Since February 27, 2020, when the first index case of COVID-19 was reported in Nigeria, and that satanic, virulent virus overwhelmed our lives, Nigeria has had cause to deal with other convergent afflictions: the first in my view, is the pandemic of irresponsible governance as evidenced by the kind of poor leadership responses that we have witnessed in some states of the Federation, and the growing narrative that some key players may have turned the main pandemic itself into a racket; the second is the pandemic of insecurity – even with states and borders on lockdown, bandits, criminals and terrorists – whichever label suits your fancy- have been running riot across the country particularly in the North East/West where villages are sacked in one day, for hours on end, Southern Kaduna where villages have been razed and murder has been committed on a large scale, and elsewhere in the country where members of the middle class are now afraid of their own shadows. The third is the poverty pandemic: lockdowns, shutdowns and the obvious possum-ization of all processes has resulted in the loss of income, the suspension of jobs or their outright loss, a sharp rise of course in unemployment figures and the abbreviation of hope in the face of inflation and economic contractions. The fourth is the pandemic of rape. 

I have no immediate data to suggest that the menace of “sex without consent” and the associated ills of domestic and sexual violence have any causal relationship with COVID-19, but what has been seen so far is that in the season of COVID-19, there has been an exponential rise in the reported cases of rape and sexual violence. One newspaper has had cause to report for example that in one month, there were ten high profile cases of rape across the country. In Kaduna, in April, an 18-year-old young girl known as Jennifer was attacked and raped by five men. The victim’s family released a video of her ordeal.  In  Lagos, a young lady, Tina Ezekwe, just 16, was shot and killed at a bus stop in Lagos by a trigger-happy policeman. This was rape of another kind, but a popular variety in Nigeria pointing to the failure of the state and its agents to place a high premium on human lives. A few days later, in Edo State, a 22-year old university student Vera Uwaila Omozuwa, simply known as Uwa was beaten to death in a church after she had been allegedly raped. Her assailants smashed her head with a fire extinguisher. 

In Dutse, Jigawa, there was the report of a 12-year old girl, named Farishina who was raped repeatedly on different occasions by 11 men. In Ibadan, on June 2, a 19-year old student Barakat Bello was also raped inside her father’s house and murdered. There have been even more horrific reports: of men sleeping with a two-year-old, of men sleeping with their daughters, and the only excuse one imbecilic offender could offer was that if his wife denied him sex, he would seek sexual pleasures from his own daughters. In Lagos, four masked men raped a 12-year-old girl. In Niger State a 25-year-old man raped an 85-year old grandma! A university undergraduate in Lagos was also accused of kissing a child  passionately. He has since been arrested.  In Benue, a 38-year-old man raped his seven-month-old daughter! Nigeria’s social media space understandably, has been inundated with hashtags of protest, anguish and change: #JusticeforUwa, #JusticeforTina, #JusticeforJennifer; #JusticeforFarishina, #JusticeforBarakat; #Wearetired; #NotoRape; #StopRapeNow…#EndRapeNow..     

The exponential explosion in reported cases of rape in the time of COVID-19 may be responsible for the outrage that we have seen, but the truth is that the essential difference is the focused media attention that the subject now receives. Rape is an epidemic that has now reached pandemic proportions due to inaction, stigmatization, limitations of existing law and the the failure of the state to respond to what is clearly a major humanitarian crisis. In 2017, the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics reported, and you must take this as merely an estimate given the challenges of data collection in Nigeria, that there were 2, 279 reported cases of indecent assault and 1, 164 cases of anal sex, at the time from 35 states, In July 2019, a poll by NOI reported that one in every three girls in Nigeria would have experienced one form of sexual assault before the age of 25. That means virtually every Nigerian woman has at least a story of sexual harassment or molestation to tell. In 2020, there has been an unprecedented explosion. Is COVID-19 a special type of beast that implants a new variant of madness in people’s heads, which is directly linked to their libido?  

Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State under whose watch rape has been fully criminalized, deserves commendation.  He has just signed into law, a piece of legislation from the State House of Assembly, titled “Compulsory Treatment and Care of Child Victims of Sexual Abuse Law 2020.” There have been objections to the new Ekiti State Law on the grounds that it says no sexual offender will be entitled to bail. Expressly, this would be a violation of Sections 35(1), 36(5) of the Nigerian Constitution, and to that extent questionable, but let it be known that the right of bail is contractual in nature, per Tobi, JSC. 

Elsewhere, I have spoken about the principled position that has been taken by Governor Fayemi and the Ekiti State House of Assembly. They are both convinced that there should be zero tolerance for sexual violence for all forms of sexual violence. Nobody should argue with that. Governor Fayemi also says there should be a national consensus on the issue of rape in Nigeria. His wife, the delectable Erelu Bisi Fayemi turns 57 this week and has been a victim of sexual molestation by her own account. I do not not think this is why Fayemi is gung-ho on the question of rape and sexual violence, we should look more at the principle behind his protestation. Before him, it is only in Lagos State that we have had a similar passion expressed about sexual violence, with the establishment under then Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola of a sexual violence agency. In Ekiti, Fayemi has moved further by instituting a more active naming and shaming system by activating a Sexual Offenders Register, and taking that register to the Social Media. It is a brilliant initiative even if we must not overlook the fact that the register has not yet named and shamed a power-figure – power figures, the NGOs insist are the worst perpetrators of rape. Power, class, culture and privilege being the strongest enabling factors of rape. But the issue is: can we ever have a national consensus on rape in Nigeria? Opinion is divided on that and that is the real problem. 

