₦airaland Forum

Mrsprof:
Why are our leaders so shameless? Nothing survives in this country. We cannot boast of anything that works properly in Nigeria.so bad

Well our entertainment and cruise industry works

Still observing . Like I've said Nigerian government isn't ready . He has a point though cos realistically that's when schools in Nigeria can meet any sort of guideline

I still don't understand this news . Aren't international flights still on hold in Nigeria talkless, let alone from Nigeria to UK . Or a they British citizens?

Richie6:
How did we get ourselves into this mess?
Can't there be a realistic date?

A realistic date would be next year. How many people wanna hear that . In fact Nigeria could strong-arm WAEC to postpone it again

Major stakeholder .

When we don't have enough expertise . RIP to him

fowlyansh181:
Isn’t it crazy , in the US , the president is fighting that schools be reopened while the US citizens are fighting against it, because of the aftermath ..

But in Nigeria , the FG are fighting that schools remain shut to protect its citizens, while the Nigerian citizens are fighting against it, asking that schools reopen .. lol ..

Na poverty cause all these ..

Blame the Government's mismanagement, then consider the way things worked in this country then factor in the pandemic. Everywhere you go now it's 'na scam' you'll hear

Resume and take exams the next day . Like the poster above said, observing

supersdo520:
USA has the most complete and advanced medical system. However, the epidemic has not been effectively controlled in the United States. This has a lot to do with the Trump administration's mentality and measures to deal with the epidemic.

Are you comparing to Nigeria or?

Investnow2017:
World set to record highest daily cases, as India passes 30,000 daily new cases with staggering daily mortality! Why is the world lax about calling out China.

I've been thinking about your last part. Call them out for what exactly . The virus likely started spreading before Dec. 31 unless the trump assertion that China knew about it since November and covered it up .

Raydos:
More like testing capacity is going down gradually!!

Well since we're not ready for it to go up, we might as well just make it go down .

BOOKWORMLUX:
I saw a video of graduating medical students in China celebrating with no facemasks but na Naija the carry the virus matter for head pass. God heal our land Amen

Wetin bring china here again

Resolve ASUU strike first . Then we'll know when they're serious especially for tertiary institutions.

I can only imagine the comments

fratermathy:
There is no doubt that there are genuine reasons why schools should be closed in Nigeria. In fact, I agree with many of the arguments that people have made to defend this. However, there are many factors that must be considered before we conclude the matter. I'll just itemise them:

1. Covid-19 has no cure or vaccine and even if one comes up tomorrow, it'll realistically take more than 3 years to reach up to 30% of the Nigerian population. Corona is here to stay. There's no future utopia where the virus magically disappears. It won't go away next year so postponing resumption of schools means postponing the inevitable. In fact, by next year, for instance, the cases may be in the millions in Nigeria. Will schools be closed forever? Or you think our insensitive government will perform some magic?

2. Social distancing doesn't work in Nigeria. I don't know about your location but in mine, people go about their normal lives and there's nothing anyone can do about it. The children are still playing with their mates every day. Parents go to work and markets and may likely import the virus to their homes.

3. Children still go to churches or mosques (which are open in most places). Religious and social gatherings are known super spreaders of the virus.

4. So far, children are nowhere near vulnerable as far as Covid-19 is concerned. While this argument can be upended, it is a strong factor nonetheless. Children are not so much in danger as their teachers and the teachers are mature enough to protect themselves adequately.

5. Students in public schools in remote and riverine areas are struggling and therefore may face certain learning challenges if they stay out of school for too long. Many may lose interest in schools altogether. I have been to these places and I know how averse they are to education. Many simply go to school because their mates are going. Should they stay home for long periods, they may likely never resume whenever schools open (which, going by the logic of some concerns, can take more than 2 years).

6. Private school teachers have not been paid for months because, unlike the public sector, they have to work before they are paid. Furthermore, many of them have been organising lessons for miserly wages (this also contradicts why schools should be closed). Indeed, many of those who want schools to remain closed have means of educating their children effectively, forgetting the fisherman's child in Oporoza who either goes to school or hunts for bait worms.

