International Youth Day: ActionAid Nigeria, CITAD Task Youths on Political Participation

Actionaid Nigeria and Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) have commemorated the 2020 International Youth Day with a call on youths, especially those in local communities within Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory(FCT), to be fully engaged in the civic space and political activities.

The organizations respectively, working with the poor and excluded to ensure justice, erradicate poverty, ensure development and good governance, believe that this will not only increase the fairness of political processes by reducing democratic deficits and contributes to better and more sustainable policies, but also contribute to restore trust in public institutions, especially among youth.

The International Youths Day marked every year around the world, was observed with youths from five local communities-Dakwa, Tunga Ashere, Pasepa in Bwari Area Council, Leleyi Gwari in Kwali Area Council and Gaube in Kuje Area Council of the FCT, where  CITAD with support from Actionaid Nigeria, is offering interventions, via a Zoom platform, on Wednesday.

It was quite a rewarding and educative moment as representatives of  youths from these communities and resource persons discussed on various topics in line with the theme of this year’s celebration, tagged: “Youth Engagement for Global Action”.

Speaking on the theme during the Zoom meeting, Actionaid Nigeria Representative, Joseph Augustine said the theme is apt, to sensitize and guide youths who are the potential  future leaders to be prepared to take their rightful place in their respective societies in the nearest future.

He said youths  needed to be encouraged to participate in the civic space and political arena, stressing, “their participation is very important.”

Program Officer for Economy and Empowerment Network for Community Advancement, Hassan Sarikin- Noma harped on the need for youths to tap the resources within their localities as he spoke on Youth Eploring Opportunities at the Grassroot.

He urged youths to take advantage of opportunities at their doorstep as well as explore other available opportunities.

On her part, Youth Corps Member and Volunteer with SDG Mobile Library, Kehinde Obafemi discussing on Youth Volunteerism, said it is the key to creating life-long change.

Earlier, CITAD Program Officer, Salma Abdulwaheed said the International Youth Day is a significant event that offers the opportunity to celebrate and mainstream young people’s voices, action and initiatives.

Emphasizing the significance of the theme, she explained that youth engagement for global action seek to highlight the way in
which the engagement of young people at the local, national and global levels is enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes.

Furthermore, it draw lessons on how their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced, she noted.

Also CITAD Sponsorship Officer, Mubarak Ekute who discussed on The Way Forward and Advocacy, emphasized on advocacy as key for communities to achieve their goals.

He therefore, tasked the youths in the communities to see advocacy as  the key to global change.

As part of activities to mark the celebration, the non governmental organizations had also, since Monday, commenced a training on implication of  land grabbing in respective communities in the FCT, for people in the participating communities.

The 5-Day training which is expected to be concluded on Friday, aims at designing  campaign strategies to mitigate the menace of land grabbing.

Abdulwaheed said the training became necessary because land grabbing has become a serious issue affecting the FCT people, some of whom have lost their lands, thereby, losing their livelihood as majority of them are into farming.

Actionaid Nigeria, CITAD Mark Int’l Youth Day With Local Communities in Abuja

Actionaid Nigeria and Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) have taken the International Youth Day celebration to local communities in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory(FCT).

The non-governmental organizations which marked the Day with youths from five local communities-Dakwa, Tunga Ashere, Pasepa in Bwari Area Council, Leleyi Gwari in Kwali Area Council and Gaube in Kuje Area Council of the FCT, via Zoom platform, on Wednesday, urged the youths to fully engaged in the civic space and political activities.

This, according to the NGOs working with the poor and excluded to erradicate poverty, ensure development and good governance, will not only increase the fairness of political processes by reducing democratic deficits, contribute to better and more sustainable policies, but also contribute to restore trust in public institutions, especially among youth.

The International Youths Day is marked August every year around the world.

It was quite a rewarding and educative moment as representatives of  youths from these communities and resource persons discussed on various topics in line with the theme of this year’s celebration, tagged: “Youth Engagement for Global Action”.

Speaking on the theme during the Zoom meeting, Actionaid Nigeria Representative, Joseph Augustine said the theme is apt, to sensitize and guide youths who are the potential  future leaders to be prepared to take their rightful place in their respective societies in the nearest future.

He said youths  needed to be encouraged to participate in the civic space and political arena, stressing, “their participation is very important.”

Program Officer for Economy and Empowerment Network for Community Advancement, Hassan Sarikin- Noma harped on the need for youths to tap the resources within their localities as he spoke on Youth Eploring Opportunities at the Grassroot.

He urged youths to take advantage of opportunities at their doorstep as well as explore other available opportunities.

On her part, Youth Corps Member and Volunteer with SDG Mobile Library, Kehinde Obafemi discussing on Youth Volunteerism, said it is the key to creating life-long change.

Earlier, CITAD Program Officer, Salma Abdulwaheed said the International Youth Day is a significant event that offers the opportunity to celebrate and mainstream young people’s voices, action and initiatives.

Emphasizing the significance of the theme, she explained that youth engagement for global action seek to highlight the way in
which the engagement of young people at the local, national and global levels is enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes.

Furthermore, it draw lessons on how their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced, she noted.

Also CITAD Sponsorship Officer, Mubarak Ekute who discussed on The Way Forward and Advocacy, emphasized on advocacy as key for communities to achieve their goals.

He therefore, tasked the youths in the communities to see advocacy as  the key to global change.

As part of activities to mark the celebration, the non governmental organizations had also, since Monday, commenced a training on implication of  land grabbing in respective communities in the FCT, for people in the participating communities.

The 5-Day training which is expected to be concluded on Friday, aims at designing  campaign strategies to mitigate the menace of land grabbing.

Abdulwaheed said the training became necessary because land grabbing has become a serious issue affecting the FCT people, some of whom have lost their lands, thereby, losing their livelihood as majority of them are into farming.

36thTwitter Chat Organized By the Center for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) on 11th August, 2020 with Mrs. Ayo Obe, Partner at Ogunsola Shonibare lp.

Since the eruption of the Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria people were hit badly by the disease which led to the announcement of strict lockdown measures across the country to prevent the spread of the disease. Government banned all travels in and out of the country.  People could only leave their homes for essential reasons such as to buy food and other basic necessities of life. Also, when going out people have to wear face masks, ensure social distancing and in many instances with declaration forms. Despite the negative effects of the pandemic, many people in Nigeria do not believe that the virus is real. Number of audio and video clips went viral on different social media platforms of people infected with the virus in isolation centers claiming that they do not believe that they are contracted with the virus. In Gombe state, one of the clips shown a group of people demonstrating to be accommodated with people in quarantine in attraction of the food given to the Covid-19 patients. In another clip, in Jos, capital city of Plateau   state, group of youth infected with virus demonstrated isolating them at the one of the quarantine centers claiming that they were there only because they are Hausa tribe. While in Kano people were trooping to Kwanar Dawakin isolation center only to have eye contact with the Coronavirus patients and accusing the state government of manipulating figures to get money from the federal government. In view of the growing mistrust between citizens and Nigerian government, in its 36th edition of Twitter Chat and in its effort to fight against the pandemic, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) on 11th of August, 2020 organized a Twitter Chat and invited Mrs. Ayo Obe, Partner at Ogunsola Shonibare LP as a discussant to discuss on the theme ‘Covid 19 Pandemic and the Growing Mistrust between Citizens and Nigerian Government’. The following discussion emanated from the Twitter Chat.

 

Engagements:

 

 

 

Q

Ma’am can you please explain to us why citizens are losing confidence in governments in the fight? #CITADagainstCovid19

A.

Nonetheless, I think that because we are not seeing massive deaths from #COVID19, and also because @NCDCgov is having a good rate of recovery among those who do test positive for #Coronavirus, people still have some confidence in NCDC.

However, the main area where @NCDCgov seems to have failed is in falling woefully short of its declared ambitions with regard to #COVID19 testing. According to its April promise, by now we ought to be seeing “mass testing”. But instead, we have tested fewer than 300,000!

There is already a trust deficit that Government in general faces vis-à-vis Nigerian citizens, but we started out with people ready to give @NCDCgov the benefit of the doubt as the lead agency in the fight against #COVID19.

 

Q.

@naijama Nigerians are skeptical about the daily assurances given by govt about Nigeria’s preparedness to fight the covid19 in the event of a possible outbreak. How can you rate the govt in responses to these assurances?

#CITADagainstCovid19 @ICTAdvocates @a_sabo12 @YZYau

 

A.

It is clear that while the daily assurances are met with a lot of skepticism by citizens, the greater problem is that because people don’t trust what government says about #COVID19, many ignore the basic procedures to stop the spread of the disease.

Again, for the bulk of the population, the impact of #COVID19 is less a clinical or medical problem, and more a financial problem. And in that regard, there is doubt and skepticism about the way government is handling the financial palliatives aspect of its response

Thus many think #COVID19 is either a “rich man’s disease” or (by some unfathomable reason or inexplicable process) a ‘scam’ by government. And if the relevant orientation agencies have been carrying a different message, it is having a hard time getting through.

But because (fortunately) we are not dying in large numbers, people are not taking the threat as seriously as perhaps they ought to.

I would also add that there is a tremendous amount of false information on social media and in traditional rumour mills about #COVID19.

 

Q.

@naijama Following years of disappointment failed campaign promises,unfulfilled state programmes,large-scale corruption & failure to deliver on the dividends of democracy,does the aforementioned factors have any effect on D fight against covid19?

@ICTAdvocates @YZYau @a_sabo12

 

A.

This is why I said that government is already facing a trust deficit. And when the response to #COVID19 demands huge sacrifices by the people, that trust deficit becomes important.

#CITADagainstCOVID19

Moreover, at the height of the #LockDown, it seemed as though members of the government were not adhering to its own regulations, and this made people less inclined to believe that “we’re all in this together”, or to make sacrifices to fight #COVID19 themselves.

However, I don’t think that people are refusing to join the fight against #COVID19 because of failed campaign promises of unfulfilled state programmes, because Nigerians are used to that, and anyway, some promises have been met and some states programmes have worked.

Thus many think #COVID19 is either a “rich man’s disease” or (by some unfathomable reason or inexplicable process) a ‘scam’ by government. And if the relevant orientation agencies have been carrying a different message, it is having a hard time getting through.

 

Q.

@naijama Does Religion also intersects with distrust in determining how Nigerian citizens have responded to COVID-19?

#CITADagainstCovid19 @ICTAdvocates @YZYau @a_sabo12 @ooomiiiii @ChiromaHope @nissimase @abdullahi_ari @Mairo_Ado @HariraWakili

 

A.

Some religious leaders have been less than helpful in sensitising the populace on the #COVID19 threat and how to meet it.

But while religion plays a factor as many people believe that their faith may see them through, I don’t see it as a factor in distrust.

#CITADagainstCOVID19

 

 

Q.

@naijama looking at recent happenings in Edo state where govt officials are violating the @NCDCgov’s guidelines including governors that subjected their people to total lockdown in the past, who do you think the citizens will blame for this uncalled behavior? #CITADagainstCovid19 https://t.co/U25x5jH4Ee

 

A.

That problem didn’t start in Edo State: it has been constant from political leaders throughout the #COVID19 crisis, even during #Lockdown.

We discussed the range of state government responses on @ideasradiong here: https://t.co/8NGSK6ZdPx

#CITADagainstCOVID19

While some, e.g. here in Lagos, behaved responsibly, others were treating #COVID19 as a political jest, or were in complete denial.

And at the end of the day, at election time, campaign is the life blood of politics, and it seems many politicians are ready to take the risk.

 

Q.

@naijama do you think there is possibility of citizens to start disobeying @NCDCgov’s guidelines or any rules place by either federal or state govt referencing to recent event in Edo state? @YZYau @MubarakEkute @ChiromaHope @nissimase #CITADagainstCovid19 @teemerh_beekay

 

A.

I’m not aware of any specific event in Edo State with reference to @NCDCgov anti #COVID19 guidelines, but as I said, there have been enough examples of breach of such guidelines across the country for citizens to decide whether they will obey the guidelines in their own interest.

 

Q.

Ma’am can you please explain to us why citizens are loosing confidence in governments in the fight? #CITADagainstCovid19 @YZYau @ChiromaHope @MubarakEkute @nissimase @ooomiiiii @teemerh_beekay @naijama

 

A.

I have already said that there is a massive trust deficit. So the question is whether government has put in place what would erase that when it is at the same time putting citizens under tremendous pressures as to how they earn their daily bread.

#CITADagainstCOVID19

While ventilators may be being donated to Nigeria, very few of us lived under the illusion that should we require them, ventilators would be available to save us from #COVID19.

Therefore, citizens start from a position of knowing that they have to fight COVID19 themselves.

For that reason, losing confidence is not really the issue: government must first build it up. But when it e.g. imposes an inter-state travel ban, and everyone knows it requires only bribery to defeat it, government does more to undermine itself in the fight against #COVID19.

 

Q

@naijama what do you think is the role of CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATION in all of this. And how is the government adequately partnering with CSOs in the fight against the Virus and also building trust?@ICTAdvocates @YZYau @a_sabo12 @ChiromaHope @abdullahi_ari #CITADagainstCovid19

 

A.

CSOs can only amplify the messages of @NCDCgov guidelines, #SocialDistancing etc.

I cannot speak about the medical or clinical aspect, but CSOs have also a role to play in monitoring palliative measures and how donations are applied or spent.

CSOs like @ZODML have assisted in efforts to provide facilities for online learning, but the main area of concern for most people is financial and #DomesticViolence: in both these CSOs can help identify those in need and also provide protection.

 

 

 

 

Q.

#CITADActionAgainstCOVID19

@naijama, recent revelation by @CivicHive shows that government mismanage funds meant for #COVID19 and they are yet to respond to the allegations. Looking at the sensitivity of this pandemic and some of the “I don’t care attitude by the government”

Can we relate this to why some people see this pandemic as a mere politics or money making venture by corrupt gov’t officials?

