Background This study examines the growth trends in the COVID-19 pandemic and fatalities arising from its complications among tested patients in West Africa. Countries around the world have employed several measures in order to control the spread of the disease. In spite of the poor state of the healthcare delivery system in West Africa, the spread of the pandemic is relatively low compared to reported cases in other regions of the world. The study addresses this phenomenon by asking the question: is the low incidence of COVID-19 in the West African sub-region a mitigating healthcare delivery system or just a matter of time? Methods The study adopted a cross-sectional time series method. Data for Ghana, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Niger Republic, and global data were extracted from the World Health Organization COVID-19 databank. Data were extracted in intervals of 7 days from March 15 through April 19, 2020. Data regarding the incidence growth rate and fatalities arising from COVID-19 complications were generated from the total reported cases and fatalities over specified periods. Descriptive and inferential statistical analyses were carried out using Stata version 14. Results Results showed that the trends in growth patterns of COVID-19 for Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Republic of Niger, and West Africa generally followed the same fluctuating curves. The COVID-19 pandemic accounted for 92.3%, 97.8%, 90.3%, 65%, 90.4%, 93.6%, and 97% of complications that led to deaths of patients in Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Niger Republic, Ivory Coast, and West Africa, respectively. Also, the results established that there was a significant positive association between increased incidence of COVID-19 and percentage increase in fatalities arising from its complications in West Africa (ß = 0.032; t = 12.70; p < 0.001). Conclusion The threat presently posed by COVID-19 seems to be minimal in West Africa despite the poor state of the healthcare delivery system in the region. It is unlikely, however, that the region is well prepared for the pandemic in the event that it escalates out of control with time.

Nigeria is witnessing internal displacements due to terrorism and kidnapping across many communities with more of these evitable challenges in the North Eastern region. These challenges are impacting on older people amongst other social categories that have been displaced, killed or kidnapped across different communities. The outbreak of covid-19 and the poor social support for older persons and other vulnerable groups in Nigeria imply that survivors in such precarious spaces are likely to face challenges with implications on their well-being and meanings attached to life. This paper explores ageing in precarious spaces that have been ravaged by terrorism and banditry and the outbreak of covid-19. The narratives of the 15 older persons aged 57 to 82 years living in Internally Displaced Camps revealed some dimensions of hopelessness, despair and the acceptance of present challenges as fate and structural defects. Awareness and adherence to covid-19 protocol was poor. Moving away from communities of residence represent diverse forms of loss that transcends material things. Sharing of experiences, prayers and relief materials from non-governmental agencies were considered as instrumental in coping with their daily challenges. The hope of returning to their communities of residence was doubted and considered risky. The belief that their seeds would have a better future was expressed by all the participants, with the females affirming such expectation than the men. Integrating displaced older persons would require more than existing efforts being taken by Nigerian government across levels.

Every country institutes policy to take a course of action in favour of its citizens’ welfare. The view of indigenization policy in alignment with employment and workers treatment in Liberia takes different dimension. Liberia problem of unemployment cannot be compared to its underemployment and bad working conditions. The Liberian Indigenous policy has not reaped its fruit with marginalization, exploitation dispossession and poverty in commonplace. This study addresses the ineffectiveness of the indigenous employment policy and the state of workers’ well-being in foreign corporations in Liberia. This study adopts cross sectional method, and employs primary data. Information from 400 employees working with foreign-owned corporation was extracted from survey conducted in 2018 by the authors on the state of welfare of foreign-owned corporations’ employees in Liberia. The key explanatory variables are healthcare, social insurance, safety measures, stable job assignment, stable work hour, promotion on the job, and job security. The binary logistic regression was applied using version 22 of SPSS to examine association between the response and explanatory variables. The outcomes of this study showed that indigenous environmental policy was significant with worker’s well-being (p<0.05). The study concluded that indigenous employment policy has significant influence on the foreign-owned corporation workers’ well-being in Liberia.