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A CRITICAL REFLECTION ON COVID-19 PALLIATIVE SAGA IN 

NIGERIA: IMPLICATIONS OF HUMAN GREED 

 

Oliver Ozoemena ONAH 

 

Spiritan School of Philosophy, Isienu-Nsukka, Enugu State. 

 

Abstract  

The Covid-19 pandemic that is ravaging the world has exposed both the positive 

and negative traits of the human person; it has highlighted the best and the worst in 

the human person. It has shown that human beings are capable of both altruism and 

egoism. As has become the case in recent history, Nigeria seems to receive the 

worst of almost everything. Hence, though Nigeria is not as badly hit by the virus 

itself as other countries of the world, the resultant economic effects are apparently 

more devastating on the Nigerian population than they have been elsewhere. This 

paper examines the controversies surrounding the Covid-19 palliatives in Nigeria. 

It argues that the Covid-19 pandemic and the subsequent palliative saga that 

emanated from the #Endsars protests in Nigeria have exposed the selfishness of 

most of our politicians and public officials. The main thesis of this paper is that the 

COVID-19 palliative in Nigeria was mismanaged as a result of human greed. 

Using the expository and the analytic methods this paper highlights the problem of 

corruption as it affects the distribution of the COVID-19 palliative in Nigeria. It 

concludes that the Covid-19 pandemic is a welcome occurrence in this regard in as 

much it is understood as a call for the re-evaluation of our values. 

Keywords: Covid-19, palliative, human greed, corruption, leadership. 

 

Introduction  

Every eruption of crisis, major or minor, comes with consequences which requires 

timely attention to contain. The urgency and the scope of the intervention are often 

determined by the enormity of the crisis. In material terms these come in the form 

of relief funds/materials which are meant to palliate the physical and economic 

effects of such crisis. The world was confronted with the reality of a new health 

challenge in the last month of 2019. News started filtering through that a new virus 

was wreaking havoc in China. There were insinuations that the whole streets of 

China were littered with corpses. At first there was confusion as some conspiracy 

theories linked the deaths with 5G technology. Among health experts the belief 

was that COVID-19 originated in bats or pangolins (Kandola, 2020). The first 

cases were reported in Wuhan meat market, from where it is believed the human to 

human transmission started. The world wished and hoped it remained within the 

borders of China. But gradually cases of the novel virus were reported in other 

countries, first, of Asia, but soon, of other continents. Ever since, the world has 

been engulfed in psychological, physical, social and economic torture. Nigeria was 



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not spared the experience of the pandemic and its social and economic 

consequences.  

 

The spread of the disease in Nigeria necessitated a lockdown which halted every 

social and economic activities and also occasioned job losses. Since 40% of 

Nigerians are said to be living below the poverty line, most of them surviving on 

daily meagre income, the lockdown brought untold hunger and suffering to the 

people in this category. Efforts by the Federal government and people of good will, 

both corporate organisations and individuals, to cushion the effects of the 

lockdown gave birth to the idea of relief packages otherwise known as palliatives. 

These relief packages were understandably meant for the most vulnerable of the 

citizens. Questions have, however, been raised with regard to who got the 

palliative and from whom. This papers hows that the COVID-19 relief materials 

were hijacked by the politicians and their cronies as a result of human greed.  

 

This work is organised in seven sections. The first section traces the history of 

COVID-19. The second section examines the Nigerian leadership and corruption 

in relation to the palliative saga. The third section deals with the distribution of 

palliatives in Nigeria. In the fourth section criticisms against the donation of the 

relief funds and materials through the CBN and the various governments are 

presented. In the fifth section we examine the distribution of the palliatives to 

show how they were hijacked. The sixth section is a critical reflection on the 

palliative saga and human greed, while the conclusion of the work follows in the 

seventh and final section. 

 

History of Coronavirus (COVID-19). 