@a_sabo12 @nissimase @kamalkano @MubarakEkute @YZYau @macfound

 

A.

Full transparency is always key here, but when government picks out specific issues in what @CivicHive has said to dispute those, its silence on the others implies an acceptance that those other charges are correct.

With is full transparency (including from bodies like @cenbank about what it has received and what it is spending), such mismanagement will be difficult.

But when Nigerians see what @NDDCOfficialNGR spent on its own officials as ‘#COVID19 palliative’, there are bound to be …

… fears about how other bodies are spending #COVID19 funds, hence a lot of skepticism about how School Feeding and other palliative measures are being administered and the prices government claims to be paying for all these.

I don’t doubt that government’s fundamental hope is to defeat #COVID19 and send the #Coronavirus packing from Nigeria.

But when it continues to tolerate egregious examples of corruption in the administration of funds meant to fight the disease, it destroys the chance of doing so.

 

 

CITAD Charges Youth on Community Development

The Centre for Information Communication Technology (CITAD) has urged youth to engage in community development.

The Programme Manager CITAD, Salma Abdulwahid, who stated this on Wednesday, during the International Youths Day celebration webinar meeting with the theme: Youth Engagement for Global Action in Abuja, described youth as the leaders of tomorrow.

She said: “To make a great leader, we will have to start looking out for not only ourselves but for the people around us most especially the less privileged from our prime time. As youths, we should learn to volunteer willingly to contribute positively to our community and in return, the person in question will reach out, learn, and have experience in every activity involved in.”

She further urged youth to disengage from the monetary gain and engage in community service saying, “and all we need will surely come by eventually.”

Speaking, the representative of Actionaid Nigeria with the local right programme (LRP) Mr. Joseph Augustine, said the future Nigeria and the world at large is looking forward to is in the hands of young people. “We need to take charge, play roles especially in our local communities. The voices of young people have been subdued especially in those local communities due to politics, sidelining, cultural activities. These young people’s voices aren’t heard.

“The aim for this event is to create awareness for the young to know that they can drive change with their potentials wherever they find themselves. For instance, tungashere community didn’t have schools, but advocacy was used to acquire such by CITAD.

He urged youths to know their rights in their community, using such opportunity wisely to benefit all. Adding that, youths should harness their energies to have what is called the youth power.

“This power gives them the opportunity to speak on issues affecting them around rape, crisis, unemployment, gender base violence, not being included in decision making, drug abuse etc. Another important factor to note is for the youth to know their environment because one cannot solve a problem that one has no idea about.

Augustine advised youths to shun godfatherism and take example from the late South African leader, Nelson Mandela who is still celebrated till date for his selflessness.

Earlier, while presenting his paper on youths exploring opportunities from the grassroots, the CEO of Sarkin Noma foundation Mr. Hassan Sarkin Noma urged advised youth to leverage on the use of networking and ICT.

“Discover your advantage over others, be consistent, know the needs of your community, explore and offer something to your community. You should note that networking is paramount by thinking globally and act locally in order to change from what you’re doing. People in the rural areas are also of advantage these days in the sense that one can be anywhere and yet reach out to many anywhere. Like CITAD that has reached out to people in different communities, leveraging on what they are doing and making a change.”

31st Twitter Chat with Abdulaziz Abdulaziz Associate Editor Special Projects Premium Times Newspaper on Assessing the Performance of Media in Informing the Public About Covid-19 Pandemic

In its latest Twitter Chat series, Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) hosted Abdulaziz Abdulaziz, the Associate Editor of Special Projects, Premium Times. The conversation focused on “Accessing the Performance of Media in Informing the Public about Covid19 Pandemic”.

The Programme officer of CITAD, Ali Sabo welcomed the discussant to the newest edition of the Twitter chat series adding initiated by CITAD in an attempt to provide the society with necessary information and create awareness. He expressed that it’s a privilege to host the Premium Times Associate Editor on this platform. The discussion started unfolding with the statement from the discussant that discussing the role of media in fighting against #COVID19 is a salient one, looking at the centrality of the information architecture in the success or otherwise of a fight like this adding that the media’s role as a purveyor of information and an education tool is pivotal to development of any society. Beyond the rather archaic role of “inform, educate & entertain” the media today is a special purpose vehicle essential for catalyzing development.

Abdulaziz continued explaining that in this modern role of journalism, the media is beyond just a megaphone. It is a mirror and a sieve—a mirror that mirrors happenings, with a glimpse into their implications, and a sieve that separate the chaffs from the grains. The global media has played a front row role in the fight against #COVID19. This is broadly around awareness through timely & factual info, calming nerves and, most importantly, bursting falsehood. Nigerian media isn’t far away in this regard.

Moreover, the #COVID19 pandemic presented the media with a unique challenge, both internally (operations, finances, etc) and externally (how to report and what to report). This has affected the business of news production and dissemination.

Furthermore, under the circumstances, the Nigerian media, like their counterparts elsewhere, played momentous role in contributing to the fight against #COVID19. The media walked side-by-side with @NCDCgov and the healthworkers in battling the pandemic.

Responding to the question about misinformation, stigma and fake news being a problem in the fight against covid19 and How has the media perform to address these issues, the discussant express his thoughts to be the greatest tribute to the media in the #COVID19 fight is in the area of #factchecking and the fight against #fakenews. The media was upbeat in pointing out misinformation.

When asked whether he thinks the effort of Nigerian media have changed anything especially the perception of the general public about Covid19, Abdulaziz responded that It is not easy to answer this in “yes” or “no” term. It is one thing to have the right and adequate information and it is another to trust and believe such information. The Nigerian media has done a lot in making the right information available, adding that almost all Nigerian media organisations have devoted considerable space and time reporting #COVID19. There has also been appreciable level of data journalism inform of #factchecking & verification.

The discussant was also asked about his feelings about whether the media has covered the COVID-19 outbreak as it supposed to or whether there’s something else journalists could be doing in covering this event. He responded that what needs greater emphasis in this #COVID19 coverage is accountability journalism, especially on public finance and that there is need to look deep into expenditures around the #COVID19 response and ask vital questions.

At the end, Abdulaziz expressed his appreciation towards the centre for their efforts in driving conversation around #COVID19 awareness, and how to be accountable while battling the pandemic.

 

 

 

Engagements:

 

@ a_sabo12 Good afternoon all, Please welcome @Abdulfagge, Associate Editor, Special Projects @PremiumTimesng who is going to be discussing on Assessing the Performance of Media in Informing the Public about Covid19 Pandemic

 

 

@Abdulfagge Thanks to #CITADAgainstCovid19 for the conversation you are driving around #COVID19 awareness, and how to be accountable while battling the pandemic.

 

 

@Abdulfagge, on a scale of hundred, where can you place the Nigerian media in terms of providing the needed information about #COVID19 to the Nigerian public?

 

@ Abdulfagge Discussing the role of media in fighting against #COVID19 is a salient one, looking at the centrality of the information architecture in the success or otherwise of a fight like this.

 

@Abdulfagge The medias role as a purveyor of information and an education tool is pivotal to development of any society. Beyond the rather archaic role of inform, educate & entertain the media today is a special purpose vehicle essential for catalyzing development.

 

@Abdulfagge In this modern role of journalism, the media is beyond just a megaphone. It is a mirror and a sieve-a mirror that mirrors happenings, with a glimpse into their implications, and a sieve that separate the chaffs from the grains.

 

@Abdulfagge The global media has played a front row role in the fight against #COVID19. This is broadly around awareness through timely & factual info, calming nerves and, most importantly, bursting falsehood. Nigerian media isnt far away in this regard.

 

@Abdulfagge The #COVID19 pandemic presented the media with a unique challenge, both internally (operations, finances, etc) and externally (how to report and what to report). This has affected the business of news production and dissemination.

 

 

@Abdulfagge , on a scale of hundred, where can you place the Nigerian media in terms of providing the needed information about #COVID19 to the Nigerian public?

 

@Abdulfagge Under the circumstances, the Nigerian media, like their counterparts elsewhere, played momentous role in contributing to the fight against #COVID19. The media walked side- by-side with @NCDCgov and the health workers in battling the pandemic.

 

@MubarakEkute @Abdulfagge Misinformation, stigma and fake news has been a problem in the fight against covid19. How has been the performance of media in addressing these issues

 

@Abdulfagge I think the greatest tribute to the media in the #COVID19 fight is in the area of #factchecking and the fight against #fakenews . The media was upbeat in pointing out misinformation.

 

a_sabo12 Mr @Abdulfagge do you think the effort of Nigerian media have changed anything especially the perception of the general public about Covid19?

 

@Abdulfagge It is not easy to answer this in yes or noterm. It is one thing to have the right and adequate information and it is another to trust and believe such information. The Nigerian media has done a lot in making the right information available.

 

 

@Abdulfagge Almost all Nigerian media organizations have devoted considerable space and time reporting #COVID19. There has also been appreciable level of data journalism inform of #factchecking & verification.

 

@MubarakEkute @Abdulfagge How do you feel the media has covered the COVID-19 outbreak? What else could journalists be doing in covering this event?

 

@Abdulfagge What needs greater emphasis in this #COVID19 coverage is accountability journalism, especially on public finance. There is need to look deep into expenditures around the #COVID19 response and ask vital

 

 

@a_sabo12 It’s been a wonderful 1 hour engagement with @Abdulfagge , Associate Editor, Special Project @PremiumTimesng who discussed on Assessing the Role of Media in the Fighting against Covid19. Thank you so much for this wonderful engagement, sir & have a wonderful evening

 

@Abdulfagge Thanks a lot!

 

34TH Twitter Chat with Isyaku Garba, CITAD NBTE Coordinator and Community Mobilizer on The Role of Community Based Organizations in Combating Covid19 Pandemic in Nigeria

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), held its 34th Twitter Chat on the 4th of August, 2020. The guest was Mal. Isyaku Garba, CITAD NBTE Coordinator and Community Mobilizer. He discussed on the topic  “The Role of Community Based Organizations in the Fight against Covid19 in Nigeria” He started by describing what Community Based Organizations are “These are community initiated non-political, non-biased and non-profit making organizations, committed solely for the total upliftment and all round development of their communities. In Nigeria CBOs are best positioned to effectively carry out activities and plans affecting the lives of the communities: socio-eco development, natural resources management, environmental conservation or disaster management like COVID-19. CBOs are made up of community representatives and one of their aims is to ensure that decision makers take notice of community concerns. CBO role on combatting covid-19 may include:

Raise community awareness and promote community action on coronavirus issues & livelihood options, CBOs Sensitize stakeholders on the importance of helping people (Palliatives) in the community in this period. Sensitized Business people on not to be discourage with their Businesses, guide them according to the WHO and NCDC guidelines, Provide a platform for the community to come together and discuss what is Coronavirus; Analyze the causes and solutions (Preventives Measures Communicate with decision makers to share planned action and obtain their endorsement; Daily build their capacity on what WHO/NCDC says on COVID19.

 

This is a period to further build the CBOs capacity on the requisites mechanisms and strategies needed for a strong viable Organization and for sustainable development in the Era of Covid 19 therefore. Galvanize community members to implement planned solutions; sensitizations on the WHO/NCDC recommendations, Mobilize locally available resources to implement identified solutions e.g. Public Address System, Build capacity of community members on how the virus is and preventive measures.

 

In Nigeria CBOs working in combatting pandemic face a lots of Challenges and the challenges can be viewed mainly from 3 angles;  From the CBOs themselves, eg. Weak Management Structure, from the Authorities (Governments and Traditional Heads) and the Politicians in combatting Covid 19 Collaboration is necessary important because it is a new disease in the world, there is need to work with NCDC, Stakeholders and other Stronger bodies and Voice e.g. media houses both conventional and digital, in order to share experiences As mentioned earlier there are challenges, and the challenges can be viewed from 3 angles; from the CBOs themselves from the Authorities (Government and Traditional rulers) and the Politicians. For the Traditional group, their support for CBOs is sometimes difficult because of fear of their offices. Other Challenges which CBOs face include lack of the preventive measures tools e.g. Masks, Sanitizers that will assist them to carry out their work. Also due to social distances measures as recommended the target groups have low digital experiences that will allow CBOs to meet them virtually.

 

His recommendations to the CBOs are: focused on committed Leadership, Stronger bodies and Voice, Improved Coordination Partnership/Contacts with Health Units services, Stakeholders, Proper and Updated documentation improve digitalization of their work. Observe in their work diplomacy, courage, Sacrifice and equally avoid being easily intimidated, unnecessary talks and overlapping of schedules.

 

 

 

1.@ali_sabo Good afternoon everyone, Please join me in welcoming our guest for today’s twitter chat,

 

@isyaku12 a Community Mobilizer who is going 2 discuss on the Role of Community Based Organizations in the Fight against Covid19 in Nigeria

 

@a_sabo12 Sir, can u start by explaining what Community Based Organizations do in supporting their communities free Covid19 so that we will understand what really their functions are @isyaku12 @YZYau @ChiromaHope

 

  1. Answer Provide a platform 4 the community to come togethr and discuss what is Corona Virus; Analyse the causes and solutions (Preventives Measures Communicate wit decision makers to share plannd action n obtain their endorsemnt; dailyBuild their capacity on what WHO/NCDC says on COVID19

 

@mukhtars_s

 

Replying to @isyaku12 @a_sabo12 and 2 others

 

 

Sir as an expert, what do u think will help them to overcome such challenges u hv made mention

 

@MubarakEkute

 

#CITADagainstCovid19

 

@ChiromaHope

 

Replying to @a_sabo12 @ICTAdvocates and 9 others

 

Thank you Sir sparing your time just to be with us. We are grateful!

 

CITAD, IEE, MacArthur Foundation Train 100 Youths in Kano on COVID-19

The Centre for Information Technology and Development, CITAD has organised 10-day training for youths in Kano state on coronavirus diseases.

The training was supported by MacArthur Foundation in collaboration with International Institute of Education, IEE, the training tagged ‘ Youth Leadership Training on COVID-19 ‘ conducted online via Zoom Platform from the 17th – 28th July, 2020.

