Governance, Police Legitimacy and Citizen's Compliance with Covid-19 Guidelines in Plateau State, Nigeria

The outbreak of Coronavirus in December 2019 brought another dimension to public safety and security. Governments the world over enforced lockdowns, travel bans and curfews, and mask wearing measures to protect citizens from contacting or spreading the virus. In Nigeria, where the majority of citizens are poor and rely on their day-to-day trade to eke out a living, enforcing compliance becomes all the more difficult, especially where citizens have a low level of confidence in the government. Questions around leadership and good governance, police legitimacy and the manner in which funds aggregated to cushion the effects of the lockdown are utilised for the poor and vulnerable, and subsequently affects confidence in government. In other words, although Coronavirus may be deadly, issues surrounding compliance may not be the real problem, but rather the 'hunger virus' as it has been described in common parlance in Nigeria. Citizens have continued to question the police's professionalism, abuse of authority, violence and corrupt practices while on duty. These, and many more issues, provided the impetus for the study. To achieve this, e-questionnaires were administered to participants using Google Docs. Interviews were also conducted with petit traders, transporters, market men and women, and operators of small and medium scale businesses who were affected by the stay-at-home policy. Findings revealed the State government's inadequacies in managing the crisis as participants argued that compliance to guidelines does not require forceful enforcement by the police if leaders at all levels are perceived to be responsive to citizens' basic needs.