Striking a Balance between Two Extremes: COVID-19 Pentecostal Annotations and Government’s Response-Actions in Nigeria

Abstract

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and subsequent government’s response-actions generated fascinating reactions and interpretations from different quarters in Nigeria. The country’s vibrant socio-political and religious spaces were inundated by a series of interpretations, thoughts and opinions, especially by prominent clergies from the Pentecostal Christian faith. Five perspectives emerged: the divinely-permitted pandemic/punishment perspective, the eschatological perspective; the Satanic-orchestration perspective; the conspiracy perspective; and the pragmatist’s perspective. This article examines the thrusts, strengths and limitations of these perspectives in the light of scientific explanations of the global outbreak of COVID-19 and government’s response-actions in Nigeria. The standpoint was used as the theoretical underpinning for the study, while the argument was based on secondary sources, including audio/visual sermons/addresses of various clergies on the subject matter. These were content-analysed and subjected to historical and descriptive methods. Findings show that while some of the claims and interpretations by proponents of the perspectives were labelled ‘unscientific’, unverifiable, outrageous and premised on sentiments, such claims went a long way to shape beliefs, public perception and disposition to the pandemic and subsequent measures by the government. It was concluded that such overriding influence ought to have been leveraged by the government to achieve compliance with its measures and manage the pandemic regarding its spread and the administration of vaccines.