Coronavirus disease (COVID -19) is an infectious disease caused by a new virus.
The disease causes respiratory illness (like the flu) with symptoms such as cough, fever, and in more severe cases, difficulty breathing. You can protect yourself by washing your hands frequently, avoid touching your face, and avoid close contact of 6 feets with people who are unwell or who you are not sure if positive or Negative.
How It Spread
Coronavirus disease spreads primary through contact with an infected person when they sneeze or cough. It also spreads when a person touches a surface or object that has the virus on it, then touches their face, eyes, nose or mouth.
Symptoms
People may be sick with the virus for 1 to 14 days before developing symptoms. The most common symptoms of the virus include:
Cough
Fever
Tiredness
Difficulty Breathing
More rarely, the disease may be serious and even fatal. Older people, and people with other medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), may be more vulnerable to be severely ill.
Prevention: DO THE FIVE
HANDS: Wash Them Often
ELBOW: Cough into it
FACE: Do not touch it
SPACE: Keep a safe distance
HOME: Stay indoors.
TREATMENT:
There is no specific medicine to prevent or treat coronavirus disease (CONVID-19). People may need supportive care to help them breathe. If you have mild symptoms, stay at home until you’ve recovered.
You can relieve your symptoms if you:
Rest and sleep
Keep warm
Drink plenty of liquids
Use a room humidifier or take a hot shower to help ease a sore throat and cough
Medical Treatment
If you develop a fever, cough, and have difficulty breathing, promptly seek medical care. Call in advance and tell your health provider or better still make contact with Nigeria Centre for Disease control and also tell your health provider of any recent travel or recent contact with travelers.
Due to the global outbreak of the COVID-19 Pandemic in December 2019 and its subsequent spread in Nigeria, Follow The Money initiative seeks to activate campaigns reaching out to communities in the 36 States in Nigeria and portray the poor state of our health care facilities across communities in Nigeria.
This campaign is educating people on the COVID-19 Virus and preventive measures to mitigate risks and reduce contacts. This campaign should also be able to make citizens take charge٫ in order to ensure that their immediate communities are sensitized by following the World Health Organization’s guidelines towards curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.
Citizens taking part in this campaign will also come up with reports that discuss the state of Health Care Centers in their communities and to also take pictures٫ so the world would see the state of Health care facilities in Nigeria.
The campaign is also calling on the government to prioritise the state of Health Care Centers, increase salaries and allowances of medical practitioners, and also provide funds meant for WASH in medical facilities and hospitals in all communities in the federation.
This campaign focus should also be on advocating for clean water in medical facilities and rural communities. This is because٫ one of the important measures of preventing this virus is by washing hands regularly. Without clean water٫, how do we expect people in poor medical facilities and rural communities to wash their hands regularly and also provision of soap, alcohol-based hand sanitizers and other antibacterial material to prevent people from getting the virus?
Through this campaign, we will initiate a nationwide call on iFollowTheMoney platform to all users on the platform for improved engagement and user-friendliness of the platform. The strategy is to begin the assessment of our sustainability plan and to evaluate the level at which citizens can take ownership of the follow the money model.
Campaign Objectivesare;
Increase citizen participation in ensuring transparency and accountability in the health sector
Educate citizens on the COVID-19 pandemic and how they prevent themselves from getting the virus
Advocate for improved health care facilities and clean water, for everyone especially in the rural communities
Advocate for the increase of health practitioners’ salaries٫ provide adequate materials needed for medical research, provide preventive measures for this kind of disease if it happens again
Increase engagement and sign-ups on the iFollowTheMoney platform
Monitoring Public Procurement Spending during the COVID-19 Outbreak
This article was culled from Open Contracting Partnership
Many governments have turned to emergency procedures, especially expedited processes or negotiated contracts. While a rapid and efficient response is paramount to ensure the well-being of all citizens, transparency is essential to maintain the quality, sustainability, and impact of these contracts.
Health workers wait to screen travellers for signs of the coronavirus at the Kotoka International Airport in Accra, Ghana. Photo by: REUTERS / Francis Kokoroko
Beyond emergency procurement for essential items, it’s also important to keep an eye on how public spending is managed generally in the midst of a crisis like this. There’s a high risk of mismanagement, corruption, and fraud in public procurement at the best of times, let alone when public attention is diverted elsewhere.
Here are some ideas for leads on investigating procurement spending in the midst of the crisis, but please bear in mind that public contracting data and documents probably only tell part of the story so you must build a more complete picture of the situation by talking to authorities and independent health and procurement experts.