Nigeria’s attitude to the issue of rape and domestic violence has been at best unprogressive and far behind contemporary legal thinking. The failure to move forward and align with current trends on this subject is one of the sore aspects of our jurisprudence. With regard to rape, the relevant body of laws include the Criminal Code, Sections 215, 218, 221, 357 - 361 thereof, the Penal Code, Section 282 thereof, Section 1 of the Violence Against Persons Prohibition Act, 2015 (VAPPA), and the Child Rights Act (2003), all reasonable and valid in expression and effect under Chapter Four of the Nigerian Constitution.  Ancillary provisions within the statute books also do not in any way justify the abuse of human rights often indicated by the obtainment of carnal knowledge by force. But there are known gaps in the law that have not been addressed. Without being pedantic, it is worth noting that concerns have been expressed about the definition of “rape” itself under Nigerian law. Section 357 defines rape as a man having forceful carnal knowledge of a woman. In today’s reality, it is not only men who rape women. Women rape women. Men rape women. Men rape Men. The law needs to be changed. 

In the extant law, a married man cannot rape his wife. This does not arise from a construction of the doctrine of the unity of spouse: that is a man and his wife being one and the same but the thinking that a married woman is a property of her husband, to be used as deemed fit. There are decided cases that have freed women from this primordial and antiquated misconception but this is one curious area in which the law has not yet penetrated the proverbial “other room” where even wives of Presidents, and accomplished women, suffer in silence.  There is also the problem of child brides. Nigeria operates a conflict of laws, or perhaps a dual legal system with the rights of children. The definition of a child for example in the Child Rights Act (2003) is different from that of the Children and Young Persons Law, in the same manner in which the Criminal Code Provisions on Rape are at variance with the same provisions in the Penal Code that are applicable to the Northern States of Nigeria. The existence of a dual legal system is at the heart of Nigeria’s under-development process. It accounts mostly for the failure to forge a consensus on anything in the country. 

Take the Child Rights Act. Whereas it has been ratified as required by virtually every State in the South of Nigeria, 11 states, mainly Northern States, have refused to ratify it. They claim that it violates the Shariah law which allows child marriages.  UNICEF reports that Nigeria accounts for one of the highest rates of child brides in the world. The figure is put at 23 million child brides, most likely to double by 2050. Nigeria also accounts for one of the highest rates of Vesico-Vaginal-Festula (VVF), arising due to early exposure of child brides to coitus, with the added complications of high infant mortality, maternal morbidity/maternal mortality rates, out-of-school syndrome, poverty…and yet the defenders of culture, tradition and religion in parts of the North insist that any attempt to change the regime amounts to a violation of their rights. The rule is that a child below a certain age is not in a position to grant consent. The definition of a child in Nigeria is confused and confusing. 

This is perhaps why since 2008, every attempt to review the extant laws on rape has been unsuccessful. There have been repeated talks about the need to review the punishment for rape, the definition of it, the burden of proof, the fielding of evidence and the time within which reasonable action can be taken. But every Bill addressing the matter since 2008 simply ends in the drawers. As recently as 2019, a bill to amend the Criminal Code on Rape made it to second reading and vanished into thin air. A few weeks ago, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and others started talking again about the need to amend the laws to discourage rape. There is no guarantee that the latest effort will not end up as another effort at grandstanding and populism. Rape, like Federalism/Restructuring, is one of the most discussed problems in Nigeria. Every stakeholder knows what the matter is but nobody is willing to do anything about it, or courageous enough to go the extra mile. Nigeria is a country of smart talkers without either ambition or will. 

The other issue with regard to rape is the evil of stigmatization. In traditional societies, rape was a taboo, a Karmic affliction, a curse.  Victims and their families could not talk about it. Families were afraid that nobody would marry their daughters who may have been defiled and in those traditional communities, the biggest achievement of a female child was to marry well and be a good wife. The times have changed, but primordial frames of mind have remained resilient. The culture of silence is the biggest threat to the now emerging #MeToo movement in Nigeria and Africa, reinforced by the fear of stigma. The final sticky problem here is that nobody talks about when a man rapes a man, or a woman rapes a man or a woman, and the fact that many of those shouting #MeToo, may just well be making false accusations.  

