Political distrust and the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria

Abstract

While studies have explored how health sector corruption, weak healthcare system, large-scale immune compromised population, misinformation and prevalence of highly congested slums contribute to the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria, they have glossed over the impact of political distrust on the spread of the virus. This study explores the impact of political distrust on the spread of COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. The study utilised qualitative dominant mixed methods approach comprising telephone interviews and a survey of 120 educated Nigerians purposively selected from four COVID-19 most affected states including Lagos, Oyo, Kano and Rivers as well as the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The study also relied on secondary data on the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria sourced from Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control from 27 February to 31st August 2020. The study found that political corruption motivates large-scale political distrust. This undermines public compliance to government protocols, limits the outcomes of government responses to COVID-19 and facilitates the spread of the virus in Nigeria. The paper concludes that improving government accountability in the public sector management is relevant for building public trust, promoting citizens' compliance to COVID-19 safety measure and mitigating the spread of the pandemic in Nigeria and beyond.

Does High Public Trust Amplify Compliance with Stringent COVID-19 Government Health Guidelines? A Multi-country Analysis Using Data from 102,627 Individuals

“…Public distrust in government may lead to a lower level of compliance with government measures and thus, unsuccessful public health interventions. 3 , 5 , 11 , 23 For example, Goldstein and Wiedemann 5 reported that higher political and social trust measures are associated with improvements in compliance with stay-at-home orders in the US. The authors underscored the importance of trust in state capacity and the different levels of trust resulting in asymmetrical compliance, compounded by partisanship behavior.…”

“… 5 In Nigeria, large-scale political distrust due to corruption was said to undermine public adherence to government COVID-19 policies. 23 A study by Lalot et al revealed that absence of concern and trust significantly reduce people’s compliance with restrictive government measures put in place in Italian and French cities. 24 This is also consistent with the findings among young Swiss adults.…”

Acceptability of Government Measures Against Covid-19 Pandemic in Senegal: a Mixed Methods Study

“…Conceptually, trust is one of the important determinants of acceptability [41]. In Nigeria, mistrust of the state and its forms of corruption play a negative role in the acceptance of measures to combat the COVID-19 pandemic [42]especially since in the same West African country and in Egypt, two other studies show that respondents believe that the states are not doing enough to curb the pandemic [16,17]. The ght against Ebola in West Africa has also shown how central the issue of trust is in the acceptability of control strategies [43].…”

Political trust as a cause and consequence of democracy: Longitudinal analysis of European data

“…This influence is hypothesized to operate via multiple mechanisms, such as compliance with the law, including tax compliance, and political participation, especially electoral turnout (Dalton, 2004;Lussier, 2016). Indeed, research has shown that high political trust is associated with higher compliance with civic duty and government regulation (Letki, 2007;Tyler, 1990), which most recently manifested during the COVID-19 pandemic (Ezeibe et al, 2020;Devine et al, 2020).…”