Globalisation is widely said to have reduced the entire world to a global village, where the interconnectedness of people and nations has become a virtual reality. The wonders of the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) have really reduced physical distance and human separation to nothing. The term ‘global village’ (first used in the 1960s by Marshall McLuhan, a Canadian mass media theorist), acquired its current prevalent usage with the advent of globalisation through the instrumentality of the ICT. But the ‘globalisation’ of disease as witnessed currently in coronavirus (COVID-19) that originated in faraway Wuhan, China, has further demonstrated the interconnectedness of peoples and nations in this new world village.
In labour relations parlance, one very popular organising, mobilising and solidarity-building slogan is the saying that an injury to one is an injury to all, a quote originally credited to David Courtney Coates. Coates was an outstanding labour union leader who served as the president of the American Labour Union. And as a socialist politician, he was the 11th Lieutenant Governor of the State of Colorado, USA from 1901 to 1903. However, this quote was popularised by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) which used it as its motto. Coates was said to have suggested the quote to IWW, a very powerful international labour union founded in Chicago, Illonois, USA in 1905. This quote is used nowadays by every labour union across the world.
A second related slogan by the International Labor Organisation (ILO) is that poverty anywhere is a threat to prosperity everywhere. This quote which came out of the ILO declaration of Philadelphia of 1944 has profoundly influenced social welfare thinking across the world. Thinking of humanity in the sense of a community is a way to promote peace across the world. It is perhaps in this sense that Kofi Annan (former UN Secretary General) said in another catchphrase that extreme poverty anywhere is a threat to human security everywhere.
The idea of ‘globalisation’ of disease and these three slogans are very relevant to the topic of our discussion today. What is happening in Kano State right now concerns all of us in Nigeria whether residing in the far cities of Calabar, Uyo, Port Harcout, Yenagoa, Lagos, Sokoto, Yola, or Maiduguri. Kano no doubt appears far (distance-wise) just as Wuhan, China, appeared far away from the rest of the world four months ago. However, in this era of COVID-19 pandemic, Kano is not far away from anybody anywhere in Nigeria. It only takes a bus or lorry load of Kano residents to travel out of the state and then start ‘donating’ (infecting) the deadly virus to anyone in contact with them. Nigeria is right now in a very serious crisis situation that everybody should feel concerned.
The Kano State debacle reported as mysterious deaths was clearly foretold over a month ago by perceptive individuals, who rightly advised Nigerians to observe the social distancing etiquette as against their moving in a business-as-usual mentality. When some foreign embassies of countries such as France, USA, UK, Israel, and even South Africa took permission (after our airspace was closed) to airlift their nationals back home, some Nigerians were wondering why. These were countries where their citizens were dying in several hundreds then in every 24 hours. Take the US for example, which recorded 2,492 deaths within 24 hours as of Saturday, April 25, 2020. One would wonder why those US citizens left Nigeria to where the situation was scaring. It is simply the fear that Nigeria’s weak health system would not be able to cope when it becomes overwhelmed by COVID-19 patients. The people foresaw and feared perhaps what Mrs. Melinda Gates postulated about potential COVID-19 deaths in Africa, where dead bodies would litter the streets. But the federal government should note this and therefore do everything within its powers to prevent the Kano State debacle from further escalation.
Unfortunately, the lockdown order by the Kano State Government came so late that it made no significant impact in containing the spread of COVID-19. To make matters worse, like many other states in Nigeria, Kano State government was unprepared when COVID-19 arrived in its domain. Again, its people ignored all social and physical distancing protocols with an embarrassing manner of culturally-ingrained business-as-usual mentality. Ignorance further played a significant part in worsening the already bad situation and with a very high population, the debacle then started unfolding gradually in a somewhat predictable manner.
Matters degenerated again when members of the State Task Force on COVID19 contracted the virus thereby halting the coordinated fight against the disease. The disaster then came with the shutting down of the COVID-19 testing laboratory. As conflicting news of the state of the testing centre lingered (oscillating between functioning and not working), the next alarming news was the mystery death of 150 people within three days. This was again followed by news of the death of 12 prominent Kano indigenes within two days.
As the dust raised by this startling news was just dying down amid conflicting official reactions, the nation woke on Sunday April 26, 2020 to hear the news that a total of over 600 such mysterious deaths have occurred in Kano. Whatever the total number is – whether 600 or far less – is not the main issue here. But whatever the number was, it is far above the national figure which is in double digits.
These deaths are called mysterious because the causes were not ascertained. But it was unscientific for the State government to rule out COVID-19 without investigation. The mention of meningitis as one of the possible causes lacks deep thinking as these deaths involved high profile individuals such as the regional manager of a big bank, professors (one in medically-related discipline and the other in mass communication), former editor of newspapers, top government officials, who presumably worked in air-conditioned offices and less exposed to heat. I stand to be corrected here, but after living in Sokoto for 14 years while teaching at the Usmanu Danfodiyo University, Sokoto (UDUS), a place known for extreme heat, this story of meningitis is simply a story for the gods.
The position of the former Governor of Kano State, Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, appears more plausible when he said that COVID-19 is the possible cause of death of many prominent citizens of the state. In a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, he argued that since the announcement of the positive results of the members of the COVID-19 committee, no test was ever conducted in the entire state. This he said is very frightening as neither asymptomatic nor active cases of infected patients are being identified and isolated, and as such carriers of this dreaded virus were spreading it and causing the untimely death of people.
In order to arrest this scaring situation, the Federal Government should continue with its earlier declared decision that it would focus attention on Kano State as the second epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. By my understanding of this statement, Kano State should be given enough resources like Lagos State to fight this ravaging virus as an emergency. Secondly, the Federal Government should coordinate its efforts properly in fighting this scourge. There should be proper synergy among the key institutional actors namely State Government, Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Federal Ministry of Health, and the PTF on COVID-19 pandemic. It is reassuring to note that the testing laboratory has now been opened, and that President Buhari (in his address to the nation on April 27, 2020) promised to ‘deploy all the necessary human, material and technical resources to support the state government in controlling and containing the pandemic and preventing the risk of further spread to neighbouring states’.
Thirdly, the directive by Mr. President for a total lockdown in Kano for two weeks should be strictly enforced to achieve the goal of preventing the spread of the virus to neghbouring states and beyond. Lastly, the recommendations by Senator Kwankwaso should be given serious consideration. For instance, according to him, the State Government should be made ‘to constitute a proper Task Force on COVID-19 with selection of members based on their professionalism and competence’. Again, according to him, additional five test and 10 collection centres should be established across the state. Furthermore, in absence of widespread testing, all deaths should be treated as if they were caused by COVID-19 to serve as a precautionary measure.
Finally, all hands (federal and state) must be on deck to arrest the Kano debacle that has the potential to spread the virus rapidly in Nigeria just as Wuhan rapidly infected the rest of the world.
•Prof. Obasi, a public policy expert (& former columnist in the Daily Trust, Abuja, March, 2003 to October, 2006, & Daily Champion, Lagos April 2005 to December 2008), teaches in the Department of Public Administration at the University of Abuja. Email: nnamdizik@gmail.com
