscal options to achieve short-term stabilization. But that depends on prior policy space. Nigeria had very little going into this crisis. To date, Nigeria has announced no real funding to buoy hard-hit SMEs. Afrinvest predicts food shortage. Simultaneously, Nigeria struggling with tanking Brent crude prices, after suffering a hit from the Saudi/Russia tussle. All this is outside the cost of managing the healthcare crisis. Although the Bank Group plans to deploy $160 billion to help countries protect the poor and vulnerable, support businesses, and bolster economic recovery, Nigeria, since upgraded to a middle income country, won’t see much benefit from there.

Conclusion & Recommendations

There is no playbook for how to address contagion of this magnitude in a developing country. With the highest number of tests per million people in Africa, Ghana has shown that by focusing on the right thing, you can make good decisions so that your people are not perpetually choosing between death by hunger and death by coronavirus.

1. This last one week should be used to ramp up and develop centers of excellence for local healthcare capacity for community-based testing and rapid contact tracing protocols. Channel resources toward prioritizing public awareness and safety measures, improving bed capacity in well-zoned treatment centers, procuring PPEs and developing medical professionals to fight the virus effectively.
2. For contact tracing, focus on one national response, as technology and protocols can be scaled more easily. Where government does not have the capacity, private sector players with larger databases and can be engaged to better predict infection patterns.
3. The superior capacity of operational private businesses, faith-based institutions and NGOs can be much better harnessed to join the fight.
4. Invest resources and promote public campaigns to safeguard and protect the elderly and those at highest risk.
5. It might be time to seriously consider models that assume herd immunity.

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