While Nigerians are busy with the management of COVID-19 and its many fall-outs, fire has been burning in other aspects of national life which require equal attention both now and after COVID-19 – the increasing spate of insecurity in the country is one, the crisis in the country’s electricity sector is another, but COVID-19 is such an all-consuming pre-occupation that other issues have been pushed to the back-burner. More people have died in Nigeria from attacks on communities by terrorists nicely referred to as bandits since January raising a question about the country’s capacity to win the war against terror and insecurity, and there have been crises on other fronts that we would still need to deal with, which may have far-reaching implications for national economic sustainability. The politics of the electricity sector is one of such issues.  

Long before COVID-19, for example, there have been problems with Nigeria’s privatization of the power sector and the performance of the entire value chain from generation to transmission and distribution. The problem perhaps can be traced back to 2013 when the Federal Government of Nigeria decided to complete the privatization of the electricity sector. The then PHCN was unbundled into three parts: Generating Companies (Gencos), the Transmission Company of Nigeria, and Distribution Companies (Discos). The ancient Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), even after its commercialization did not meet the objective of achieving efficiency and effectiveness in delivering power to accelerate Nigeria’s economic development process. The underlying philosophy as I understand it, is that partnership with the private sector will address that omission and re-position Nigeria’s electricity value-chain. The Nigerian Government sold a 60% stake in the distribution end of the value chain, and retained ownership of 40% therein, but it kept 100% control over the transmission of electricity. The Gencos had different controlling share ratios. Manitoba of Canada was engaged to manage the Transmission Company of Nigeria. Private investors took over the management of the Gencos and Discos. 

The reform of the electricity sector is one of the major last acts of the Goodluck Jonathan administration. Many institutions of state were involved in the process, notably the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE), the National Electricity Regulatory Commission, that is the regulator, and the Bulk Electricity Company, the middle broker known as the Bulk Trader. Privatization is not an automated transaction. It is a process, with its own twists and turns and indeed, there were in-built mechanisms in the power sector reform process and the Electricity Power Sector Reform Act (EPSRA) Act to ensure reviews, standards and the fine-tuning of the process. But the entire process had hardly assumed a definite form, the private investors had not yet settled down, when Nigeria faced one of its most momentous transitions in contemporary history. The Jonathan administration left in May 2015. It was replaced by a new administration led by President Muhammadu Buhari.  This lent a new tone to everything else: the new administration had a choice to continue with the programmes of its predecessor or to adopt some of them and review/reject/cancel others. This was exactly what happened. And it happened that the power sector reform process was one of those areas that the new Federal Government felt a review was necessary. 

This is understandable perhaps. Successive Nigerian administrations since the return to civilian rule in 1999, have without exception acknowledged the fact that an efficient power sector would help to accelerate Nigeria’s development process, and even the quality of livelihood. In an economy dominated mostly by the informal sector and Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs), an efficient power supply system should facilitate productivity and release the people’s energies for maximum beneficial outputs, with corresponding implication for output growth. The bigger questions, however, have been: how to keep politics out of it?, How to get it right? And how best to act in the national interest and not narrow, partisan interests? Those were the questions at issue when the Umaru Yar’Adua administration succeeded Obasanjo’s administration in 2007 and billions worth of imported equipment were allowed to rot away at the ports. The same questions emerged as soon as the Buhari administration assumed office. 

Without missing a beat, the Buhari administration took a fine toothcomb to the privatization of the electricity sector and began to engage the private investors in the power generating and distribution ends of the value chain. In the course of the 2014/2015 Presidential campaigns, key spokespersons of the opposition All Progressives Congress had accused the Jonathan administration of fumbling with the power sector. They even argued that the efficient delivery of electricity to the people is not rocket science. Thus, upon assumption of power a point needed to be proved, but in attacking former players in the corridor, the new administration overlooked a number of issues and soon ran into fresh, troubled waters. In order to save face, it has spent the best part of the past five years looking for scapegoats and trading blames. The matter has now reached a point that the DISCOs have now gone to court to seek a restraining order against a planned forensic audit by the Federal Government. I have written twice on this subject in recent times. The first time I did so in this column, I was accused of cruelty by the Discos simply because I argued that an upward review of electricity tariffs would be insensitive to the plight of Nigerian consumers of electricity. My follow-up comment on the subject drew sharp reactions from official quarters and all I did was to state that the private investors have something useful to say that should be addressed. In this commentary, I simply wish to draw attention to some often overlooked cross-current issues, and ask that common sense should prevail. Litigation could serve the purpose of taking the egos of the various players on a Disney-mode trip, but it can only make things worse in the long run. The main victims would be the ordinary people of Nigeria. Only a week ago, 10 of Nigeria’s generating plants all became idle at the same time: Geregu II, Omotosho II, Ibom plants, Sapele II, Alaoji, Olorunsogo II, Ihovbor, Gbarain, AES and ASCO. The effect was that power generation fell to 2, 626 MW – a complete embarrassment in a country of 200 million that should never at any time generate anything below 40, 000 MW. Even at the best of times, the entire country’s installed generating capacity is about 12, 910 MW, but the peak that has been generated in the last five years is about 5, 375 MW. TCN lacks the capacity to evacuate and deliver the same amount of energy to the Discos. The national grid has degenerated. It is perpetually down. Transmission infrastructure is extremely poor. What are the issues? 

