COVID-19 Lockdown: Cater for your poor citizens with security votes or prepare for anarchy, HURIWA tells Governors

Even as the 36 state governors, on Wednesday, endorsed a two-week’ inter-state total lockdown, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has canvassed daily quality three squares meals for the citizens of the respective states by their governors from their security votes or be ready for an imminent upsurge in violent uprisings and high crime rates.

In a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA said it was “inhuman, inhumane, wicked, atrocious and heartless” that the 36 state governors reached an “irrational and belated decision” for a total lockdown for two weeks at the time that virtually all committed and civilized nations have managed to contain the spread of the Coronavirus disease in their nations because those nations worked meticulously on the unified and science based measures all across the territorial geography of their nations and not in piecemeal as is the case in Nigeria.

HURIWA accused President Muhammadu Buhari and the governors of working at cross purposes due to the absence of a charismatic leadership in the Abuja seat of power.

HURIWA said that whereas some states like Kano and Katsina went about their businesses as if the pandemic would not penetrate their borders, “the President, who has showed no visible and encouraging leadership examples since the emergence of the pandemic in Nigeria except through occasional pre-recorded broadcasts, only declared a month-long total lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states because he couldn’t properly articulate a unified homemade local measures to stave off the spread of the feared disease.

The rights group further criticised both the federal and state governments for failing to approach the fight against the pandemic like other fellow African political leaders such as Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweiri Museveini of Uganda or the Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo.

HURIWA stated thus: “It is well known that if not for the charismatic leadership character of President Akufo-Addo, Ghana own scenarios would have assumed a basket case in no time. Note that the West African nation of Ghana that is a neighbor to Nigeria but with fewer natural resources is one of the continent’s most impacted countries in terms of the Coronavirus infection. The country has recorded 636 confirmed cases (as of April 15). The first cases were confirmed on March 12, 2020.

“The government has achieved the phenomenal record of distinction of been lauded for its progress in the area of testing. Although Ghana placed a distant second behind South Africa according to a recent report by Worldometer – a site that specializes in global statistical aggregation, it still dwarfed Nigeria the supposed giant of Africa and the nation that just before the arrival of the COVID-19 in Nigeria was the largest economy in Africa but yet the testing capacity of Nigeria for COVID-19 is outrageously disappointing when compared to Ghana. This is because the Nigerian leader is more of a recluse who has never been seen by the citizens in public but rather chose to speak to the citizens via a pre-recorded television broadcast.”

HURIWA therefore called on Nigerians to insist that the irreducible minimum benchmark for “accepting the further draconian 14 days total inter-state shutdown” is for the governors to transparently utilize their security votes through the community, religious and respected stakeholders to feed the poor people of their states with three quality square meals per day, adding that anything less than this must not be accepted.

The rights group said the governors must make adequate logistical arrangements to provide 24/7 security to all parts of the 36 states of the federation to check the expected rise in violent crimes and attacks by hoodlums and kidnappers on vulnerable communities in their states, while advising the communities to also make their own internal security arrangements to check the infiltration of their communities by hoodlums.