The coronavirus is showing #Nigeria up in a big way.
Government revenues have entered the toilet and are unlikely to come out soon.
So much so that @NigeriaGov wants to seize #COVIDー19 donations and use them to fund #budget2020 bit.ly/2WsoeaR
Government revenues have entered the toilet and are unlikely to come out soon.
So much so that @NigeriaGov wants to seize #COVIDー19 donations and use them to fund #budget2020 bit.ly/2WsoeaR
The move to divert #COVIDー19 donations to #budget2020 is rather shortsighted if you think about it, but here we are, and it is all as a result of government laziness and it shows that all the talk of wanting to diversify the economy is nonsense.
The numbers bear this out, #Nigeria's economy is already diversified.
Oil is 7.32% of GDP.
Agric is 21.2%.
Industry outside oil is 18.5%.
Services are 52%.
I wrote in detail about it in today's @BusinessDayNg bit.ly/3borhoz
Oil is 7.32% of GDP.
Agric is 21.2%.
Industry outside oil is 18.5%.
Services are 52%.
I wrote in detail about it in today's @BusinessDayNg bit.ly/3borhoz
The problem is that the govt has more or less refused to do the hard work of getting the rather large informal sector (many of them in agric and services) into the formal net.
#Nigeria instead, prefers the easy route of waiting for oil to be pumped out of the ground and sold in the international market.
We can't even be bothered to refine it. That work is too hard. bit.ly/2WnhzOO
We can't even be bothered to refine it. That work is too hard. bit.ly/2WnhzOO
This same attitude is what is showing in our rapid acceptance of the "miracle cure" from #Madagascar.
Here is the issue with this Madagascar thing - as far as I know, it has not undergone any peer-reviewed clinical trials.
Here is the issue with this Madagascar thing - as far as I know, it has not undergone any peer-reviewed clinical trials.
Madagascar's president has even raised the racism spectre by saying that if it were a European country, there'd be no doubts about the efficacy of the cure.
Of course, playing to the justifiable paranoia of Africans regarding the way the world sees us
Of course, playing to the justifiable paranoia of Africans regarding the way the world sees us
The problem is, he made this statement four days AFTER the WHO called for clinical trials of the cure bit.ly/3cpKcAt, and a week after the African Union asked #Madagascar for technical data concerning this cure bit.ly/2Wn8d5F
This is where we run into trouble.
AFAIK, no one has said the cure is fake.
What they have asked for is trials, which is the standard path towards getting a new drug on the shelves.
Has #Madagascar given the AU the technical data it asked for?
What are the side effects?
AFAIK, no one has said the cure is fake.
What they have asked for is trials, which is the standard path towards getting a new drug on the shelves.
Has #Madagascar given the AU the technical data it asked for?
What are the side effects?
It all boils down to our disdain for hard work and process, that's why we are always looking for a miracle cure which, in this case, may well turn out to be a placebo...
Interestingly, some traders (we tend to consider traders as uneducated here for some reason) seem to be quite lucid as to what to do as regards #Nigeria bit.ly/2WmTpUI
“We cannot be solving one problem and at the same time creating another. There is a need for us to weigh the options and strike a balance that will have a human face."- Tony Obih, president of Balogun Market Business Association.
Chikwem Obasi, a patron of Balogun Market, said intensifying testing capacity is key.
One of our big challenges regarding #coronavirus in #Nigeria is this: how do you lockdown a country where the vast majority of its workforce is in the informal sector and depend on daily wages?
One of our big challenges regarding #coronavirus in #Nigeria is this: how do you lockdown a country where the vast majority of its workforce is in the informal sector and depend on daily wages?
Mr Obasi's statement cuts to the heart of the whole thing.
We locked down anyway, then promptly failed to test.
As of the end of the lockdown just over a week ago, we had done about 15k tests.
It is now up to 27k this is samples NOT people tested.
We locked down anyway, then promptly failed to test.
As of the end of the lockdown just over a week ago, we had done about 15k tests.
It is now up to 27k this is samples NOT people tested.
Do the math and remove that from the number of tests, then do the math of each of the 4641 people still positive, then on the 150 people who have passed away, and you find that we have tested just about 10k individuals.
In a country that claims to have 200m people?
That is ridiculously low, and if we continue at this snail's pace, we may be forced to lockdown again, attendant possible social unrest notwithstanding.
That is ridiculously low, and if we continue at this snail's pace, we may be forced to lockdown again, attendant possible social unrest notwithstanding.