Coronaviruses are a group of viruses that can cause diseases in human beings and 

in animals. The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which spread from 

Asia in 2002 and 2003 is a type of coronavirus. Hence the novel coronavirus was 

named (SARS-CoV-2). This virus causes the disease known as coronavirus disease 

(COVID-19). The first reported cases of human infection by Covid-19 were in 

Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) first 

learned of Covid-19 on December 31, 2019(WHO, 2020). According to WHO, 

while some of the earliest cases were linked to a wholesale food market in Wuhan, 

some were not. WHO subsequently declared the outbreak a Public Health 

Emergency of International Concern on January 30, 2020, and a pandemic on 

March 11, 2020 (Kandola, 2020). 

 

Reported first in the city of Wuhan, China, the virus spread rapidly through Asia to 

the rest of the world. Nigeria recorded the index case on February 27, 2020. The 

victim was an Italian who came into Nigeria through the Murtala Mohammed 

International Airport, Lagos from Italy, and visited some other states, mostly in the 

South West, before testing positive for COVID-19. According to the Nigeria 



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Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), all confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the 

country between February 27 and March 17 were imported by returning travelers 

(NCDC, 2020). By March 27, one month after the first case, Nigeria had 81 

clinically confirmed cases spread across ten states. The NCDC report also had it 

that three patients had fully recovered, while one death had been recorded. The 

numbers kept increasing such that by April 5, the number of positive cases had 

jumped to 232 with five deaths recoded. The affected states had risen to 14 (Amzat 

et al., 2020: 219). This kept rising with lightning speed until the spread had 

covered the whole 36 states and the FCT. This occasioned a total lockdown of 

activities in the country. 

 

With more than 179 million infections and 3.8 million deaths worldwide as at June 

30, 2021(Kandola, 2020), what started as a local health crisis in China has now 

wreaked enormous havoc on every continent of the globe. It has kept mutating, 

with more deadly variants emerging in some regions and countries, as in the case 

of the delta variant first identified in India.   

 

In Nigeria, as at June 24, 2021, the number of infections was put at 167,375, with a 

total of 2,118 deaths recorded. And while some other parts of the world are either 

on lockdown, considering it or are just beginning to relax the lockdown, the rate of 

infection in Nigeria has drastically reduced. According to the NCDC data, some 

states in Nigeriaare today COVID-19-free (NCDC, 2021). 

 

Nigerian Leadership, Corruption and the Palliative Saga 

Nigeria has been bedevilled by leadership problem right from her independence. 

This was aptly captured by Chinua Achebe in the opening sentences of his book, 

The Trouble with Nigeria. In his submission, “The trouble with Nigeria is simply 

and squarely a failure of leadership” (Achebe, 1983: 1). He goes on to argue that 

nothing is basically wrong with Nigeria in terms of character, climate or physical 

features. It is lack of responsible leadership that has been the bane of progress and 

development in Nigeria. This lamentation about bad leadership was made as far 

back as 1983, that is, over three decades ago. Comparatively, it was a time when 

Nigeria was paradise on earth. This was a time when systems were still working; 

when the educational systems still produced graduates who were worth the name, 

when university graduates got jobs almost instantly. This was the time the 

economy was working, and the naira had value. This was the time Ghanaians were 

loitering the streets of Nigerian cities looking for menial jobs. Of course, Achebe 

lived to see that “there was a country.” If one could lament the poverty of 

leadership in Nigeria three decades ago, what should we say about leadership in 

Nigeria today? The failure of leadership in Nigeria is glaring in every aspect of our 

national life. In short, Nigeria today exists only for political office holders. Little 



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wonder why aspirants to such political offices stop at nothing in their quest to 

occupy such offices. This is because such political offices no longer exist to serve 

the needs of the people, rather they have become avenues for the winner to take it 

all. It is as if the most basic qualification for leadership positions in Nigeria today 

is greed. 

