As at July 31, 2020, Nigeria has recorded 42,689 confirmed cases of Covid-19, 878 deaths, 19,270 recoveries leaving us with 22,541 active cases. This should have been a thing of concern with our open public market system, but it isn’t.
With Nigeria plagued with poor education and lack of trust in the government, it is then a huge issue for people to believe what they see on the news.
Before the nationwide lockdown and ban on interstate travels were lifted, there were huge concerns on how Nigerians would cope with the spread of coronavirus, knowing too well that most of our daily practices will aid it.
In the food sector, our markets which are the main points of food distribution should have caused a lot of worries, but no one seems to be concerned. Not even the traders, buyers or the government is making extra efforts to keep people at the market safe.
Markets and Precautionary measures
Nigerian markets will simply be described as a place that will not be able to comply with the precautionary measures needed to prevent the spread of covid-19.
Traders sit close to each other, and as the home of noise, people will never stop talking and one would imagine how easy it would be to spread the virus in such places.
Nigerian traders in most cases are either primitive or religious and only few of them believe in science. They mostly believe that anyone who died from covid-19 is destined to die and each person clings to his deity for protection instead of science.
Everything in the market is often touched before they are bought by the traders and the buyers. People often touch things and leave them. It is never compulsory to buy what you touch and this is a huge concern because it is something no one can stop.
Our Cash Based Economy
Cash also encourages contacts because they must be touched before being handed over to the next person. The sorry story here is that some people wet their fingers with saliva while counting money and imagine if they are infected, how many people would have handled the money before the virus dies off.
Finding a solution in this area will take decades because of the high level of cyber crimes in the country. People prefer physical cash and an average trader or buyer loses their guard whenever they see money. They must count it with bare hands and must also hand same over to another person – that is the journey of money.
Education and Enforcement
Going straight to enforcement will not be good in anyway. It might meet some stiff resistance that could lead to chaos in the markets
Authorities and stake holders in the food and agriculture sector should invest in educating traders and customers on how to stay safe from covid-19 and that should also include how important face masks are in this pandemic era.
Hand washing spots could be installed where there are water supplies and this should also be an opener to the government that our markets are no where close to what the should be in terms of infrastructure.
