MzAgams

“The National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA) has disclosed that it has vaccinated 513,626 Nigerians so far.” About 500,000 vaccinated in one month? That’s less than 17,000 a day. It’s worse than I thought! At FMC Jabi I did the math with the staff based on their soooooooooo slow process at 36,000 a day. And calculated it would take 10 years to cover the Nigerian population! I didn’t know yet that the goal was 40 percent of the country’s population, an estimated 80 million people, before the end of 2021, and 30 percent more by the end of 2022! Ha!

Here’s what I’ve learnt and deduced from my vaccine experience in Abuja so far. They are more concerned with capturing the data than increasing the clicks. Good. Data has been one of our weaknesses. There are no onsite storage facilities so vaccines were transported in old fashioned coolers from only God knows where. They refused to say. I waited 3 hours for them to arrive. It was my choice. On average it took 2-3 hour to process each vaxxee. They captured, scanned and logged lots of stuff before administering vax. And took their sweet time doing it. Better slow than sorry, my professional self observed.

Then I calculated how many more work teams would be needed to surge the number. Realized the objective wasn’t broad coverage. Wondered how much money had been budgeted, how much was released and how much was diverted. I’ve worked on all aspects and in all roles of project management in Nigeria. I know exactly what’s going on. Like any good shopkeeper. So I wasn’t surprised when NOI polls reported that 9 out of 10 Nigerians agreed that you. “must be very careful when dealing with people.” Don’t get it wrong. This corroborates an old HBR report that found only 1 in 10 people were honest by default. Its a global phemon. Truth is, there are little consequences for bad behavior and big consequences for ‘whistleblowing’ globally. Haven’t you heard about Oxfam’s latest adventures in sexploitaion?

Because I didn’t expect it to take that long to get the vaccine I didn’t bring anything to read, like I usually do when going to government offices. Plus my phone battery was too low to cruise the net. So to keep my mind from drifting into rage or boredom I put on my professional cap started observing and analyzing the process. This is a key insight. I didn’t focus on the people. I focused on the process. I took Human nature as given to focus on process, group process, group dynamics and group think.

Portraits of Buhari, Bello, the senior and junior health ministers, chairman of the FMC Jabi board and its medical director looked over the hall and created a clear chain of power and command. I identified the work floor enforcers. Assessed the hierarchy. I must say the execution was flawless if slow. But it made about as little consideration for the human element as I did. We were the herd of people they were trying to direct through the process with military precision. We were expected to comply. They were the Experts. They were in charge. When asked a direct question they were all noncommittal like bureaucrats all over the world,. No one had any visible form of ID. Which wasn’t so bad with the uniformed nurses but was incredibly disconcerting with the un-uniformed staff. The fact they all had their faces half covered with masks did not help. I realize I can’t identify any of them, if anything went wrong. Especially the senior staff. And I can tell from how the underlings respond to them they will not make reliable witnesses if asked. This was getting surreal now. Like a bad horror movie.

Like a good Nigerian I silently say my own equivalent of ‘It is not my portion’ and yank my thoughts away from disaster. I focus on the process. I notice one of the masked nurses eyeing me menacingly. I had challenged their oga madam earlier when they told us to wait if we can wait for the vaccines to arrive. They had told me the same thing an hour before that. I asked the same question. “Wait for how long?” But with more impatience. Oga Madam had tried to bark me down. She thought I might be one of those people that wouldn’t talk back. A couple of other people in the hall raised their voice to agree with me. “She is saying the truth now. How long should we wait?” Na how trouble dey start. I had made my point. There was no need to escalate. I sat down. But all the workers had marked me as potential trouble. Some were soothing, some amused, some became surly. This particular nurse looked down right menacing. “What you looking at?” I had to ask eventually and give her my own menacing stare. She didn’t back down. I ignored her. She prowled around, her eyes glaring at me. I was confused. How far exactly was she ready to go? I didn’t need to find out. I was going to get this vaccine and I was going to observe, record and analyse the experience.

The drama queen in me was like “Na God bring me here today to take my eye see.” A couple weeks ago I had thought I would need to tap my ‘connections’ to get a vaccine. Like most Nigerians I did not have accurate information and I expected the system to hoard access. You know, like they did with the CACOVID palliatives? BTW. What happened to that story? Anyway. I was beginning to think how fortuitous that I chose to just walk into the FMC instead and see ‘How far?’ You should see me when I get messianic Some of you have. Sorry. I hope you found it entertaining, at least.

“I’m going to report to all those portraits,” I said with a shimmy and a sweeping gesture. “Do you know if they sent me to report on you?”

Useless people. Instead of giving me a Coke to cool temper they sent Nurse Muscles. Smh. As if I can’t defend myself. I make a couple of loud business calls. Sha generally running my business. Signalling how precious my time is, how important I am. My project manager meets me at the clinic. I had put her name down. When they suggest she come back the next week for her vax after she’s been waiting an hour, I quick quick cancel my ride, wait with am. And they quick quick gave her the shot. As we leave I wonder if there are special teams giving VIP house to house or office to office service. Because its 4.30pm and I just spent the past 5 hours stuck in an environment that was threatening AND not really covid19 complaint if you remove the masks. No social distancing, no sanitizer, no temperature checks.

The only side effect I had to the vaccine was drowsiness. After I got home and had a bubble bath I went to sleep. The next day I posted to my home town WhatsApp group that I’d had the vaccine. There had been intense debates about the vaccine on the group. I wanted to show them it was safe but I also wanted to tell them that if I died they should hold Grace D. responsible. Grace D. is the name of the nurse that signed my vaccine certificate. It is the only name I got. I wonder if it’s her real name? I kept staring at her face when she took off her mask to eat the lunch brought in for them. She didn’t look at all like I she did with her mask on. That’s when it dawned on me that I could possibly identify anyone there! Am I going to write that sweeping report? I think I have. This is my report. Will I send it to The Portraits? Probably not. I WILL send it to the SERVICOM and NCDC though. Nowadays I only do what I got to do. Nigeria cannot make me leave my work and be running upandan to fix her while I leave my life to fall apart.

(Meanwhile, what pronoun do you think goes with Nigeria? Think about it? She/Her? He/Him? They?Their? And does that make Nigeria a mother land or father land? )

For years I have been offended by the way so called leaders, politicians, bureaucrats and governments have pushed citizens around but people need to be pushed and challenged. Including the people who are doing the pushing. When they push you have to push back. It’s how it works. Nothing personal. MLK called it creative tension. Love and power to him. The most valuable lesson here? ALL design needs to be Human centered.

P.S. Like I told my village people, for traders and business men who travel a lot the vaccine will soon become a requirement for international travel. Those that don’t travel, may never be asked to show proof of vaccination. At least, not any time soon. After reading Ope Adetayo’s article I can’t help but roll my eyes. Naija! We are always making aspirational plans without a glance in the direction of reality. Vaccinate 80 million Nigerians by the end of 2022? How? With what? Are we being a wee bit ambitious? Meanwhile, someone will be expecting an A for effort. But like a good Nigerian, I wish them all the best. I can’t keel myself. As a frequent traveler that wants to get back to my travels I have taken my first jab. I’m pretty certain the government has expensive staff, advisers and consultants to help them figure it out.