During first day of the training, Dr. (Pharmacist) Khalid Garba Muhammad of the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Bayero University, Kano has delivered a topic ‘ Understanding COVID-19, key symptoms and asymptomatic infection, mode of transmission’.

Meanwhile Dr. Kabiru Danladi Lawanti of the Department of Mass Communication, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria focused on the meaning and types of social media and use the platforms for passing message.

Lawanti also taught the participants how to create groups on Social Media and how to moderate such groups, also focused on monitoring and getting feedback.

On his part Mukhtar Halilu Modibbo, Community Engagement Officer at Connected development (CODE) dwelled on Community Mobilization, Identifying and Implementing Community Mobilization Activities’ .

He said ” the objective was on how to mobilize, persuade and spread their messages in their respective communities”.

Maryam Ado Haruna who is the head of JobberMan Partnership Program at CITAD discussed with the participants how to write a good Curricullum Vitae /Resume and cover Letter.

The Executive Director of CITAD, Mallam Y.Z Yau conducted a session on proposal writing as well how the participants could pitch their proposals.

The participants of the program who were selected from different communities based on the criteria set up by CITAD, after receiving many applications from interested candidates.

The trained youths are expected to carry out awareness activities on Covid19 in their respective communities.

However, the program carefully selected participants who have visibility on social media; Twitter, Facebooks, Instagram among others.

Participants laud CITAD, IEE, MacArthur Foundation
The participants of the 10-day training have commended the organisers of the training.

Narrating their experiences after the training, one of the participants, Hussaini Yunusa said ” before this training I and my friends didn’t believe Covid19 is real but with the training I came to realized that indeed covid19 is real and it exists”.

He added that ” This made me to inform my friends about the Youth Leadership Training on Covid19 which is aim to train young people that will go back and sensitize their communities and what is being discussed at the training”.

Another participant, Amina Alhassan narrated that ” with knowledge I acquired from the training I was able to change the perception of some women on COVID-19 I met in tricycle according to one of the women narrating how government is using the disease to get money from foreign countries while the other woman was saying that she has never seen a picture of a person that is infected by the virus or knows someone that seen the picture.

According to them it is only government that is manufacturing the numbers in order to scare people and get money.

I seized the opportunity and used the knowledge I gets from the training and lectured the women on why the disease is real”.

Sadik Abdurrahman believed that if there were organizations like CITAD who are sensitizing public and enlightening them about the dangers of Covid19 and how real it was just like the way HIV and Hepatitis are being discussed, the disease will easily be controlled in the society.

Abdurrahman has already started designing fliers containing messages on how to prevent the spread of COVID-1919.

32nd of Twitter Chat on How Covid19 Pandemic Disrupted Academic Calendar with Dr. Tunde Akanni held on 28th July, 2020-07-30

Academic activities plus all other human activities across the globe have been badly affected ever since the arrival of the new normal; better referred to as Corona Virus Pandemic. While most of the developed and developing nations are coming up with strategies to live with the new normal, Nigeria would not want to be left out in this since education is a most for any country to development but the question is, does Nigeria have enough structures to support learning amidst the new normal? Digital divide and lack of adequate power supply in Nigeria require no explanation for anyone living in the country for clear picture is seen by everyone including those without eyes. This is and many more concerns keep ringing in the minds of the students and the teachers of all level of academic learning. This is the reason the Centre for Information technology and Development (CITAD) consider discussing the topic “How Covid19 Pandemic Disrupted Academic Calendar in Nigeria” with Dr. Akin tuned Akanni, a lecturer with Lagos state University in its series of Twitter Chat that invites stakeholders from across many discipline to deliberate on the chosen thyme to educate and suggest better solution in a bid to finding a last solution for our dear nation.

Below is the twitter conversation as extracted from the platform:

  1. Good afternoon everyone, Please join me in welcoming our today’s guest of our twitter chat, Dr. @AkintundeAkanni, a lecturer with Lagos state University who is going to discuss on How Covid19 Pandemic Disrupted Academic Calendar in Nig. Welcome sir
  2. Good day to everyone attentive to CITAD series on Covid-19 #CITADagainstCovid19
  3. So, sir what are the consequences of this disruption?
  4. Unpleasant experience. Most university students being youngsters initially resigned to fate and took it as another holiday that it’s not. At LASU, management directed that we should move all lectures online. As efficient academics, we complied but digital divide is real
  5. Sir, you just spoke about digital divide which includes accessibility, affordability & speed, as academics you are doing anything in closing the gap in Nigeria?
  6. Sure, as researchers, we are proactive. Example: I teach Online Journalism, I also serve on the board of the Premium Times Center for Investig. Journ., PTCIJ. So, many of us aren’t just engaged with classroom but also the tech advancing industry relevant to our knowledge area
  7. In other words, we use our clout and connection s to also broker trendy training windows for our students. PTCIJ has trained students across all regions of Nigeria, as I speak.
  8. @AkintundeAkanni Can e-learning be a success or applicable in Nigeria? What are challenges and the solutions to the challenges?
  9. E-learning happens already. We just need to improve on it and get the best out of it. Don’t forget that some of our elders in the past actually enrolled program Mrs of correspondence colleges, some even based overseas
  10. @AkintundeAkanni The Educational sector has suffered immeasurable setbacks perhaps some online classes are on but What then becomes of children in the rural areas who for the most part,have no access to technology?
  11. That’s why I said the reality of digital divide defeats any enthusiasm that anyone may have for the continuity of school session
  12. @AkintundeAkanni Are there any lessons that actors in the education sector can learn from the effects of this pandemic on schools?
  13. Yes. Invest in relevant technology and teaching aids. Invest in training and re-training of relevant personnel.
  14. @AkintundeAkanni How can the syllabus going to be covered within 2 weeks now that the exit classes are going to start their external exams knowing fully well that the exams cover almost all the syllabus in the curriculum?
  15. Impossible situation. That smacks of desperation in my estimation
  16. @AkintundeAkanni What stopgaps have been put in place by schools and the government to ensure continuity of education?
  17. Pity, our govts have never been futuristic. ASUU demands for functional facilities are still being ignored, otherwise doing online lectures may not have constituted any huge task. What’s the big deal in providing free WiFi on all campuses?
  18. So pls, Dr. @AkintundeAkanni. is there any strategy to cover up the months teaching and learning gap created as a result of the COVID=19 schls closed down?

 

 

Cibiyar CITAD ta Horas Da Matasa Guda 100 Akan Hanyoyin Kariya Daga Cutar Korona

A kokarinta na ganinta ta dakile yaduwar cutar korona a fadin kasar nan, cibiyar bunkasa fasahar sadarwa ta zamani da ci gaban al’umma CITAD tare da tallafin gidauniyar MacArthur da kuma hadin gwiwar cibiyar ilimi ta ƙasa da ƙasa wato International Institute of Education (IEE) sun horar da matasa guda 100 a jihar Kano, akan yadda za a dakile bazuwar cutar ta korona.

Taron horaswar wanda ya gudana a dandalin intanet na Zoom ya dauki tsahon kwanaki goma sha daya.

Jami’in yaɗa labarai na cibiyar CITAD, Malam Ali Sabo ya bayyana cewa an gudanar da taron da nufin wayar da kan matasa akan yadda za su dakile yaduwar korona tare da tallafawa al’umma wajen ganin an samu takaitar cutar ta korona.

Malam Ali Sabo ya ƙara da cewa taron horaswar zai baiwa matasa damar zama jakadu nagari a cikin al’umma musamman a lokacin da buƙatar hakan ta taso.

Taron horaswar dai ya mayar da hankali ne kacokam akan yadda za a chanza tunanin matasa akan mummunar fahimtar da su ke ita akan cutar korona a jihar Kano.

Dakta Khalid Garba Muhammad na sashen kimiyyar hada magunguna na jami’ar Bayero da ke Kano, ya gabatarwa da matasan wata ƙasida mai taken “Yadda ake gane cutar korona, alamominta da kuma yadda ake bazata tare da hanyoyin dakile ta.

Dakta Khalid Garba ya buƙaci matasan da su yi amfani da kwakwalwarsu wajen bin hanyoyin kariya domin takaita bazuwar cutar a cikin al’umma.

A nasa bangaren Malam Kabiru Danladi Lawanti, wanda malami ne a sashen koyar da aikin jarida na jami’ar Ahmadu Bello da ke Zaria, ya buƙaci waɗanda su ka samun horon da su ƙirƙi wani dandali a shafukan sada zumunta tare kuma da bibiyarsu.
Malam Kabiru Danladi su mayar da hankali sosai akan bibiyar kafafe sada zumunta domin ganin abin da ya ke wakana.

A nata bangaren Maryam Ado Haruna wacce ita ce shugabar sashen wayar da kan al’umma tare da binciko guraben aiyukan yi, ta yi tsokaci akan yadda matasan za su rubuta takardar neman aiki tare kuma da tsara jadawalin bayanin karatu wato CV da kuma yadda za a fuskanci ganawa a lokacin da aka je neman aiki.

Babban Daraktan cibiyar ta CITAD Malam Y. Z Ya’u, ya ƙarƙare taron makalar da jan hankalin matsan wajen tsarawa tare da rubuta cikakken jadawali akan wani bincike. Malam Y. Z Ya’u ya ce cibiyar ta CITAD a shirye ta ke wajen bayar da tallafi domin gudanar da wannan bincike.

Hussaini Yunusa daya ne daga cikin wadanda su ka samu horon, ya bayyana cewa kafin ya samu wannan horon shi da abokansa ba su yadda akwai cutar korona ba, amma a yau ya tabbatar da cewa cutar ta korona gaskiya ce.

Ita ma Amina Sani wacce daya ce daga wadanda su ka amfana da horaswar, ta bayyana cewa a baya ba ta yadda da sanya takunkumi baki ba ko kuma bayar da tazara a lokacin taro, amma yanzu ta ga amfani sanya takunkumin baki tare kuma da bayar da tazara a lokacin haduwar jama’.

CITAD Trains 100 Youths on Leadership

By Abdulyassar Abdulhamid 

In its efforts to help in curtailing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in the country, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) in collaboration with MacArthur Foundation and the International Institute of Education (IEE) has trained 100 youths in Kano State. 

The training, tagged: ‘Youth Leadership Training on COVID-19’ was conducted online via zoom platform from July 17 to 28, this year.

 

A report by the Information Officer, CITAD, Malam Ali Sabo, yesterday said that the objectives of the training included enhancing the understanding of the participants of COVID-19 and how it can be curtailed.

 

Others are providing tools with which the participants would support community efforts in their domain to prevent spread of the virus, to enable youth to provide leadership in situation of emergency and to encourage them carry out sensitization efforts in their community using social media.

 

The trained youths are expected to carry out awareness activities on COVID-19 in their respective communities.

 

Resource persons of the training included Dr. (Pharmacist) Khalid Garba Muhammad of the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Bayero University, Kano; Kabiru Danladi Lawanti of the Department of Mass Communication, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria and Mukhtar Halilu Modibbo, Community Engagement Officer at Connected Development (CODE).

 

Others are Maryam Ado Haruna who is the head of JobberMan Partnership Program at CITAD and the Executive Director of CITAD, Malam Y.Z Ya’u.

CITAD Trains 100 Youth on COVID-19 Protocols

In its efforts to help in curtailing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Nigeria, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) with support from the MacArthur Foundation in partnership with the International Institute of Education (IEE) trained 100 Youth in Kano state.

The Training which was tagged Youth Leadership Training on Covi19 was conducted online via the Zoom Platform from the 17th of July to the 28th of July 2020.

In a statement by communications officer, CITAD, Ali Sabo said the training was done to enhance the understanding of the participants on COVID-19 and how it can be curtailed and to provide tools with which participants will support community efforts to prevent the spread of the virus

Ali Sabo added that the training has also enabled the youth to provide leadership in the situation of emergency in their respective communities.

. During the training, the emphasis was made on the area of behavior change which will help in changing the negative perspective many people have on the virus.

During the first session Dr. Khalid Garba Muhammad of the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Bayero University, Kano took the participants on the following Topic,  Understanding COVID-19, Key Symptoms, and Asymptomatic Infection, Mode of Transmission and Severity and Interventions to stop COVID-19 spread.

He also tasked them to take safety measures in order to limit transmission and concluded with Psychological and Mental Health Impact and Strategies to Manage the Virus.

On his part, a communications lecturer, Malam Kabiru Danladi Lawanti urged participants to create groups on Social Media and taught them ways to moderate such groups.

Malam. Lawanti also tasked them to focus more on social media monitoring and feedback.

On her part, Maryam Ado Haruna who is the head of the Jobberman Partnership Program at CITAD discussed with the participants on ways to write a good CV/Resume, Cover Letter, how to attend an interview, and what to avoid in writing CV/Resume.

Malam Y.Z Ya’u, the Executive Director of CITAD conducted a session on proposal writing as well how the participants could write good proposals since CITAD had informed them that those who pitch very good proposals would be given micro-grant.

Narrating their experiences after the training, one of the participants, Hussaini Yunusa said before the training he and his friends didn’t believe Covid19 is real but has now realized the existence of the disease.

On her part Amina Sani, another participant opined that she actually didn’t believe in wearing face marks either observing social distancing and she didn’t see any importance of doing that, but when she attended the training her perception has totally changed and now wears face mask wherever she goes and avoiding crowded environments.

10 Day Youth Leadership Training on Covid19 Organized by Centre For Information Technology and Development with Support From International Institute of Education and MacArthur Foundation Held Between The 17-28th, July, 2020

In its efforts to help in curtailing the spread of the deadly coronavirus in Nigeria, the Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) with support from MacArthur Foundation in partnership with International Institute of Education (IEE) trained 100 Youth in Kano state. The Training which was tagged as Youth Leadership Training on Covi19 was conducted online via Zoom Platform from the 17th of July to 28th of July 2020. The objectives of the training were:

  1. To enhance the understanding of the participants of COVID-19 and how it can be curtailed
  2. To provide tools with which participants will support community efforts in their community to prevent spread of the virus
  3. To enable youth provide leadership in situation of emergency in their community
  4. To encourage the participants, carry out sensitization efforts in their community using social media

 

The participants of the program who were selected from different communities based on the criteria set up by CITAD, after receiving many applications from interested candidates. The trained youth are expected to carry out awareness activities on Covid19 in their respective communities.

