Opinion: Life Or Economy, the Choice Is Ours, By Zainab Suleiman Okino
The scary implication of the flurry of activities after a relaxed lockdown, at a time that community transmission is beginning to spike and more infected but asymptomatic people are being discovered, can be likened to suicide.
“In 1720, a ship was quarantined at the port of Marseille because a strange infection was killing people on the ship. Deputy Mayor of Marseille lifted the quarantine to “help the economy”. 100,000 people died. More than half of Marseille died.” That was the Great Plague of Marseille. The government of Marseille felt they could not afford to lose all the valuable goods on the ship as it would destroy the economy.
So, everybody saw the need for the lockdown, except Kano State, which displayed ignorance, recklessness and was in denial of the propensity of coronavirus to infect and kill in large numbers. Within these past months, job losses have been tremendous. Though we have no reliable statistics on this, almost every household has been affected. According to the latest information from the National Bureau of Statistics, more than 82.2 million Nigerians are poor, by which they mean those who live on less than one dollar per day. This also constitutes about 40.1 per cent of the population, meaning four out of 10 Nigerians live on N137,450 per annum. And now COVID-19.
Let me also share with you useful tips and lessons I came across on WhatsApp as we go into the uncertain world of the next few weeks.
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