When Media Campaigns Fail: Explaining the Factors of Civil Disobedience to COVID-19 Protocols in Nigeria

Abstract

Media campaigns on COVID-19 protocols were launched in Nigeria to reduce the spread of the virus. There was evidence to suggest disobedience to the protocols. Thus, this study investigates factors that facilitated civil disobedience to COVID-19 protocols and the implications for the management of the virus. Awareness, mediatisation and personal, cultural and societal factors constructs were formulated to measure the level of civil disobedience. Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin’s Measure of Sampling Adequacy used for the study revealed that 86.4% out of the sampled size was sufficient for testing and validating variables in the civil disobedience construct, 69.1% and 63.1% for awareness and mediatisation constructs, respectively. The constructs were subjected to inferential statistical analysis, and the variables measured at the continuous and linear relationship levels. The study found economic status and media reports as the determinants of peoples’ awareness of the virus. Provision of adequate information and exposure to COVID-related contents were dominant factors under mediatisation; social distancing and use of face masks were dominant factors of civil disobedience. This study concluded that media campaigns on COVID-19 protocols failed to achieve needed behavioural changes due to economic issues, language barriers, insensitivity of government and inadequate provision of essential amenities.

Keywords

Media campaigns health civil disobedience COVID-19 protocols

Introduction

The complex interplay of ethnic, social, religious, political and economic challenges in Nigeria potentially raised fears about the levels of vulnerability and severity, preparedness and resilience the country could muster against COVID-19 (Abe, 2011). A country approximated to harbour over 120 million people with above 69% of the population experiencing abject poverty and suffering acute lack of access to basic, survival needs of life is also experiencing political fragility and acute insecurity (Okechukwu & Nwekwo, 2020).

Most of the population survive on their activities in the informal sectors of the economy while youth unemployment and low life expectancy combine to worsen the situation (Anyanwu et al., 2020). The Boko Haram insurgency in the North-East, banditry in most states in the North, armed kidnapping by herdsmen and agitations for secession in the South and conflicts between indigenous people and migrating herdsmen are factors of fragility where there is state incapacity to provide security for its citizens (Gordon, 2020). Furthermore, Nigeria has been intermittently entering and exiting economic recession with high inflation and dependence on the volatility in the global oil market. Also, apart from corrupt political enrichment and public suspicion against activities of the political class (Omodero, 2019), there are occasional intra- and inter-ethnic and religious conflicts raising disaffection in a multi-ethnic and highly diversified country because of fear of political and religious domination between and among groups (Igiebor, 2019).

Therefore, when the first case of COVID-19 infection was declared in the country in 2020, these challenges and diversities shaped people’s understanding, attitude and response of citizens to awareness-raising, enactment and observance of rules on protocols for controlling the spread of COVID-19, and general support for government’s actions geared towards the successful management of the pandemic. There was angst against COVID-19 protocols, leading to protests and possible violence across the country. There was an expectation that when citizens understand the level of severity and their susceptibility and vulnerability to a particular infectious disease, there will be a corresponding adjustment of attitude and behaviour towards self-efficacy, control and total management of the disease. It was, therefore, puzzling that after explosive media campaigns on COVID-19, release of protocols and daily announcement of increase in the number of victims, there were breaches and wanton disregard for COVID-19 protocols in Nigeria. This study, therefore, investigates and explains the factors that raised civil disobedience to COVID-19 protocols in Nigeria and the implications for citizen-state participation in managing the current and possible future occurrence of such a pandemic.

Research Questions

What are the dominant constructs/themes of the awareness campaigns on observance of COVID-19 protocols?

What are the patterns of discourses on mediatisation of COVID-19?

What kinds of civil disobedience constructs/themes reinforce public interpretations of the reasons for their disobedience to COVID-19 protocols?

Which constructs/themes explain the civil disobedience to COVID-19 protocols?

