ABSTRACT

The emergence of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) in November 2019 has nearly brought the world to a halt. Recording her first COVID-19 case on 27 February 2020, the Nigerian government’s default response to the pandemic was to lock down major parts of the country, among other measures. Despite the nationwide lockdown, inter-state travel continued unabated as many travellers bribed their way through the different checkpoints mounted by security agencies. As a result of the prevalence of ‘normed corruption’, the lockdown only created opportunity for brazen extortion by law enforcement officials. Using the institutional corruption theory as our framework of analysis, and coupled with the use of both primary and secondary data generated during the lockdown, the paper noted that entrenched culture of extortionate policing in the ranks of security forces meant that arrest and prosecution of violators of the lockdown became a distant concern. The result is that COVID-19 suspects or carriers travelled from one state to another without being detected. It concludes that Nigeria should leverage lessons learned from policing COVID-19 in framing future responses in containment measures.

摘要

2019 年 11 月新型冠状病毒 (COVID-19) 的出现几乎让世界陷入停顿。尼日利亚政府在 2020 年 2 月 27 日记录了她的第一例 COVID-19 病例，除其他措施外，尼日利亚政府对大流行的默认反应是封锁该国的主要地区。尽管在全国范围内实施封锁，但州际旅行仍有增无减，因为许多旅行者通过安全机构设立的不同检查站行贿。由于“规范腐败”的盛行，封锁只会为执法人员的无耻敲诈创造机会。使用制度腐败理论作为我们的分析框架，并结合使用锁定期间产生的主要和次要数据，该报指出，安全部队队伍中根深蒂固的敲诈勒索文化意味着逮捕和起诉违反封锁的人成为一个遥不可及的问题。结果是 COVID-19 嫌疑人或携带者在未被发现的情况下从一个州旅行到另一个州。它得出的结论是，尼日利亚应利用从监管 COVID-19 中汲取的经验教训来制定遏制措施的未来应对措施。