By Carl Umegboro
The federal government has declared Friday 10th and Monday 13th April, 2020 as public holidays to enable Christians observe the Good Friday and Easter celebrations as usual. Easter Sunday will hold on 12th April and with churches under lock and key following the lockdown order over coronavirus pandemics.
People have been put under restraint since 31st March with absolute restriction of movements in the Federal Capital Territory, Lagos and Ogun states for 14 days on account of the dreadful contagions that surfaced in many countries of the world including Nigeria.
President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered all citizens in the critical areas to stay in their homes while travel to or from other states should be suspended. Likewise, all businesses and offices within these locations were closed down during this period.
From latest update from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the country has as at Monday 6 April, 2020 a total of 238 confirmed cases with 5 deaths while 35 infected persons have been successfully treated and discharged from the centres.
The breakdown reveals that Lagos leads with 120 confirmed cases while FCT in the second position with 48 cases, and followed by Osun state which has 20 confirmed cases.
Furthermore, Edo has 11 cases; Oyo-9, Bauchi-6 while Kaduna and Akwa-Ibom contests for 5 confirmed cases each. Others are Ogun-4 while Enugu, Ekiti, Rivers and Kwara states have 2 confirmed cases each, and Benue and Ondo have I confirmed case each.
However, the directive on lock-down from federal government is not different from actions taken by other nations of the world. The only difference is that most of the countries provided palliative packages to their citizens prior to the order unlike Nigeria that merely gave the order without any substantial relief packages for the citizenry. Nonetheless, Mr. President appealed for understanding which depicts sympathy.
“However, we must all see this as our national and patriotic duty to control and contain the spread of this virus. I will therefore ask all of us affected by this order to put aside our personal comfort to safeguard ourselves and fellow human beings. This common enemy can only be controlled if we all come together and obey scientific and medical advice.
“As we remain ready to enforce these measures, we should see this as our individual contribution in the war against Covid-19. Many other countries have taken far stricter measures in a bid to control the spread of the virus with positive results”, President Buhari stated in his broadcast to the nation.
The utmost agony is that people in the government are well equipped to even stay at home for months as their remunerations are intact unlike low-scale entrepreneurs that make a living from daily efforts. This is a clear evidence that leadership class has failed the people they claim to be leading. A government without a data of its citizens connotes no government in place. That is to show that all the administrations in the country so far failed abysmally. In fact, the predicament is an eye opener to political leaders.
Following the predicament, crime rate particularly burglary and armed robbery have risen with daily occurrence in many parts of the Federal Capital Territory believably out of hunger. Prices of foodstuffs have also risen even when people particularly daily income earners have no means of survival.
Commendably, President Muhammadu Buhari has thoughtfully approved engagement of 774,000 citizens; targeting 1000 youths from each of the 774 local governments in the country for special public works programme to help mitigate the effects of the coronavirus contagion. According to the Minister of Finance and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, the federal government has earmarked the sum of N60 billion for the project. This action converts the sympathy to empathy.
In fact, the positive response by the initiative by the federal government in few weeks after the commencement of the crisis across the globe attests that the Presidential Advisory Council comprising of some proven economics and management experts is not sleeping at all.
It therefore suggests that the era of fighting for public offices merely with the nation’s crude oil in mind is gone. The country needs critical reforms to provide such facilities like other countries of the world as a template and not merely intervention in crisis period. At 60 years old, Nigeria should be able to take care of it citizens and all responsibilities particularly through job creations.
Policymakers must therefore take responsibility for exploits towards making the nation a habitable society. There’s urgent need for brainstorm on economic reforms as people may not take such absurd negligence lightly in future.