Literature Review

Media Campaigns on COVID-19 in Nigeria (Mediatisation of COVID-19)

During pandemics, media mobilisation and disease prevention initiatives are thought to have an impact on the public through messages, appeals and narratives. The majority of African countries face considerable challenges in successfully conveying health problems targeted at disease prevention and control. Nigeria, for example, is one such country. Nigeria appears to intercept mediated communication about health and well-being through health campaigns due to its large geography, rising population, religious beliefs and cultural behaviours, polio eradication initiative in 2016, and children’s immunisation against measles and meningitis in 2019. Since some of these programmes were unproductive, it raises various concerns, such as how effective are the media’s communication tactics in health promotion and illness prevention?

On 9 March 2020, the federal government created the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 to coordinate and manage Nigeria’s multi-sectoral inter-governmental efforts to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and minimise its consequences. PTF’s mandate includes, among other things, enabling the delivery of national and state-level outbreak control priorities, such as public awareness and sensitisation campaigns about preventive and response operations. The PTF and a number of corporate groups launched an aggressive media sensitisation and mobilisation effort to raise awareness about the disease’s origins and preventive activities.

During the wake of the COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria, empirical inquiries (Doherty et al., 2020; Iyorza & Ojorgu, 2020; Olapegba et al., 2020) documented that there are numerous heavily supported media efforts for education, enlightenment about the disease’s origins, prevention and social mobilisation by media outlets, governments and non-governmental organisations on how to deal with and reduce the country’s rising infection rates. Iyorza and Jorgu (2020) confirmed this in their study when they reported that majority of Nigerians (68%) admit to having been receiving sensitisation messages from the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC); a more significant majority of the respondents (88%) agreed to be exposed to information on COVID-19 from multiple sources. However, the difference in the gap between the number of persons who believe that COVID-19 is a reality (54%) and those who think the disease is not real (46%) is not wide. Also, Doherty et al. (2020) report that many of the respondents (74%) heard about COVID-19 through the media. Respondents expressed a significant level of despair and worry about COVID-19, with 70% stating that hearing about the virus made them worried. A significant number of participants (92%) acknowledged that their communities are aware of COVID-19 through mass media and faith-based organisations. In addition, Olapegba et al. (2020) established that Nigerians (93.5%) have relatively high knowledge, mostly derived from traditional media, about COVID-19. The authors noted that Nigerians’ perceptions of COVID-19 bear implications across public health initiatives, compliance with precautionary behaviour, as well as bilateral connections with foreign countries, stressing that an evidence-based campaign to dispel myths and encourage precautionary measures should be strengthened. Although slightly more than half of Nigerians believe in the disease’s validity due to exposure to media campaigns, nearly half of the public has yet to accept COVID -19 as a reality.

Since the first COVID-19-positive patient was identified in Nigeria, there have been intensive and increased health campaigns aimed at maintaining a high level of hygiene, such as thorough hand washing, hand sanitising and maintaining appropriate social distance. But then, why most of the media campaigns are less effective is part of the research gap to be bridged in this study. This study’s focus has evolved from studying and analysing the media’s traditional duties as a conveyor belt for information, education and entertainment to a more critical examination of the role media and its contents play as social and behavioural change agents during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Although the Nigerian populace admitted that COVID-19 awareness media campaigns have created fear in them, Anietie et al. (2020) reported that some members of the public said that the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) sensitisation programme made them re-address their mode of greeting people like hugging and handshaking to avoid body contact during the peak of the disease, at this point, we are tempted to ask how the public’s response to COVID-19 preventive health guidelines such as hand washing and sanitising, staying at home, and so on was influenced by these public awareness campaigns. This is because, with rising infections during daily media preventive programmes on practically all platforms, the efficacy of Nigerian media campaign is being questioned. Is the campaign approach flawed or being thwarted by other external factors such as the economic status of individuals, poverty level and so on? What is wrong if it is flawed? This study seeks to find answers to the challenges the public face to obey authorities during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria.

