¹Obinna Nwodim, PhD,²Edmund Felix Obomanu, PhD

¹,²Department of Political and Administrative Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Port Harcourt

The principal responsibility of any government is to provide for the security and welfare of the citizenry. A major feature of the well-being of the citizenry is quality healthcare service delivery. There is no doubt that the novel COVID-19 pandemic that ravaged the world exposed the vulnerability of citizens to social and economic challenges, thus imposing tremendous stress on governments, globally. In other words, governments were taken to task on their responsibilities. Both developed and developing countries were not spared as casualties cut across the divide. In response to the health challenges and subsequent socio-economic impacts, governments, the world over, adopted various policy measures to address the pandemic. In this paper, the author examined the policy response of the Nigerian government to the pandemic in order to mitigate the harsh negative impacts on the citizenry. The theoretical underpinning of this study is the systems theory as developed by David Easton. The paper is descriptive and therefore adopted secondary data from books, journal articles, magazines, newspapers, as well as other periodicals, both online and offline for discussion and analysis. The study observed that although, the Nigerian government adopted measures and strategies in the fight against the pandemic, the policy strategies and mechanisms were weak and reactionary, even as there were no feedback mechanisms to ascertain policy outcome. The paper, amongst others, therefore recommended that a state of emergency be declared in the economic sector of the country to help revive the economy and improve the well-being of the citizenry, while a robust and workable National Health Insurance Policy be established to address the health needs of the citizens.

Policy Response; COVID-19 Pandemic; Economic Impact; Health Sector.

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