The Nigerian opposition coalition under the umbrella of “Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) on Sunday pleaded with President Mohamodu Buhari to rescind the Federal Government’s to relax the lockdown orders in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun States to curtail the further spread of the COVID-19 pandemic now ravaging the country and the entire world.
Speaking with the Tribune Online during an interview in Abuja on Sunday, the Spokesman of the Coalition, Mr Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere declared that the best thing to do now was for President Buhari to effect a total lockdown of the country based on the current situation in Kano State and some others and at the alarming rate of reported new cases of the deadly pandemic across the country
The Spokesman of the Coalition who raised the alarm of looming total outbreak of the deadly pandemic in the country based on emerging reports from the States of the Federation and Abuja declared that relaxing the lockdown is the affected areas would translate to exposing the members of the Public to danger and abandoning them to their fates more so that the health workers were already raising the alarm over lack of adequate medical equipment including a shortage of bed spaces and isolation centres to manage the cases at hand.
He stated that the appropriate thing for the Federal government at this point in time was addressing the issue of the complaints of the health workers by mass acquiring modern equipment, stock the isolation centres, provide super palliatives to the citizens and then shut down the entire contents as being witnessed around the world in a concerted effort to curtail the further spread of the deadly pandemic.
The Coalition had on Friday declared that it rejected the decision by President Buhari led Federal Government to lift the lockdown without putting in place measures that could control the growth rate of infections based on consultations with Medical experts and having analyzed the pattern of spread since the imposition of the initial lockdown and reviewed the guidelines for the lifting released by the Presidential Taskforce.
According to the Coalition, “Nigerians will recall that following the address by the President on the 27th April 2020 we had immediately stated that the opposition received the announcement of the proposed lifting of the lockdown with reservation pending the study and research by our experts.
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“Based on the outcome of the efforts, we have come to this unimpeachable conclusion that what Nigeria rather needs now is a national lockdown and not lifting off the partial lockdown. This is fundamental because like we had highlighted in previous statements, a lockdown on its own without complementary action was not going to achieve much.
“Nigeria is one of the countries with least testing capabilities, Fellow countrymen can you imagine that with all the media noise and volume of money spent including loans and donations being taken and received left and right by President Buhari government and our dear country Nigeria with a population of over 200m has tested only 12,800 and I repeat 12,800 citizens from 27th February 2020 the day the index coronavirus testing was positive, till date with an approximate of two thousand infections while our neighbour Ghana with less population has tested 120,000 people with around same 2000 infections, South Africa tested 210,000 people, Egypt 100,000, morocco 40,000 etc and with this weak performance, how can Nigeria test people when a lockdown is lifted with a probability of more infection?
“The NCDC is talking of running out of testing kits and talking of no bed space even with a little case of 2000 reported infections, infection of doctors has moved from 40 to over 100 in days and the President’s only remedy is to be watching his TV be waiting for news of foreign vaccine to be made because he has no idea or has the capacity to even try to develop home remedies like Senegal and Madagascar, and you want to allow such a man open the gates for people to roam the street because he ruined the economy and squandered the palliative that would have kept people at home.
“We hereby declare that President Buhari’s lifting of the lockdown without complementary action cannot achieve the targeted aim of revamping the economy as the virus will painfully and unfortunately spread again and thereby force the government to shut down again and this time under dire circumstances.
It pointed out that the relaxation of the lockdown orders would lead to lawlessness and rubbished the little signs of progress already recorded as it would be impossible to enforce the protocols of the pandemic.
and then