Empirical evidence (Adebowale et al., 2020; Doherty et al., 2020; Iyorza & Ojorgu, 2020) tend to suggest that media campaigns on social distancing and the like fail to achieve needed behavioural changes due to economic issues, language barriers, insensitivity of government and lack of adequate provision of essential amenities. For example, on hand washing and sanitising of hands, Iyorza and Ojorgu (2020) reported that message sponsors did not take into cognisance that portable water is scarce in Nigeria, and hand sanitisers and soaps are costly commodities to purchase, particularly in Nigeria, where prices were astronomically raised as people faced salary cuts and job losses. This may also explain why the efficacy of behavioural change communication in media campaigns, as well as supporting persuasive theories, may be hampered by the audience’s lack of basic necessities, which reduces their motivation to act. Also, 84% of the people say they could not yield to the communication appeal to stay at home under a lockdown directive because of the need to search for food and basic needs to survive. Besides, because there are no local counterparts in Nigeria’s many languages, less literate Nigerians were unable to understand certain scientific words used in the advertising. As a result, terminologies like Corona Virus and Malaria were utilised in local language advertisements for local communities. Furthermore, Adebowale et al. (2020) found that adherence to avoid touching the face or nose (19.5%), wearing a face mask (58.1%) and social separation was relatively low (57.4%). Moreover, fear of getting tested, fear of being stigmatised if found to be infested, and a variety of other factors may explain why many respondents (81%) are scared to visit the hospital, Though media campaign messages appeal to suspects who may be sick to visit the health centres (Iyorza & Ojorgu, 2020).

So, with these glaring outcomes, this study interrogates how existing cultural practices and other factors shape civil disobedience to government directives during the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria with a view to proposing how media campaigns for disease management and curtailment can be better planned to help Nigeria flatten the curve of infectious diseases in future.

COVID-19 Misinformation/Disinformation and Infodemic in Nigeria

People’s perceptions, beliefs, attitudes and conduct are primarily shaped by the information they are exposed to. During pandemic situations/disasters, the public relies on the media to keep them informed about the current situation, the scope of the disaster, and the efforts being made by the authorities in charge of it to alleviate it and save the victims. At such times, there should be no frightening, horrifying, sensational or prejudiced headlines in the information/stories. As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads over the world, a parallel crisis of an overabundance of information-some true, some false emerged, which the World Health Organization (2020) labelled ‘infodemic’. During the peak of the COVID-19 outbreak, which has killed 4,270,089 people worldwide, misinformation and disinformation concerning control, prevention and cure flooded various media channels (including traditional and new media). People found it challenging to obtain trustworthy and reputable sources of information to aid them during emergencies and pandemics due to infodemic because misinformation during emergencies and pandemics can be hazardous to societal well-being. The COVID-19 infodemic is ubiquitous on social media (Ahmad & Murad, 2020; Islam, 2020; Ngozika et al., 2020) and can generate mistrust, fuel disputes and incite hatred in a country.

Infodemic, or information crisis, that was prevalent during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic demonstrated that controlling the spread of misinformation is one of the most difficult tasks the world faces in the digital age. The problem originates from the development of online information sources, which allows misinformation to flourish on digital media platforms. Furthermore, because the majority of social media users are not media or information savvy, they unwittingly help disinformation spread by making it viral despite persistent efforts at the global and national levels to combat the threat of disinformation to modern democratic society. Hassan (2020) notes that social media activists, influencers and self-proclaimed warriors frequently utilise their social media platforms and fringe websites to spread misinformation, create conspiracy theories and support COVID-19 denial. Hassan explained that their motivation is sometimes only to increase their online following and attract attention to their websites.

Literature (Matyek, 2020; Oluwasola, 2020; Posetti & Bontcheva, 2020a) has established that during the peak of COVID-19 outbreak, a comprehensive overview of the major disinfodemic format types and themes was provided. Emotional narrative structures and memes; fake websites and authoritative identities; fraudulently altered, falsified or decontextualised photos and videos; and disinformation infiltrators and planned campaigns are the four main categories of disinfodemic format types. The nine key themes of disinfodemic in circulation during the peak of COVID-19 outbreak include: origins and spread of the coronavirus/COVID-19 disease; incorrect and misleading statistics; false information about the pandemic’s economic and health consequences); immunity, symptoms, alternative therapies, vaccine development and availability are all common themes of misinformation published on social media and other independent websites. Scholars posit (Abugu, 2020; Stolberg & Weiland, 2020) that misinformation thrived among people due to advancements in digital technologies, social media, rise of citizen-reporters, political movements, commercial interests, interests of government/political actors, increasing distrust for media and other government institutions.