Where to find procurement information
Check your government’s online procurement platform. This index by the Open Knowledge Foundation has a run-down of resources by country. You can also check aggregated data portals like the new World Bank Global Public Procurement Database, and where available, red flagging tools such as Tenders.Guru.
What to look for
We have a comprehensive guide of 150 indicators of suspicious behavior in procurement. Below are some you might want to look out for when examining the COVID-19 crisis.
Responsiveness — Look at whether tenders are advertised and contracts are signed in a timely manner. Also confirm if tenders are published for the purpose of transparency and accountability.
Preparedness — What contracts were in place to mitigate the risk of pandemics before this outbreak took hold?
Inflated prices & unqualified suppliers — How do prices compare? And what is the suppliers’ history in previous emergencies?
Rushed direct awards — Although obviously urgent, this quick spending dramatically increases the risk of corruption and mismanagement.
Delivery/implementation — Were the goods or services provided as promised? Cross-reference official data with interviews, photos and other materials from local civil society groups and community members who are the designated recipients.
Fixed services— Many ongoing maintenance services will not be needed at full capacity in places where public offices, schools, and cultural venues are closed. It’s worth checking these maintenance contracts in detail to see whether the terms agreed to require the government to still pay.
Apart from COVID-19 and its variations, you could search for critical items as defined by the World Health Organization and local health authorities, such as personal protective equipment or PPE, masks, ventilators, test kits, gloves, alcohol, scrubs, body bags, aprons, respirators, and other common names for medicines, health supplies and equipment.
Some countries are using emergency funds to manage COVID-19 response spending, so you can search for budget lines related to those funds.
Look out for other goods and services that might be in demand as government services shift to remote work, and authorities introduce quarantine measures. These might include video-conferencing services, laptops, call center services, temp workers, public information websites, apps and other telecommunication services. Support services for vulnerable populations and cleaning services are worth checking too.
Keeping your information organized
Structure your information to understand what details you have and what’s missing. The Open Contracting Data Standard provides a global schema to structure the procurement information you gather throughout the investigation. Using a single identifier or ID code to bring together information on the different stages of procurement procedures — that is planning, tender, award, contract and implementation (such as payments and amendments) — enables you to track the process. The Data Standard is served by a free helpdesk and many tools to help facilitate your work.
Don’t forget the good news stories
Finally, procuring essential services and goods such as testing kits and masks is an important service powered by many dedicated procurement professionals in the government, who are working under immense pressure to support everyone. So a big shout out where things are going well is an important part of the story too. Sharing solutions goes a long way to building trust in uncertain times and reminds readers that the actions we choose to take can make all difference.
The Nigerian extractive sector is plagued with a lack of transparency resulting in the vulnerability of the sector to bad dealings and illicit financial transactions. A consequence of this is a huge loss of revenues for the Nigerian government. This lack of transparency, compounded with weak governance, regulatory frameworks, and rule of law, allows Oil and Gas companies, as well as other major players in the sector, operate in an unaccountable manner, abuse human rights, partake in illicit financial flows and exploit the fragility phenomenon in many oil-producing communities.
The situation is further worsened by “shadow” multinational oil companies which operate in Nigeria but are not registered by law and who exploit Nigeria’s fragile and corrupt context, including its weak regulatory framework to perpetuate their illegality, evade tax obligations and avoid accountability, which constitutes oil theft.
NEITI reports that about $4.2 billion is lost annually to crude and product losses resulting from stealing, process lapses and pipeline vandalism. This means that from 2013 to date, approximately $30 billion has been lost to oil theft.
The OXFAM Conflict and Fragility has launched a competition tagged the 30 Billion Challenge. The competition requires that participants write a short essay or create videos explaining how this fund would have been better utilised in their communities.
Winner stands the chance of winning N200,000 worth of prizes.
Email admin@connecteddevelopment.org for more enquiries.
COVID19: Regaining Citizen’s Trust through Strategic Communications
by Kevwe Oghide
Citizens distrust in Nigerian government spans two decades and continues to hit a downward slope. At a time, some of the measures of trust or distrust in government were corruption, inequality and poor economic performance. Today, trust is also measured based on lack of transparency, exclusion of citizens from governance and poor communication.
Trust matters for many reasons, not only because a disconnect between promises and lived experiences can result in a vicious circle, government’s initiatives cannot function without the support of citizens.