 

However, the program carefully selected participants who have visibility on social media; Twitter, Facebooks, Instagram etc. so that issues around covid19 in their communities will be escalated on such platforms to attract the attention of the appropriate authorities and members of their communities. During the training emphasis were made on the area of behavior change which will help in changing the negative perspective many people have on the virus in the state. On the first session of the training Dr. (Pharmacist) Khalid Garba Muhammad of the Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Bayero University, Kano took the participants: Understanding COVID-19, Key Symptoms and Asymptomatic Infection, Mode of Transmission and Severity and Interventions to stop COVID-19 spread on the first day of the training. While on the second day he continued with Individual Measures to keep safe and Limit Transmission; COVID-19 Care and Management and concluded with Psychological and Mental Health Impact and Strategies to Manage them.

The second module of the training was facilitated by Kabiru Danladi Lawanti of the Department of Mass Communication, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. The focused of his presentations in the first day were on Meaning and Types of Social Media, Use of Social Media to pass Message. In the second day of his session, Mr. Kabiru taught the participants how to create groups on Social Media and how to moderate such Groups. On the final day of his sessions, Mr. Lawanti focused on Monitoring and getting feedback. The third component of the course which commenced on the seventh day of the program, was on community mobilization. This was taken by Mukhtar Halilu Modibbo, Community Engagement Officer at Connected development (CODE) who discussed on Community Mobilization and Identifying and Implementing Community Mobilization Activities in the first day. The objective was on how to mobilize, persuade and spread their messages in their respective communities. On the second day of his session, he discussed on the concept of Community and Influencer, and Identifying Community Influencer. Maryam Ado Haruna who is the head of JobberMan Partnership Program at CITAD discussed with the participants how to write a good CV/Resume, cover Letter, how to attend an Interview and what to avoid in writing CV/Resume. This addition stemmed from the observation that many of the participants did not know how to prepare their CV as analyzed during the selection process.

On the final day of the training, Malam Y.Z Ya’u, the Executive Director of CITAD conducted a session on proposal writing as well how the participants could Pitch their proposals since CITAD had informed them that those who pitch very good proposal would be given micro grant. He took the participants on how to write a good proposal. However not all are to get the micro grant as they are limited and would be awarded on competitive basis. He also discussed guidelines and rules for the competition.

At the end of every class, exercises were given to the participants to test the level of their understanding, commitment and focus during the training. Also, during the training, attendance was made part of the requirements before a participant is issued a certificate. An evaluation questionnaire was served to get feedback from them.

SUCCESS STORIES

Narrating their experiences after the training, one of the participants, Hussaini Yunusa said before this training he and his friends didn’t believe Covid19 is real but with the training he came to realized that indeed covid19 is real and it exists. This made him to inform his friends about the Youth Leadership Training on Covid19 which is aim to train young people that will go back and sensitize their communities and what is being discussed at the training, Malam Husain said in the course of the conversation he was able to convince a handful number of people at the spot about the reality of the virus and it existence and he promise to continue enlightening his community members about the disease, WhatsApp Group, YLTCOVID19@CITAD, 22nd July, 2020. Another participant, Amina Alhassan narrated that with knowledge she acquired from the training she was able to change the perception of some women on covid19 she met on Adaidaita Sahu, according to her one of the women was discussing on how government is using the disease to get money from foreign countries while the other woman was saying that she has never seen a picture of a person that is infected by the virus or knows someone that seen the picture. According to them it is only government that is manufacturing the numbers in order to scare people and get money. Amina Alhassan seized the opportunity and used the knowledge she gets from the training and lectured the women on why the disease is real, she started by telling them that many have actually contracted the virus as against what people are saying and in many instances people can have the virus especially youth without showing any sign but they can infect others. She went further to discussed with them the importance of wearing face marks, washing hands regularly and maintaining social distancing, WhatsApp Group, YLTCOVID19@CITAD, 22nd July, 2020.

On her part, Amina Sani, another participant of the training narrated that she actually didn’t believe in wearing the face marks neither observing social distancing and she didn’t see any importance of doing that, but when she attended the training her perception is totally changed and now she wears it wherever she goes and avoided crowd places, she continued to state that she was at an ATM machine with her face mark and observing social distancing but the people there were laughing at her, telling her that COVID19 is a hoax but that didn’t discourage her and promise to spread the knowledge she gets, WhatsApp Group, YLTCOVID19@CITAD, 22nd July, 2020. On her part, Amina Musa declared that before the training she thought the coronavirus pandemic was over despite she being part of the most vulnerable ones to the virus, Amina continued to state that she for long not in the habit of wearing face marks or observing social distancing, but after participating at the training she fully understood the importance of wearing and observing social distancing YLTCOVID19@CITAD, 22nd July, 2020.

 

Sadik Abdurrahman believed that if there were organizations like CITAD who are sensitizing public and enlightening them about the dangers of Covid19 and how real it was just like the way HIV and Hepatitis are being discussed, the disease will easily be controlled in the society, WhatsApp Group, YLTCOVID19@CITAD, 27th July, 2020. Also, participants like Abubakar Salisu YLTCOVID19@CITAD, 23rd July, 2020, and Abdullahi Abdurrahman have already started designing fliers containing messages on how to prevent the spread of Covid19, what covid19 is all about and started sharing them on social media, this they pledge to continue doing in order to enlighten the general public and help in kicking out the virus from Kano state (https://web.facebook.com/abdullahi.abdurrahman.5/posts/1732868613519105.

 

Moreover, some participants like Abdurrahman Iguda (https://twitter.com/AIguda/status/1288547082421317639 https://twitter.com/AIguda/status/1286781030540685313) and Abubakar Muhammad Usman (https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3108487392534026&id=100001183888918  https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3084335118282587&id=100001183888918

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3083789558337143&id=100001183888918) on their part promised to focus their postings on social media like Facebook and twitter on the dangers of covid19, how it is being transmitted and what people need to do to protect themselves from contracting the virus. On his part, Ismail Auwal, said with the knowledge he acquired during the training he will go back to his community and sensitize his people especially Islamiyya schools on the dangers of the virus and how it would be curtailed, Zoom Meeting, 28th July, 2020. While Adamu Umar said the sessions of Creating Groups on Social Media, Monitoring and Getting Feedback had helped him to sensitize his community members on Covid19 Pandemic, YLTCOVID19@CITAD WhatsApp Group, 22nd July, 2020.

 

 

30th Twitter Chat with Dr Chris Kwaja on Responding to Covid19 In the Context of Conflict and Social Fragility

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD), held its 30th Twitter chat in the 21st of July 2020. The guest was Dr. Chris Kwaja Senior Lecturer and Researcher at Centre for Peace and Security Studies, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Adamawa State. He discussed on The Responding to COVID 19 in the context of conflict and social fragility.

He started by talking about the entrenched trust deficit between citizens and states which he said it was easy for communities to accept all manner of conspiracy theories regarding COVID19, especially through religious and traditional leaders. According to him, lockdown is one of the major challenges that posed to conflict management and Civil Society Activities were also hampered due to restrictions of movement. He went further to discuss about transparency and accountability in the way palliatives were distributed which has deepened trust deficit between government and its citizen. Kwaja said the Pandemic has also unraveled some underlying factors such as poverty, sexual and gender base violence and inequality which has dislocated people from their sources of livelihoods. He urge peace building actors to adapt new ways of community engagement in respond to the physical distancing guideline.

He emphasized on the need for conflict to design conflict programming and gender intervention which takes into consideration community level specifications. The use of excessive force by security agencies in enforcing lockdown also show conflict dynamics and how it affects the relationship between security agencies and citizens.

 

So far, the achievement is minimal in the area of community level intervention that are specific to conflict which is due to the pandemic, restriction of movement and fear of transmission has hindered the achievements. He further said that there is need to adopt a holistic approach in designing intervention and putting human aspects in perspective.

 

In conclusion, he said community outreach is an important tool for engendering community action and for donors to adopt flexible funding approaching ways that will enable local peace builders to adapt to new realities such as the Pandemic.

 

 

 

ENGAGEMENT:

 

  1. Good afternoon everyone & welcome to another episode of @ICTAdvocates’s twitter chat with Dr. @c_kwaja, Researcher & Senior Lecturer, Centre for Peace & Security Studies, MAUTECH, Yola who will be speaking Responding to Covid19 in the Context of Conflict & Social Fragility @YZYau
  2. Welcome on board Dr. @c_kwaja! We look forward to tapping from your wealth of experience.
  3. The pandemic also exacerbated a trust deficit that has been on ground between citizens and the Nigerian state.
  4. Today in @ICTAdvocates’s Series of Twitter Chat on Covid19 Dr. @c_kwaja,Senior Lecturer & Researcher, Centre for Peace & Security Studies,MAUTECH, Yola, Adamawa will discuss on Responding to COVID19 in the Context of Conflict & Social Fragility. Responding to COVID-19 in the context of conflict and fragility…what opportunities exist? In the context of conflict end fragility in a Nigeria, COVID – 19 emerged amidst an already strained relations among & between communities faced with conflicts and violence linked to insurgency, farmer / herder tensions and organized crimes.
  5. @c_kwaja what are the critical principles that can help guide country-level response efforts in those conflict challenging settings? Total readiness for emergency represents the first principles. We because we did not plan, we were all caught unaware and unprepared.
  6. Due to an already entrenched trust deficit between citizens and state, it was easy for communities to accept all manner of conspiracy theories regarding the pandemic. Particular from religious leaders and the media.
  7. Are there challenges that response to #COVID19 posed to conflict mitigation and social fragility sir? The lockdown was one major challenge that Covid-19 posed to conflict management. The activities of civil society actors were also hampered due to restriction in movements.
  8. Sir, in most States, COVID19 palliatives are given to party-men instead of persons affected by the pandemic… Can we rightly say, response to COVID19 has further expose structural violence in Nigeria? The lack of transparency and accountability that defined the way and manner the covid-19 palliatives were distributed further deepened the trust deficit between citizens and the Nigerian state.
  9. Peacebuilding actors had to adapt to a new normal of community engagement in ways that responded to the new reality of keeping social distancing while building peace.
  10. From a conflict sensitivity perspective, what are the concerns about COVID-19 interventions in conflict-affected contexts and the solutions to the aforementioned issues?
  11. Covid -19 also exacerbated other underlying stressors such as poverty and inequality due to the lockdown that further dislocated people from their sources of livelihoods.
  12. Violent conflict often exacerbates the spread of infectious diseases, as seen in the recent resurgence of polio in Syria, cholera outbreaks in the conflict zones in Yemen?  How can you explain this in relations to Covid-19 and Nigeria?
  13. The covid-19 also witnessed a drastic rise in cases of sexual and gender based violence became key source of tensions within families and communities.
  14. Despite the fragility that defines the capacity of state institutions to respond to covid-19, communities there were real stories of coordinated action by communities, leveraging on their social networks and capitals.
  15. Across communities in Nigeria, social distancing was a new normal with huge implications for person to person interactions, which was a major agency for community harmony.
  16. With the current pandemic and the guidelines being enforced, the success of existing community-based social cohesion programmes may be greatly threatened. How can we achieve this in conflict areas? Conflict programming and interventions that takes into consideration the community level specificities should be designed. Social cohesion is threatened when the communities are not involved in the design of interventions that affects them.
  17. @c_kwaja coronavirus and terrorism are both disastrous security threats. How can we manage the two professionally as a nation? Terrorism and covid -19 are two threats that requires different handling or response approaches – both kinetic and non-kinetic.
  18. The use of excessive force by security agents in enforcing the lockdown also exacerbated conflict dynamics, particularly as it affects relations between citizens and security agencies. Cases of torture, deaths and other rights violations.
  19. So far, not much has been achieved in the area of community level interventions that are specific to conflict. This is due to the pandemic, restrictions on movements and fear of transmissions.
  20. Sir @c_kwaja, based on available figures, can we say Nigerian government is doing enough in responding to #COVID19 especially in vulnerable regions? In assessing effectiveness and impact of response, contexts becomes important. Hence, the need to adopt a holistic approach to designing interventions, in ways that capture all aspects of human life.
  21. @c_kwaja how will COVID-19 pandemic affect the teeming population of youths in the North east/conflict areas? Covid-19 came with huge shock for the youths, under an environment of already shrinking opportunity / space for social mobility. It further heightened this tension.
  22. Monies meant for developed were channeled towards the fight against covid-29, which meant that developed related interventions were stalled. Here the youths are the worst hit since they constitute the productive age of the country.
  23. Going forward, it is evident that community outreach programming is an important tool for engendering community action. The use of key mediums such as town criers and community radios are key.
  24. for donors, there is a need to design and adopt a flexible funding approach in ways that will allow local peacebuilders redirect adapt to new realities such as the Covud-19.
  25. Community radio now constitute key areas that should be explored and investments made by both state and non-state actors. This is one sure way of keeping the communities informed in order to checkmate fake news and mid-information.
  26. Here we come to the end of today’s twitter chat, on behalf of @ICTAdvocates’s E.D, @YZYau I will like to use this opportunity to thank u for being with us at this hour to discuss & enlighten us on this important topic. Have a wonderful evening, sir @c_kwaja @macfound @IIEglobal
  27. Thank you Sir @c_kwaja for sharing your time just to be with us. We found this session very educative and we are indeed grateful for the gesture.