For instance, a study was conducted on the coronavirus outbreak by Cornell University experts. From January through 26 May 2020, the researchers analysed over 38 million articles written in English and established that more than 1.1 million articles had incorrect information (Stolberg & Weiland, 2020). Conspiracy theories, bad health advice and magical cures were among the 11 disinformation topics identified by the study. According to the study, the former president of the United States, President Donald Trump, is the singlemost powerful driver of the infodemic. President Trump was mentioned in approximately 38% of all misleading stories, which included miracle cures and the promotion of disinfectants and hydrochloroquine as viable COVID-19 therapies despite the warnings of international health authorities.

Pate et al., (2019) suggest that stakeholders in the media industry in Nigeria should work to improve information literacy and education, especially among young people using social media. This will give them a boost to be critical of the information they receive from both traditional and social media platforms. It is assumed that having the ability to critically handle and engage with information, particularly during times of crisis, might assist individuals to better control information epidemics.

Theory of Civil Disobedience

The theory of civil disobedience is an off-shoot of the theory of social contract. The first principle of justice gives and protects equal liberty to all citizens in a society where power is held on trust and when the political class saddled with the responsibility of promoting fairness, justice, balance, liberalism and egalitarianism fails and becomes oppressive, there is a moral right to resist perceived abuse of powers since abuse destroys integrity, fairness and justice. Where the dignity of human person, equality and freedom are respected, it is an aberration for the political class and their representatives to arrogate power to themselves and perpetrate abuse. Therefore, Uzoma and Morrison (2019, p. 89) say that “Rawls stated that his theory of civil disobedience is meant only for the ‘special case of a nearly just society, one that is well-ordered for the most part but in which some serious violations of injustice nevertheless do occur.’ The three arms of the theory demarcate the disobedience in question from existing types of opposition to constituted authority; provide the justifications for civil disobedience and various conditions for ‘actions and inactions’ of people engaged in civil disobedience; and explicate the benefits that follow an expression of dissent in a constitutional democracy.

Resistance, fight against slavery, justice and civil disobedience have their roots in the works of David Henry Thoreau from 1849 and the practical ideas of Gandhi in India. While it is popularly associated with political opposition, it is an instrument of resistance and change orchestrated by different groups against unfavourable policies of the government. It is interpreted as an expression of people’s dissent against the perceived unsatisfactory performance of public officials and specifically the government in power. As a non-violent means of resisting injustice, citizens demonstrate their disregard for existing laws and policies because they want a change to such. Those who engage in civil disobedience do so in public and while they communicate their disobedience to policies and laws, their actions are within the stipulate of the law (Smith, 2004).

The discourse of civil disobedience by Quigley and Bahmueller (2001) has deliberate, public, non-violence, conscientiousness, responsibility and punishment as important variables. Citizens exercise their legitimate right to protest over felt deprivation and inadequacy by publicly disobeying laws. This form of organising thrives on the understanding that the common good and not self-interest motivates the actions of participants. The concept and stage for expressing disobedience have accommodated online criticisms and protests on social media, especially the world of new social movements where participants mobilise to oppose and campaign against injustice, bad governance, moral laxity and general failure of government to promote accountability, openness and justice. It is important to note that their justification for breaking the law and policies stems from their collective moral interpretation of injustice and what they need to do to correct the imbalance (Smith, 2004).

