**5. Nigerian government response to COVID-19 pandemic: the bad and good experience**

Following confirmation of the pandemic's spread in Nigeria on February 27, 2020, the government adopted a variety of tactics and strategies to protect civilians from the outbreak. Preventive measures included the following:

#### **5.1 Public enlightenment on surveillance and temperature screening**

It was reported that the NCDC released guidance to the public on the causes, symptoms and preventive measures of the novel COVID-19 after noting the arrival of the index case by an Italian male in Lagos state. Surveillance and screening of persons were deployed quickly at all hotspots, such as large gathering sites and airports [22].

#### **5.2 Tracing the contact of victims**

The federal government mandated that all those having a history of foreign travels should be traced and subsequently quarantined for 14 days in order to curtail the spread of COVID-19. The containment during the lockdown was enabled with the identification, tracing and isolation of individuals who contracted the virus.

#### **5.3 Closure of national borders**

To combat the virus's spread, Nigeria's federal government shut down international and domestic airports, as well as other entrance sites such as frontiers and seaports. There were also restrictions on movement, with the government issuing a nationwide prohibition on interstate travel and a curfew from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. With the exception of transits of critical products and services, all inter-state movements [23].

#### **5.4 Banned from social gathering**

To further reduce the virus's spread, the federal authorities made the bold decision to prohibit all forms of social gathering. Churches, mosques, bars, theaters and sporting events with large crowds were all prohibited. Physical gatherings in cemeteries, weddings and restaurants were also restricted. Again, public employees in grades twelve and lower were prohibited from entering offices [24].

#### **5.5 Mandatory use of facemasks**

Another measure taken by the Nigerian government was the compulsory use of facemask by everyone in public places. Starting from 4th May, 2020, it was mandated that people should wear facemasks in all outings and it was very serious in states like Lagos, FCT and Ogun where the spike was very high.

#### **5.6 Economic stimulus packages**

According to the federal government of Nigeria, it will require \$330 million to procure medical equipment, personal protective equipment and medicines for COVID-19 control. The government has committed to investing some of this amount, and financial commitments were also made by private, bilateral and multilateral institutions to raise the remaining funds. The Nigerian state oil company has pledged \$30 million for the government's COVID-19 efforts. The European Union has contributed 50 million euros to the basket fund to strengthen the Nigerian COVID-19 response. In addition, the private sector in Nigeria, after being called upon by the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, established the coalition against COVID-19 (CACOVID). It was launched on March 26, 2020, to help the government to control COVID-19 in Nigeria. CACOVID has raised over \$72 million, which will be used for the purchase of food relief materials and to provide medical facilities and equipment in different regions of the country [3]. On topmost of all this, corruption's impact continues to appear over Nigeria's pandemic responses, threatening progress to counter its spread.

#### **5.7 Conditional cash transfers**

According to Dixit et al. [25] on April 1, 2020, the Nigerian government announced the transfer of 20,000 Naira (\$52) to poor and vulnerable households registered in the National Social Register (NSR). Initially, the NSR has only 2.6 million households (about 11 million people) registered on its platform. The government increased this to 3.6 million households during the COVID-19 crisis. However, it was argued that the cash payments by the federal government only reached only a fraction of poor. Besides, Nigeria does not have a robust national information management system, making electronic payments difficult. This has resulted in many people in the NSR not receiving the money promised by the government. But people need a Bank Verification Number (BVN) to open a bank account, and obtaining a BVN requires a valid national ID or international passport, which many Nigerians do not have. Currently, only about 40 percent of the Nigerian population has bank accounts.

#### **5.8 International Donor Agencies and Central Bank of Nigeria stimulus packages**

The IMF approved US\$3.4 billion in emergency financial assistance under the rapid financing instrument on the eve of the epidemic in Nigeria to support the authorities' efforts to confront the severe economic impact of the COVID-19 shock and the rapid drop in oil prices [18]. The IMF's emergency fund was to assist the Nigerian government deal with the economic effects of the pandemic. In addition, the Nigerian government borrowed \$4.34 billion from the domestic stock market to finance its budget in order to ameliorate the macroeconomic situation caused by the abrupt drop in oil prices.