Today, the world is shaken by the effect of the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19), which first broke out in China late December and has spread to over 200 counties with over 2,729,274 confirmed cases, and 191,614 deaths, according to the John Hopkins University COVID19 dashboard. A crisis that was initially termed an epidemic in China has now become a global pandemic by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
As the world grapples with the accelerating spread of the pandemic, WHO predicts that Africa may yet be the worst hit by this disease. It urges the region to “wake up to the increasing threat and prepare for a worst-case scenario. In Nigeria, the number of confirmed cases rose by 340% in a week and currently stands at 981 confirmed cases as at the time of writing this article.
In a country where people are discontent with the economy and governance structure, predictions like this increase citizens’ concern for the inability of the current failing health structure in the nation to sufficiently combat a pandemic of this kind. Frankly, Nigeria’s already ailing health system coupled with poor data and statistical capacity, will likely be overwhelmed with the lethality of COVID-19. Multiple factors can weaken the effectiveness of Government responses to a pandemic of this kind — the vulnerability of Nigeria’s healthcare system; low human capital; the use of outdated equipment, the lack of standard facilities and weak supply chains.
At the heart of building trust is the process of communications. The Nigerian government currently battles poor communication of decisions; poor aggregation of donations and interventions received, which is fuelling fake news and other issues. If implemented properly, strategic communications play a significant role in increasing the government’s credibility among citizens even at this crucial time.
Reading through posts on Facebook and Twitter, one can literally feel the apprehension of Nigerians as they call out public institutions and the Nigerian government to adequately communicate updates and decisions that are being taken to address the health crisis and measures that are implemented to provide relief and palliatives for the vulnerable groups. A decline in trust at this time can lead to possible chaos and lawlessness, as reported in some parts of the country.
Although effective communication (using all available channels) does not automatically rectify years of mistrust or excuse poor service delivery, it however, provides an opportunity for the government to apply the principles of transparency, accountability and inclusive governance.
Understandably, the Nigerian government is under extreme pressure with the strain of COVID19 and the impact on people, the economy and the society in general. With the growing difficulty to manage public expectations, interactions with citizens can help the government identify concerns, allay fears and assure people of its approach to fight COVID-19.
A wide population of Nigerians who are largely offline (and are less informed) are increasingly skeptical of the government. So, in the face of this growing mistrust among the citizenry, what can government institutions do? Creating a more truth-based, fact-driven, unprejudiced media to curtail fake-news is key, tackling misconceptions and breaking down social media echo chambers; engaging Communications and PR Specialists at this time to strategise means of reaching grassroots people and sensitize them in local dialects on their role in staying safe and following government directives are also plausible.
Government institutions must also look inward to what it controls — its programs, its people, and its processes. That is where strategic communications can play a narrow, but impactful role in building credibility. Enhancing transparency may mean changing the structure and composition of the communications function; providing expanded information and establishing more interactive engagement to reach ‘online and offline’ people and share the institution’s broad strategy to tackling the pandemic. Also, inviting Civil Society Groups to monitor implementation of funds and interventions can increase credibility. #FollowTheMoney, a social accountability initiative is at the forefront, urging the government to be more responsive to citizens’ request for it to aggregate COVID19 data, and consistently publish information to curtail fake news.
Open the Government’s 2018 research shows that majority of citizens want to see more authenticity and transparency in public institutions. Today, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the Federal Ministry of Finance, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, the Federal Ministry of Health and other government departments and agencies have enormous choices than ever before to reach their target audience, gain traction in their efforts to drive positive change, enhance public awareness and improve public perception of their institutions.
It may not be a total cure; communicating effectively offers a glimmer of hope against the flood of public mistrust. Specifically, web, database, and mobile technologies can allow government to be more transparent, to better engage with stakeholders, and to drive greater awareness of mission impact. In conjunction, transparency and accountability fuelled by strategic communications have the possibility of opening the Nigerian government up to greater public understanding and appreciation.
Imagine a world where the government of a state cannot be held responsible for their actions, a world where due process is absent, a world where laws are not implemented and executed properly. The list goes on, but for us to fully understand the importance and benefits of Public Administration and answer the question “Why Study Public Administration?” you have to define the term.
