The confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria has almost doubled less than a week after the second lockdown

The data on the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria is getting scarier as days morph into weeks. On 30th March when the government first announced a lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja, the total confirmed cases stood at 131. A week into the lockdown, that number jumped by 81.6% to 238 cases with Lagos accounting for more than half of this aggregate. Given this trend and to decelerate the rate of spread, the government announced a second lockdown lasting for another two weeks and terminating at midnight on 27th April 2020.

As at today, exactly a week into the second lockdown, total cases have almost doubled from 343 to 627. A closer examination of the data reveal that the number of cases reported per day has assumed double digit. With this frightening trend, it wouldn’t be out of place to conclude that by the end of this second lockdown, Nigeria would have recorded 1,000+ cases. In fact, Nigeria probably would have been ranked top ten in Africa on number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 if our testing capacity were to be adequate and sophisticated.

Our numbers seem low not because Nigeria is doing something spectacular but because we are not testing enough.

Initially, the number of confirmed cases were reported in single digits. But with the increase in testing laboratories across the country, we have seen a double digit jump in daily number of confirmed cases.

Yesterday, of the 86 new cases, 70 were reported Lagos. At this point, a curious mind would be tempted to ask if these people are ghosts because there is an existing lockdown in Lagos. The truth is, the lockdown in Lagos is somehow partial. In my area, it is relatively business as usual. People still move around and shops and markets are still opened. The numbers from Lagos may probably led one to conclude that the lockdown has essentially been an exercise in futility. But on a second thought, it probably would have been worse if there was no lockdown at all.

Essentially, with the way the situation is spiraling out of control, the government may well extend the lockdown come April 27th. So if you are in the league of people doubting the existence of coronavirus in Nigeria or among the set of people spending lavishly on non-essential items in this period, this is definitely the time you sit your sorry ass down and have a deeper reflection on the far-reaching consequences of your action. There just might be no end in sight to the lockdown for now. Be careful how you spend!

Companies are losing millions and billions of naira in revenue as the lockdown persist. Being a rational economic entity and an artificial person in the eyes of the law, these companies will do everything possible to stay afloat. One sure way to do that is to embark on drastic cost cutting spree. Personnel costs in form of salaries, wages, bonuses etc. account for a large chuck of the cost of most traditional firms that is yet to mainstream technology into their daily operations. Many of these companies will seek to increase or maintain profitability by cutting personnel cost through retrenchment, freezing bonuses and other pecks, slashing salaries across cadres etc.

Like many countries across the globe, the Nigerian government sought to avoid massive retrenchment of workers by companies through the Emergency Economic Stimulus Bill, 2020 before the national assembly. A clause enshrined in the bill stipulated that ”any employer duly registered under the Companies and Allied Matters Act Cap C20 LFN 2004 which maintains the same employees status without retrenching their staff as at 1st of March 2020 till the 31st of December 2020 shall be entitled to 50% income tax rebate on the total amount due or paid as PAYE under the Personal Income Tax Act Cap C8 LFN 2004 as amended”.

This bill is likely to benefit the large corporates more than MSMEs. According to NBS, the MSMEs employs over 80% of the labour force in Nigeria. Many of them are likely going to be hit hard by the coronavirus and as such are more likely than large corporates to retrench workers.