On Wednesday 22, April 2020 the Governors of the 36 States of the Federation held a teleconference meeting and unanimously agreed to implement inter-State lockdown in the country for 14 days in order to contain the spread of the Covid-19 Coronavirus across States, this was decided upon after a briefing from the Governor of Lagos State, Bauchi, Oyo and Ogun State who shared their experiences and lessons from the fight against Coronavirus. Theses governors have made moves to convince president Buhari to implement it.
The 14 days National lockdown means; lockdown on all borders of the 36 States, roads will be closed, no inter-State movement, thereby making it more difficult for adequate food distributions in the country, people living in urban cities will suffer it the most, food items will be so expensive and accessible to only a handful, the ordinary citizens will not be able to afford them, Nigerians will endure pains and hardship which will lead to severe hunger and malnutrition.
crime rate will be on the rise, government orders will meet brick wall from the masses, enforcement order will be difficult to maintain, the states will be cruel and life will be short. Even if the Federal Government succeeds in providing every Nigerian with 30 or 50 thousand palliatives, life will still be short.
Currently, our economy is on its knees, before the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, we were struggling to come out from Economy recession but now we have been pushed even deeper right back into the hand of it bigger brother "Economic Depression", extending the lockdown will completely collapse our economy.
re-echoing the words of Governor Ben Ayade, who is also a member of the Governors' Forum, he said "Extending lockdown will be catastrophic for Nigeria"
Ayade warned that any further extension of the lockdown of the country in response to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic will spell doom for the country.
and will give rise as to uncontrollable youth restiveness, adding that it was better to lockout than lockdown.
The governor advocated channelling donations to the COVID 19 campaign to job creation. "If you have international support of N21 billion, you have to find how to use it to create jobs and not how to use it on COVID 19 campaign because it will end one day". If one Governor knows this, wondering why the others are thinking Left.
Nigerians are yet to recover from the 28 days lockdown imposed by President Buhari on major cities, imagine if all the 36 States, including States with no index cases, are lockdown too, the hardship and negative effect it will pose on Nigerians, it will be innumerable.
President Buhari should kick against the governor's decisions and address the nations accordingly; relax the lockdown on major cities and implement policies of no facemasks no movement, enact laws that will prevent social gathering etc, effective regulations that will help prevent the spread of the virus. We look forward to hearing the president adhering to the voice of the Masses in his 8 pm address tonight.