 

The problem of greed among Nigerians, which is most manifest among the ruling 

class, has actually dealt ruthless blows to Nigeria again and again. It is the greed of 

the ruling class that has crippled Nigeria beyond salvation, as it were. This greed 

explains why a particular individual would embezzle money meant for projects 

that would benefit a whole mass of people; money which not even his fifth 

generation could finish. This manifestation of greed among the political elite 

seems to act as a trigger for the populace to grab whatever they could from 

wherever they could. This is how the innate greed in human beings has caused 

corruption to trickle down from the high and mighty to the masses. Each one seeks 

the opportunity to have a bite of the national cake by every means, fair or foul. 

 

The level of corruption in Nigeria has made her an object of caricature and the butt 

of expensive jokes both home and abroad. It was not surprising, therefore, however 

shocking it may be, that the former British Prime Minister, David Cameron, was 

overhead describing Nigeria as „fantastically corrupt.‟ This was in a relatively 

private conversation with the queen and other political leaders at the Buckingham 

Palace (BBC News, May 11, 2016). The Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari, 

could only be shocked but could not but affirm the veracity of the comment. This 

he actually admitted to the Sky News Diplomatic Editor the next day (Punch, May 

12, 2016). This was described by BBC diplomatic correspondent, James Landale, 

as a „truthful gaffe‟ as this corresponds to what they and many others knew about 

the country (BBC News, May 11, 2016). 

 

Widespread cases of corruption involving public officials (which details we may 

not bore our readers with since that is not the focus of this paper) only point to the 

greed which rules the hearts and minds of most of the political and public office 

holders in Nigeria. This greed appears to be innate in every human being but 

societal systems and structures could either suppress or aggravate this tendency in 

humans. Obviously, the Nigerian system nurtures and encourages the 

manifestation of this trait. This came to the fore in the distribution of theCOVID-

19 palliatives. 

 

COVID-19: Distribution of Palliatives in Nigeria 

There is no gainsaying that the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic threw the 

world into an unforeseen crisis. As countries were preaching and enforcing 

precautionary measures, the virus was spreading like wildfire. This forced a lock 

down of public places, including markets and churches. Social and economic life 



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were shut down. This had, and still has, enormous economic consequences. 

Businesses were shutting down, employees in the private sectors were losing their 

jobs, and hunger was taking its toll. Expectedly, the International Monetary Fund 

(IMF) estimates that in 2020 the global economy, in terms of real Gross Domestic 

Products (GDP), shrank by about 3.5% (Alpert, 2021). In most countries, 

palliatives were distributed to the citizens to cushion the effects of the lockdown. 

These came in the form of food items and other essentials as well as personal 

protective equipment which were distributed mainly to the most vulnerable. 

Various countries gave out stimulus packages to individuals and businesses in a 

bid “to stave off economic free-fall as business [ground] to a halt due to the 

pandemic” (Snyder, 2020).Many developed countries calculated the COVID-19 

stimulus package according to a certain percentage of their GDP, with Japan 

topping the list with 42% followed by Slovenia with 25% and Germany with 20% 

(Barone, 2020). These palliative efforts facilitated the bouncing back of the 

economies of these countries after the first wave of the COVID-19. 

 

Although the coronavirus infection in Nigeria was, and remains, insignificant in 

relation to the infection rate in other countries and continents - Nigeria ranks 86th 

in the world, according to available statistics (Worldometers, 2021) - the resultant 

economic crisis has been arguably more harshly felt in Nigeria than in other 

countries within and outside Africa. Just like in other countries, it brought in its 

wake hardships and unbearable hunger occasioned by lockdown of businesses, job 

losses, and other such effects. And, as always, the worst hit were the poor masses 

who constitutes at least 40 per cent of the population, with their number estimated 

at a staggering 83 million, according to a 2019 report (World Bank, 2020). 