 

29th Twitter Chat with Dr Umar Muhammad Sani, Casualty Officer and Coordinator of Covid-19 A&E Triage and Screening Team of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital, Bauchi On the Realistic Approach to Living with Covid-19 In Nigeria

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) held its 29th Edition of Twitter Chat on 15th July 2020 with Dr. Umar Muhammad Sani as the discussant. Dr. Umar Muhammad Sani is the Casualty Officer and Coordinator of COVID-19 A&E Triage and Screening Team of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi and he spoke extensively on the Realistic Approach to Living with COVID-19 in Nigeria.

 

Dr. Umar began the chat by giving a background of the COVID-19 cases and impact in the world. He said the pandemic had exerted a toll on the healthcare systems, economies and many activities have come to a standstill. He said with cases rising globally, there are estimates that show that the pandemic will extend to 2021. Dr. Umar was of the belief that with figures rising daily, there is no way the virus can be defeated living normal lives and plans to resume activities does not equal the defeat of the virus but a step towards reviving the struggling economy.

 

One of the impacts of the pandemic to pupils being out of classes and he reported that an estimate puts 46 million pupils out of classes in Nigeria while globally the estimate is 1.4 billion pupils. During the chat, Dr. Umar stated that though the lockdown is a good way to slow the spread of COVID-19, it might not be sustainable but using masks, hand washing and physical distancing are among the many ways people can protect themselves and others and at the same time curb the spread of the virus. He urged the need for everyone to know the true facts of the COVID-19 because misinformation is deadly. The increase in mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, substance abuse and weight gain by those under lockdown are some of the challenges brought upon by the pandemic. Some of the challenges noted by the discussant include poor health systems, the challenge of effective physical distancing because of overcrowded schools, markets and work places as well as the 43% jobs which have been lost by the Nigerian population. Dr. Umar suggested individuals protecting themselves and others by following set guidelines and protocols and getting news only from verified sources as approaches to living with COVID 19 in Nigeria.

 

ENGAGEMENT:

 

  1.     Dr. Do you think people can still continue with their normal lives and at the same time defeat Covid19?

 

Not so fast. As you can see the figures keep rising, there is no way we can defeat the virus living our normal lives. Plans to resume activities does not equal the virus is defeated. It’s a step to revive the struggling economy. Let look at some facts already

 

  1.     Does that means economy is place above people’s lives, sir?

Never. Worldwide, plans are being put in place to learn how to live with the virus. And we cannot be any different. From earlier statistics and estimates, the virus is here to stay. The sad reality is that while lockdown is a good way to slow spread, it might not be sustainable

An estimate puts 46 million pupils out of classes in Nigeria. That’s huge and globally its 1.4 billion with another 40 million girls not able to return to classes for many reasons. Before resuming, there are realities we have to deal with first

 

  1.     Dr. @umsani05, we have seen in many instances where law enforcement agents stop individuals and groups from getting into hospitals and other public places for not wearing masks and let only those with masks in.
  2.     I think the #coronavirusdisease is more sinister than we think, and our calling it a mere respiratory disease doesn’t do us any good. I also think we Nigerians need to get to take this disease more seriously as figures continue to escalate by the day. Not so fast. As you can see the figures keep rising, there is no way we can defeat the virus living our normal lives. Plans to resume activities does not equal the virus is defeated. It’s a step to revive the struggling economy. Let look at some facts already

 

  1.     Sir, In Comparing country responses to Covid-19 pandemic, how can you rate Nigeria?

Well, we have seen various responses by governments and authorities.

Some have been heavily criticized. Sometimes politicized and some have made really remarkable efforts worth emulating. We are a struggling economy battling with recessions already. It’s a tough call

 

  1.     Dr. @umsani05. In your comment to @a_sabo12 Question u said before resuming, there are realities we have to deal with first. What are they?  @ICTAdvocates

Replying to @mukhtars_s@a_sabo12 and @ICTAdvocates hurriedly 1. Our health systems are weak pre covid 19, what are plans in place to revive the most vital sector 2. Physical distancing will be difficult in our already overcrowded schools, markets, work places. 3. Jobs have been lost on an already poor population (abt43%)

 

  1.     Is there any vaccine at hand that can take care of the virus or any effort put in place to Producing a vaccine and what need to be done in this regard?

Yes there are many trials and some of them promising. Some are already in the 1st phase. But experts say that a fast track vaccine devt process could speed a successful candidate vaccine in 12 to 18 months assuming all goes smooth

 

  1.     Dr. @umsani05, we have seen in many instances where law enforcement agents stop individuals and groups from getting into hospitals and other public places for not wearing masks and let only those with masks in.

 

  1.     Sir, can you educate us on the ways to live with this deadly virus since it is inevitable living with it?

 

  1. We are also having an increase in mental health problems, like anxiety and depression. Also is substance abuse. 4. People staying at home are gaining weight. We need physical activities to curb the epidemic of obesity

 

  1.    But what confuses me is, majority of the people with the masks have it only on their neck. Leaving the mouth and the neck open. Does that means the law enforcement agent don’t know what the mask is meant for?

That’s a very wrong practice and poses a health risk to the wearer. It gets contaminated and that could compromise safety. Even those enforcing at times use it wrongly. We need increased awareness to educate the public on proper mask usage

Using masks and physical distancing are among the many ways we can protect ourselves and others from the spread of the virus. Other means are washing hands. We have to play our part as responsible citizens to contribute our part in containing the pandemic

  1.    Sir, can you educate us on the ways to live with this deadly virus since it is inevitable living with it?
  2. We are also having an increase in mental health problems, like anxiety and depression. Also is substance abuse. 4. People staying at home are gaining weight. We need physical activities to curb the epidemic of obesity

 

  1.    Dr. @umsani05, we have seen in many instances where law enforcement agents stop individuals and groups from getting into hospitals and other public places for not wearing masks and let only those with masks in.

 

  1.    Is there any vaccine at hand that can take care of the virus or any effort put in place to Producing a vaccine and what need to be done in this regard?

Yes there are many trials and some of them promising. Some are already in the 1st phase. But experts say that a fast track vaccine devt process could speed a successful candidate vaccine in 12 to 18 months assuming all goes smooth

 

  1.    But what confuses me is, majority of the people with the masks have it only on their neck. Leaving the mouth and the neck open. Does that means the law enforcement agent don’t know what the mask is meant for?

That’s a very wrong practice and poses a health risk to the wearer. It gets contaminated and that could compromise safety. Even those enforcing at times use it wrongly. We need increased awareness to educate the public on proper mask usage

Using masks and physical distancing are among the many ways we can protect ourselves and others from the spread of the virus. Other means are washing hands. We have to play our part as responsible citizens to contribute our part in containing the pandemic.

Rise of Domestic Violence and other Related Violence Against Women in the Context of Lockdown Occasioned by the COVID-19 Pandemic In Nigeria

By

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD),

Kano, Nigeria

1.INTRODUCTION

Technology, especially communication and information technology (ICT) is only a tool for personal development but also an everyday tool for personal empowerment. It helps to activate individual and collective agency, just as it can be used to suppress such collective and individual agency. In the context of patriarchal setting, it can be used by women and girls to both subvert and demystify patriarchal of control of women life. But it is also used as tool to silence women, widened economic and political and marginalization. Technology is not just a neutral tool. It is application of a patriarchal thinking and their insertion in society is informed by these experiences and thinking that have gone into their making. In this sense, as a product of patriarchal system, it is inserted in the ways in which patriarchy has thought to control and dominate the life of women.

Within the content of Nigeria, CITAD has documented[1] various dimensions of an insidious gender related digital divide in which women and girls in general do not have the same opportunities to access and use ICTs as their male counterparts. This gender digital dimension is not just about access but also in the very ways in which technology itself is used or misused[2]. In this content, we have found that gender-based violence and online harassment have been deployed to intimidate women and squeeze them out of the cyber space, while it can be used to report instances of gender violence by women, it has been used to maintain such oppressive use that dehumanizes women.

At the individual level, most women do not have access to the technology so that when they are subjected to domestic violence or other forms of gender related abuse, they cannot access the technology to report, government it itself  has not taken measures to ensure women have access  to and use to technology so that they can protect themselves against both offline and online harassments.

As countries across the globe struggle to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, concerns are being raised about the effect of the pandemic on Domestic and Gender Based Violence (GBV) and this intersects with technology both as facilitator and tool to counter such violence in all countries affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Countries across the globe have made various efforts to suppress transmission of COVID-19 and to mitigate its socio-economic impacts. This unprecedented crisis unfolds in the context of many pre-existing challenges, one of which is the gendered dimensions of access to basic necessities in a world rife with gender inequality. These challenges are now exacerbated by the pandemic and have a disproportionate impact on women’s enjoyment of human rights including economic, social and cultural rights.

Lockdowns have been one of the globally supported measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and mitigate its impact on public health. What this means for many women and girls, however, is that they are trapped at home with abusive spouses, partners and family members with limited access to support services. In the context of COVID-19, Technology advances have allowed intimate partner to take violence in a new form, as the victim is stalk to her abuser. The abuser has more access to the victims’ private information, control over online accounts and use of electronic devices to track victim’s whereabouts.

 

Gender-Based violence (GBV) increases during every type of emergency whether economic crises, conflict or disease outbreaks. Pre-existing toxic social norms and gender inequalities, economic and social stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with restricted movement and social isolation measures, have led to an exponential increase in Gender Based Violence. Many women are in lockdown at home with their abusers while being cut off from normal support services.

 

Nigeria has long been facing a gender-based violence crisis, with women and girls having experienced sexual abuse. Lack of coordination amongst key stakeholders and poor implementation of legal frameworks, combined with entrenched gender discriminatory norms has hampered government and civil society efforts to address Gender Based Violence. These efforts have been further compromised by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The pandemic has seen the diversion of priorities and resources and resulted in a surge of reports of gender-based violence. For Survivors of domestic and sexual violence, the internet can quickly become a scary place to interact. Concerns about privacy invasion, stalking, harassment, impersonation, non-consensual intimate image sharing and other threats can leave people like they have no choice but to avoid online entirely. In such case, it is vital to protect online activities and understand the ways in which technology may compromise your safety.

The lockdown has also compromised access to life-saving services and justice at a time when these are needed most. Many one-stop centres and domestic abuse shelters have been forced to close or provide limited services. Strict movement restrictions have meant that survivors are unable to access centres and shelters, having to rely on hotlines to receive any kind of support. With the inadequate internet facilities and lack of data in rural areas in Nigeria, that has led to rural women and girls suffering more during the pandemic because their voices cannot be heard on the social media. Such cases, seeking for help will be difficult for them as they are stalked with their abuser. Although some Nigerians, who have access to internet used the advantage of social platforms to make their voices heard and to seek justice. Hashtags were created and relevant authorities were tagged,

 

Within the context of COVID 19, several factors are lending themselves to a heightened risk of violence for women and girls in Nigeria and technology facilitated abuse has been given little attention in government initiative aimed at tackling domestic violence. This prompted CITAD to carry this research to find out how Lockdown has impacted Domestic and Gender Based Violence in Nigeria in the content of unequal access to and use of technology and a use both facilitates and gratifies the use of violence and violence-against women sanctioning message. CITAD conducted Focus Group Discussions with Journalists, CSOs, Students and women in General. Also Conducted Key Informant Interview, organized Web Seminar, twitter chat and a desktop research. The submission was however derived from the findings.

 

Therefore, CITAD posits that government both federal and states need to review the laws related to Gender Based Violence and also ensure to recent events and implementable as well as consider the articulation and implementation of a national gender digital inclusion agenda that will facilitate the bridging the gender digital divide and make easy for women to appropriate technology and use it as part of the tools in the fight against gender violence and the silencing of women in the society. .

 

2.CONTENT AND CONTEXT

Gender Based Violence is violence directed against a person because of their gender; although GBV cuts across the male and female gender, history has shown that it is most prevalent against women and girls and it is rooted in power inequalities between men and women. In some communities in Nigeria, it is a welcome behaviour for men to beat up women and they have no say when it comes to sex. In both work and home settings, there has been violence against women, girls and children. The ineffective implementation of Nigerian laws has led to increase in GBV because the Nigerian constitution does not discriminate against anyone but these days the rights of women and people living with disabilities (PWDs) are not considered[3]. Also, the failure of some states to domesticate laws such as the Child Rights Acts has been an impediment in prosecuting cases of violence against children; so far, 21 states have domesticated the Child Right Act in Nigeria. In those states some progress has been made in prosecution of abusers and further policies are put in place to further aid the prosecution of cases such as the case in Ekiti State where an accused abuser is not released on bail until the case is prosecuted fully by the court of law. However, in those states with no Child Rights Act passed, prosecuting of such cases has been greatly inhibited. The same can be said of the Violence Against People Prohibition Act (VAPP) which was enacted in 2015 to tackle the increase of GBV by prohibiting and criminalising GBV. The VAPP has been domesticated only in four states in Nigeria. The belief of families of victims of GBV to settle cases of GBV out of court so as not to soil the family name has overtime fueled the culture of silence by victims as perpetrators of these acts go free while scouting for their next victims.

The COVID 19 was declared a global pandemic in December 2019 and various regulations were put in place so as to curb its spread. In Nigeria, lockdown in some states were put in place from March 2020 till date.

On 27th February, 2020, the first case, the national index was reported in Lagos of an Italian who was working in a company in the country. A few days later a number of cases were reported in Abuja which included two high profile patients who have contacts with the highly place government officials. this made government to step up contact tracking and when further tests were conducted three governors, among other government officials tested positive, by this time the numbers in Lagos and Ogun state were relatively large and government had to close these two states along with the Federal capital territory, these measures were not effective and the virus continued to spread in those state as well as in other states of the federal. Following this, on Sunday, 29th March, 2020, the President of federal government directed residents of Lagos and Ogun States as well as the Federal Capital Territory to stay at home for an initial period of fourteen days starting from Monday, 30th March 2020/ this was the beginning of the lockdown, although at this stage it was limited to these areas. A legal instrument, the Quarantine Order was signed by the President on 30th March

Basically, this order (Quarantine Act, COVID-19 Regulation No 1) required all people excluding those on essential services to remain at home 24 hours and

  1. All businesses were closed down
  2. Not intercity or interest travels
  3. All borders were closed
  4. All public service, including the courts were closed

This order was originally meant to last for a period of two weeks. However, by 13th April, 2020 when the president made his second Address, “Many State Governments also introduced similar restrictions” and the president through Quarantine Act, COVID-19 Regulation No 2 announced on April 13 extended the original order by another 14 days with effect from Tuesday, April 14.

