Transparency and Accountability during COVID-19 Outbreak in Nigeria
Countries were thrown into panic, at the beginning of the year 2020, with the emergence of the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic, also known as “COVID-19”. This zoonotic disease, first recorded in the Chinese city of Wuhan, in November of 2019 gradually appeared in various nations around the globe. The last week in the month of February 2020 was the beginning of Nigeria's battle with the disease. Lagos state found itself as the initial recipient of this animal-to-human disease, from an individual, who (not without some irony) was not even Asian but European1. Globalization once again2 showed itself a harbinger of not just benign influences but ravenous disease as well.3 The Nigerian Federal Government approached the matter from a multi-sectoral angle, with the Federal Ministry of Health, working alongside the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control. The latter agency, in collaboration with its network partners, was involved in handling the pandemic, as it hit the shores of the country.
