THE CHALLENGES OF CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP QUESTIONS

A CASE STUDY OF NIGERIA

Abstract

The outbreak of coronavirus in late December 2019 manifested profusely from the first quarter of year 2020, and left several countries in a state of disarray with serious impact on every facets of national and international life. The new strain of the coronavirus referred to as COVID-19, was either new to the scientists or to the medical practitioners. It explains the lapses in its management that stunned the world. Although no one anticipated the outbreak of such virus, however, the debates about its origin admixed with conspiracy theories preoccupied many countries and distracted attention on how to contain the virus from further spread with the accompanying fatality. Focusing on Nigeria, this study examined the management of COVID-19 in the country, especially, how political leadership braced up with the challenges. As analytical research, it relied on secondary data and applied content analysis for inference. It adopted “bounded rationality model” of decision-making theory to explain the challenges posed to decision-making under crisis or emergencies, and discuss how it affected the management of coronavirus in Nigeria. The findings show that there are glaring deficits of proactive leadership in the COVID-19 management in Nigeria. It resulted in most of the management guidelines introduced by government being copy and paste (imitation of what other countries adopted without comparing the differences in climate). The consequences were dissensions and remarkable poor public compliance behaviours. It requires that Nigerian leaderships begin to develop health infrastructure, human and industrial capacities that countries tap during emergency that confines nations to its territorial borders.