COVID-19 AND LESSONS TO BE LEARNED...(5)

 NEW WAYS OF GREETING (Seriously, must we shake hands?): hand shaking has been a formal way of greeting and has reportedly been with us for over 2,000 years. However, findings that the virus can be contracted by us touching our mouth eyes and nose and with most people unable to long resist urges to touch their faces, has led to the advisory against shaking of hands as a form of greeting. In a 2014 article in DW Magazine, it was reported that several studies have shown that handshakes are a very common way of transmitting diseases. In the same article, it was reported that only about two-thirds of men wash their hands after using public restrooms. In Nigeria, where men frequently urinate on the sides of the road, which of course have no hand washing facilities, the figure will be significantly higher. 

By the time this pandemic is finally over, some of us might have to reexamine the culture of hand shaking as a form of greeting.

IMPROVING THE HEALTHCARE SYSTEM:successive governments both at the State and Federal levels, have paid scant attention to truly developing Nigeria’s healthcare infrastructure and the manpower taking care of the health of the citizens. With most public officials flying out of the country at the merest hint of bodily discomfort, it is no wonder that the healthcare infrastructure and system have deteriorated till the hospitals became mere consulting clinics. Healthcare providers are underpaid, overworked and unappreciated and most of them have therefore left Nigeria for other shores where they are better paid and where facilities are much better provided for their work. 

The need of most countries to contain the spread of Covid-19 has led to closure of borders and the airspace in most countries and perhaps for the first time in decades, some of those at the helms of the country’s affairs are now confronted with the decrepit healthcare system their criminally selfish neglect has ‘bequeathed’ to the country. More than any other thing in recent history, Covid-19 presents Nigeria’s leaders at all levels, with a chance to recalibrate and devote more funds and attention to the health sector. Nigeria has consistently fallen very short of the 2001 African Union Countries’ 15% of annual budget target and the 15% of annual budget recommendation of the World Health Organisation (WHO) also of the same year.

Percentages allocated to health have not risen up to 6% of the total annual budgets in spite of Nigeria’s commitment to follow the African Union Countries’ declaration of 15% ironically made in the FCT in 2001. According to Budgit, combined budgetary allocations to education and health in the 2020 Appropriation Act came to just about 11% of the total budget (and that was before the budget was revised with health and education suffering drastic cuts). And even of the dismal 4.14% which came to N427.3B allocated to health for the year, only about N46.48 Billion is for capital expenditure, the bigger chunk goes to recurrent expenditure. The Cable’s report of November 7, 2019 titled Critical Issues on FG’s 2020 healthcare budget written by Joshua Olufemi gives graphic details of the dire straits Nigeria’s healthcare sector is in.

If the account in the article does not give you pause on the importance or lack of importance, attached to the development of our health sector by successive governments in Nigeria, perhaps the fact that the UK’s National Health Service (NHS)’s annual budget according to Dr. Ola Brown in her book titled Fixing Healthcare in Nigeria, is equivalent to the Nigeria’s federal health budget for 200 years will. In case the significance of the multiple of years by which UK’s NHS budget size versus Nigeria’s budget size eluded you, UK has a population of 60 million people while Nigeria’s estimated population is at least 3 times that of the UK.

Though one wants to have the hope that the closure of airspaces and the consequent inability of Nigeria’s public officials to travel during this period will make them see the need to develop both the healthcare infrastructure and the workers in the healthcare sector in the country, the recent cut by 25% in the capital allocation to the Ministry of Health and the 42% cut in the allocation for primary health care in the 2020 revised budget indicate otherwise.     

COVID-19 AND LESSONS TO BE LEARNED...(4)

NIMC, DEVELOPING A STRUCTURE: IMPORTANCE OF FOR HELPING CITIZENS: The attempts by the governments both at the State and Federal levels to provide some sorts of palliatives to people who mostly live on their daily incomes during the lockdown has laid very bare and brought into very sharp focus, the lack of any real structure in the country which could be utilised to effectively get the palliatives to people who were in dire need of them.

 

Though the Federal government claimed to have a register of about 2.6 million households who have been benefitting from the monthly N5,000 stipend under the Nigerian Social Investment Program (NSIP) previously supervised by the office of the Vice President and later transferred to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, there have been a lot of questions of how the beneficiaries of the NSIP were determined and the transparency of the distribution. In any case, however those beneficiaries were determined, the fact is that 2.6 million households or the increment by one million recently directed by the president amount to very tiny drops in an ocean of poor Nigerians, more than 40% of whom, according to the latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics reportedly live in extreme poverty.