The word Public Administration is very often used but very difficult to define, this is because the boundaries of the field have never been delimited. According to Hodgson 1969 Public AdministraWhy Study Public Administration? The Golden Question.tion comprises all activities of people or groups in government or their agencies whether these organizations are international, regional or local in their scope; to fulfil the purposes of these government agencies. This definition shows that Public Administration is government in action, it is concerned with the executive, operative and the most obvious part of government which deals with the formulation and enforcement of public policies. Government cannot exist without administrative machineries for implementing public policies.
Now that you have a fair idea of the concept of Public Administration, the question still stands “Why should you study the course?” or “What jobs can you end up having?”, well let me share a quick story; you see Public Administration wasn’t my first choice initially, it wasn’t even part of my top 5 courses (and now you might be thinking so why write this article), I was part of those asking “what does an Administrator do, what jobs can I get after this, why am I studying this course” but by my 200L I was in awe of the course, a course so broad and versatile that gave a detailed insight to so many other courses, I found myself studying Accounting courses, Economics, Social Psychology, Social works, Customer Relations Management, Human Relations and Personnel Management, International Relations and so many others all under Public Administration, already these courses gives you an advantage of having variety of jobs to apply for and also a variety of professional courses to enroll in to add a boost to your CV which you will already have intermediate knowledge of. Amazing right!
Now it’s time for some of the attractive benefits and jobs available to an Administrator
Ability to work/manage people: Implementing programs and managing the people who are involved (Managerial Position)Chance to hold important government positions: Some of the most important government officials followed a career in Public Administration (Cabinet Member, Working with the United Nations, State Governors)
Make an impact on your government: You can do this by holding the power to implement or recommend programs and also having the ability to make direct impact on your local, state and federal government
Chance to hold a position in the news and entertainment field: Political analysts for major news networks often pursued careers in Public Administration which helps them understand the political system and provide analyses of the situations.
Serve as consultants: Many Public Administration professionals can go into consulting and make policy and procedural recommendations for meeting budgets, deadlines, etc.
Specific job titles include: Customs Inspector, Labour Management Relations Specialist, Mediator, Systems Analyst, Civil Servant, Foreign Affairs and International Policy Operations.
To conclude this article I will like to take you back to the beginning and ask once more for you to “imagine a world where the government of a state can’t be held responsible for their actions, a world where due process is absent, a world where laws are not implemented and executed properly”, well a world like that needs an Administrator and that alone shows enough importance to study Public Administration.
An Examination of Girls’ Education Policies in Nigeria with a Focus on the North-East
School girls in Yobe State
The Universal Declaration on Human Rights which was adopted in 1948 provides for access to education as a fundamental human right. Over the years, literacy level which is being influenced by access to quality basic education became an elemental metric in rating countries on human development performance. Historically and globally, boys have had lesser bottlenecks than girls in accessing formal education. Following this, several researches started highlighting the correlation between the enrolment of girls in school and increase in life expectancy and literacy levels; gross domestic product; as well as reductions in maternal and child mortality rates in countries.
This has inspired debates on the enrolment of girls in schools as a large component of human capital investment in any country. Nigeria as a country has been rated as one of the countries with poor statistics in ensuring the education of the girl child. This has been despite several strategies that the country has employed to reverse such trend and counter gender disparity in education. These strategies encompass the 1991 establishment of the National Commission for Mass Literacy and Non-formal Education, 1994 Family Support Basic Education Programme, 1999 Universal Basic Education Policy, 2003 Strategy for the Acceleration of Girls Education in Nigeria and the 2004 Universal Basic Education Act, amongst others. Most of these policies were created in order to achieve the Education For-all goals as well as the Millennium Development Goals.
I was recently asked how Civil Society Groups could contribute to the COVID-19 efforts. These are my thoughts;
Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) can play key roles in monitoring, documenting and reporting multi-sectoral efforts such as ensuring human rights due diligence and equal access to health care; sensitisation (and combating fake news); tracking – accountability and transparency of measures with particular focus on fund donations; humanitarian intervention. They can also follow up with judicious distribution of relief items to low-income communities and marginalised people.
Although the lock-down is a welcome resolve to enhance social distancing, I am of the opinion that it should not have been extended to some or a coalition of Civil Society Groups working around COVID-19, just as members of the Press were given a free pass.
The restriction of CSOs limits them to advocating for digital accountability measures. This is limiting the call for transparency and accountability in the response to COVID19, knowing that public digital responsiveness and accountability is still quite alien to many Nigerian Ministries, Departments and Agencies.
Unlike in the USA, Nigeria has no Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA) that mandates MDAs to digitally publish all public expenditures.