 

As we already opined above, given the economic devastation wrought by the 

COVID-19 pandemic, any responsible government should be concerned about 

putting in place measures to cushion the economic effects of the pandemic in the 

form of relief packages. There is also the need to monitor how such relief funds 

and materials are distributed to ensure that no one who deserves such relief 

packages is side-lined in the process of the distribution. In Nigeria, there were 

efforts by governments and some individuals and corporate organisations to 

assuage the effects of the pandemic and its attendant economic crisis. There were 

donations from large-hearted individuals as well as business and charity 

organisations, both from within and from outside the country. According to 

Benson(2020), who cited the CBN as his source, 107 Nigerian companies and 

wealthy individuals donated the sum of 25.8 billion naira for COVID-19 relief as 

at April 2020.Topping the donors‟ chat were the CBN (N2billion),and numerous 

others, according to their capacity. All the telecommunications companies and 

commercial banks in Nigeria also donated generously to the COVID-19 relief. 



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Moreover, Obiezu reports that a private sector coalition known as CA-COVID 

“had collected tens of millions of dollars‟ worth of aid for coronavirus victims and 

given it to the Government (Obiezu, 2020).”All these donations made for the 

COVID-19 relief to the Federal Government were channelled through the Central 

Bank of Nigeria for onward disbursement. This seems to be the demand of due 

process, but it also has its downside. 

 

Criticisms/reactions that attended the donations 

There were commendations for these individuals and corporate organisations for 

their generous donations which were described as Corporate Social Responsibility. 

Of course, it is a great sign of solidarity with the masses of the people who are 

most vulnerable and would suffer the most economic impacts of the pandemic. 

 

However, there were also serious criticisms against these donations being 

channelled through government institutions. These criticisms were informed by the 

antecedents of corruption in the distribution of resources in Nigeria. The political 

elite in Nigeria have lost the credibility of the masses due to widespread corruption 

in government. In this connection, not a few people questioned the propriety of, 

and the rationale behind, making such interventions through the government rather 

than directly or through other means such as churches, village governments, and 

such likes. Not a few bank customers questioned, for instance, why their banks, 

would donate such huge amounts through the government where it would likely 

end up in the pockets of few individuals rather than crediting the accounts of their 

customers directly. Even with the explanation that for the banks, as for other 

corporate bodies, making the donations directly through the Federal Government 

makes for better accountability, and that “donating the money through the CBN is 

simply the most coordinated approach” (Benson, 2020) a section of the people still 

deem it selfishness on the part of these banks and corporate organisations. In this 

direction, Ariche, Ikegbu, and Amalu (2021: 54) argue “that channeling all the 

donated funds to the Nigerian government is a misdirected one due to its 

antecedence of unaccountability, lack of transparency and corruption.” In other 

words, the Federal Government has lost credibility to receive such donations 

meant for the poor masses because the people in government have, time and again, 

shown that they cannot be trusted with the resources that are meant to benefit the 

public. 

 

Were the donors’ intentions respected? 

A pertinent question to guide the direction of our argument now is, were the 

donors‟ intentions respected? Perhaps the reservations expressed by the naysayers 

was not unfounded after all when we look back at how the COVID-19 palliatives 

were distributed. It is noteworthy that some wealthy individuals engaged in direct 

distribution of the COVID-19 palliatives through churches or village governments. 

These churches and village governments were more effective not only because 



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they are closer to the people, knowing who needed the relief packages more, but 

also because they are easier to be monitored and held accountable. With regard to 

the donations that were made through the Federal Government, serious questions 

have been raised about how the relief packages were distributed. The Nation 

Newspaper of April 29, 2021, for instance, reports that the Senate Committee on 

Special Duties questioned the Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster 

Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadya Umar Farouq, on how 32.4 

billion naira allocated to her ministry was spent. She responded that only 2.4 

billion had been released to her ministry. The Senate apparently acted in response 

to agitations by Nigerians with regard to the palliative care (Onogu, 2021). 

 

In the same vein, a press release by Action Aid on April 22, 2020 had it that a 

consortium of anti-corruption organisations, which includes Action Aid Nigeria, 

Centre for Democracy and Development, and the Centre for Communication and 

Social Impact) under the Upright for Nigeria, Stand Against Corruption campaign 

challenged the federal and state governments to publish the list of COVID-19 

palliative beneficiaries (Action Aid, 2020). The consortium. This is another pointer 

to the suspicion with which the masses view every action of the people in 

government. 