7. Once again, corona is here to stay. There are many workarounds that can be easily adopted to curtail populated classrooms. We must either accept the reality of Covid-19 or simply all remain at home - no markets, malls, churches, mosques, work etc because no one is better or worse than schools as far as the virus is concerned. If you can afford homeschooling or online learning for your children, you should definitely go for it. However, what is good for Bernard is not necessarily good for Benetutukayo and it is nobody's fault that we have an irresponsible government that can't provide adequate infrastructure for times like this.

I am a realist in matters like this but there are factors that policy makers must consider even if schools must remain closed. Until the factors are appropriately pictured, we may be doing more harm due to our inability to see the wider picture. There are reasons why the lockdown didn't last in Nigeria. These are the same reasons why schools can't remain closed indefinitely.

Not the typical rant comment on Nairaland. I like your take. Infact since government has shown that it isn't ready to deal with the situation here and now then they might as well just carry on with whatever pace they're going with . They had weeks to put set things up and now they're saying we should wait for them .

otokx:
It shows the real rate of literacy in Nigeria, forget the possession of academic certificates.

That plays a part but it's a world problem kinda.

Youngzedd:
The ugly truth is, 2021 won't be COVID-19 FREE.

I just hope it won't be worst[b].

We sure hope . We can't waste half of 2020 only for the real thing to wait for us in 2021

Freshtechs:
Huuuummmm......Naija!!!

Why don't they carry them along after testing positive??

Then you get scenes like the one where they were forcing that guy into their van

KelvinCoaster:
Yes,there is a systemic problem in Nigeria but that does not discredit NCDC daily figures!
Come to think of Fatality rate: How many of your relatives or neighbours recently have died of a disease with similar symptoms as COVID-19?


We are always fast to say 'Nigeria is bad'.

I'm not discrediting their. Just that they're just plain now . One will think it's merely a 'new case' affair when it's more than that. With what is playing out in some states, you end up making people think these are just numbers. Personally I don't anybody who has died of covid like symptoms so there's that.

Nigeria keeps giving room for people to say the country is bad.

VOJA:
[b] Nigeria wasn't ready for this pandemic, it's still not ready, and will never be ready. The citizens are not ready to stay indoors, everyone is always "going out to buy drugs when caught.
How dramatic Nigerians can be.
The Government Agencies on their parts are not trying their possibly best in line with our expectations.

NCDC, at first, reserved testing to only the elites and the returnees. I recall calling them on phone and their call center representative wasn't even helping issues at all, busy blabbing till she ended my call annoyingly.

At that point, I could imagine what majority of our brothers and sisters with symptoms related to COVID-19 are going through while reaching out to NCDC for help.
Imagine those who could barely sound so fluent putting a call to them, their expression could be tagged unserious cos they can't hit the points and they might not be attended to.

On the other hand, our uniform men and women have taken undue advantage of this lockdown in most parts of the country to either brutalize our citizens or extort money from them at checkpoints and allow them to pass, thereby making it cumbersome to curb the spread of this virus.

Owners of grocery stores, medicine shops, sachet water producers are not left out in this undue exploitation... Prices of good have skyrocketed, meanwhile the money is hard to find. And the Federal Government, with all the noise they're making on palliatives, they're yet to reach out to even a quarter of Nigerians who are vulnerable.

Are we going to continue like this?[/b]

Relevant

Henrymorre:
why won't it work? Atleast now the virus is also affecting the top corrupt politicians up there. By the time they deport most of their kids, you will see how things will start to take shape.

We totally had no structures for online learning before the pandemic, ASUU is currently on strike , so called profs hibernating, students cruising on social media and now we're in the midst of a pandemic, so how would it work

Henrymorre:
serious countries, or for countries with poor health sector? Foreign countries have equipments, good hospitals and enough doctors atleast. More reason we need a lockdown is because we lack in almost everything. Healthcare we lack, doctors on strike 24/7.

