“I Don’t Think Coronavirus Is That Serious” Says School Teacher
Nigeria is a country where citizens have learnt to be distrustful of government. With corruption eternally on the rice, many Nigerians no longer believe that the government holds their best interests at heart and so do not believe them. It is therefore no surprise that many Nigerians remain sceptical of the validity or seriousness of coronavirus in Nigeria. For many Nigerians, the coronavirus statistics released by the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC) are either exaggerated or simply made up.
Mrs. Patricia, a teacher at a private school in Lagos, is one of such Nigerians. Patricia says she never expected the pandemic to cause this much panic and disorder. She expected it to follow the footsteps of similar contagious diseases like ebola, and simply phase about after a month or two. In Patricia’s words:
“I thought it would be like ebola — that it would just stay for a little while and then leave. I didn’t expect it to get to this stage. I thought it would last 2 months at most, after which we’d be called back to go to work. I was surprised when it started to exceed 3 months.”
Patricia says that although she is an educated woman working in the field of education, she does not believe that the virus is as serious as the government and citizens have taken it to be. While she follows safety guidelines such as wearing a facemask and washing her hands, she says that she does not really fear contacting the virus, as it is milder than people claim it to be.
Patricia says that her suspicions were proved when she saw a video on WhatsApp and Instagram about a “Nigerian doctor in America” who says that the virus is not the way it is painted. By this, she refers to Dr. Stella Immanuel, a Nigerian-trained, US-based, Cameroonian doctor who went viral on social media last week after the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, shared a video in which she claimed she has cured COVID-19 patients using the anti-malaria drug, hydroxychloroquine, mixed with zinc and Zithromax. Immanuel claimed that safety precautions like facemasks and social distancing were unnecessary. Her video has since been taken down from social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, for sharing misinformation about the virus.
Patricia’s apparent distrust of government-approved statistics about the virus can be linked to the general ambivalence many Nigerians hold towards the government. It doesn’t help matters that she never received the palliative packages said to be disbursed by the government. Patricia says the church has provided more help to her than the government has. For Patricia, the church has been a saving grace for her during this period, with some members contributing money to help her out her rent, and giving her foodstuff so she and her children do not starve.
Patricia says she has been severely affected by the pandemic and the government-imposed lockdown in response to it. As a teacher, Patricia has enjoyed relative job stability and says she never expected a time like this would come where she would have no steady income to turn to for financial support. She claims that the lockdown has affected more than her finances — it has also affected her emotionally and spiritually.
Like many Nigerians, Patricia tried to stock up on groceries and foodstuff when the total lockdown was declared. She spent all her savings on this, with the expectation that after the two-week lockdown, she’d be free to go back to work and then replenish her savings. However, the lockdown has since extended with no end in sight. Patricia has been left with no savings to fall back on and no steady income to survive with.
Since the lockdown started, Patricia has had to deal with several issues, including altercations with her landlord over rent. She needs to divert all her money towards not just food, but also the rent she owes the landlord, so she and her children have roofs over their heads. Patricia claims that she has been at a low point mentally and emotionally and has had to fight depressive thoughts.
Apart from financial worries, Patricia has also had to worry about her children’s academics. She says:
“I keep wondering how they are going to cope when school resumes? I’ve been trying to figure out how I, as their mother and as a teacher, can help them out, so that when they get back to school, it won’t really affect them. You know it’s easy to forget things when you’re not in the school environment anymore. No matter how excellent a child is academically, if they remain in a stagnant environment, it would affect their retention of the knowledge they already have.”
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To raise money, Patricia has been holding private lessons for children whose parents can afford it. She says she gets paid per day and that she collects whatever she can get, no matter how little. Patricia also uses this opportunity to push her children’s education. Her children also sit for her classes. She says she allows the older ones to teach the other children. In this way, they can share the knowledge they have and have their memories of what they have learnt be refreshed as they repeat it to the kids they teach.
When asked if she allows her children learn any vocational skills or take small jobs to help her with money, Patricia said that she cannot do that to her kids and considers it child abuse. She says that her children are too young to be subjected to such heavy responsibility, especially in potentially dangerous jobs. She also feels that her children should not go into such labour until they are old enough to choose for themselves what truly interests them.
