Pan Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere, on Monday said President Muhammadu Buhari should have given the residents of Lagos, Ogun and Abuja enough time to prepare before announcing the lockdown of the states.
In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, the organisation also flayed the federal government for not providing any palliatives for the citizens to cushion the effects of the lockdown.
The statement reads “Afenifere has taken note of the overdue presidential broadcast on Covid-19”.
“We honestly cannot fathom why it took so long for such to come as the only thing new in it was locking down FCT, Lagos and Ogun states.
The rest of the broadcast are about washing hands and sneezing on elbows and handkerchiefs which can only still be useful to the Senator removing his face mask to sneeze for the consumption of his colleagues at this point”.
“While we agree that a lockdown is necessary at this point, it should not have been done as if we were shutting down a barrack under 24 hours”.
“The people should have been given a few days notice before now so they could get themselves prepared for a shutdown”.
“It is a also a big shame that a rich country like Nigeria has been badly run over the years and up till the time we issued this that it cannot afford any serious stimulus package for its citizens beyond moratorium for NPower earners”.
“By the way, we do not understand where the President was asking the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to go and get students to be feeding with School Feeding Programme when all students in the country are at home”.
“Nonetheless, we encourage our people to cooperate with government to curtail the spread of this pandemic”