  1. Selected businesses and offices can open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.;
  2. There will be an overnight curfew from 8 pm to 6 a.m. This means all movements are will be prohibited during this period except essential services;
  3. There will be a ban on non-essential inter-state passenger travels until further notice;
  4. There will be partial and controlled interstate movement of goods and services will be allowed to allow for the movement of goods and services from producers to consumers, and
  5. We will strictly ensure the mandatory use of face masks or coverings in public in addition to maintaining physical distancing and personal hygiene. Furthermore, the restrictions on social and religious gathers shall remain in place. State Governments, corporate organisations, and philanthropists are encouraged to support the production of cloth masks for citizens.

Just as there has been a rise in global cases of GBV which have affected mostly the female gender, Nigeria has not been an exception as there has also been a spike in GBV cases. This has been aggravated because victims are locked in with their victims and they do not have access to places where they can report this violence. This is further made worse by the fact that women, generally do not have access to information technology that could allow them to report these instances of abuse easily. Access to Internet is constrained for women by among other factor, poverty, poor educational accomplishment, and social inhibitions such as men not wanting women to use social media and fear of the internet by women in part due to prevalence of online gender harassment[4].

It is true that cases of GBV have increased worldwide for the past couple of months and Nigeria has not been an exception. According to the President of FIDA, 72 cases of GBV were recorded in the first two weeks of lockdown and these cases have been on the increase. To collaborate this statistics, a brief prepared by UN Women on behalf of UN system in Nigeria on 4th of May 2020 reports that the number of reported cases in the 6 geopolitical zones of Nigeria have increased between the month of March and April 2020 with the South West leading with an increase from 91 cases to 296 cases, 67 cases to 156 cases in the North Central, 50 cases to 115 cases in the North East, 36 cases to 92 cases in the South East, 52 cases to 87 cases in the North West and 18 cases to 35 cases in the South South.

However, it should be noted that the brief released by the UN system in Nigeria clearly stated that the published data are reported cases, one is left to ponder on the number of cases which were/are not reported. This was glaringly portrayed in the trends on social media in the months of May and June 2020 when women broke the culture of silence and spoke on how they have been sexually abused in the past and called for both the government and individuals to set measures in place to curb violence against women of all ages. These calls for justice for those who are victims of GBV were pushed majorly by the youths on various social media platforms such as Twitter, Face book and Instagram and pockets of peaceful demonstration in some states across the country.

The government has not done enough in setting in place measures which cases can be reported and prosecuted even before the COVID 19 crisis and this shortcoming has become more glaring as GBV has become a shadow epidemic within the COVID 19 epidemic. Some steps had been put in place such as the emergence of the gender desks at police stations however; there is still need for rigorous training in how these cases should be handled from the point of reporting as this directly influences the success or failure of reported cases. There is still a strong culture of silence as victims are blamed for simply being victims and questioned on clothes worn and being in the “wrong” place at the wrong time. This culture of blaming and stigmatising the victim, whilst taking emphasis and the blame off the abuser has shown that much more needs to be done so as to change already established perceptions; and turn tides around. The situation has looked grim for a long time, but right now; hope flickers are at the horizon as more people are speaking out against rape and calling for justice for GBV victims. On social media platforms, the hash tags #WeAreTired #SayNoToRape #NoToGBV #JusticeForUwa #JusticeForTina #JusticeForBarakat #No2Rape #RealMenDontRape. These hash tags were used all by individuals to call the attention of both government and the society to the GBV in the country during the lockdown, Also the media has been active in reporting cases of GBV. Media houses like Premium Times mention published news on rape cases and its ongoing police investigations such as the case of 11 suspects who allegedly raped 12-year-old in Jigawa State. Channels TV; another reckoned media house in Nigeria also reported rape cases across the country. The government taking steps to put in policies in place which will checkmate GBV and the victims daring to speak out even when threatened GBV,

  1. METHODOLOGY

The study used a multiple approach of a six-tool art design to generate information and insights on the on the impacts of lockdown on sexual and gender-based violence. As a result of the pandemic, the research was carried out virtually and none of the research activity involved any physical contacts. WhatsApp, Zoom, Twitter and mobile phone calls were used as the platforms for communication throughout the research. The tools included desktop review, online questionnaire administration, focus group discussions, Key Informant Interview (KII), Web Seminar and Twitter Chat. All relevant responses generated from any of the above mechanism were adequately used and, in some cases, integrated into other similar responses.

  1. LIMITATIONS

A side from the context of the report which made it difficult to engagement stakeholders more intimately, the report suffers some limitations, including:

  • There are no known robust observatories for report of data and incidences of gender-based violence in the country. While there are many organizations working and responding to distress calls from victims, these organizations do not keep data over a long period. For example, WRAPA, one of the most consistent and focused organization in the sector, it has only data of reported cases during the lockdown and not logged data for pre-lockdown period. In this way, there is no pre -COVID period to make an empirical judgement and therefore conclusions are drawn mainly from responses and experiences of several organizations working on the issue as well as personal testimony of respondents. As this research has shown technology can be used to gather accurate data about domestic violence and gender harassment given that much of the data obtained here was through the use of technology. This is even more so in the context of COVID-19 which restricts movement and therefore reporting has to be via technology. But this lack of data could also be an indication of the extent to which women have limited access to technology as a consequence of the digital gender divide.
  • Our FGDs did not cover the whole country. We sampled only three out of the six geo-political zones of the country.
  • The limited time we had did not allow us to wait and get more responses from the online questionnaire and also do more KIIs.
  • Also, for the same reason, we could not interview the many organizations working on this issue to interrogate the data they have in their custody. For example, the Inspector General of the Nigeran Police Force, in a report to the President, in May asserted that there was a high rice in rape cases across the country under the lockdown. It will have been useful to have a look at the data the police have.

 5.FINDINGS

5.1 COVID-19 and the Increase in Domestic and Sexual Violence

Since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019, there has been a spike of domestic and gender-based violence worldwide. Countries with higher GDPs such as Sweden or lower GDPs as Sudan, are not spared the raging havoc left in the wake of COVID-19 across states, cities, towns, and rural areas. Countries with lockdowns, partial or full, are recording spikes in domestic and gender-based violence. In response to this, the United Nations has raised alarm regarding the increase of reported cases directly attributed to forced proximity occasioned by lockdowns[5].

As many media reports have indicated, there has been a rapid increase in domestic and sexual violence against women and girls in Nigeria. This is publicly acknowledged as 92% of our survey respondents said they are aware of the increase in gender violence against women and girls, and 69.1% said they believed the increase as a result of the restrictive measures imposed to curtail COVID-19. In addition to that, all FGD respondents to this study said they have noticed a drastic increase in different forms of violence against women and girls which they heard either by proximity, from traditional media and or social media. The findings also from the Twitter chat, desktop review and web seminar have proven the same. A number of Information released by National Human Right Commission on Twitter on sexual and domestic violence is also disturbing and alarming.

Although there are no available statistics accurately covering all incidents of SGBV in Nigeria, however statistics from different state governments, CSOs organisations have proven the surge.

For instance, Lagos state alone has recorded rising cases of domestic violence during the last Coronavirus lockdown, with figures jumping to 697 cases in less than two months compare to 791 cases recorded in 10 months before the lockdown was imposed; May 2019 and February 2020[6].

In the Web seminar conducted for the purpose of this submission, Rhoda Tyden the National President of Women Lawyers Federation of Nigeria commonly known as FIDA lamented that the increase is very high as indicated from the reports she received daily from their 33 branches across the country. According to her, after the first two weeks of the lockdown, 70 cases of GBV were recorded and this number has continued to be on the increase. FIDA receives new cases on daily basis where women are violated sexually, psychologically, including economic deprivation. “One of the things that have aggravated the GBV is the regulation which was put in place to curb the spread of COVID 19 because victims are locked in with their abusers daily” the president said, describing the increase as impacts of the pandemics. WRAPA also recorded 40 cases over the period from February to May with February being outside the lockdown period. The figure below give show the data from WRAPA mapped over the period. As can be seen the data show case of increasing cases of domestic violence over the lockdown period.

 

Since the lockdown in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, ActionAid Nigeria and her partners have documented a total of 253 cases of Gender-Based Violence in Bauchi, Cross River, Enugu, Kebbi and Kwara States,” Ms Ene Obi said, adding “we have never been more alarmed about the cases of Gender-Based Violence in Nigeria than in recent times. Girls, Women, young and old now live in fear as they are no longer safe even in their own homes[7].

Immediately after the Uwa case occurred and got so much public attention, many more sordid cases had been reported. There had been the case of 18-year-old Barakat Bello in Ibadan who was also raped to death, the 12-year-old girl in Jigawa raped by 12 men including a 67-year old man, the 13-year-old Elizabeth Ochanya Ogbanje who was a victim of her guardian’s criminal tendency. The Daily Trust edition of June 6, 2020 stated that 65 cases of rape had been reported between January and the first week of June 2020.[8]

In our Twitter chat, Niri Goyit the Project Coordinator of North Women’s Voice and Leadership Project, ActionAid Nigeria, explained that the FCT branch of FIDA use to have about 40 cases of domestic cases per month, but this has risen to 60 incidences per month during the lockdown.

ASH Foundation with partners in Bauchi state use to manage about 10 cases per month but handled 37 cases of rape and domestic violence in the month of May alone while the In Nigeria, Domestic Violence Referral Centre in Lagos reported about a 35% increase.”[9]

One KII respondent lamented that there is surge increase of SGBV where perpetrators are family members or acquittance. People now had no values for their immediate family. Before now, family members would go to all length to protect their families against perpetrators. Today there are scenarios of father raping his own daughter, brothers raping sisters, old men raping babies of months. this is something that society needs to critically look at the contemporary rape scenarios and why it is becoming so prevalent these days. In line with this opinion thus, our survey respondents think that 70.1% of sexual and domestic violence are husband, brothers, family members, fathers, and neighbours are mostly the perpetrators of violence against women and girls.

In the web seminar, Lauratu Abdulsalam of ACT/British Council lamented that women and men are passing through this difficult time and GBV increases during the time of an emergency situation. She reported that between March and April 2020, GBV cases has increased from 60 to 228. The cases have drastically increased because of the total lockdown, and the cases in states with strict lockdown have more increment as compared to states with lesser lockdown.

Dr. Abiola Akiode-Afolabi highlighted that in Lagos, Ogun, and the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, since the lockdown, the most common gender-based violence reports recorded include spousal violence, landlord-tenant violence, neighbor-to-neighbor violence, parent-children abuse, homeowner-house help violence, boyfriend-girlfriend violence, violence on widows, police-sex worker violence, police-citizen violence, visitor-caught-in-lock-down child rape.[10]

At least 85.1% of our survey respondents said they personally knew from one to ten cases that they knew had occurred during lockdown.

5.2 Impacts of Technology on the Victims during Lockdown

In its response to this study, WRAPA has reported a significant level of increase in the incidence of reported and unreported GBV in the context of COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. At its headquarters in FCT, WRAPA receives an average of seven (7) direct calls from victims on the organizations three dedicated helplines. Eight to ten (8-10) daily incidence reports are also registered on the WhatsApp platforms. At neighborhood, family or acquaintance levels, WRAPA staff do receive on their personal telephone numbers GBV incidence reporting calls. What this means is that if women and girls have better access to technology, especially the internet and mobile connectivity, they the reports would be lager than is being recorded. This is because often, victims are denied access to means of communication by the perpetrators of acts of violent against the women, including seizure of telephone handsets for those who have but often many of the poor women do not own handsets and do not even have the skills to use them. Women are routinely threatened that if they use the social media to report acts, they would suffer more.

Using technology such as online platforms was adopted by many GBV response teams to enable victims have access to reporting violation of their rights; many reports received were done either via phone calls and through social media as victims who have access and digital skills reached these teams. The NHRC, NAPTIP, Ministry of Justice as well use social media platforms to inform new developments, make awareness raising and advocacies. In particular, the official handle of the commission @NHRCTweets and especially the gender handle @NHRCGender has exposed so many cases of SGBV against women and girls that occurred under the lockdown period on Twitter. Correspondingly, lots of online advocacies, conferences, awareness raising, cries by private organizations, individuals, women and youth groups as well as concerned citizens etc were organized and taken up to social media with several handles calling the attention of key stakeholders to take action against the spike in gender violence. In addition, The Lagos team, set up to carry out physical interventions, has moved online, using phones, social media, 24/7 web chat to reach people in abusive situations who need help, and exceptional cases, the team goes out to rescue children who may have been abused, and women who need assistance in abusive relationships[11].

This has proven that the use of technology such as online platforms has been properly deployed by some government agencies and nongovernmental response team and have greatly helped in providing response to victims. Promoting greater access to technology and skills for women and girls to use technology will greatly improve reporting, which his essential for addressing the problem.

However, access and connectivity have also hindered a lot of victims to make such reports. Many women in the urban and semi urban areas do not have the smartphones and other device to enable them make a report, while the unavailability of connectivity, affordability as well as lack of digital skills has contributed greatly in preventing victims to report cases especially in the rural areas. Many women and girls from the rural communities would not be found on especially Twitter where most of the campaigns and advocacies are taken place. In essence, the existing gender digital gap has been reinforced by the pandemic as well as the lockdown measures.

Reports also from our findings have indicated how abusers kept monitoring and spying the devices of their victims as well as seizure of mobile phones to deny them access to reporting. This has further posed another form of online gender violence and deprivation of digital access. In essence, the lockdown has both increased both physical and online gender-based violence.

