Rivers State Report:

The scepticism about the existence of the deadly coronavirus, has become a trending development in Rivers State, despite the rising number of confirmed cases in the State, which stood at 489, as of June 14, 2020. The Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, who spoke recently about the distrust and disbelief of many residents in the State about the virus, stressed that their cynicism is posing a major challenge in the bid to rapidly combat the pandemic, as he hinted that Bonny Local Government Area is now the epicentre of the pandemic, accounting for a large percentage of the number of confirmed cases in the State. The Social Development Integrated Centre, also known as Social Action, a non-governmental organisation currently involved in research and monitoring of the impacts of COVID-19, has noted that the scepticism and denial surrounding the pandemic, is symptomatic of the stigmatisation of persons confirmed to be infected with the disease. The fear of stigmatisation from having one’s family member tagged a coronavirus survivor or added to the statistics of coronavirus deaths, is what drives the narrative falsely peddled by many in the State that the virus is not real. Many would rather profess that COVID-19 is a hoax; and in the event that anyone in their families dies, it will never be said that the life was lost to the novel disease, even if it was. This explains the reason why, in spite of the fact that, some prominent persons in the state who are well-known to the people, have died as a result of coronavirus, many people would still not want to admit to themselves that the virus is real.

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BAYELSA STATE

Amidst the rising cases of coronavirus disease in the country and the shocking nonchalance of many Nigerians towards the pandemic, the Civil Societies Network in Bayelsa State has resolved to ensure public discourse about the pandemic is kept on the front burner, by calling on traditional rulers, youth leaders, religious overseers and other community leaders to use their influence in expanding the public outreach campaigns on COVID-19. The Civil Societies, operating under the auspices of the CSO Situation Room, find it ironical and bothersome that, the more the number of confirmed cases increases in the State, the lesser the public interest in curbing further spread of the virus. The reverse, ought to be the case. With the spike in the number of infected persons within and around Bayelsa, the CSO Situation Room has begun reaching out to community leaders in the State, requesting them to play the symbolic role of closing the gaps in communication with the people, by raising their voices and calling for action against the spread of the deadly virus in the State.

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Rivers State Report:

Sequel to the introduction of health safety rules by the Rivers State Government to curtail the spread of coronavirus in the State,there has been several incidents reported within the State of little infants choking and gasping for breath after their parents ignorantly wore face masks on them, out of fear of flouting the government’s rules. The CSO Situation Room made up of civil societies in the State, is greatly alarmed by these reports as they are an indication of an acute lack of awareness amongst the populace, about the recommendations on the use of the facemask published by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC). The level of public sensitisation about COVID-19 has been noticeably minimal in Rivers State. Though some parts of the State experienced a total lockdown for some days, imposed by the State Government, many residents in the State lamented that they were never enlightened about the pandemic,as the government appeared more interested in enforcing a strict compliance to the lockdown, than seeking the understanding and cooperation of the people.

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Pictures show CSO Situation Room members on a mission to distribute IEC materials in communities within Bayelsa

Bayelsa State Report

The subtle pressure mounted on the Bayelsa State Government by the CSO Situation Room and some public-spirited citizens across the State, to take more drastic actions in tackling the coronavirus pandemic, has yielded some positive results with the State Government taking the public enlightenment campaigns a notch higher. The government commissioned the production of DVD (Digital Video Disc) and IEC (Information Education and Communication) materials, to improve communication and information dissemination to residents of the State on their collective responsibility to stem the tide of community transmission. The IEC materials were produced using slogans and messages curated by the CSO Situation Room for the purpose of public sensitisation. About 5,000 copies of these IEC materials and DVDs have been handed over to the CSO Situation Room by the State Government, for distribution to the public in the course of carrying out their daily community sensitisation campaigns across the State. Social Action, one of the civil society groups in the coalition, provided the logistical support needed to efficiently distribute the materials.

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Thematic Report: There has been a drastic drop in the demand for refined and unrefined oil

Written by Lillian Akhigbe:
Even a layperson who is neither an economist nor a finance expert, but who has been on a lockdown with his family for a period of time within the last two months, must have observed that the coronavirus – induced lockdown slowed down economic activities in parts of Nigeria. From the school teacher in Abuja who decides to remove the battery of his car and keep it inside his house like a treasure box, mindful that the vehicle will not be on the road during the total lockdown, to the airline companies with offices in Lagos who had to place over 80% of their staff on a mandatory Leave without pay, pending the lifting of the ban on inter-State and inter-country air travel; it was evident that there has been a drop in the purchase of petrol, aviation fuel and other petroleum-based fuels.All across the world, the demand for refined and unrefined oil drastically reduced within the last three months. Many people just did not need that much petroleum-based fuel while at home on a lockdown. The global oil market has been majorly impacted by the coronavirus pandemic and the Nigerian economy in particular, which is majorly dependent on the oil market, was one of the worst-hit.Nigeria had a pile up of unsold crude oil in vessels offshore and the challenge of a drastic drop in oil prices stared the country hard in the face.

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By Peter Mazzi

Despite the different physical policies adopted by leaders all over the world to curb the transmission of the coronavirus, the curve has been on the bend. Some of the measures recommended by the World Health Organisation to flatten the curve, include the maintenance of respiratory and personal hygiene and keeping safe physical distances, one from another. But one notable measure that was adopted by many affected countries to enforce the physical distancing, was the implementation of a lockdown which involves the partial or total restriction of movement of persons from one place to another. This seemed to be perhaps one of the most effective and cost- effective means of constraining the contagion from infected persons to the uninfected or from a region of high infection to a less affected area. The logic is simply that the virus cannot move on its own but depend on a host in form of an infected person to transmit to others as they engage in physical communication. As effective as this measure may be, it has also proven to be highly unsustainable.

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