Civil Disobedience to COVID-19 Protocols: Nigeria and the Rest of the World

The crisis of COVID-19 necessitated the productionand dissemination of education campaigns to correct misconceptions, improve public knowledge and teach precautionary measures for controlling and or preventing the spread of the disease. Countries of the world have produced various edutainment and infotainment to achieve these objectives (NCDC, 2020a). Personal hygiene, self-isolation, use of face mask and social distancing are chief among standard, recommended COVID-19 prevention and control measures by the World Health Organisation and the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. They are effective in limiting the number of bodily contacts among people and reducing the spread and or risk of transmitting the disease (Agusi et al., 2020). Focus is essentially on social distancing which helps in avoiding mass gathering and maintaining some space between and among people, which can even be regarded as physical distancing. Because of social, cultural and religious needs for mass gatherings and close contact, it has been difficult for people around the world to curtail their usual commune and penchant for proximity. This is the reason for uncontrolled mass transmission reported in many countries worldwide. In Nigeria, either full or partial lockdown to restrict movement and a range of other COVID-19 protocols were instituted for crowd control, maintenance of social distancing and eventual reduction in community transmission of the virus (Agusi et al., 2020).

As noted again by Agusi et al. (2020), the killing of civilians by law enforcement agents bred defiance and violence, and combined with increased socio-economic hazards among millions of poor and vulnerable citizens as some of the factors explaining the civil disobedience to COVID-19 protocols in Nigeria. An initial survey conducted by the Badan Pusat Statistik (Central Statistics Agency) in Indonesia reported people disobeyed the state’s rules on COVID-19 because there were no laws to be applied; cases of COVID-19 were then far from the local communities; public officials or political leaders also violated the rules; citizens’ businesses and jobs were at stake; and most of the people copied the action of others (Noorrizki et al., 2020). Avowed tie to collective social actions as an expression of cultural values, poor social security system and the knowledge gap between medical caregivers, government and the community are the sociological explanations for civil disobedience to the COVID-19 rules. State rules on health fail where people show apathy because of prevailing situations and the strength or state of power relations between government and the people. Policy, social, economic and cultural factors of non-compliance were noted in India by Kartono et al. (2020), while the same scholars identified poor understanding of severity, susceptibility and prevention strategies in Brazil. In America, it was political correctness and weak, directionless policy formulation and implementation that explained civil disobedience to social distancing under the Trump administration.

Methodology

To understand the extent to which the respondents perceived civil disobedience during the pandemic, three constructs were formulated. Awareness construct with variables that established what the public knows about the virus spread, and the categories of people who were infected and died in relation to their economic status. This construct also focused on respondents’ understanding of the existence of, and adherence to, use of face masks and hand sanitisers, and frequent washing of hands. The understanding of how vaccines could stop the spread of the virus, when they are available, was also measured within the construct. The mediatisation of COVID-19 was the second construct that encompassed the perceived degree of media reportage of the virus in terms of adequate provision of information, enhanced understanding of the features of the virus, social distancing, face-mask use and the essence of handwashing in mitigating the spread of the virus. These constructs were considered as input variables needed to ascertain the extent to which the public disobeyed the COVID-19 protocols, by not following containment and management measures introduced by the government. Personal, cultural and societal factors were considered in the third construct. These include difficulty in maintaining social distancing and using face mask and non-adherence to the measures by commercial drivers and motorcyclists, traders and market-goers. The construct also entailed the belief that existing cultural practices are against the protocols and the failure of political leaders to set a good example by following the protocols. The belief that security agencies and other institutions also break protocols was also measured within the construct. The cultural practices’ component of the construct was expanded with the addition of forgetfulness and belief that the virus is not real. The components in the constructs were subjected to inferential statistical analysis and the outcomes were supported with descriptive statistical outputs for a better understanding of the emerging insights. The principal component analysis (PCA) in the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) was specifically chosen for explaining the dominant components in each construct and the generated data from the respondents aligned with the assumptions researchers needed to meet before applying PCA. The variables were measured at the continuous level; linear relationship existed among all the variables and samples were adequate for generation of valid results. The adequacy of the samples is presented in Table 1. It could be seen from the table that the number of respondents from the total 829 (86.4%) studied [Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy = 0.864] are sufficient for testing and validating variables in the civil disobedience construct. It was 69.1% and 63.1% for awareness [Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy = 0.691] and COVID-19 mediatisation [Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure of Sampling Adequacy = 0.691] constructs, respectively.

Table 1.