 

The press release signed by Ene Obi, Country Director of Action Aid Nigeria, 

noted that there was information gap between the various governments and the 

citizens with regard to the palliatives in the form of Social Investment Programme 

(SIP), which comprises the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) and the COVID-19 

emergency relief fund. The press release equally pointed out that the President 

directed that the CCT beneficiaries be increased from 2.5 million to 3.5 million. 

Although Ene Obi, in the press release, clarified that the CCT started in 2018 and 

should not be confused with the COVID-19 palliative, she insisted that they must 

be separated and specified so that each beneficiary knows what they are benefitting 

from. Moreover, the consortium challenged all levels of government to publish the 

value of money received as donations for COVID-19 relief as well as the list of 

beneficiaries. Equally included in their demands is the establishment of an easy 

medium of reporting corruption in relation to the distribution of the palliatives, 

prosecution of offenders and the inclusion of citizens‟ group in the palliative 

committee.  

 

This press release expresses the sentiments of a great majority of Nigerians. It is 

believed in so many quarters that the palliatives were hijacked by politicians. 

There are accounts of how these politicians stored these palliatives and were 

distributing them to their cronies. Some others found their ways into the markets. 

In Edo state, it is on record that most of the residents were not aware of the 



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distribution of any palliatives in the state. They even allege that the palliatives 

were hijacked by politicians (Eranga, 2020: 222).There is also a report that Lagos 

state received from the Federal Government 6000 bags of rice and two truckloads 

of vegetable oil for onward distribution to the most vulnerable in the state. This is 

in addition to a stimulus package unveiled by the State Government which was 

meant to reach at least 200,000 households (Agbedo et al., 2020). Yet residents of 

many communities in Lagos state bemoan the fact that they did not receive any 

palliative from either the State or the Federal Government.  In every other state it 

was the same story of not seeing any palliatives from the government, and where 

they were distributed, the packages distributed as palliatives were laughable. There 

were videos in circulation on social media during the lockdown showing the 

discontentment of people who did receive the palliatives. Sometimes it was few 

cups of rice, few packets of Indomie noodles, a tin of tomatoes, and stuff like that. 

Oftentimes people were assembled under inhuman conditions to wait in vain for 

the palliatives. 

 

During the lockdown, the social media were rife with news alleging that the 

Minister for Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, 

Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, claimed that every Nigerian had received the 

COVID-19 palliative. Even the Guardian news of Saturday August 8, 2020 quoted 

her as saying that “There is hardly anyone in Nigeria who didn‟t receive the 

Federal Government palliative care during the COVID-19 pandemic period … 

Hearing some tribes crying, especially the eastern part of Nigeria and the South-

South that no palliative care was given to them tends to blackmail” (Agbedo et al., 

2020). The report further quoted her as alleging that everybody in Nigeria, 

including the areas earlier mentioned, received the Federal Government cash relief 

in their bank accounts, and that only about 5 per cent, who were children, did not 

receive the relief package. However, on being quizzed on that, she denied having 

said so, arguing that “it is impossible to give palliatives to all Nigerians.” She said 

instead that “every State Government has received its shares of palliatives for 

onward distribution” (Silas, 2020). The nagging questions remain, who received 

what, and from whom? What did the state governments do with the palliatives 

allocated to their states? When were these distributed and according to what 

criteria? 

 

With regard to the above questions, some analysts have confirmed the widespread 

allegations that majority of those for whom the palliative were meant never 

received anything from the government. There were claims across the nation that 

the palliatives were hoarded. And people knew where! Hence, Nigerians, during 

the #Endsars protests, defied security agents to break into government warehouses 

and loot food items, which apparently were meant to be distributed as palliatives 

during the lockdown. This was long after the lockdown had been eased and people 

were returning to their normal activities. The question that this breaking into the 



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government warehouses elicited bordered on the criminality or otherwise of these 

actions. However, most of the people involved in looting the palliatives were 

adamant and vehemently argued that they were taking what rightly belonged to 

them which were hoarded by the political elite. A certain Ojo insisted to VOA 

reporter, Timothy Obiezu: “we need our palliatives. It is our right. My neighbour 

almost died of hunger because of COVID-19. He used to work as security guard at 

a government institution, but he was sacked. What do you want him to do? I gave 

him beans and rice, he almost died of hunger” (Obiezu, 2020). Both anger and 

desperation motivated the masses who went about searching out government 

warehouses and facilities or homes of some politicians to loot these palliatives, or, 

better put, to reclaim what were looted by the political class. 