The Federal Government budget for power is usually through the Niger Delta Power Holding Company (NDPHC), TCN and the Rural Electrification Agency. The Federal Government through the Central Bank has also made provisions to enable the Gencos pay the gas supplier and meet other statutory obligations. But the industry often complains about government, and how regulation has resulted in a shortfall. On its part, government accuses Discos in return, of being congenital debtors whose failure to make due remittances to the Bulk Trader has derailed the electricity sector. The deficit in that sector today is over N2 trillion. Government blames the private investors, they in turn blame government. The investors’ argument is that the authorities have refused to allow cost-reflective tariffs, which is provided for in the Multi-Year Tariff Order (MYTO) in the enabling Act. They point out that government has stubbornly, contrary to the Act, pegged tariffs. Who will pay for the difference? 

Now, it should be noted that the expectation of the Nigerian Government is that the privatization of the power sector will work out like the privatization of the telecommunication sector, but the electricity investors argue that this is like comparing apples and oranges. “In the electricity sector, the value chain is not 2 plus 2 = 4”, they say. In other words, it is not the same as telephone. Nobody can distribute electricity without bringing wire and electric poles to your doorstep. Telcos use a different kind of technology. My view: this may not be a very useful comparison except we want to open up an unproductive argument between Discos and Telcos who certainly have many tales of woe of their own to tell. 

The non-availability of gas has also been a major issue in the electricity sector chain. Thermal plants do not get enough gas due to one excuse or the other. The Discos are not responsible for the supply of gas. The Nigeria Gas Company (NGC) which is fully owned by the NNPC is responsible for that. But the NGC is not part of the privatization process. It is bogged down by bureaucracy and the inefficiency of the NNPC. Why is the NGC not privatized? Meanwhile, government is still talking about building a gas pipeline to Ajaokuta, Abuja, Kaduna and Kano? How will that impact on electricity transmission? Why the gas pipeline? Where are the foreseeable gains? Hydro power generation is cheaper but the Mambilla Hydro project has remained a perpetual work in progress while much energy is devoted to the pursuit of shadows. 

The Federal Government complains about the Discos but the point is often overlooked that there are still 10 power plants that are fully owned by the Federal Government. Why are those plants not working? The Federal Government has been challenging private investors who borrowed money to invest in the electricity sector but it is not worried about the fact that existing assets in its own possession are wasting away. 

The crisis in the electricity sector has been considered and re-examined at all levels, not just by the NERC, the regulator, but also by the National Economic Council (NEC), and of late, there have been some developments. The first is the emerging prominence of Siemens of Germany in the conversation. Siemens is not new but its records in Nigeria are mixed. It has a track-record of achievement in the electricity sector particularly its intervention in Egypt where it helped to add value. The plan is that by 2021, Siemens would have helped to ramp up Nigeria’s electricity service delivery. A key point however: foreign contractors should not be promoted as a threat to local investors in the electricity sector. Is it possible to restrict Siemens to the transmission sector and the reinvention of infrastructure? The MoU that has been signed with Siemens is presented to local players as a take-it-or-leave-it proposition. That is unwise. 

The Federal Government through the National Economic Council and the Presidency as it were has now ordered a forensic audit of the power companies who seem to be uncomfortable with that. I guess they do not trust government and can you blame them?  But why the emphasis on forensic audit? Ordinarily, this should not be a matter for litigation. The Federal Government also wants state governments to be part of the shareholding in the power sector. I have no problems with that. Government already has equity. It can share that as it wishes, but nothing more than that.  

What the Federal Government must watch closely and be careful about is the repeated threat that it intends to either review the privatization of the electricity sector or cancel it altogether, whatever that double-talk means. The Senate President Ahmad Lawan seems to support the latter option, whereas he was a member of the Senate Committee on Privatization, 2011- 2015. What could be his motive? Government options should not be about individual interests. There are larger implications about investor confidence, cost of likely litigation, the sanctity of contracts, service delivery and governance. The current situation is un-bankable on all fronts. I recommend dialogue, not the looming showdown. Nigerians want regular electricity supply, affordable tariffs and a country that works. Is it possible to focus on that? 

This year’s eid-al-fitr, the Muslim festival marking the end of the month of Ramadan, during which Muslims fast for 29 or 30 days, in observance of one of the Five Pillars of Islam, was celebrated on Saturday and Sunday May 23/24, but it was a different kind of eid. It was sombre, low key, and completely over-shadowed by the COVID-19 pandemic. In close to 100 years, there has been no eid like that: the world’s nearly 2 billion Muslims observed the Ramadan under imposed conditions. People were advised to avoid congregational prayers and stay in their homes. On Sunday, many could not observe the traditions of the eid either: the sharing of gifts, visits to family and friends to share goodwill, hugs and handshakes. In countries around the world, persons were advised to shun large gatherings for their own safety. Eid prayers could not be held publicly in Mecca and Medina. The Grand Mosque was noticeably scanty. Earlier, the Saudi Grand Mufti had advised against large congregations. 

