[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs and Policy Studies. Opinions expressed do not reflect the position of the Round Table editorial board.]

Introduction

In April 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic brought Nigeria to a standstill. I heard from a relative living in the same neighbourhood, that ‘Fatima’ (not her real name), a widowed mother of four living in a low-income neighbourhood in Kano, queued for hours outside a government food distribution centre. Days before, officials had promised support – bags of rice, cartons of noodles, small cash stipends to help the poorest members of society weather the storm of lockdowns. But after hours under the sun, nothing came. Eventually, local officials announced that the supplies were ‘not enough’ and had been redirected elsewhere. On the other side of the city, in a ward represented by a well-connected political figure, food aid arrived in bulk and was distributed in full view of local media.

Fatima’s experience is not an exception. It represents a deeper truth about how help is rationed in times of emergency in Nigeria and, more broadly, in many parts of the Global South. When a crisis hits, aid is supposed to flow quickly and equitably. But in Nigeria’s COVID-19 response, the opposite happened. The distribution of palliatives became a theatre of patronage, exclusion, and opacity, reflecting entrenched patterns of inequality that long predate the pandemic (Olawoyin, Citation2021). This paper explores how aid distribution to the most vulnerable groups in Nigeria during the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced inequality.

The promise and failure of palliatives

At the onset of the pandemic, the Nigerian federal government launched a series of interventions to cushion the effects of lockdowns on vulnerable populations. Billions of naira were earmarked for food support, conditional cash transfer, and medical equipment (Akpan, Citation2021). Multiple donor agencies and corporate actors joined the effort, with the Coalition Against COVID-19 leading private sector support (Odunsi, Citation2020). The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) rolled out public health text messaging, while state governments took charge of logistics and enforcement.

On paper, it was an unprecedented mobilisation. But in practice, the system was riddled with inconsistencies. There was no transparent register of beneficiaries, and the methods used to identify ‘the vulnerable’ were often arbitrary (Olawoyin, Citation2021). In many communities, access to palliatives depended less on need and more on whom you knew (Olawoyin, Citation2021). Local politicians were handed control over distribution, which they used to reward loyalists and sideline critics. In some areas, traditional rulers or religious leaders received allocations with little oversight. In others, whole neighbourhoods, particularly informal settlements and peri-urban communities, were ignored entirely.

Investigations by BudgIT, a civic accountability group, revealed widespread opacity in the distribution of both federal and state resources (BudgIT, Citation2021). Some states hoarded supplies; others repackaged donor palliatives as political gifts. A politician was caught sharing items branded CA-COVID palliative as a birthday present (Adebayo, Citation2020). In Lagos and several other states, warehouses were later discovered stockpiling COVID-19 relief materials long after residents had been told none were available. In October 2020, as protests over police brutality erupted, angry youths raided these facilities in multiple states, not just out of opportunism, but out of a deep sense of betrayal.

Covid-19 and Commonwealth countries – A special edition of the Round Table Journal
Covid 19 and Commonwealth countries – An introduction

Aid as a mirror of power

What happened with Nigeria’s COVID-19 palliatives was not simply a failure of logistics. It was a reflection of how power works in a environment where institutions are weak and informal networks dominate public life. In many parts of Nigeria, formal rules exist, but they often compete with informal ones, such as ethnic patronage, political godfatherism, or localised elite bargains.

In this system, emergencies become opportunities to reinforce neopatrimonialism. For politicians, distributing aid becomes a form of political branding, a way to build loyalty, settle scores, and secure future votes. For bureaucrats, control over aid creates room for rent-seeking. Even well-meaning actors struggle to operate effectively in a context where data is unreliable, systems are fragmented, and oversight is weak.

This is not unique to Nigeria. Across much of the Global South, health emergencies expose the limits of state capacity and the politics that shape who gets help (Eadie & Yacub, Citation2023). During the Ebola crisis in West Africa, for example, international aid often bypassed local institutions, leading to parallel structures and public mistrust. In India, COVID-19 responses were marked by caste-based disparities in access to care and relief. In South Africa, food aid became embroiled in local political patronage schemes.

Health crises as inequality accelerators

Emergencies, by their nature, demand speed. But in unequal societies, speed often comes at the expense of fairness. When systems are already tilted in favour of the powerful, crises do not level the playing field they deepen existing divides.

Onyedikachi Madueke is with the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Aberdeen, UK.