 

What else could be the explanation for such massive hoarding of materials 

intended as palliatives to be shared out to the most vulnerable when they were 

forced to abandon their means of livelihood and stay at home, even if temporarily, 

if not greed? Vivian Bellonwu, head of Social Action Nigeria, described this as 

unthinkable, mean, insensitive and a betrayal of trust (Obiezu, 2020). It certainly is 

a clear index of human greed. 

 

A Critical Reflection On the Palliative Saga and Human Greed 

Mahatma Ghandi once said that the world has enough for everyone‟s need, but not 

for everyone‟s greed. The COVID-19 palliatives represent an effort to make the 

resources of the world attend to the needs of the most needy people in the 

pandemic era. They were meant to benefit the most vulnerable population who 

work in the informal sector, such as the street hawkers, barrow and truck pushers, 

barbers, hairdressers, bricklayers, commercial drivers, and farmers, to mention a 

few. These depend on daily struggle for their daily bread, and most of them 

already live below the poverty line. Given the effects of the lockdown in the lives 

of this set of people, there is no gainsaying that they were in most need of such 

palliative care. But these palliatives were entrusted to the Ministry of 

Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, the state 

and the local governments for onward distribution. In this connection, the above 

words of Ghandi should ring in the mind of every right thinking individual who 

finds him/herself in a position to oversee the common resources. One‟s happiness 

in such a situation should come from the fact that one is used a channel to create 

happiness in other people‟s lives. But we know that the joy of having increases by 

having. Therefore, oftentimes people in such positions are confronted with the 

temptation to divert the resources meant for the public to their private use and 

enjoyment. This is the role of greed in human life and affairs. Unfortunately, this 

reared its ugly head in the distribution of the COVID-19 palliatives.  

 



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Greed is an animal tendency that is innate in every human being. But just like any 

other innate tendency that is not an involuntary process in human beings, greed 

could be mastered by anyone who cared to and worked hard at it. Of course, it is 

known that human needs are multiple and insatiable. The satisfaction of one need 

oftentimes gives birth to another need, and this could go on ad infinitum. This 

view was expressed by Marx and Engels (1947: 16-17)when they asserted that “as 

soon as a need is satisfied (which implies the action of satisfying, and the 

acquisition of an instrument) new needs are made.” Agbakoba (2003: 69) 

corroborates this thus: “labour improves in order to satisfy human needs better, but 

the fact of this improvement enables man to formulate other human needs.” This 

insatiability of human needs seems to work side by side with the instinct for self-

preservation to elicit in human beings the acquisitive tendency which manifests as 

greed. But human beings are also social beings. The implication is that there are 

resources we must share in common. In an organized and civilized society such 

resources are provided by the government through what the citizens and the 

physical environment contribute in the form of taxes and natural resources, 

respectively. Hence, we must appreciate the fact that self-preservation transcends 

the confines of any individual to other members of the society. It is a refusal to 

keep this in mind that leads to excessive greed and obsessive acquisitiveness. And 

this played out in the distribution of the COVID-19 palliatives in Nigeria. 