KMO and Bartlett’s Test.

Awareness
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy	0.691
Approx. Chi-square	578.166
Bartlett’s test of sphericity (df)	28
Sig	0.000
COVID-19 Mediatisation
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy	0.631
Approx. Chi-square	763.221
Bartlett’s test of sphericity (df)	10
Sig	0.000
Civil Disobedience
Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy	0.864
Approx. Chi-square	2189.140
Bartlett’s test of sphericity (df)	55
Sig	0.000

Data Analysis and Discussion of Findings

Dominant Components in the Constructs

This section focuses on results emanating from the application of the PCA in measuring the key factors/variables earlier explained under each construct. The dominant factors in each construct which, were later analysed using linear regression analysis to determine the variation of awareness and COVID-19 mediatisation with civil disobedience, are also presented and interpreted.

Data in Table 2 indicate that economic status and media reports were the dominant factors within the awareness construct. With the total initial eigenvalues of 2.094, it is clear that economic status is the most critical factor within the construct, followed by media reportage of the control and management measures (total initial eigenvalues = 1.221). From the data, it could also be deduced that economic status has the largest percentage (26.17%) of variance in the construct followed by media reports (15.26%). However, in terms of cumulative percentage of variance, media reports (41.44%) as a variable was better in the construct than economic status (26.17%). These results suggest that while one can initially discern that the respondents gained the needed awareness about the virus through media coverage of infected people who are of high socio-economic status, it is instructive to note that media reportage of the virus, and the control and management measures are more imperative. Therefore, the researchers expected that the media should be able to fully live up to their social responsibilities by ensuring that the public understands and follow the protocols and join government in stopping the spread of the virus.

Table 2.

Dominant Components in Awareness Construct.

Component	Initial Eigenvalues			Extraction Sums of SquaredLoadings			Rotation Sums of SquaredLoadings
Component	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative %	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative %	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative %
Economic status	2.094	26.176	26.176	2.094	26.176	26.176	1.800	22.496	22.496
Media reports	1.221	15.268	41.444	1.221	15.268	41.444	1.516	18.948	41.444
Socialdistancing	0.997	12.466	53.911
Mouth, nose and eyes	0.953	11.910	65.821
Death throughCOVID-19	0.870	10.872	76.692
Using hand sanitiser or frequent hand washing	0.690	8.629	85.322
Face-mask use	0.657	8.211	93.533
Vaccines for prevention	0.517	6.467	100.000

Note: Extraction method: PCA.

Table 3 contains data that established the extent to which the media contributed to respondents’ understanding of the virus and adherence to some containment and management measures introduced by the government. The table also encompasses respondents’ reactions to virus-related news they consumed. Of the five factors examined within the construct, analysis shows that the belief that media provide adequate information about the virus (total initial eigenvalues = 2.132) and exposure to the media messages influencing understanding of the virus are the dominant factors in the construct (total initial eigenvalues = 1.108). From the data, it emerged that adequate information provision by the media has the largest percentage (46.63%) of variance in the construct, followed by media exposure-driven better understanding (22.16%). It should be noted that in terms of cumulative percentage of variance, media exposure that produced better understanding (64.80%) was better in the construct than adequate information provision (42.63%). These results are better appreciated by looking at the data presented in Figure 1.

Table 3.

COVID-19 Mediatisation.

Component	Initial Eigenvalues			Extraction Sums of Squared Loadings			Rotation Sums of SquaredLoadings
Component	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative %	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative %	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative %
Media adequate information provision	2.132	42.636	42.636	2.132	42.636	42.636	1.843	36.850	36.850
Media exposure driven better understanding	1.108	22.164	64.800	1.108	22.164	64.800	1.398	27.950	64.800
StoppedCOVID-19 news consumption due to some reasons	0.888	17.767	82.567
Media-driven face-mask use and handwashing practice	0.466	9.320	91.887
Media-driven social distancing maintenance	0.406	8.113	100.000

Note: Extraction method: PCA.

Figure 1.

