The successes, failures, gains and lessons from the Covid 19 Pandemic and the lockdown that followed has been chronicled in a 2021 Covid-19 Accountability Tracker Report released by Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC).
Following the pandemic which hit Nigeria just like other countries across the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) and Africa Center for Disease Control led a continental preparedness and response initiative which saw African governments establish a taskforce to coordinate the response associated with the pandemic.
Some of the initial measures to address the COVID-19 crisis in Nigeria after the government established the ‘Presidential Task Force for the Control of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Disease’ on March 7, 2020, were enforcement of movement restrictions, lockdowns, contact tracing, distribution of palliatives, among others.
The initial measures to contain Covid-19 was also followed by Government’s approval of N15 billion ($38.6) million to support national efforts to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. There were reports of funds and items also donated by Private Organizations and individuals to ease the sufferings of the poor masses that were hit hard by the pandemic.
However, the Accountability report 2021, has shown that the administration of Covid-19 emergency support services in many states of Nigeria during the lockdown was hijacked and taken over completely by the political class and the distribution of palliatives became a political item for identified members of political parties.
The national Coordinator, National Social Safety Net Coordinating Office (NASSCO) Mr. Iorwa Apera while speaking during a webinar on Transparency and Accountability of Covid 19 Funds in Nigeria said that the social register and the Rapid Response Register has a combined 52 million Nigerians which is more than 60% of the total estimated poor persons.
According to Apera, “the Rapid Response Register, a framework for scientific targeting in Nigeria has been put in place to be used in emergencies to reach folks who are impacted in situations like the Covid 19 Pandemic”.
The 2021 Covid 19 Accountability Tracker Report confirmed that there were different channels through which information about palliatives was communicated to the public, but accessibility to those palliatives was a major concern and distribution centres were overflooded with many people stranded for hours to obtain token palliatives being distributed.
In response to the distribution of palliatives during the lockdown, Iorwa Apera maintained that the Federal government through the Ministry of Disaster management and Humanitarian Affairs, mapped out the most impacted states, Lagos, Oyo, Ogun, Abuja and kano and the palliatives were allocated to the areas with the responsibility of the distribution lying with the state governments.
Iorwa said Osun state was a clear example of how the Social register was used to identify the poor and vulnerable to distribute the palliatives.
In tracking Covid-19 funds and donations in Nigeria, The Report said “available evidence suggests that apart from donations and grants from multilateral and bilateral agencies, the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) created special funds and mobilized donations for emergency response to Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) in the country, to which corporate entities and private individuals contributed. It also showed that the funds and other resources were kept as a trust or managed through other similar arrangements, which largely remained unrecorded as they were not regarded as government revenues”.
“As such, the funds and resources bypassed parliamentary budget oversight and government financial management controls and processes. This opened opportunities for corruption and lack of transparency and accountability”
The Report also mentioned that the FG did not carry CSOs along while it was receiving COVID-19 donations or spending the funds. Hence, the anti-corruption protocol for the Presidential Task Force in charge of monitoring procurements and financial transactions developed by ICPC for corruption prevention on Covid-19 relief measures was not far reaching.
Apera while said the “CSOs that were engaged by the Federal Government were engaged based on their presence in the communities where they were domiciled and where they can basically understand the impact of what the people were facing and we deployed the use of the social register”
“For the cash transfer of 1 million distribution across states it was based on the absolute poverty head count as released by NBS and government used cutting edge technology and satellite images of Nigeria to map out the poor in urban locations using SMS and USSD codes, messages were sent to identified people and they responded via sms and their responses were used to input their data on the registers.
Further findings contained in the Report which is a regional study focused on two states – Lagos and Ogun also showed that a significant proportion of the respondents in Lagos (82.5%) and Ogun State (88.8%) had difficulty with getting food and other household essentials during the Covid-19 lockdown.
The Report said that rresponsibilities of the govt were not carried out during the lockdown period, especially on issues relating to support services and health care. Private organisations contributed cash and materials to alleviate the hardship imposed on the people due to abdication of govt’s responsibilities.
“At least three in every four (78.4%) of the respondents in Lagos State and 80% in Ogun had a negative perception on how the government respond to the healthcare and basic needs of the people during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown”.
“2.5% and about 2% of the respondents in Lagos and Ogun State held positive view on how the government responded to the basic and healthcare needs of the population during the same period respectively”
“66.7% and 70.2% of the respondents in Lagos and Ogun State admitted that they were aware of the specialized committees established by the government to oversee the distribution of Covid-19 relief materials provided by the government and other concerned organisations”
During a Webinar on Transparency and Accountability of Covid 19 Funds in Nigeria, participants agreed that things would have been done better by the Government, CSOs, NGOs in the disbursement of funds and palliatives during the lockdown.
Government was enjoined amongst other things, to adopt strategic communication approaches and work with risk communication experts to design a risk communication strategy for prevention and response/share information accordingly.