 

According to Meher Baba(1967: 27), “Greed is a state of the restlessness of the 

heart, and it consists mainly of craving for power and possessions.”Understood as 

an excessive desire for resources, especially for property such as money, real 

estate, or other symbols of wealth (Taflinger, 1996), it goes without saying that 

greed always contravenes the demands of justice and equity. This is because, as 

Thomas Aquinas (1947: II-II. Q118)aptly put it, “one man cannot over-abound in 

external riches, without another man lacking them, for temporal goods cannot be 

possessed by many at the same time.” This view was re-echoed by John Locke 

(1932: Ch. 5) who opined that whoever acquires more riches (property) than is 

needed in his/her life is taking more than his share of the world‟s resources. That is 

to say that even if one acquires such wealth by dint of hard work, such a person 

may not be totally absolved with regard to the exploitation of other people‟s 

labour. Yet, strictly speaking such a person may not be validly held accountable 

for any crimes against humanity on that basis. However, there is a manifestation of 

greed that is purely a crime against humanity. Such is the greed that pushes one to 

embezzle and divert to one‟s personal use resources meant for the public. It was 

apparently to this tendency that St Augustine (1958: Bk XII, 8)referred when he 

asserted thus: “Greed is not a defect in the gold that is desired but in the man who 

loves it perversely by falling from justice which he ought to esteem as 

incomparably superior to gold…” 

  



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The folly of unguarded acquisitiveness is that, as Adam Smith puts it, “the rich 

man consumes no more food than his poor neighbour. In quality it may be very 

different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and art; but in 

quantity it is very nearly the same” (Smith, Bk I, Ch. XI: II). With regard to 

luxuries, however, Smith notes a very great difference. This only points to the fact 

that our basic needs are all the same. We however tend to rob others of these basic 

needs when we crave to multiply our luxuries. And, try as we may, we can never 

satisfy all our cravings. For “man is only partially satisfied in his attempt to have 

the fulfilment of his desires, and this partial satisfaction fans and increases the 

flame of craving instead of extinguishing it. Thus greed always finds an endless 

field of conquest and leaves the man endlessly dissatisfied” (Baba, 1967: 27). 

Therefore, one has to seek the contentment that comes from a heart that craves 

nothing since desire is the source of greed and every evil. Without this 

contentment, the temptation to take more than one‟s fair share of the common 

wealth would always be there.  

 

A pertinent question at this point would then be, who received what palliative, and 

from whom? As already shown above, majority of the vulnerable people, the 

poorest of the poor, for whom the palliatives were basically meant, did not receive 

any palliatives whether in relief materials or as cash transfer. This was in part as a 

result of uncontrolled greed on the part of the public servants entrusted with the 

distribution of those palliatives, and in part as a result of the failure of the 

government to put in place checks and balances in the distribution of the 

palliatives. This paper therefore recommends that strict measures be put in place 

for maintaining accountability and transparency in the distribution of resources in 

the country. The anti-corruption agencies should also be swift and impartial in 

bringing offenders to book. 

 

Conclusion 

This paper discussed the response of the Nigerian government and people to the 

COVID-19 pandemic in relation to its economic impact on the lives of the most 

vulnerable citizens. It argued that the set of people worst hit by the economic 

impact of the pandemic were those who work in the informal sector and depend on 

daily struggle for their sustenance. These were described as the most vulnerable 

people. The Federal Government and various state governments voted some 

amount of money and received donations in cash and materials to alleviate the 

plight of those most affected by the harsh economic realities occasioned by the 

pandemic. This paper focused on how these palliatives were distributed. 

 

Any responsible government which fulfils its duty of providing for the less 

privileged citizens also puts in place measures to check any irregularity in the 



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distribution of such resources. This paper found however that in Nigeria, there 

were no such measures put in place even when various groups called attention to it. 

As a result, some set of people, as usual, saw in the pandemic an opportunity to 

indulge that irrational and animalistic craving called greed. They hijacked and 

diverted the relief cash and materials meant for the poorest of the poor citizens. 

While they shared some to their families and friends, they stowed others away in 

warehouses; and these were discovered during the #Endsars protests. This desire to 

convert what is meant for the public to one‟s personal use we attributed in this 

paper to greed, an innate tendency in every human being which can, in any case, 

be mastered with much effort. 

 

This paper recommended that the government should put in place strict measures 

for maintaining accountability and transparency in the distribution of resources in 

the country and strict punishment for offenders. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



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