Lockdown with no testing? . The first lockdown didn't work, with the current attitude of Nigerians what would this one do . Apart from slowing the spread countries used lockdown to prepare and put things in place. What did we do pre-lockdown, during and after our pseudo-lockdown?. Government know we lack everything but are still clueless in handling the epidemic. The consideration for precision lockdown they talked about is more than a month now . They said they have identified the high risk LGs accounting for half of our cases and till date nothing to show . As of today some states don't even have their own molecular labs. Government at all levels have passed the message that covid19 is nothing over here. Why else would what's happening in Kogi and Cross River be happening ? Why are our medical practitioners and associations involved not saying anything if things are more serious than they are? Why would Kano state government lift all forms of restrictions if they aren't out of the blue yet . Well maybe after now we'll overhaul our education system which has played a part in why we still beating around the pandemic.

SavageMaster:
Well...I get your point.

It's just that I'm very skeptical about online learning working out in Nigeria. Perhaps, some top-rated Nigerian universities eg. Covenant University, can do a test-run, and let's see how it goes.

It won't work.

Henrymorre:
we are talking about health how to survive and you are talking about school. So now opening schools is more important than life?. NCDC numbers are not even accurate like in Enugu here, people with coronavirus has surpassed more than 5000 but Enugu don't have testing centres and no way to tell. Enugu was 38 and suddenly had 358 in one day. How can u justify that? Usa is moving to deport Nigerians recently because they want to shift to online learning, are we more advanced than them? Instead you're talking about people resuming school physically.

What you just mentioned is exactly why Nigeria won't go anywhere in tackling this current situation. They don't have testing centres and they have to queue up wherever they're sending samples to .

Henrymorre:
people complain that they call NCDC and sometimes they don't call. We have lot of ignorant people in Nigeria who believes that there Is no Corona. CDC and who made it clear that corona can only be fatal to people with underlying disease and old people. So because we have lot of young people surviving it doesn't mean that this viruses is not killing hundreds everyday that are older or have underlying disease. I still support lockdown.

It's not limited to those you mentioned . I mean we've heard of relatively young people succumbing to the virus in Nigeria and other countries also. A few days ago someone here told us how his friend, young and healthy had to be plugged into a ventilator. Why a lockdown? Lockdown is for serious countries not whatever is going on in Nigeria

Henrymorre:
how did you come into conclusion it has low fatality rate? Prove it please. This is science we don't joke with information

Nigeria isn't exactly known for having vital statistics so it's no surprise we're way behind in truly assessing the health challenge of the pandemic. For instance how many hospital beds do we have? How about other death statistics(not trying to downplay covid). Even concerning covid we don't know how many people are actually sick . So NCDC stats have no meat to them anymore .

SavageMaster:
We don't need another lockdown of the entire country.
If the incidence is high in a particular area, that area should be locked down for two weeks or so, and the spread contained.

We can also do more of shopping online, for those who trust that method; online shopping doesn't work for everyone, though.

As for schools, I'm of the opinion that final year tertiary and secondary school students be allowed back to school by early August. If there's no further escalation in numbers, the rest of the students can resume by September.

The truth is that Coronavirus has come to stay, for this year and maybe next year. Can we all afford to stay stuck at home till zero new case is recorded? With the dilapidated educational system in Nigeria, won't the stay at home by students further make the situation worse?

Flattening the curve or whatever, will take some months more for us to get there.

My only advice is that while we leave our houses, we should take as much precautions as we can, for our sakes and for those around us.

Let's also keep praying for God's intervention for a quick end to this pandemic; and also to give our researchers the wisdom to find a solution to this.

Let our scientists work hard too in order to get an effective treatment for the disease

With the way we are I can imagine students from other levels clamouring for full reopening if they let final resume . Thing is unis have varying calendars and i don't think it's easy to just say let everybody just wait for final year students to pass out especially for schools that are still in the first part of their calendar .

WebMind:
20 deaths. That's like our highest figure if am not mistaken.

We've had about 31 single day deaths I think.

This is quite commendable .

stanliwise:
Why is it that anytime people mention China they mention Nigeria? Are we any close to them in anything? We that are still fighting for ordinary budget you are saying this one!

I don't understand Nigerians at times. Always mentioning countries that dont have yearly academic strikes . In terms of handling this pandemic Nigeria is on par with South Sudan really .