Last week, we reviewed the international political dynamics of the war against COVID-19, where Trump is the key player. But one thing is clear; those people were and are playing strategic politics. Everything they do is a means (strategy) to some near or long-term ends (objectives). In Nigeria, apart the ordinary folks who are afflicted and affected by Coro itself or the consequential unplanned war, almost every other person and institution is playing politics with the matter. The greatest worry is that the politics has no pattern! People play politics with the illness, with the numbers, with the medicine, with the people leading the war, with the federal or state governments, with the “other” party or with everything. Even people supposedly in the same party are throwing thorny punches at their political brethren. I say supposedly because Nigerian politicians belong to only one party: POTS (Party of The Stomach).
Just as the Director General of WHO, may people had warned us against politicising the virus or the war against it. And just as the warning of the WHO chief did not yield any result, the warnings in Nigeria also did not yield any results. But the fact that people are warning against coro-politics is an evidence that there is serious coro-politics. In March 2020, when we were still trying to set up the armoury and strategy for the war against Coro, the PDP accused the federal government of playing politics with COVID-19. On 1/4/20,The National Association of Ogun State Students appealed to Ibikunle Amosun, (former Governor and current senator) and the two other senators in the state to join hands with Gov. Abiodun, in the fight against COVID-19 pandemic, urging them to “put aside differences as this is not the time for us to play politics” because “the lives of people are more important than seeking personal or political vendetta” Not long after that, Professor Chukwu, who was in charge at the Ministry of Health during the Ebola era, advised Nigerians not to play politics with COVID-19 because “microorganisms do not understand politics”. That advice or warning was recently repeated (6/5/20) by Ebenezar Babatope who declared that “it is wrong to play politics with the disease…This is not the time to play PDP, APC, or APGA. “We must unite to save lives. After we have defeated the disease, we can go back to full politics again.” But it has been politics all the way, some dirty, some shameful and shameless, some full of braggadocio and some subtle. We shall start with two incidents of micro politics
On 28/3/20, the Benue State Government declared Susan Okpe as their Index case. The first controversy arose from the fact that contrary to the usual protocols (there is a protocol for everything nowadays), the government announced the name on TV. The second and more serious was that the lady, a Nigerian-British citizen insisted that she was not positive, that the government was playing politics with the matter and that she was afraid for her life and called on the FG and Britain to move her out of Benue. She was eventually moved to Abuja but as I write, she is still saying that she is not sick, that she did not trust Nigerians, would not take any treatment from them and that the test in Benue was kangaroo. As at 14/4/20, the Minister of health announced that her two results were positive but the woman accused the minister of lying and requested to be taken back to UK. She has used the social media to good effect in this matter. I don’t know how politics came into this but she accused the BNSG of playing politics with the matter.
A similar matter, but not as complicated, occurred in Anambra State. When NCDC/Anambra State Government announced the state index case on 10/4/20, neither the state nor the Centre knew any peace after the announcement. While the state moved ahead to trace, quarantine and treat all contacts, the patient declared that there was nothing Coroish about his sickness, that the state doctored the result and that ANSG wanted to kill him through starvation. The hospital that treated him then weighed in with its own side of the story, saying the result was not given to them before the governor made the index case announcement and that the patient was properly discharged. The matter got more complicated when none of the contacts tested positive. People then started saying that it was a matter of politics and cash, that the ANSG wanted to attract funding from the Federal Government. The Anambra State Commissioner for Information blamed certain opposition PEPs (Politically Exposed Persons), who, with their eyes on 2021 elections, politicised everything and that the government would not compromise the health of its citizens for politics and cash. The patient has been discharged and the matter has hopefully rested
These two are minor and micro political cases and they occurred before the macro and full-blown political wars started. (next week)
What is happening in Pitakwa is against the rule of law and especially being done by a democratically elected governor. Port Harcourt has been KITArised. It is condemn-able and I join those who condemn it in unmistakable terms
Other matters: Emperor Wike & the KITArisation of Pitakwa
Last week, (7/5/20) I complained about the KITA (Kick in The Ass) and by-fire-by-force strategies freely deployed in our war against COVID-19, the undisputed World Enemy. I argued and still argue, and every behavioural scientist will agree with me, that people are not forced to change; they are persuaded and convinced so that they understand the “why” and thus, own the process. The other day, I saw Governor El-Rufai hopping atop a trailer in search of illegal human-cargo. I note the dexterity with which he mounted the tailboard but I wander what he would have told the world if he slipped and broke his neck in the process. What he did, and what many governors have been doing since this COVIDious war started, is crass showmanship. But what is happening in River State is something else. This has gone beyond the war against Coro to unbridled highhandedness and lawlessness in a democracy based on the rule of law and separation of power.
In the recent past, Ezenwo Nyesom Wike, has been seen on TV, arresting lock-down violators, trying them and convicting them. I think he passed an executive order (legislature) on the basis of which he tried and found them guilty (Judiciary) and executed the punishment through the police and his hangers on (executive). We watched as all powers in, above and below the earth became vested Wike, courtesy of the war against Coro. The last time we had such concentration was during the military era. But he has gone beyond this and extended his dictatorial powers beyond imagination. He impounded cars and ordered that the cars be auctioned. Hear him, “the defaulters will be tried by the mobile court and I have told the Attorney General that all the impounded vehicles MUST be auctioned”. He interrogated the offenders, found them guilty, sentenced them to isolation centres, seized their cars, and then remembered that there are mobile courts and ORDERED the AG that the cars should be auctioned. This is a lawyer-turned-governor in a democracy! He followed it up by constructing a gate in the boundary between Rivers State and Abia State. I assume that this is a federal government road.
And then on 10/5/20, he capped his credentials by demolishing two hotels in the state for violating some or all the aspects of his lockdown orders. And like Saul who stood by to ensure that Stephen was fully dead, Wike was there, live, to supervise the demolition of the hotel. As in earlier instances, he judged the hotel, found it guilty (assaulting government officials, housing harlots, base for terrorists) and meted out punishment. He classified all those who criticized his actions (including the son of man) as “uninformed critics and social media legal practitioners who, blinded and prodded by sheer politics, bias and hatred, have opted to demonize and paint our lawful and responsible actions in bad light”. He further justified his dastardly action and in an interview with AIT, (11/5/20) boldly declared: “I have no regrets”. As our people would say, Alu! Mpu! (Abomination and impunity!). The most painful aspect of this sordid affair is that the man is said to be a lawyer!
In Lagos, many ordinary and not so ordinary people who violated the lockdown regime. All of them were arrested, tried by mobile or normal courts and sentenced accordingly. Some hotels have also violated the lock-down advisory. On the same day that Wike was overseeing the demolition of the two hotels in River state, his Lagos State counterpart sealed two similar facilities (Maggi Hotel and Tambari Night Club, Badagry), for similar offences. The Governor’s adviser on Tourism etc who oversaw the sealing assured that LASG will bring the full weight of the law on these erring operators and ensure that they show total compliance level before they can regain access to these facilities. The difference is clear indeed.
What is happening in Pitakwa is against the rule of law and especially being done by a democratically elected governor. Port Harcourt has been KITArised. It is condemn-able and I join those who condemn it in unmistakable terms. For those who applaud the emerging “action governor”, our people say that those who are not involved see a corpse as a log of wood. As for Wike, let him remember that tomorrow will surely come; he will not be governor forever. And for all of us, (including those who travel inside containers) lets abide by these covidious regulations, both those that are normal and those that appear abnormal. We need to be safe and alive in order to live our lives. This shall SURELY come to pass.