 

The importance of the role and tasks given to the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) by the NIMC Act which was supposed to have come into effect in July of 2007 comes into very sharp focus during this period. The NIMC has as part of its functions:

Ø  The creation, management, maintenance and operation of a national identity database created under Section 14 of the NIMC Act of 2007: Section 5(a);

Ø  The registration of all Nigerian citizens into the National database: Section 5(b); registration of non-Nigerian citizens lawfully resident in Nigeria: Section 5(c);

Ø  The issuance of a general multi-purpose card to persons registered under Section 5 (a) & (b) above: Section 5(d); and

Ø  The assignation of unique National Identification Numbers (NIN) to persons registered: Section 5(f).  

 

By the provision of Section 1(1)(r)  of the Mandatory Use of the National Identification Number Regulations of 2017 made pursuant to Sections 27 & 31 of the NIMC Act of 2007, the NIN is a condition precedent to eligibility and documentation for social welfare services by the government and other non-governmental agencies. However, though as already mentioned, the NIMC Act was supposed to have come into effect since May 2007 after it was signed into law, it was not launched until August 2014, more than 7 years later, by then President Goodluck Jonathan.

 

According to Guardian newspaper’s Saturday Magazine report of November 9, 2019, titled National Identity Card: Another bumpy road to building National Database, as at 2016, less than 1% of eligible Nigerians had been registered and even though the target of the NIMC back in 2016 was to have had over 100 million unique records in its central database in order to commence the enforcement of mandatory use of the NIN for certain services and transactions, as at November 9, 2019, just about 38 million people or 19% had been enrolled, a figure, just over one third below the target of the NIMC. Officials of the NIMC have, according to the earlier mentioned Guardian report, blamed their failure to effectively carry out NIMC’s mandates under the Act on paucity of funds. NIMC’s budget in the initial 2020 budget was N5.006Billion (N5,006,294,500) out of which recurrent expenditure is a whopping N4,662,530,146 while capital expenditure is a mere N345,764,354, whereas in an article on biometricupdate.com of September 5, 2019 titled Nigeria to receive $433M from World Bank for biometric national ID registration, an estimate of N50 Billion or $140 Million per annum was given for registration of all Nigerians. Though the article did not state how many Nigerians this amount is to register on an annual basis and what exactly the N50M figure covers, the DG of NIMC according to a recent report, stated recently that the Commission enrolls about 5.1 million people on an annual basis. This pandemic and the inability to effectively distribute palliative materials to those who really need them should tell this government how important it is for the government to put the structure in place for it.

 

Besides using the National Identity database for social welfare programs, the database when it starts running will also be of very great importance as it relates to apprehending criminals in the country and in the determination of our population.  It can more accurately tell us our number in the country and how many people live in the different parts of the country. Of course when we know our numbers, we can plan better and know which area needs what, rather than the haphazard planning and uneven developments we currently have. The DG of NIMC, Mr Aliyu Aziz was recently quoted to have said during a Zoom meeting that over 100 million Nigerians, especially as can be guessed, the poorest and most vulnerable; women and girls, do not have any form of identity whatsoever. The importance of having these figures can never be over-emphasised. As already mentioned, the NIN can also help to track criminals. Section 1(1)(x) requires the NIN for the purchase and registration of SIM cards and other communication devices and since existing phone lines are also required to be linked with the NIN in much the same way our Bank Verification Numbers (BVN) were linked to all our bank accounts, however many they were, the proposal mulled recently by the Communication Ministry of limiting SIM cards to three per person would be unnecessary. The most important thing to be done for this to work is to ensure no SIM card is sold or issued without registration and linking with the NIN. Any telecommunication company that flouts this provision of the law should be severely sanctioned. Once this is done, it will become so much easier to trace the persons behind fraudulent activities and other criminal acts. Enrolment of Nigerians and foreign residents should also be accelerated and both the corruption and the paucity of funds that have stalled it should be tackled. It is hoped that the liberalization of the registration process which will involve other agencies and private sector participants to enroll Nigerians, and to be made possible by the financial support from the World Bank with the sum of $433M will aggressively scale up enrolment of people across the country as intended. The Steering Committee for the Nigeria Digital Identity for Development Ecosystem, also recently inaugurated and to be chaired by the Secretary to the Federal government, Mr. Boss Mustapha, which has among others, the task of fast-tracking the implementation of the Strategic Roadmap for accelerating digital identity development for Nigeria it is hoped, will contribute towards actually accelerating enrollment of Nigerians and non-Nigerians resident in Nigeria into the National database. It is time for us as a country and a people to start prioritizing the truly important things.