Like other viruses that devastated people and businesses in the past years of Nigeria’s existence, the COVID-19 pandemic will remain memorable in the minds of many Nigerians for years. The Federal Government of Nigeria implemented targeted lockdown measures in areas where COVID-19 cases were increasing quickly in an effort to slow the virus’ rate of spread. The targeted lockdown was imposed by the federal government in several states, including Lagos, Ogun, and the Federal Capital Territory of Abuja. A partial lockdown was implemented by some states in the nation, and interstate borders were closed.
The people who lost loved ones will never forget the virus in a hurry. Businesses that lost a significant part of their revenue and experienced infrastructural damage due to the looting of the palliatives that trailed perceived hoarding of food and non-food materials meant for the vulnerable
One Ojo informed Voice of America reporter Timothy Obiezu that “we need our palliatives.” In actuality, we are entitled to do so by law. My neighbour next door nearly perished as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. He was employed as a security guard for a government building before being fired. What can he do? He nearly died of starvation before I gave him a meal of beans and rice. Several mainstream and new media outlets reported views such as this from different locations in the country. According to our observational analysis of the reports, media practitioners believed that people set out to recover what belonged to them using different frames by quoting some people who participated in the ‘looting exercise’ and concerned stakeholders.
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In this piece, our analyst takes a retrospective look at what actually transpired between the participants and concerned stakeholders using 162 representative quotes from 50 relevant news stories. These genres are considered because our analyst found them appropriate in establishing the meanings given to the incident by the stakeholders quoted by the newspaper organisations. The Punch, The Nation and The Nigerian Tribune are some of the newspapers where our analyst sourced the news stories from.
Process tracing analysis of the quotes indicates that Nigerian newspapers used different classifications and names to represent the participants. In some news reports, they were regarded as hoodlums and residents. Some of the stories also revealed the identities of the participants as business owners and employees. However, where business owners and employees were used, the newspapers reported how hoodlums and residents mistakenly looted property that belonged to the business owners and employees, who were quoted as eyewitnesses.
Exhibit 1: Conceptualisation of the incident
Politicians, governors, deputy governors, commissioners, ministers and security agencies were mostly referenced as state actors, while members of the civic space, social and public affairs analysts, academics, labour unions, youth organisations and activists were considered non-state actors. Thirty-nine out of the 162 quotes had traces that gave meaning to the incident. Surprisingly, our analysis shows that stakeholders could not agree on whether the incident was looting or not. Instead, a large percentage of the stakeholders considered it to be theft and vandalism. In terms of blaming and praising the stakeholders, analysis indicates that state actors were blamed more than the citizens, especially those who participated and were described by the newspapers as hoodlums (see Exhibit 2).
Exhibit 2: Praising and blaming by stakeholder