In Egypt, the usually busy Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo was empty. In the United Kingdom, the Muslim Council, ahead of the Eid-al-Fitri, advised Muslims to pray at home.  In Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand and Malaysia, congregational prayers were allowed but there was very strict adherence to precautions. In Thailand for example, worshippers who showed up for the Hari Raya, as the eid-al-fitri is otherwise known in that country, Malaysia and in Indonesia had to pass through health officials who checked their temperatures, gave them sanitizing gels, recorded their names and addresses so they can be traced and contacted in the event of a report of community spread of the virus. The people prayed but they kept away from one another. The main thing about COVID-19 is how it has imposed a regimen of observances on human behavior and relationships. 

The fact that people are expected to comply or gamble with their lives for failing to do so, is what makes it all so surreal.  The mode of compliance varied from one country to the other. The only uniting factor, however, is how on Sunday, the Muslim global community and indeed the entire world was reminded of how so much COVID-19 has disrupted our lives. This sub-text was driven home more poignantly when the New York Times on May 24, decided on a dramatic, all-type concept front page, listing the names and brief descriptions of about 1,000 Americans who had died from COVID-19 related complications. It was the first time in more than 40 years that the New York Times will not have an image on its front page. The published names were compiled from obituary notices in newspapers across the United States by a researcher - Alan Delaqueriere - and put together by a team led by Ms. Simone Landon, Assistant Editor, Graphics.  There was also an inside-page essay by columnist, Dan Barry. For me, this was journalism at another level. 

The New York Times went beyond the raw data that is quoted daily by Johns Hopkins University which tracks the incidence of COVID-19 in the United States (over 1.6 million confirmed cases, and over 98, 000 deaths – the highest COVID-19 figures in the world!). The newspaper gave names to the statistics and conveyed a sense of the uniqueness of those that died. Whoever reads that list is bound to realize how it is so easy to be alive at one moment, only to end up on a list of corpses in a short moment. The unpredictability of human transitions is what therefore makes it alarming that certain persons knowing how the grim reaper is on rampage, riding the vehicle of a virus, would engage in suicidal and risky behavior. 

These were my thoughts as I read the New York Times on the day of the eid-al-fitri, and reflected on the sharp variations in how theeid was celebrated especially in sub-Saharan Africa where religion is a virus of sorts. Whereas North African countries (Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Algeria) where there are high figures of COVID-19 enforced rules of physical distancing, many worshippers South of the Sahara threw caution to the winds, with perhaps the notable exceptions of Ghana and Senegal. In Sudan, before and after the eid, neither the leaders nor the people seemed to have heard of physical distancing. Sudan has the highest number of cases in East Africa with over 100 deaths but nobody seems to care. The people and their leaders certainly did not care during this year’s eid-al-fitri. Inflation is over 100% in Sudan. Health workers have no access to Personal Protective Equipment. The World Health Organization (WHO) should watch that country closely.

In Tanzania, a country that has been “Magufulifized” to paraphrase the eminent Kenyan Professor, PLO Lumumba, the leaders pretended to be aware of the need for physical distancing but the worshippers who trooped to mosques in Dodoma and elsewhere in the country could not be bothered. As in Sudan, the mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic could be traced to the failure of leadership. President John Magufuli of Tanzania held much promise when he assumed office five years ago, but he has since derailed confirming indeed that his reform agenda is a double-edged sword of progressivism and dictatorship/primitivism. He insists that there has been a reduction in the number of COVID-19 cases in Tanzania, but this is not based on data. Tanzania stopped releasing COVID-19 figures and suspended daily briefings on April 21 because Magufuli is convinced that such briefings cause panic among the populace. He also insists that testing cannot be trusted, having discovered that even fruits and goats have tested positive due to faulty test kits. The Africa Centre for Disease Control and the US Embassy in the country have warned about the extremely high risk that Tanzania constitutes, especially to the neighbouring countries of Kenya, Zambia and Uganda. Healthcare workers in Tanzania cannot even express an opinion because under Magufuli, it is a crime to have independent thoughts. On eid-el-fitri day, Muslims in Tanzania simply followed his lead and ignored the reality of COVID-19. 

In not too far away Burundi, the management of COVID-19 is not any better. Burundi is officially a secular state. Muslims constitute a minority, previously thought to be only 1% of the population but now considered to be about 5-8% after the last post-civil war census. The big problem with Burundi in the face of COVID-19 is the total refusal of President Pierre Nkurunziza to come to terms with the fact that the pandemic is real. Last week, the country held a Presidential election, a stage-managed election which was rigged to produce the candidate of the ruling party, the CNDD-FDD as winner with 68.72%. The CNDD-FDD’s candidate, Evariste Ndayishimiye was once Chief of Staff to Nkurunziza who wants to retire from office and retain the pompous title of “Supreme Guide to Patriotism”. The new President will be required to consult the “Supreme Guide” on matters of national security and unity. Nkurunziza has apparently forgotten what happened to former Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos whose delusion of indispensability eventually led to his humiliation. 