With the money gotten from her private lessons being the only source of income she has to support the family, Patricia has had to ration and cut down on all expenses. Because transport fare has been doubled, she walks most places. She says she has had to walk miles to reach the students she teaches.
Patricia also rations the food her family consumes. She and her children can only afford to eat twice a day now.
“We no longer eat the same quantity of food we used to eat. Now we only eat about twice a day. Once we eat breakfast, we already know that there’s nothing to eat for lunch and we won’t eat till night time. So we try to balance it. We can eat breakfast around 12 noon. That way, we won’t be very hungry at the normal time for lunch and we’ll hold ourselves till evening comes. Then we can eat dinner around 6 or 7, and then go to bed.”
Patricia is not the only one who has had to ration her family’s meals and cut down on expenses. George, who is an Okada rider, has also had to cut down expenses to only the most necessary commodities. George says he was already living hand-to-mouth when corona struck. With no savings to fall back on and an already steep income, George has been hit harshly by the effects of the lockdown.
During the initial total lockdown, George couldn’t find any passengers and eventually, beat by disappointment, stopped going out to seek passengers, as he was wasting precious fuel with little results. The few places where George could have found passengers were restricted due to the okada ban imposed by the Lagos State Government earlier this year.
Because of the lockdown regulations, George can only carry one passenger at a time. However, unlike most of his counterparts, George says he does not feel comfortable hiking the price of his rides, because he understands that everyone is affected by the current situation and that most people are out of jobs and money. He says he is simply thankful that his family can at least manage to eat.
To stay safe, George wears a facemask and ensures all his passengers wear one as well. If he or his passenger doesn’t wear a facemask, George claims that he could be arrested and fined by the police. If a potential passenger refuses to wear a facemask, he refuses to carry them.
Unlike George, Mrs. Fakolade cannot simply turn away someone for not wearing a facemask. Mrs. Fakolade, who sells groceries in Lagos, says she cannot afford to turn a potential customer away for not wearing a facemask. She, however, wears a facemask to protect herself.
Fakolade, who sells groceries both in wholesale and retail quantities, says she now makes more sales in retail quantity. Because people do not have as much money, they have had to ration and thus, they can no longer buy items in bulk.
Fakolade says she had savings before the lockdown. However, after the first total lockdown, items became more expensive. The money she had set to use for restocking was no longer enough, as some items had even doubled in price. She says that she had to add her savings to it before she could afford to restock her wares.
Fakolade says her customers have been complaining about the high price of goods. A lot of her customers who used to buy higher-grade items now settle for cheaper alternatives. For example, she says, some people who used to buy packaged sugar like Dangote Sugar and Golden Penny Sugar, are now settling for normal sugar sold in cups.
Fakolade says the lockdown has really impacted the prices of her goods. Because goods are no longer coming into the country, a scarcity has been created, and her suppliers have increased the prices of the goods she purchases from them. To make up for this, Fakolade also increases the prices of the goods when she resells. She says if she doesn’t do that, then she would not make any profit.
Fakolade has also had difficulty finding customers for her wares. She claims there are days she has to go visit customers in their homes or shops and convince them to purchase items from her. Some of her customers, she says, will buy on credit, and she has to chase after them for payment.
On navigating family life during the pandemic, Fakolade says her children come to help her in the shop when they are done with their online classes. This helps them to bond better and keeps the children busy.
The pandemic has also inspired Fakolade to find more creative ways to draw in income. She has partnered with a local woman to sell home-made hand sanitisers in her shop. The other woman makes the hand sanitiser, while Fakolade provides her shop as a platform to sell them. She said this brought in a lot of income, especially when the pandemic was in its initial stages.
Fakolade has also started operating a local banking system, where people transfer money to her or pay through a POS machine, while she gives them the cash. She adds a charge on transactions, to make profit. Fakolade says this was especially lucrative during the total lockdown when people couldn’t go to banks to withdraw money. People who are scared of contracting the virus or who want to avoid the long queues at ATMs have made her their preferred choice of cash withdrawal.
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Correspondent,
Lagos Post Online