Note: Daily number of cases (n = 735), prevention of COVID-19 (n = 663), COVID-19 protocols (n = 625), people’s disregard for social distancing(n = 301), people’s refusal to use face mask (n = 292) and fear (n = 104).

Looking at the data in Figure 1, one can conclude that while the focus of media report/coverage should have been the prevention and control of the virus through adequate reportage of its containment protocols and management measures, media agencies were playing up the number of cases daily. Since it has been established that the media do not pay much attention to the issues and needs that could enhance obedience, there is a likelihood that people would not obey the government’s instructions regarding the control of the virus’ spread.

Data in Table 4 clearly show that the respondents were seeing people who did not follow social distancing measures and use face masks as instructed by the government. This could be inferred from the total initial eigenvalue of 3.998 and 1.159, which positioned difficulty in maintaining social distancing and using face mask as the dominant factors in the civil disobedience construct. From the data, difficulty in maintaining social distancing has the largest percentage (36.34%) of variance in the construct, followed by difficulty in using face masks (10.53%). In terms of cumulative percentage of variance, difficulty in using face mask has the largest percentage (46.88%) and was better in the construct than difficulty in maintaining social distancing (36.34%). This signifies that disobedience to the use of face mask was greater than civil disobedience to social distancing. The factors that contributed to the disobedience among the respondents were further explored in Figure 2.

Table 4.

Civil Disobedience.

Component	Initial Eigenvalues			Extraction Sums of SquaredLoadings			Rotation Sums of Squared Loadings
Component	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative%	Total	% of Variance	Cumulative%	Total	% ofVariance	Cumulative %
Difficulty in maintaining social distancing	3.998	36.348	36.348	3.998	36.348	36.348	3.117	28.335	28.335
Difficulty in using face mask	1.159	10.537	46.885	1.159	10.537	46.885	2.040	18.550	46.885
Commercial drivers and motorcyclists’ difficulty	0.855	7.769	54.654
Unsuccessful of enforcing regular handwashing	0.810	7.368	62.021
Traders andbuyers disobey	0.746	6.778	68.799
Personalforgetfulness	0.724	6.583	75.382
Culturalpractices are against protocols	0.700	6.363	81.745
People think it is not real	0.619	5.632	87.377
Political leaders violate protocols	0.568	5.160	92.537
Security agencies and otherinstitutions also break protocols	0.475	4.321	96.857
Forgetfulness despite media reports	0.346	3.143	100.000

Note: Extraction method: PCA.

Figure 2.

Factors That Contribute to People’s Refusal to Follow the Protocols.

Looking at the data in Figure 2, it is clear that obeying social distancing and using face masks are difficult considering the larger percentage of the samples (72.40% = 600) who believed that there are no facilities to make obedience easier for the people. Preventing people from not going out or maintaining social distancing would be difficult when one considers 588 out of 829 respondents who believed that people need to go out to fend for themselves. Therefore, instructing people to stay at home would be difficult (61.90% = 513). While these factors are connected to the people’s blunt refusal of being prevented from getting their means of livelihood, the respondents also adduced disobedience to religious beliefs (56.70% = 470), high level of poverty (52.40% = 434) and exaggeration of the virus’ severity by the media (51.10% = 424). The results of the constructs are further examined in Table 5, where the dominant components in awareness and COVID-19 mediatisation constructs along with civil disobedience were analysed.

Table 5.

Correlation Coefficient of the Dominant Factors That Comprise the Constructs.

	Unstandardised Coefficients		Standardised Coefficients	T	Sig.
	B	Std. Error	Beta	T	Sig.
(Constant) Awareness	3.820	0.364		10.484	0.000
(Constant) Awareness	0.641	0.114	0.192	5.626	0.000
(Constant) COVID-19 mediatisation	5.899	0.267		22.128	0.000
(Constant) COVID-19 mediatisation	−0.008	0.041	−0.007	−0.197	0.844

According to the data in Table 5, a significant positive connection exists between awareness and civil disobedience constructs. One unit of awareness construct increases the civil disobedience construct by 19.2% (standardised coefficients = 0.192, t = 5.626, P < 0.000). However, a strong negative linkage exists between COVID-19 mediatisation and the civil disobedience construct. One unit of the COVID-19 mediatisation construct reduces the civil disobedience construct by 0.7% (standardised coefficients = −0.007, t = −0.197, P > 0.000). These results have many implications. The level of awareness among the respondents could not substantially lead to their obedience to COVID-19 protocols. This is further reinforced by the insignificant contribution of the media to expected increased persuasion and successful observance or practice of containment and management measures introduced by the government. This, therefore, shows that media campaigns failed in predicting and producing desired interest and action among the respondents.

