By Abdulfatah Oladeinde
Is leadership by proxy enough in a time of crisis of this proportion? When the chips are down, it is the leader that will be held responsible for good or bad, not those wielding delegated powers. Well, some people believe President Muhammadu Buhari leading from the rear is the best for us. I don’t support this position.
For instance, if our President had been in the forefront, it is doubtful the violence over the stoppage of Jum’ah prayers in a mosque in his home state yesterday would have occurred. Many more people would also have heeded the advice coming directly from him and stayed at home.
It’s really difficult to get the people who must struggle daily for survival to stay at home because of a virus, which magnitude of spread is uncertain and information about confirmed cases are being dispensed like an essential commodity. We don’t have information about the percentage of the tested compared to those exposed and willing to be tested. We don’t know the capacity for testing nationwide.
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An effective way of halting the community spread is to have voluntary tests of exposed persons.
Alhaji Aliko Dangote appealed to the Federal Government to empower private hospitals to carry out the tests. We are still waiting to see this happen.
Meanwhile, a large section of the population is still behaving as if immune to the virus.
And can you blame the people? The general impression is that the virus is a disease for the elite. And really, governors and celebrities have been making media shows of testing positive or negative. The leaders, their families and associates are the only ones being tested without showing symptoms. Testing will never go round the way we are going. Treatments too will never be adequate because we are not prepared. This is the real looming danger, which only God can avert.
The videos and photographs of how this scourge is being handled in other lands contrast sharply with the laissez-faire attitudes here. Governors are busy closing ’borders’ (boundaries) against the virus that is already in their domains. Is this how other countries confronted the biggest medical crisis of our lifetime? What can we do right without fire brigade approach in this country?
See how the food distribution, a good initiative by the Lagos government, was messed up at the implementation stage? Did you see the video of how the same exercise was done in Turkey? Why can’t the state governments reach residents through the CDAs and estates management leaders at this time? Can’t the state governments start recruiting and training health volunteers for emergencies now? We need to do the right things and not let the situation get out of hand.
Imagine a federal health institution, the premier teaching hospital in Nigeria, University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, writing an SOS letter as recent as March 26, pleading for funds to upgrade its 2-bed isolation centre to an 18-bed facility? Just 18 beds in a big hospital like UCH where many helpless people will rush to? Now, sadly, the CMD of UCH, the provost and his deputy, all of them professors, have tested positive to the virus.
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This is most likely because they were not well-kitted and protected against the virus. If this is happening to the first three top officers in that health institution, what will be the situation in other federal medical centres across the country? A photograph of the ‘isolation centre’ of the Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, circulating on social media a few days back is another exhibition of unseriousness.
For ordinary citizens like me who may not have the privilege of getting tested or receiving treatment, please let us take caution. Coronavirus is not a joke. It won’t spare the rich or the poor. Our only hope is to remain indoors and observe all the safety measures religiously. In addition, we must pray for God’s protection to survive this war.