Employees of the Dangote Oil Refinery Company in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos are currently in varying degrees of panic as a leaked internal email yesterday indicated that the company is dealing with a suspected case of COVID-19. A trusted source at the company who asked not to be named has confirmed that the patient in question - an Indian pipe fitter working at the giant petrochemical complex - is currently in isolation on site.
When I spoke to my source earlier today, I initially expected this to be yet another story of a Nigerian corporate taking liberties with the lax regulatory environment to put its own interests first while flouting rules and putting people in danger. As I found out later, this goes well beyond Dangote Group or its internal health policy. This is a story about how Nigeria is facing a dire health emergency, driven by a perfect storm of incompetent governance, crass politicking, ignorance and corporate insularity.

Exhibit A: The Indian Pipe Fitter
Last week Thursday (March 12, 2020), a pipe fitter contracted to work at Dangote Refinery boarded a flight from Mumbai, India to Cairo, Egypt. After a brief stopover, he boarded another flight to Lagos, Nigeria where he was to resume work the following Monday. When he showed up at work on Monday however, something was wrong. He had a fever, a dry cough, a sore throat and significant breathing difficulty.
Dr. Avijit Singh, a Russian-trained surgeon with 10 years of experience in general surgery and practise across two continents, was the doctor on duty at the site clinic. He immediately suspected that the patient was infected with the coronavirus by virtue of his symptoms and his travel history (Cairo is a COVID-19 hotspot with over 150 known cases as at yesterday).

After isolating the patient, he fired off an email to the on-site safety officer, Akhil Kuniyil, detailing the incident with full disclosure of the patient’s travel history, location and suspected diagnosis. It is unclear whether anyone at Dangote Refinery attempted to establish contact with the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the Federal Ministry of Health or the Lagos State Ministry of Health after becoming aware of this information.

At press time, no information had been released by any of the concerned parties to address the building story. Staff members at the refinery meanwhile, got their hands on the communication between Dr. Singh and Mr. Kuniyil and according to my source, the screenshot above has been circulating among refinery staff, their friends and families for more than 24 hours. My source further informed me that in addition to sitting on such critical information and stonewalling regulators as Dangote Refinery is in the habit of doing, certain practises and conditions on site may actually be aiding the possible spread of COVID-19.
He was especially keen to point out that despite the extant coronavirus threat, a temperature scanner was only installed onsite yesterday Monday 16 March, 2020. The site meanwhile, employs hundreds of people who congregate every morning and then disperse back into Lagos every evening. In other words, Dangote Refinery has yet again ignored local and international HSE best practises and put its workers at risk - only this time the risk extends beyond its workers. The sprawling Ibeju-Lekki free trade zone is thus effectively a brewing COVID-19 hotspot in Lagos with hundreds of potential disease vectors coming out of it everyday.
Describing the internal chaos after the news of the suspected COVID-19 case leaked yesterday my source said:
“The temperature scanner was installed just yesterday. And, it created a severe bottleneck where many people have to cram into a small space to get screened daily, thus ensuring that the virus really goes round if one person has it.”
The solution according to him, is for the entire complex to shut down operations until the threat blows over. The alternative he says, is to risk the daily temperature check that should counteract the spread of COVID-19, itself becoming a dispersion point for the virus. In his words:
“I guess it is a question of saving lives vs keeping the project moving.”

Exhibit B: The Insecure Minister and the Unprepared Government
When NCDC chair Chikwe Ihekweazu recently visited China to observe its coronavirus containment efforts as part of a capacity building exercise facilitated by the World Health Organisation, few might have thought of it as anything other than an objectively good thing. What better place for Nigeria’s disease control czar to be than the epicentre of the global outbreak? One of those few however, turned out to be federal Minister of Health, Osagie Ehanire.
According to a source who is familiar with the matter, Ehanire was apparently unhappy that national and global attention was coming the way of Ihekweazu, who is technically his subordinate. Known to have gubernatorial ambitions in his native Edo State, Ehanire apparently sees the COVID-19 outbreak as the perfect staging point to build his political brand and come to the forefront of Edo’s political consciousness. The fact that local and international media and multilateral bodies prefer to interact directly with the most relevant agency - NCDC - without necessarily making reference to him is a problem. Unfortunately, in this context of the fight against a deadly pandemic, this petty clash of egos is now everybody’s problem.
Rather than focusing energy on coordinating efforts to fight the spread of the coronavirus, Ehanire has instead made it a point to put his face in front of every available camera and make the point that he - not Ihekweazu - is the one in charge. Ihekweazu is no longer permitted to speak to the media independently about COVID-19, and he must now report to the Federal Ministry of Health before making any decision. In other words, the most important thing about the COVID-19 crisis in the eyes of the FMOH is that the world must know that it is the health minister’s show and his alone.
Last week, Ehanire took the most telling step to reclaiming his ostensibly lost glory and pushing his political agenda when he hosted a press conference to announce Nigeria’s second COVID-19 case. The location of the press conference to make a nationwide health announcement? Benin City, Edo State.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JohBrF4jTDo

