Contending Narratives on the COVID-19 Pandemic and Public Authority Governance in Nigeria

Abstract

This study interrogates the contending narratives in the fight against COVID-19 and public
authority governance in Nigeria. Since the outbreak of the Coronavirus in 2019 in Wuhan, China,
countries worldwide have been battling against its exponential rise. In Nigeria, with many reported
coronavirus cases, the government had responded by budgeting millions of dollars to curtail the
spread of the disease and procure vaccines. However, Nigerians have questioned the responses of
the public authority in the governance affairs of Coronavirus. Why is this the case? Literature on
the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria has pointed out corruption, mismanagement, human rights
abuses, poor planning, and the decay in the health sectors. With David Easton System Theory,
the study generated data through documentary methods and analysed them using the narrative
analytical technique. The article observes that while the COVID-19 pandemic has resurfaced
the contending trajectories in the health, political and economic discourses, public authorities’
governance has continued to witness cycles of legitimacy crises. The study suggests that no amount
of audio pledged by the government can remedy the Nigerian trajectories without addressing the
public authorities’ fallout with the people and strong legislations against government officials’
foreign medical tourism.