SANWO-OLU: Standing in the gap

Even though both stand on the precipice of uncertainties caused by COVID-19, leadership is a lot more critical. In fighting the kind of novel battle posed by coronavirus, flawed leadership is any society’s weakest weapon. And Lagos, a city of over 20 million people couldn’t have afforded that. The fears, disruptions, and confusion that came with the pandemic, demanded more than just conventional leadership.

Incident commander

It was such that necessitated an “incident commander,” and Lagos found one in Governor Babajide-Sanwo-Olu. Like most leaders of gateway cities across the globe, the pandemic, especially in its early stage, unleashed an unprecedented burden of responsibility on the Lagos State governor. It was so given the status of Lagos as the gateway to Nigeria, or better still, the doorway to Africa’s most populous nation. For a public health challenge never seen nor envisaged, the berthing of coronavirus on February 28, 2020, in Lagos, literally placed not only the fate of 20 million Lagosians in Sanwo-Olu’s hands, but also all Nigerians. Having inherited a state with decayed road infrastructure, increasing traffic gridlock, especially on the Apapa corridor and other social problems, the pandemic posed a much bigger problem.

Unprepared

While many leaders globally were caught unprepared, Sanwo-Olu probably heeded the advice of the late fourth-century writer, Publius Vegetius, who said: “In time of peace prepare for war.” The governor, who assumed the position of “Incident commander” shortly before Nigeria’s index case, was indeed battle-ready.

According to him, “in January, specifically, after we’ve cleared off the budgetary matters, the commissioner said to me that the pandemic was coming and it would get to us and what we needed to do was to activate a few things and I agreed with him.

We didn’t claim to have the knowledge of what would happen but I gave him the go-ahead, the cooperation and the approval to start preparing in earnest for the pandemic. By the end of January or the first week of February, we had set up an incident command, where I was designated as the incident commander and the health commissioner was designated as the deputy incident commander.”

Fighting fears

Without any existing model for responding to such a challenge, he braved the odds, fighting fears, anxieties, prejudices, and creating response mechanisms. The state’s capacity for response and management of infectious diseases such as COVID-19 was expanded through various policy actions.

As other parts of the country panicked and wished it never spreads beyond Lagos, Sanwo-Olu, assumed a very visible role, evolving strategies, and providing key information to a frightened populace. Unknown to many, apart from science, information is very critical in managing public health crisis.

To quote Dr. Adaeze Oreh, an infectious disease expert, who spoke to Vanguard in the early days of the pandemic: “Gaps in communication encourage a lot of speculation and the unfounded circulation of baseless messages that not only lack merit but are designed to generate fear and panic. However, by strategically making information, especially on preventive measures available to the public consistently, concrete and evidence-based messages take ownership of the airwaves, especially in this era of social media. It is also important at the national and state levels to communicate clearly and consistently to the public.”

Data-driven

This, Sanwo-Olu, provided through data-driven daily updates, which supplied essential information when it mattered most. People around the country looked up to Lagos, making the state a model when the virus eventually spread to other states. When fears clouded the city, Sanwo-Olu alongside his team exhibited hope and faith – they stood in the gap.

Exponential rate

To his credit, an ordinarily tumultuous populace embraced discipline – a critical factor in taming the pandemic. The timely lockdown, surveillance, contact-tracing, and application of sanctions, were effectively driven by the governor. Just like the late British wartime Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who in Britain’s darkest hour, roused Britons to defiance, Sanwo-Olu even while down with COVID-19, still leads Lagosians in the battle from isolation. Therefore, Nigerians owe the absence of exponential infections and fatalities to the deeds of people like the governor and other factors.  Hence, Vanguard recognises him for symbolising the determination to fight hard and ultimately defeat COVID-19.