I digress slightly. The point I am really trying to make is that in Burundi, not even the country’s Muslim population had any need to worry about COVID-19. Before the eid, the government of Burundi expelled World Health Organization officials from the country on the ground that they had become “persona non grata.” International election observers and monitors were informed that they would be quarantined if they showed up in the country to observe any election. The international community stayed away.   

Now let us switch the lens to Nigeria. Days before the eid-al-fitri 2020, the Nigerian Government on May 4 eased restrictions that had been imposed by the Federal Government on Ogun, Lagos states and the Federal Capital Territory, not for religious reasons, but as part of a “phased and gradual process” of re-opening the Nigerian space while also addressing the multi-faceted challenges of COVID-19. State governments also began to relax the restriction orders in their states, with the entire country bound to enforce the uniform ban on inter-state travel and the emplacement of a nationwide curfew from 8 pm to 6 am. There were specific regulations and guidelines for restaurants, places of religious worship, human relationships, work place protocols etc. There was a big push-back from ordinary Nigerians who had grown weary of the lockdown, as well as pundits and business owners who felt that the lockdown will not work in Africa but the biggest resistance came from religious leaders especially Pentecostal church leaders who argued from all corners of their mouths about either 5G technology or the damage that the lockdown was doing to the church economy.  There were exceptions though: on the mainstream Christian side- the Catholic Church, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), and on the Pentecostal side: Pastors Enoch Adeboye, Tunde Bakare, Sam Adeyemi and Paul Adefarasin… 

If Muslim leaders were opposed to the lockdown, they were quiet with their objections. The Christian leaders were loud and aggressive. One of them even said if government could allow markets to re-open, churches should also be re-opened. However, the fact that Muslim leaders were also not entirely quiet soon became evident as many states in the North began to announce that religious worship was in order, and that mosques and churches could re-open even as COVID-19 figures in Nigeria increased geometrically. In due course, these states: Kano, Bauchi, Taraba, Nasarawa, Gombe, Yobe, Niger, Adamawa, Cross River, Delta… lifted the ban on worship centres, with the convenient caveat of course that the rules of physical distancing and (2) attendance relative to building capacity and (3) the threshold of 20 persons per gathering must be respected. All the Governors claimed that they were responding to pressures from religious leaders. The Governor of Kano claimed he was advised by Islamic Scholars. The Council of Ulamas in Kano State insisted that they were not consulted. The Sultan of Sokoto, the Head of the Muslim Ummah in Nigeria and head of the Nigeria Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) issued a statement directing all Muslims in Nigeria to observe the eid prayers at home, because the eid-al-fitri is not fard (that is obligatory). President Muhammadu Buhari also issued a statement saying nobody should visit him to pay eid homage as is customary and that people should pray at home. 

But in reality, what Nigeria and many other countries in sub-Saharan Africa are faced with is the threat of an exponential rise in COVID-19 cases post eid-al-fitri. In Kano state which is second on the Nigerian COVID-19 League Table, the guidelines were observed more in the breach. The Kano elite at the prayer grounds hypocritically tried to maintain social distancing but nobody provided minimum care for the ordinary people who risked their lives in the name of religion. In Minna, Niger state, there was reportedly a heavy downpour. People abandoned their masks and rushed into the mosque where they huddled together. The Nation newspaper (Nigeria, May 25) reports that Southern Muslims in Nigeria observed the eid in their homes. In the Northern part of the country, where the Northern Governors Forum most recently announced that the region accounts for 54% of reported cases, and 70% of fresh infections, the prayer grounds were unlocked from Kano to Borno, by the same leaders who had only a few days earlier acknowledged a brewing crisis in their region. Does that make sense? 

I have tried to paint the picture above simply to revisit the commendation that Africa has received for beating the world’s expectations with regard to COVID-19 sero-prevalence. The eid celebration is merely a peg. At a recent Africa.Com Webinar Series 6 with the theme: “What’s the real story behind Africa’s COVID-19 figures?”, the WHO Regional Director Ms Rebecca Moeti expressed enthusiasm about the fact that whereas WHO expected higher COVID-19 cases in Africa, the numbers have been lower than expected. She praised African countries. Both the WHO DG and the UN Secretary General have also had cause to commend Nigeria. The praise for Africa may be premature. It is not justified by the attitude of many of the leaders and the behaviour of the people. Could the real story in Africa be - that not enough testing is being done resulting in gross undercount or that corruption has further mutated COVID-19 into a strain that is yet unknown to the world? Or is the virus un-African? These are the key questions. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped the entire world – the future of everything and the world of work, but perhaps the most visible effect of this disruption is most felt in the financial services sector, the markets and the global economy. In this regard, the banking sector is one of the most gravely impacted. It would be useful to reflect a little on the extent to which this is so in Nigeria and the meaning of the multi-dimensional implications, and hopefully, someday, someone will take on the task of analyzing in greater detail, bank-customer relations and the role of the banks in the time of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. I seek to provide a preliminary sketch, throw up a few posers and make some observations. 

