ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A CASE OF NIGERIA

Abstract

Nigeria is one of the countries affected by the "COVID-19" outbreak. The severe economic obstacles caused by the pandemic are likely to exacerbate an already perceived brittle political fragility. A country of more than 206 million, with a fragile democracy, a weak health care system, and an inundated economy, vulnerable to the outrageous impact of COVID-19, politically and economically. Hence, the present study aims to scrutinize the pandemic's politico-economic implications on the Nigerian state. This study is qualitative research which employed secondary sources of data in scrutinizing Covid-19 potential impacts on Nigeria's politico-economic wellbeing, such as library information, documents from journal articles, books, newspapers, and reports, among others, to provide a comprehensive outlook of the phenomenon. The study posits that the Coronavirus continuously shapes and cripples the Nigerian economy, causing a substantial decline in GDP, political lurch, the outrageous effect on the health sector with a less coordinated response from the government, which makes the first and second wave more challenging for the people and government to bear. The study proposes an integrated approach between public and private stakeholders in the area of health and economy to deal with the deadly phenomenon, thereby curtailing its anticipated effects in the future.
 Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic, Political, Economic Impacts, Nigeria