To compound this, the Freedom of Information Act would not avail anyone during this lockdown as there would be no one in the offices of these MDAs to take delivery or respond to such requests.
My concern is that there may be no neutral party in the field to track human rights due diligence; and transparency and accountability compliance. No third party to ensure all humanitarian interventions/measures comply with the humanitarian principles. Furthermore, CSOs should be involved in the identification, implementation and evaluation of COVID-19 measures and relief disbursement in Nigeria, and also assessing government’s response strategies to the pandemic. The job of many CSOs is akin to the 4th arm of government – the Press. Any undue restriction is fundamentally detrimental to our democratic and civic space.
Indeed, Section 22 of the Nigerian Constitution that empowers the Press and other agencies of the Mass Media to hold the government accountable and uphold constitutional tenets should extend to NGOs.
Those who fail to see reason here may be reminded of the 2012 Flood Relief Fund/Donations which was void of transparency – and flood victims never accessing reliefs mobilised by the government – from private, local and international donors.
The duty of good governance and social justice does not halt in times of crisis. CSOs, same as the Press, are the bulwark of our fickle democracy.
Our world is currently threatened by COVID-19, with significant implications on health, personal and professional life. Even at that, this period has witnessed a great level of interdependence—that our collective success does not onlydepend on how we care for ourselves but also how we are looking out for other people around us.
Hamzy shows children in rural Adamawa how to wash their hands thoroughly.
In light of what we do at CODE, constantly advocating for public funds to be used for public goods, especially in the areas of education and more importantly healthcare, we most certainly believe that the state of a nation’s healthcare is tantamount to its wellbeing. Our call for accountability and transparency in public services is to prepare our society, our country and our world to tackle challenges that a pandemic of this kind presents.
Today, as the globe deals with COVID-19 and navigate its health, economic and social implications, we at CODE will continue to make proactive decisions to provide marginalised communities with access to information and also to ensure the personal health and safety of our team, our Follow The Money members across Africa, our partners across the globe and you, our friend.
We have taken remote work more seriously and have instituted strict social distancing and stay-at-home policies. Still, we will continue to impact our community and advocate for the government to be more responsible and accountable especially in this dire time. We will also be seeing all our engagements through the lens of COVID-19, structuring our work to tackle financial leakages, mismanagement of funds and advocating for social justice in fragile communities so these people can access clean water, proper healthcare and all-round improved public services.
We commend leaders, organisations, and individuals who are prioritizing our collective health and well-being over individual profit. Our thoughts and best wishes are with them.
Do not hesitate to reach us if you have ideas, resources and information on how we can better reach communities during this time.
Please stay safe.
Hamzat Lawal Chief Executive, CODE Founder, Follow The Money
There have been notable improvements in Nigeria concerning the treatment of women. More women are filling roles in public offices but not enough has been done to promote Gender Equality. The law for the prosecution of rape within marriages have still not been passed in court, foreign men cannot claim their wives Nigerian nationalities, and women still experience difficulties in using their documents to access opportunities without the help of their father or husbands (a nuisance I have experienced a number of times).
Waiters still assume my husband is paying (despite the fact that I pay sometimes). They give him the bill without even giving me an ounce of eye contact. When he firmly and curtly comments to them saying, ‘ please give it to her’ the reaction is almost always the same! A mix of confusion and embarrassment on their part as they meekly give to me the bill. Now imagine, if for people to unlearn and de-condition their mindsets of basic behaviours such as ‘men always paying’ how much harder as a country will it be for gender equality to truly take place.
The truth is that women in Nigeria are not valued as they should be, they are seen as a commodity instead of an important necessity. Thank God we have some women seated in government roles to give us some hope but when you look at the amount, it’s enough to defuse your bubble all over again. It would be idealistic to think the government is responsible for this issue and they should fix it (although a part of it is true), when, honestly, we are all to be held accountable– an orientation that must be unlearned by the Nigerian population. Citizens need to see women and their purpose differently, and not just as domestic beings. Fellow women need to start deconstructing years, centuries even, of conditioned gender roles and start paving their own paths for change. It’s quite unfortunate that there still are cases of women who are subject to and silent about sexual assault and also harassment at the workplace. Many women are marginalised and are not seen beyond their faces. One wonders when this degradation will end.
Beyond wishful thinking and short term feminist campaigns, it will take a complete unlearning of years of conditioned gender ideas and an acceptance from both men and women that, in order to achieve change, we must transform our attitude towards small basic things. Each for Equal is the responsibility of all.