When on March 29, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari announced the imposition of an initial two-week lockdown on Lagos and Ogun States and the Federal Capital Territory, the three parts of the country that had then presented a higher COVID-19 sero-prevalence, he exempted healthcare workers, security personnel, pharmaceutical companies, oil company workers, the country’s food supply chain, the media, and other essential workers. His speech made no mention of the banks.

This omission was addressed the following day, March 30, by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning and the Governor of the Central Bank who further informed the public that Nigerian banks/money markets would also be expected to provide essential services during the period of the lock-down. Obviously, during the period of the lock down, Nigerians would need money either in terms of access to cash, or the completion of pending transactions, transfers, payments and savings. In April, the Federal Government further extended the lockdown by another two weeks and yet by another week, towards the end of the month. As it turned out, other states of the Federation relying on Section 8 of the Quarantine Act and enabling state laws also enforced their own versions of the lockdown.  Effectively, Nigeria became part of the global response to COVID-19. People were asked to stay at home, stay safe, follow guidelines, and avoid the risk of infection and transmission. It all happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly.  Nobody was prepared for it. There were reports of harvests of death in Europe, Asia, and the Americas. Fear gripped the world. Panic reigned. People asked the inevitable question: will humanity survive given the virulence of the virus? As people stayed at home and off the streets, they still needed to survive. Nobody had withdrawn cash or saved towards COVID-19. The importance of access to the banks and to cash was writ large; earning an income became a matter of life and death for households and businesses. The world thus found itself in a pre-historic Darwinian situation where only the fittest survived. The banks in Nigeria were not of much help. Their rating in terms of customer relations/support fell. 

The banks simply refused to open their doors to customers. The few that pretended to do so in Lagos, provided only skeletal services. People were advised to make withdrawals using Automated Teller Machines (ATMs), but most of these machines had no cash supply, and where they had, long queues could be seen daily, without anyone observing the physical distancing guidelines. Digital banking transactions, which had been touted as the new way of the world, proved difficult. If you went directly to an open branch, you would be kept waiting by a gate man who knew nothing about banking. He would return later to tell you that the officer hidden inside the banking hall would need to contact someone at the Headquarters. Many account officers who attended to the middle class were also under quarantine. Their phones were switched off. A major pillar of the banking business - making the customer happy, collapsed. The bankers took their own survival more seriously. The customer was no longer king! COVID 19 is the great destroyer of all known norms. It has shifted paradigms and turned the table against all known norms. 

When on one occasion, I had cause to protest, I was told that the banks were also being careful. They needed to protect their staff. They would not allow customers to bring the virus into their banking halls.  They had also recorded quite a few cases of fraud during the lockdown. So does that justify the scarcity of cash at cash points and the epileptic e-banking platforms?  It will be recalled that the Central Bank of Nigeria introduced a Financial Inclusion Strategy in 2016, the objective of which was to promote electronic banking and mobile money transactions. This led to the increasing digitalization of banking transactions in the country and the emergence of such features as the use of POS, e-banking and payment service agents. Whereas this has been hailed as a progressive development, Nigeria remains far behind other countries like Kenya and South Africa, where a higher rate of financial inclusion has been recorded. Nigeria’s slow penetration rate in this regard was exposed by the COVID-19 lockdown and indeed in reality, Nigeria remains under-banked; its banking practices are still far behind.  

For many subsistence workers whose survival depended on daily work, the banking situation was worse because these blue-collar workers live or suffer relative to their daily hustle. Whatever work that linked them to the banking value-added chain was cut off.  The extended family community that often helps to bridge the gap in Africa, was also adversely affected. Nigerians in Diaspora whose financial remittances constitute a major source of oxygen for local households and the economy also ran into troubled waters. In every sense, Nigeria’s financial sector faced a severe respiratory crisis with corresponding implications for economic growth and social stability. It didn’t take long before Nigerians especially the youth, became restive. A social crisis loomed large in the horizon. In Lagos and Ogun States, neighborhoods were attacked by those who called themselves “One Million Boys”. The rich became afraid of their own shadows. Nigerian banks had to take extra security measures. Organized Labour and the Organized Private Sector began to push the argument that the lockdown would not work in Africa, and that it was better government re-opened the business space.  

On April 27, it may be said that the Federal Government succumbed to pressure when in a nationwide broadcast, President Muhammadu Buhari announced a “phased and gradual” easing of the lockdown in the Federal Capital Territory, Ogun and Lagos States, with the same advice for other parts of the Federation subject to their own peculiar circumstances with regard to COVID-19.  The responses were varied. Ogun State chose to defer its own relaxation of the lockdown by a week, having joined a week later than the FCT and Lagos State. On May 17, the state announced yet a further extension of the lockdown. Other states of the Federation again took their cue from the Federal Government in due course. Delta, Ebonyi, Katsina, and Borno states have since allowed mosques and churches to re-open. Kaduna state and others have also announced relaxed measures. Across the country, a curfew remains in place from 8 pm to 6am. Inter-state travel has been banned, even if there are concerns about the movement of the almajirai across state borders with many of them testing positive for COVID-19. In the face of new guidelines, banks also opened their doors.  