5.3 Factors Contributing to the Spike in Sexual, Domestic and Online GBV under Lockdown

In Delta State, during an interview with the Chairperson of FIDA, Barr. Stella Mejulu, she explained that in the last week of March, four weeks into the lockdown, she went to court over a case of homicide where a woman was murdered. She also noted that rape and molestation of minors involving high profile older men and patricide were also on the rise[12].

Using technology such as online platforms was adopted by many GBV response teams to enable victims have access to reporting violation of their rights; many reports received were done either via phone calls and through social media as victims who have access and digital skills reached these teams. The NHRC, NAPTIP, Ministry of Justice as well use social media platforms to inform new developments, make awareness raising and advocacies. In particular, the official handle of the commission @NHRCTweets and especially the gender handle @NHRCGender has exposed so many cases of SGBV against women and girls that occurred under the lockdown period on Twitter. Correspondingly, lots of online advocacies, conferences, awareness raising, cries by private organisations, individuals, women and youth groups as well as concerned citizens etc were organised and taken up to social media with several handles calling the attention of key stakeholders to take action against the spike in gender violence. In addition, The Lagos team, set up to carry out physical interventions, has moved online, using phones, social media, 24/7 web chat to reach people in abusive situations who need help, and exceptional cases, the team goes out to rescue children who may have been abused, and women who need assistance in abusive relationships[13].

5.4 Factors Contributing to the Spike in Sexual and Domestic and Online GBV under Lockdown

As suggested by many media reports as well as responses gathered from this study, domestic violence against women has increased to a great extent because the lockdown makes it impossible for them to seek help or alternative safe space which keeps the perpetrators and victims under the same roof for many days. These abuses are not only physical but it comes as emotional, digital, socio-economical and psychological trauma due to verbal abuses among others.

Respondents opiniated that financial factor has affected the increment in domestic violence, because the lockdown has affected the financial lives of millions of people in Nigeria. Sources of incomes for many family heads who rely mostly on menial jobs or daily earnings have been blocked by the restrictions. Thus, husbands relieve their frustrations on their wives and children whom they live with. Anger and hunger have therefore played critical role in the spike as abusive partners, husbands, brothers etc. become aggressive and violent at the slightest provocation. In essence, poverty has played a key role in the increase of GBV during the lockdown and as well financial dependency of women on men to provide them with food and other basic needs have become a provocation and trigger of violence against the women and even their children.

The government in another way has aided the spike in GBV as the promised palliatives could not reach the needy who could have been relieved from hunger. In fact, to so many people, the palliatives are either a mere statement or could be benefited by only those close to the government or politicians. Of course, distribution of palliatives by both state and federal government had taken place even though accountability to the money spent could not be established. However, millions of people in need have not benefitted.

The FIDA National President, Dr. Rhoda was of the view that GBV in its entirety is rooted in power inequality between men and women. In some communities, it is a welcome behaviour for men to beat up women and in some communities, the women have no say when it comes to sex. Violence against women is from prehistoric time and even in work settings or home settings, there has been violence against women, girls and children. According to Dr. Rhoda, ineffective implementation of our laws has led to increase in GBV because the Nigerian constitution does not discriminate against anyone.

In a similar view, the National Coordinator of West African Network of Peace Builders (WANEP), Bridget Osakwe during our seminar charted her discussion from the perspective of COVID 19 as violence itself; it produces fear, death, lockdown and hunger. It all means it increases societal vulnerability. Domestic violence is a reflection of deeper disregard we have in our society. It is important to examine the cultures or habit that is haunting us. Pre-existing tension has been in homes and has exasperated the violence and managing communication in family will produce a better society.

In addition, lack of proper implementation of laws and or polices that ensure proper implementation has provided the perpetrators with impunity and which encourages them to repeat their criminal acts or even encourage new perpetrators to carry out their act since they knew the punishment is either light or would not even exist.

Online GBV is also in the increase, this is because the digital space has become more and more congested as many people return to the internet to either source for information, carry out their official works and meetings, as well as for entertainment purposes. It is highlighted thus that many people spend a lot of time online and thus online bully and harassment against women has increased.

One important point made by an FGD respondent is that there are certain unrevealing factors that are not put in consideration. In Nigeria, mental health or psychological state of couples are almost not considered in marriage although it has affected a lot of people and has resulted in many sad stories over time even before the pandemic. And thus, Mental health has been greatly impacted by the pandemic and caused a hype in the number of male spouses that resort to violence on their wives and children whom they live with, which in many cases, result into emotional harm for the victims.

Drawing from the existing benefits internet offers in terms of counselling and guidance however, there are evidences on how internet and social media have become important avenues to seek advice, support etc for people especially women. There are several social media platforms especially on Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp platforms where certain discussions, seeking helps, counselling or advices from experts and other participants in groups take place. These include seeking advices on marital/relationships problems, parenting as well as dealing with emotional crisis. “Northern Hibiscus” for instance is an example of an Instagram platform “Relationships and Marriage Tips,” “Relationships Advice” both on Facebook, Tafarkin Tsira on WhatsApp are instances of social media platforms that offer advises to women in various aspect of their lives. Similar efforts should be made by government and other private or nongovernmental groups where women can log in and seek emotional support and advice.

5.5 Access to Helplines and Shelters

A number of government agencies including NAPTIP, NHRC, security agencies as well as many NGOs including WRAPA, FHI 360 FIDA, LACVAW, FMWA, Ash Foundation, and other NGO and Development Partner have Helplines available and NLC Women Wing and Police Force have gender desks. This study has also found out that all the lines have and are still registering significant increase in the number of GBV related assistance calls from or for trapped victims.

Shelters are also available and being operated by government and NGOs. However, and compared to the service demand levels in the numbers and capacity of shelters are grossly inadequate.

However, due to lack of structural social service systems in place in Nigeria, access to hotlines, shelters, civil society groups, and non-government organizations specialized in providing support and legal expertise is far and in between, or non-existent. Reports on gender-based violence have more than doubled (2) and all the increase in GBV we witness now may not reflect the actual image of the spike as more than 50% of GBV are not been reported (4). Some victims either do not or are denied access to relevant authorities or simply refused to report it to cover up the matter for fear of stereotype and culture of stigmatisation of survivals of violence issues. Reluctance to report GBV by the victims or their families could also be related to threats by abusers who threaten to kill or hurt those who speak up. Only 32.7% of our survey respondents said they are sure the cases they knew were reported.

Only 23.6% of our survey respondents said they are aware there are helplines by either government or CSOs, while 83.6% said they don’t know the contacts of the helplines. A great number of the responses from our FGD respondents also explained that helplines by government are not functional and they’re no shelters available.

“The GBV hotlines are public, other numbers aren’t, I can’t personally attest to the availability of other important hotlines” expressed a respondent. “I have not seen any of the helplines actually, so I can’t say.” It was established from the findings that the helplines are not publicly known especially to the group of people who are vulnerable of being victimized of GBV.

As many women are not aware of the helplines, there many others who don’t have access because some women don’t have phones or any other means to make the call. Thus, affordability is playing a critical role in denying women access to these helplines. “Women in my area don’t have phone to call even their family and relatives. They prepare to go police station or vigilante office rather than to call help line” mentioned a KII respondent.

Lack of GBV helplines to get help is a big challenge. And when women get access to intervention phone lines, they find it difficult to speak on the phone because their abuser is only an earshot away, leaving many women to suffer in silence. Although Whatsapp is one of the cheapest communication tools to reach out for help, high cost of data (Nigeria affordability  index according to the World Web Foundation report of 2019 was 61.13% and ranked 19 out 28 countries[14]), and internet access make it difficult for abused women to seek help in communities where these are absent. Theoretically as mobile technology has achieved full covered of the country, it can be said that potential everyone has access to the internet, but accessibility is limited by many factors including in ability to for major players to make landing in rural communities. on the other hand actually use is constrained by low educational accomplishment, especially among women and poverty which in the country is often said to have a feminine face.

Report from the survey has also shown that victims are ostracized by both family members and community members. However, despite the fact that many victims in both rural and semi-urban communities do not have internet access, the internet and social media in particular has provided lot of solidarity and support for victims. The helplines were publicly circulating on various online platforms as well as several advocacies and awareness raising on the need to contact response team when victimized of SGBV. This has yielded a better result of increase reporting of cases. This has therefore proven that there is great potential on contribution technology can offer in addressing SGBV in both Covid-19 and post Covid-19 context.

5.6 Restrictive Measures and Movement of GBV Victims

Can women victims of domestic violence be exempted from restrictive measures to stay at home in isolation if they face domestic violence?

41.8% of the survey responses is yes 45.5% of the total responses was no, while 12.7% said they have no idea. This study has also gathered from most of the FGDs and KII respondents that it was never part of lockdown directives by both state and federal governments to put into consideration the emergency of sexual and domestic violence, neither were there any statement by government officials issued to address the needs of women facing domestic violence under lockdowns. Similarly, government did not list SGBV respondents as one of providers of essential services. This affected their ability to provide adequate services to survivors.

Security operatives are also not cooperative, most of them don’t understand or make room for GBV emergency cases. The lack of movement has forced victims to stay in their abused environments, which increased their abuse as the perpetrators also knew that they had nowhere to run to.

According to WRAPA, under these circumstances, it is more practical and beneficial to declare GBV response rendering activities as essential services by recognised government and nongovernmental organizations. This will mean granting exemptions for the staff of these organizations.

In many cases, victims stay and continue to experience more abuse of their right. Sometimes they are either rescued by other people, evacuated by law enforcement agents according to 59.2% of our survey respondents.

 

5.7 Access to Justice

“If there are mobile courts for Covid-19 directives offenders, why can’t we also have mobile courts for GBV perpetrators? These would have hastened prosecution of many GBV perpetrators nationwide” decried a respondent.

“But how could women under lockdown have access to such courts because the mobile court are only for does that violate the lockdown directives?” cried another?

The lockdown has made it difficult for women to easily and quickly reach the police. The walking distance to the police station and delayed response from the police is a big challenge. Without money to pay the police and without proper legal and literacy support, reporting a case and filing paperwork at the police station is also a cumbersome affair for the average woman.  A woman’s state of mind at that point and a possible battling feeling of self-worth makes her even more vulnerable at the police station.

Women’s access to justice has been the challenge during the lockdown as Courts have been closed. Police have also been working with CSOs to respond to cases of GBV but the absence of the Court has limited their operations. However, 40% of the survey respondents said victims have access to court during lockdown.

Niri Goyit explained that as a result, there is a backlog of cases waiting to be actioned by the courts and this has delayed justice for victims.

Responding to this, WRAPA explained that in the first and second phases, of the lockdown in the FCT, Lagos and Ogun State, the courts were not in session. NGOs were limited to documentation and evidence gathering in preparation for when the courts open or alternative means are adopted. On Monday 20, 2020, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, announced in a statement that while ordering the suspension of all court sittings except in matters that are argents, he announced that the courts would be sitting virtually, developing technology to allow for continued access to justice during the lockdown. In the same statement, he added however that certain changes would need to be backed up by the National Assembly and effected by the National Judicial Council (NJC), thus “empowering the institutions of the ACJA, 2015 to commence functioning immediately”[15]. While a bill proposing an amendment to the Constitution to allow for digital trial, this process has not been completed till now as the bill as to in addition to being passed by the two houses of the National Assembly, has to be debated passed by the 36 state houses of Assembly. Unfortunately, these legislative changes have not been done, the result of which is that the statement remained as mere wish. However, Ogun State Judiciary piloted the first virtual court trial on May 7, 2020[16]. It should be added that a similar move in July 2019 to make virtual court session constitutional failed. In principle this would make enhance access to justice, first as people can access the court processes from home and therefore removed the constraints that lockdown has created. The reality however is that unless women and girls have access to and the skills to use technology, its impact on domestic violence will be minimal.

For many women/girls’ victims, from making a phone call, to reporting to the police and to accessing justice from court is something they typically have no idea even prior to this pandemic, nor do they have the financial capacity to process that. And when the pandemic arrived it complicated everything putting them in a position further from justice.

In many cases, government officials contribute to depriving women the justice they deserve especially if the perpetrator is a member, family or friend of the government where they pressurize security agencies to release the perpetrators. Security agencies especially the police have been reported to release or grant bail perpetrators who are member, family or friend of government. A typical example here is the case of Kogi state governor and top officials are piling pressure on the Nigeria Police Force to release Mr Abdulmumini Danga, commissioner for Water Resources in the state who assaulted and raped a lady over a Facebook Post[17].

However, social media has played a critical role in publicizing GBV cases and advocating and demanding for justice. For instance, since the Uwa case occurred and got so much public attention, many more sordid cases had been reported and many CSOs, women and youths’ organizations had kept demanding for justices for victims through online and offline advocacies and demonstrations. The traditional media as well have been contributing a lot to publicizing and setting agendas for discussion on issues of GBV under the lockdown as expressed by Lauratu Abdulsalam who said media has contributed greatly so far in bringing the issue of GBV to the fore front of policy makers in addressing the issue. Interestingly, Lauratu also pointed out that people are genuinely committed to ensure putting an end to this menace and government is also open to discussion with CSOs on how to resolve this problem; this is a good turning point for us. People are calling for behavioural change need to be instituted; the government and leaders need to put their heads together to put an end to GBV; and the VAPP bill needs to be domesticated.

5.8 Government Agencies Responses to SGBV

There is no doubt that justice delayed is justice denied – thus delays in investigative and forensic processes, along with judicial delays do indirectly encourage criminals – and damage the innocent. There are many instances of the haphazard handling of investigation, prosecution and final resolution of crimes[18].

These calls and demands from citizens, and several organisations has made all 36 states government to declare SGBV a state of emergency. Several CSOs and NGOs have been putting pressure also for the adoption of the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Bill and Child Right Acts by all state governments.