Discussion of Findings and Conclusion

This study finds some relevance with the position of Iyorza and Jorgu (2020), Doherty et al. (2020) and Olapegba et al. (2020), who documented that there are numerous heavily supported media efforts for education, enlightenment about the disease’s origins, prevention and social mobilisation by media outlets, governments and non-governmental organisations on how to deal with and reduce the country’s rising infection rates. Unfortunately, it toes another line from the conclusions established by Anietie et al. (2020), who reported that some members of the public said that the NTA sensitisation programme made them re-address their mode of greeting people like hugging and handshaking to avoid body contact during the peak of the disease, at this point, we are tempted to ask how the public’s response to COVID 19 preventive health guidelines such as hand washing and sanitising, staying at home, and so on was influenced by these public awareness campaigns.

This is because, in this present study, media campaigns failed to influence civil obedience to COVID-19 protocols. Usually, the focus of social marketing on health behaviours is to achieve desired adoption and final practice of promoted ends. This has been the pivot on which the protection motivation theory, health belief model and other health communication theories rest. It is important to note that where media campaigns fail to produce desired outcomes, the reasons are located in the explanations of other theories, such as the theory of reasoned action, cognitive dissonance and even the civil disobedience theory. These theories make provisions for the interplay of the socio-cultural, personal (psychological and physiological), religious, economic and political factors in explaining the situation. In the case of this study, these factors were notable in the pathway to civil disobedience of COVID-19 protocols among the respondents. Where people see leadership failure or lack of political accountability, indiscipline among security agencies and other representatives of government, poverty, inability of the government to meet the needs of people expected to observe COVID-19 protocols and other situations that make observance of the protocols difficult for them, no amount of media campaigns could swing the apathy or resistance to change. This development speaks to discourses on the failure of health campaigns, fear appeals and other ventures on behaviour modification. Where other important, life-threatening and survival factors are not controlled for, it may be difficult for media campaigns to produce intended effects among the targets of health campaigns.

The positions in other empirical evidence (Adebowale et al., 2020; Doherty et al., 2020; Iyorza & Ojorgu, 2020) have been reinforced in this study. This is because media campaigns on social distancing and the like fail to achieve needed behavioural changes due to economic issues, language barriers, insensitivity of government and lack of adequate provision of essential amenities. For example, on hand washing and sanitising of hands, Iyorza and Ojorgu (2020) reported that message sponsors did not take into cognizance that portable water is scarce in Nigeria, and hand sanitisers and soaps are costly commodities to purchase, particularly in Nigeria, where prices were astronomically raised as people faced salary cuts and job losses. This may also explain why the efficacy of behavioural change communication in media campaigns, as well as supporting persuasive theories, may be hampered by the audience’s lack of basic necessities, which reduces their motivation to act. Also, 84% of the people say they could not yield to the communication appeal to stay at home under a lockdown directive because of the need to search for food and basic needs to survive.

To conclude, the Nigerian government’s response to the COVID-19 disinformation epidemic as evidenced in our study displays what might be described as public health communication blunders and a lack of transparency. In their attempts to refute or respond to disinformation, public health authorities have been blatantly reactive, tardy and uncoordinated. The government’s failure to make concerted efforts has resulted in increased citizens’ anxieties about the pandemic as Nigeria seeks to mitigate the harmful effects of infodemics on its citizens, particularly during pandemics. Besides, provision of basic social amenities and re-engineering of a vibrant national economy may help citizens obey state orders during emergencies and epidemics.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

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