While this was happening meanwhile, Nigeria’s management capacity for COVID-19 was significantly lower than publicly claimed. It will be recalled that when the Italian index patient was identified and confined in Lagos, everyone concerned treated the story as evidence of preparedness with some even sounding triumphal. In reality what actually happened was that the subject self-presented and was diagnosed - the good news ended there.
Describing what happened next, my source says:
“The case in Lagos for instance took the intervention of the Italian ambassador for the patient to be moved. The place he was kept initially wasn’t habitable . While Govt was on air claiming  to have contained him in a hospital - he was literally abandoned at a poorly maintained facility, which is why Punch reported his attempted escape because he was dealing with mosquito bites.”
In the context of Nigeria’s porous land borders and the up to 30-day asymptomatic incubation period of COVID-19, during which time it is infectious, nobody actually knows how many novel coronavirus cases are in Nigeria. While the FMOH and the NCDC engage in a pointless pissing contest, hundreds of thousands of Nigerians could currently be carrying the COVID-19 virus, without anything close to the required testing capacity to find out.

https://twitter.com/profakinabayomi/status/1239857163234926592?s=12

The Nigerian government strategy right now appears to be to cross both fingers, wait it out and hope. The NCDC has been shackled. Osagie Ehanire wants to be governor. Private corporations are managing the health crisis on their own - and possibly worsening it. The government at state and federal levels are broke and under-resourced. Ultimately, it would seem that any salvation from COVID-19 if it is to come, will be from our climate and our natural immune systems.
Nigerians once again, are on their own.

https://docs.google.com/document/u/0/d/1GE_BtlgMZApSaE1UkJ9FOId8SlFZp3hRAtPkSs4rxiU/mobilebasic

This article has severally been taken down online by government paid zombies, a government that prefers it's citizens to die rather than taking proactive measures. Anyways, una vote person wey value cow pass human life

We are at the mercy of the almighty God the government of the day isn't the serious type.

This is really worrisome! Although the govt of the day has never really given any impression that it is competent or smart, but one was expecting that they will sit up and tackle this covid-19 issue smartly- since the mode of transmission of the virus is such a one that anyone including them (politicians) is exposed to. while most world leaders were closing their borders and giving updates periodically to their citizens to calm them down and were inspiring trust, courage and hope, ours was busy settling feud btw his obnoxious & haughty party members. At this stage, all we have to do is look up on to God for mercy and pray for wisdom for the many dedicated health workers who are working their lives out to contain this virus. May God deliver us IJN

Talknochip:
This really worrisome

I've been saying this for ages, if countries with fantastic healthcare services are being hit hard then what hope for Nigerians whose president prefers going to the UK to treat even minor ear infections ?

RZArecta:
I've been saying this for ages, if countries with fantastic healthcare services are being hit hard then what hope for Nigerians whose president prefers going to the UK to treat even minor ear infections ?

Really worrisome. Its more disturbing when u remember how the govt has refused to ban all flights from countries with high cases of the virus. What point are they trying to make and of what relevant is that point at this material time? It shall be well

Talknochip:
Really worrisome. Its more disturbing when u remember how the govt has refused to ban all flights from countries with high cases of the virus. What point are they trying to make and of what relevant is the that point at this material time? It shall be well

those ones have protected themselves, all govt officials have been banned from travelling to high impact corona virus infected countries but of course, citizens of such countries are free to come here and infect our people. You're on your own sir

We are truly bleeped

RZArecta:
those ones have protected themselves, all govt officials have been banned from travelling to high impact corona virus infected countries but of course, citizens of such countries are free to come here and infect our people. You're on your own sir

not so sure of being on our own. There are few cases of people who got the virus even when they did not have contact with a patient with the virus or travel to the places with high cases of the virus. A Nigerian man in the Us was also a victim. It was on news last week or so.

Talknochip:
Really worrisome. Its more disturbing when u remember how the govt has refused to ban all flights from countries with high cases of the virus. What point are they trying to make and of what relevant is that point at this material time? It shall be well

The bolded is really scary.

I seriously believe Nigeria is in a mess not because our leaders are corrupt but because they are daft.

Even NMA is surprised and worried.

Don’t join all the mind controlled people in Yankee and Italy to start to look for excess toilet paper....You all are ALL okay except that you have a criminal cabal sponsored by foreign interest ruling una in Abuja

The upshot of this very long and wordy tale, is that an Indian national arrived in Nigeria carrying the Corona Virus. There is absolutely nothing shocking or unexpected about this development, and since plane-loads of passengers from the world's Corona virus hot spots are discharged at Nigerian airports DAILY, it only stands to reason that there are dozens, if not hundreds of virus-infected travelers ALREADY in Nigeria, PRIOR TO the much ballyhooed arrival of the Indian man working at that oil refinery.

The salient point to bear in mind, however, is that a whole MONTH has elapsed since the first Italian Corona virus victim arrived in Nigeria, YET, there has been NO single report of secondary infections being spread by that Italian man, who reportedly made a full recovery from the illness, WITHOUT infecting a single other human being with the virus, to the best of our knowledge, as distant observers.

Given that several well known black people resident in Europe and the USA have contracted the Corona virus already, it is safe to conclude that there exists NO racial demographic that is blessed with natural genetic immunity capable of preventing infection by the Corona virus illness. With genetic based immunity discounted, the notable absence of rapidly spreading Corona virus infections in Nigeria, and in South America, can only be attributed to the seasonal hot weather that has allowed several nations located in the tropics to escape the brunt of the Corona virus pandemic, THUS FAR.

In short, there is NO cause for panic, even though Nigeria is already host to an unknown number of Corona virus carriers, of which not one has died thus far. The tropical heat is your friend. Enjoy it, and enjoy the good fortune that comes with that hot weather.

sapientia:


The bolded is really scary.

I seriously believe Nigeria is in a mess not because our leaders are corrupt but because they are daft.

Even NMA is surprised and worried.

I've never ever in my life seen this level of incompetence from a government until this junta came around