In responses for the public cry and demand, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), expressed their plan to set up a committee which will to process speedy trial of cases involving rape and girl child molestation. He added that as a people-oriented government that listens to the yearnings and aspirations of its citizen, the Ministry of Justice has identified with call for national response against rape and sexual assault in the country[19].

The NHRC has also been making a lot of effort to ensure that justice have been served to people whose rights have been violated. The commission has been making a lot of commitment to scale up action on awareness on SGBV and rape on its quest to tackle the menace and entrench the culture of respect for human rights in the country. This include among other efforts embarking on a nationwide five-day activism to protest the scourge as announced by Tony Ojukwu, the Executive Secretary of NHRC. The Commission has also created a gender handle on Twitter responsible for advocating against sexual and gender-based violence[20].

NAPTIP has been making similar efforts including calls for ensuring effective adoption of the VAPP and called for the harmonisation of all laws against rape and violence to ensure that sentence against rape was life imprisonment as prescribed by the VAPP Act 2015.

5.9 Impacts on Women’s Access to Health

At the beginning of the outbreak of the pandemic in Nigeria, most health facilities focused their attention on Covid-19, neglecting other important health issues including women reproductive health. 84% of our survey respondents said health services were either closed or suspended.

According to WRAPA, women’s access to health services and facilities has been severely impacted on by the restrictive measures. In fear of being infected in health facilities, pregnant women stayed away from the few operating health facilities. Routine health services were reported suspended in most facilities. Antenatal and immunization operated on a low key in secondary facilities.

Niri Goyit explained that women have been a bit reluctant to visit the hospital because of the whole COVID-19 fear – some feel going to the hospital increases their risk of contracting the virus. In the FCT, there were no reports of hospitals stopping women’s access to reproductive health services. However, some women have reported being delayed at checkpoints in cases of emergencies, while some deliberately refuse to go to hospitals. However, many women from different states including Kano state has reported closure of some health centres. In Kano state alone, 50% of private clinics and hospitals have been closed in fear of Covid-19. This has made the public facilities to be overwhelmed. Even so, there were no adequate health workers in the public hospitals ho refused to work due to lack of Protection Equipment (PPEs). Thus, the failure of government to provide and support the Frontline workers has contributed to the deficiency in health service provision especially for women.

 

Another important dimension is that most women are daily income earners, their income have been affected by the lockdown. As a result, many women cannot afford to pay for their sexual and reproductive health needs.

Again, the lockdown which restricted movements of vehicles also inhibited women from accessing health services. Many women needed commercial vehicle to convey them to health facilities which are not available.

In essence, a lot of women gave birth at home with lot of complications; plenty died with pregnancy while some lost their babies. Children health has also been affected by the closure of the anti-natal, maternity and post-natal services. Children could not be immunized as well. One respondent explained that “A cousin of mine had to deliver at home despite having history of Eclampsia.”

 

“A woman I knew gave birth last week, she needs blood, no one in her family was compatible and blood bank is closed. She lost blood plenty and is now on home supplement to regain the blood she lost” explained another.

 

One respondent KII respondent who is a women health advocate explained that she personally visited some midwives who refused to work and asked them their reasons for that action, they mentioned that they are living in fair and wouldn’t and to exposed themselves to Covid-19 since they are not aware of the health status of the women coming to their facilities.

 

There is very limited infrastructure for telemedicine services in Nigeria, much of it at pilot levels. The states that have some pilot telemedicine service include Lagos, Cross River and Kano. While in both Lagos and Cross River States, the telemedicine initiatives are government owned. In the case of Kano, it is a civil led initiative, mainly responding to the challenges of COVID-19 which has on the one had made many healthcare service providers to suspend their operations due to lack of insufficient protective materials, which had led to COVID-19 infection among healthcare workers and one the other hand, fear by citizens that they could contract COVID-19 in hospital environments that are testing for COVID-19. The pilot in Kano was put up by the Kano Against COVID-19, a coalition of academics, industry captions, entrepreneurs and professionals with secretariat at CITAD[21]. Overall, these pilots have no impact in responding to the challenges of victims of domestic violence getting medical attention under lockdown.

5.10 Challenges Faced by GBV Response Team

There are a number of challenges faced by GBV response team and even individuals. In some situation it even led to arrest of advocates or defendant of victims like the situation of the Human Right Lawyer, Obono Martins who was held at the Zone 7 Zonal Police Station in Wuse Zone 3, Abuja for defending 3 young women who were raped by a single perpetrator on different occasions. For publicly speaking out against him, the perpetrator collided with the police officials and the detained the three women in a single cell with other male detainees.

Other general challenges include:

  1. Restrictions of vehicular movement to reach victims.
  2. Passes could not be obtained by staff (and are mostly paid for)
  3. Access to homes of some victim is difficult as some victims were not allowed to interface with ‘strangers’
  4. Law enforcement responses were slow due to overstretch of their service in enforcing the lockdown.
  5. Neighbours shying away from being involved in domestic violence settings invoking right to privacy.
  6. Poor collaboration of family members who mostly prefer to cover the incident in fear of stereotype and stimatisation.

6.RECOMMENDATIONS

 

6.1. Technology in the Lives of Women and Girls

Works by CITAD has shown the unequal nature of access to and use of technology by women and girls in compared to men in the country. Specifically, although women constitute a majority of population of the country, they are minority users of technology. Their voice as users and actors has minoritized.  Technology as tool for personal empowerment can used be to tackled domestic violence where it occurs. For this reason, we recommend that we respect to technology:

 

  • That government should articulate and implement a national gender digital inclusion agenda[22]
  • Improve access to technology and skills in schools for females
  • Address in a holistic manner, the prevalence of gender-based harmful content on the internet
  • Ensure the protection of the privacy and rights of women and girls as part of a large agenda for the protection of privacy of users
  • Mainstream women voices in policy making around technology issues as their experiences is important in shaping non-discriminatory policies
  • Ensure that all have free and unhindered access to the internet so that all can use and benefit from it
  • Mainstream feminist internet principles in national internet policies so that structure and built biases that go into design of platforms, tools and even algorithms and which serve to reinforce the digital marginalization of women can would be limited[23]

6.2 Government and CSOs

  • The laws at state and federal levels must be domesticated where necessary and enforceable.
  • Government both Federal and State should provide essential services and facilities in the form of short-term shelter, hotlines across the country, legal, and trauma counselling services nationwide should be provided as a mandatory social system structure
  • Government should increase the turnaround time of testing during lockdown to save more women in abusive homes.
  • Hotlines should be free and manned 24/7.
  • More shelters need to be built as pointers for victims to escape from their abusers and restart a new life. There is also a need to have more referral systems
  • Civil Society Organisations should organize more town hall meetings with religious, traditional, and community leaders as a support system and champions to end GBV.
  • The government needs to recognize women and girls and stop treating them as second-class citizens as many have not been included in policymaking and stimulus packages regarding how this can be most effectively put to use.
  • The government should designate and strengthen gender desks and family support units within police departments and other departments of government
  • The government needs to understand the legitimacy of supporting NGOs, CSOs, and other human rights organizations to have a special task force managing GBV.
  • The VAPP Law need to be domesticated in all states
  • The Sexual Offenders Register need to be implemented in all states
  • There is need for fund raising to procure and distribute food and essential needs to augment families. Thereby reducing the tension that could worsen relationships and increase risk of Gender Based Violence
  • Government and CSOs should Network and Collaborate in rendering Gender Based Violence services within the lockdown services
  • The government should put in place Multisectoral coordination system of Sexual and Gender Based Violence in all State, thereby to combat and respond to SGBV
  • Women Groups should find alternative accommodation to remove their members from an abusive home
  • All states should adopt the Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Team of Lagos state for speedy response, management and resolving of GBV
  • Helplines should be provided and interconnected to social media platforms to scale up the reach
  • There is need to strengthen the response mechanism to gender-based violence issues.
  • There should be continuous review of existing policies and laws on GBV in order to accommodate best practices

6.3 Parents/Family

  • We must promote the culture of equal respect for all. Parents need to train the boy child and girl child to understand that violence is not and never an option despite the situation.
  • There is need to facilitate modules for sex education for our children from school. Boys and girls must know how to respect and protect themselves.
  • Parents should not entrust their female children to the care of supposed friends, relations and neighbours.
  • Managing Communication in family may bring an end to domestic violence
  • There is need to have Neighborhood/ Community surveillance watch teams working to identify and upscale domestic violence cases

 

6.4 Security Agencies

  • The police force must stop trivializing gender based and domestic violence, molestation, rape, etc.
  • Police need to employ more paralegals units in its force and also put an end to police brutality towards all. Jail terms for police offenders would serve as a deterrent.

6.5 Media

  • Media organizations should produce programs to educate and guide gender Based violence victims on protective measures
  • Nationwide sensitization should be held on all mass media to enlighten citizens about GBV
  • Media should constantly report cases of Gender Based Violence

6.6 Religious and Traditional Leaders

  • There is need for rural communities to be supported and create support systems for unemployed women; these may include access to traditional leaders, women groups, extended family groups, etc.
  • Religious and traditional leaders must buy into the fact that there should be zero tolerance to GBV, domestic violence, and all forms of abuse and violence against all gender
  • There is a need to review our cultures and religions to align with the laws of our country. The difference between the provisions of our laws and our customs/religions provides perpetrators of GBV opportunities to violate women and also escape being penalized
  • There is need to reshape our social values and norms
  • The misapplication in the cultural and religious text regarding women need to be revisited

6.7 Individuals

  • People need to be educated about secondary trauma and how to effectively manage it.
  • It is important for individuals to take more responsibility and see Gender Based Violence as an economic and social issue and we all need to address to be able to allow for a free non-violent environment.
  • Women should break the culture of silence and speak out when violated so that perpetrators are prosecuted and penalized
  • Behavioural Change need to be instituted in the case of GBV

 

  1. CONCLUSION

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic is indeed multi-faceted and has shined light on the preparedness and under preparedness of various sectors of countries all over the world. A lot has been done by various nations to help curb the effects of the virus but there is a lot of gaps which need to be filled regarding GBV. It is now more than ever obvious that all hands need to be on deck and there is need for multi-level stakeholder collaboration. Government alone cannot solve the problems of GBV, in the same vein; the private sector alone cannot resolve the GBV pandemic; this is a truth, not only in Nigeria but all over the world. However, with calls for more observation of human rights all over the world, now more than ever, it is of utmost impetus for this window of opportunity to be seized, differences set aside in order to find a lasting solution to GBV. In Nigeria, there have been several calls for justice, laws, systems and structures to be set in place so as to fight the GBV pandemic; with the hope that generations yet to come will not fight the same fight but ride on the success of interventions and success stories achieved.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. Organizational Background

Centre for Information Technology and Development (CITAD) is a non-governmental and nonprofit organization that is committed to the use of information and communication technologies for development and promotion of good governance. CITAD sees technology as tool to promote sustainable development, good government and peaceful coexistence. It uses ICT to empower youth and women through access to informatin, skills and online mentoring opportunities. The vision of the organization is a knowledge-based democratic society free of hunger with a mission that commits to Using ICTs to empower citizens for a just and knowledge based society that is anchored on sustainable and balanced development

Our areas of work include:

  1. Internet rights and gender digital equity
  2. Applications of technology in governance and elections
  3. Youth development and entrepreneurship
  4. Peace building campaign, including Hate speech monitoring.

 

[1] Ya’u, Y. Z and M. A. Aliyu (2017): Internet for Men?: The Digital Marginalization of Women, CITAD, Kano

[2] CITAD, 2019: Women in a Poisoned Arena – Hate Speech, Online Gender Violence and Elections in Nigeria, CITAD, Kano

[3] CITAD, 2019: A Policy Brief Towards an Inclusive Digital Society, CITAD, Kano

[4] CITAD, 2018: Gender Based Hate Speech: A Policy Brief, CITAD, Kano

[5] The Guardian/Features https://guardian.ng/features/focus/sexual-and-gender-based-violence-hiddem-social-pandemic-under-radar-of-covid-19-lockdown/

[6] Prime News  https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/06/03/lagos-records-697-domestic-violence-during-lockdown/

[7] Premium Times https://allafrica.com/stories/202006030177.html

[8] Sahara Reporters http://saharareporters.com/2020/06/02/breaking-kogi-commissioner-who-assaulted-raped-lady-over-facebook-post-being-interrogated

[9] Prime News  https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/06/03/lagos-records-697-domestic-violence-during-lockdown

[10] https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/06/12/sexual-gender-based-violence-rising-from-this-low-point/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

[11] This Day https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/06/12/sexual-gender-based-violence-rising-from-this-low-point/

[12] Prime News  https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2020/06/03/lagos-records-697-domestic-violence-during-lockdown/

[13] Business Day, Jun 11, 2020  https://businessday.ng/news/article/committee-to-tackle-sexual-violence-child-abuse-on-the-way-agf/

[14] Alliance for affordable Internet, 2019: Affordability Report 2019, World Web Foundation,  Washington DC: Web Foundation

[15] https://www.premiumtimesng.com/coronavirus/388959-coronavirus-nigerian-courts-to-hold-virtual-proceedings-malami.html

[16] : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfy0uRkqfow

[17] Business Day, Jun 11, 2020  https://businessday.ng/news/article/committee-to-tackle-sexual-violence-child-abuse-on-the-way-agf/

[18] Sahara Reporters http://saharareporters.com/2020/06/02/breaking-kogi-commissioner-who-assaulted-raped-lady-over-facebook-post-being-interrogated

[19] This Day https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2020/06/12/sexual-gender-based-violence-rising-from-this-low-point/

[20] @NHRCTweets (Twitter)

[21] https://kanoagainstcovid19.com/

[22] For details on this see CITAD, 2018: Towards a Gender Digital Inclusion Agenda for Nigeria, CITAD, Kano, https://www.citad.org/download/towards-a-gender-digital-inclusion-agenda-for-nigeria/

[23] For more details on this, see https://www.apc.org/en/news/intentional-infrastructures-feminist-principles-internet-and-community-networks-0