In addition, the European Union has pledged a payment of 50 million euros (N21 billion) to help Nigeria conduct a coordinated response to the COVID-19 epidemic. The funds were intended to be used to achieve the following objectives; Procurement of equipment and supplies needed to respond to the outbreak quickly, including those needed for surveillance, prevention and control, as well as clinical management (portable ventilators, surgical masks, examination gloves, protective goggles, gowns, and PCR test kits, among other things) [26].

Similarly, as the pandemic began to hit Nigeria in mid-March, 2020, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced a N1 trillion stimulus package, and then the Federal Government asked the National Assembly to approve a N500 billion intervention fund; it also withdrew \$150 million from the Sovereign Wealth Fund and indicated it would borrow \$6.9 billion—all to cushion the economic effect of COVID-19 [27]. The CBN's stimulus package offers a credit of 3 million Naira to poor families impacted by COVID-19.

The loan, however, demands security and does not come with no interest. Poor households might be given loans without having to put up any security, or they could be given loans with only signed pledges from community leaders. Low-interest loans with a long moratorium and payback time should be accessible. Furthermore, few disadvantaged people and enterprises in the informal sector are aware of the government's offered economic packages and policies. The government, through the CBN, once again urged the private sector and local benefactors to fund the government's COVID-19 interventions, as well as to launch their own.

As a result, in March 2020, the commercial sector joined forces with the CBN to form The Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) [28]. The CBN is holding funds from this effort in a private-sector-led COVID-19 Relief Fund [27]. CACOVID has raised about \$30.1 billion (\$72 million) as of the end of June 2020 (Coalition Against COVID-19,

2020), although it is still short of the aim of 120 billion dollars (\$310 million). This demonstrates the limitations of local (private sector-led) government intervention funds.

#### **5.9 Food security**

Following President Buhari's declaration of a state of emergency in Lagos, the Federal Capital Territory and Ogun on April 1, 2020, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development announced that food rations would be provided to vulnerable households in these states. People in many parts of the country are going hungry as a result of the prolonged shutdown. The government has been unable to offer food assistance to everyone who requires it due to corruption and a lack of transparency in the distribution system [25]. Food aid (palliatives) to disadvantaged households around the country to counteract the impacts of the lockdown, which had resulted in increasing hunger in many parts of the country. While these social interventions had some success, they were hampered by corruption and a lack of transparency and accountability [25].

To this effect, one may argue that the Nigerian government has received a large sum of money in loans and grants from the commencement of the epidemic to address the health and economic effects of COVID-19. However, the public continues to have concerns about the government's lack of openness and accountability in raising and spending cash. Indeed, it is worth noting that information on how money from the Nigeria COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund was allocated and utilized, as well as disaggregated data on COVID-19 budget allocations, is lacking. This is not unique to Nigeria; several governments have taken advantage of the pandemic to raise significant sums of money fast, often to close tax gaps.

The Nigerian government has been unable to defend how this money was used, making it impossible for oversight authorities such as the National Assembly, anticorruption agencies and civil society organizations to hold it accountable. Indeed, the palliatives were allocated unequally, and a significant portion of the COVID-19 response budget was lost to corruption. The majority of Nigerians clearly do not trust their governments to provide accurate COVID-19 case and mortality statistics or to assure that COVID-19 vaccines are safe.

Furthermore, covid-19 vaccinations are currently being thrown away by governments around the world. In Nigeria, vaccine deployment has been delayed, owing in part to government mismanagement. Nearly one million doses had expired in the country as of December 22, implying that barely 2% of the country's population of over 200 million had been completely vaccinated [3]. These failures, combined with suspected corruption scandals since the pandemic began, are fueling public outrage.

#### **6. Conclusion**

First and foremost, efforts to hold governments responsible for the success of their crisis response are hampered by a chronic absence of public information on policy execution. Only a handful of governments secured access to appropriate levels of reporting, while over half of the governments questioned disclosed little or no information on actual plans, spending, finance and performance. When it comes to reporting on the impact of policies on different groups of beneficiaries, transparency is especially lacking. Indeed, the value of making such data public, claiming that it would allow ordinary citizens, civic society and the media to bring an extra layer

of scrutiny to the use of public resources, further entrenching transparency and accountability in government financial management. The lack of proper information on the execution of COVID-19 response plans further undermines accountability—not just on the amount of money spent but also on the actual impact on more disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, such as women and people living in poverty. Governments already had much of the essential data at their disposal and had plenty of time to ensure it was published in a timely manner, so the lack of public implementation information is particularly concerning.