But even then, bank customers are still unhappy, particularly in Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory. The banks remain an index of the people’s frustration. From May 4 to date, the premises of virtually every bank has been a war zone. Customers besiege the banks daily, without caring about either physical or social distancing rules. They sit outside or they queue up in a long, snaky, stretch. The people seem determined to die, if possible, just to gain access to their bank accounts. The queues are long. The desperation is palpable. A few banks have since provided tents and chairs in front of their branches. I won’t be surprised if in the third week of the easing of the lockdown, some Nigerian banks also begin to provide mattresses and mats!. Those queues may not disappear unless the banks open up more branches and pay better attention to customer care. 

Just how serious this is, was brought to the fore in a now popular, and sensational video, showing the Chairman of Ikwerre Local Government in Rivers State, Samuel Nwanosike who led a mini-task force to a branch of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) to disperse a crowd of bank customers, who did not wear face masks, and did not observe physical or social distancing.  “Do you want to kill my people?”, Nwanosike asked the bank officials, angrily. “Who is the bank manager here?... Who is the second in command?” One bank official told him: “The people are not listening to us”. There may be a lot to learn from this as all businesses adjust to a “new normal” occasioned by a capricious virus.   

The banks and their sympathizers insist however, that they do not deserve any blame, vulnerable as they are like every other business, without any measurable support from either government or their regulator, and yet they continue to play their part as responsible corporate citizens. There is probably a point here: it is on record that the banks and their CEOs enthusiastically joined the Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 known as CA-COVID which has so far raised over N27 billion. It is part of the burden that banks face that many of their customers think that the donations should have been given to them directly since the banks have their bank accounts and verification numbers. The banks were accused of seeking tax reliefs, and their CEOs, of promoting their own individual egos.

But perhaps the biggest challenge for Nigerian banks, and the extent of their vulnerability, emerged when a tele-conference video was leaked, showing the CEO of Access Bank, Herbert Wigwe, in which he announced that Access Bank was going to cut staff salaries and retrench staff as part of its business continuity and sustainability plans in the context of a public health crisis that has crippled business. The leakage of the Access Bank video was met with outrage. Wigwe was called names. The Bank was abused. A few days later, the Central Bank of Nigeria in response to this drama, announced that no bank is allowed to cut any job without its express approval, and that indeed job cuts in the banking sector are forbidden at this time. Access Bank denied the video that was in circulation. Stakeholders may accuse Nigerian banks of lapses in the face of COVID-19 but the truth is that the attack on Wigwe and Access Bank was totally unwarranted. In my view, Wigwe showed leadership and was honest. 

The only “COVI-diot” in the Access Bank matter is the disloyal staff who leaked the content of an in-house conversation. No serious organization should condone that kind of treachery. Wigwe says salaries will be cut and branches will be rationalized. Last year, Access Bank acquired Diamond Bank in one of the biggest Merger and Acquisitions that the Nigerian banking sector has witnessed in the past decade. Since that merger, Access Bank has not rationalized staff or branch networks. It simply inherited all the branches and staff that belonged to the defunct Diamond Bank resulting in a situation where you could have up to three branches of the same bank on the same street. Access Bank may have chosen the wrong time to announce its business re-design plan, but it is confronted with a reality that every business would have to deal with. But the question should be asked: Is it part of the work of the regulator to dictate cost and business models? 

Before COVID-19, one of the problems Nigerian banks faced was that of over-regulation by the Central Bank. Regulatory high-handedness hampered the capacity of the banks. Many of the banks also faced the threat of deteriorating credit quality due to over-exposure particularly to ailing sectors - oil and gas and the power companies. COVID-19, collapsing oil prices and naira devaluation turned the crisis in the banking sector into a triple whammy. Micro-finance Banks are losing over N45 billion uncollected loans. To all intents and purposes, it is part of the role of the Central bank to protect the banks and stave off the possibility of corrosive stress. Elsewhere we have seen Central Banks intervening to protect the banking sector. The Central Bank of Nigeria has made useful interventions in other areas– to protect SMEs, pharmaceuticals, loans, manufacturing sector, agriculture… but it has done little to strengthen the capacity of the banks to survive as business. 

The plug on job cuts, or the furloughing of bank staff is at best the postponement of the evil day. Bank staff as well as other employees must prepare for the worst. Many businesses will end up as part of the COVID-19 death rate statistics. Jobs will die too. Previous pandemics posted a V-shaped recovery trajectory. There are no such guarantees this time around. A U-shaped recovery scenario may even be optimistic. Many economies will sink in an L-shaped format. And that is where leadership matters. What should leaders do in relation to economic risks and the structural legacy of COVID-19?  This is the kind of rigorous thinking we need to see instead of the same government that wants to implement the Oronsaye Report, cut cost and ensure economic sustainability telling banks and other businesses that they cannot cut costs. The mixed messaging that has characterized Nigeria’s management of the COVID-19 tragedy so far points to serious issues of governance.