“Instead of hunger to kill me and my children, we will prefer the Chinese Coronavirus to kill us and let Okowa come and bury us, if we die. We cannot stay at home without food and light. Let Gov. Okowa send his soldiers to kill all of us and bury us.”
These were the words of now embattled Mrs Rosslyn Akpamredo, one of the daring women who on Wednesday, April 15, led her colleagues against the 14-day elongation of the stay-at-home order by the governor of Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa. For her, rather than locking down the entire state to avert the spread of Coronavirus for another two weeks with a dusk-to-dawn curfew added, Governor Okowa should rather focus on the state entry and exit borders or, in the alternative, provide money and food to all women in the state or, better still, relax the lockdown which is expected to end next week Tuesday.
Because of the protest, the state commissioner of police, Mr Hafiz Inuwa announced last week Friday that 18 of the protesters were in police net promising to change the court.
It is no longer news that some daring Sapele women, like women of the archetypal Aba Women Riots of November 1929 to January 1930, in a well-executed revolt against the social, political and economic debacle of the British colonial masters, took their destiny in their hands by denouncing the COVID-19 lockdown order extended for another two weeks by the state government.
So, some 18 hours after the announcement of the extended COVID-19 lockdown and a dusk-to-dawn curfew, the Sapele women, in their hundreds, stormed the streets of the ancient town to vent their venomous angst against an emergency tagged “lockup” by some mischievous Deltans that has subjected them and their families to avoidable hunger and penury.
The women, as early as 7:00a.m on that Wednesday, stormed the popular Olympia Roundabout and other major roads in Sapele, Sapele Local Government Area to say no to the extension, wondering why the state government should totally lock down the state amid “just” four COVID-19 recorded cases.
A large chunk of the people, especially the very hardworking women in Delta, are peasant farmers, petty traders, motorcycle and tricycle riders, wheelbarrow pushers, taxi drivers and several other artisans who depend solely on daily menial jobs to eke a living. The seriousness of the harrowing situation is laced in the recesses of one of the protesters, Mrs. Oke James, who told journalists point blank that they prefered to invade the street and be killed for standing for what they believed in to being locked indoor and starve to death!
“We have stayed inside for two weeks; we can’t go to the market; we can’t go anywhere; we are hungry; we will not accept this.
“We are hungry and we don’t want food; let us go out and fend for ourselves. We are not lazy folks. We want to go back to our normal lives, we are tired of sitting at home,» she insisted.
The same premise informed the reason a motorcycle rider, Mr Jonah Ameh, left the (un)comfort of his house and pitched his tent with the women in the streets.
Here him: “though the step (of the government) was the right thing, we’re tired of not being able to fend for our families and we want an end to the lockdown.”
One of the suggested ways to unlock the protest logjam is the state government to begin to assume the role of responsible breadwinners in the homes of these protesters. Hence, a Sapele-Okpe Community leader, Dr. Vincent Ekariko and Mr Aderopo Peters, a medical doctor, demanded an immediate release of food items, saying unequivocally that: “Deltans are hungry.”
“If you say people should stay at home, tell me, what will they eat? While the leaders have stocked their homes with foodstuffs, no water, no electricity and no food for the poor ones, what do you want them to do? They should stay at home and die?” Dr Ekariko queried.
Oritsemeyiwa, an unemployed youth who joined also the protest, descrìbed the state government as very insensitive to the plight of its people. He added that, since the lockdown started on April 1, he has been going round his neighbourhood cap in hand begging to survive.
“As it is now, I have no money anywhere. How to survive for the next 14 days is what I am thinking about,” he declared before journalists.
Unfortunately, it was gathered that the hitherto peaceful protest was, in no time, hijacked by hoodlums and street urchins when the chairman of Sapele LGA, Mr Eugene Inoaghan, was addressing the crowd of protesters on why they should end the event and disperse. The faceless hoodlums allegedly began to pelt the council chairman and members of his entourage with pebbles, leading to pandemonium and eventual confrontation with security operatives, mostly men of the vigilance group, who reportedly retaliated with teargas.
Saturday Tribune recalls that since the lockdown began in April 1, the media have been awash with stories of events where politicians and political office holders, at all levels in the state, have been dropping palliatives at the doorsteps of their followers to cushion the effects of the stay-at-home order. The state governor, Senator Okowa, has, twice, announced the shoring up of a food bank by his government in addition to generous donations from individuals and organisations in cash and kind.
Specifically, some members of the state House of Assembly such as Friday Osanebi of Ndokwa East, Senate Deputy President, Ovie Omo-Agege, Ndudi Elumelu of the House of Representatives and a few others have reportedly made provisions for their own people even though it could not be ascertained if the palliatives actually got to the poorest of the poor among women, men, artisans, the aged, the physically-challenged and others.
Four days after the Sapele women protests, specifically April 18, victuals from the states food bank shared for each of the 25 local government areas of the state which was despatched the previous day arrived at the secretariats. This gesture put an end to the perceived delay in the despatch and distribution of the food items to the most vulnerable in the state.
The Commissioner for Information, Delta State, Mr Charles Aniagwu, while speaking on the Wednesday protest, had earliervappealed to residents of the state, especially the protesters to exercise patience, insisting the palliatives would soon reach them and they did less than four days after.
But to conjecture that the palliatives so shared between last Saturday and Monday got to the intended poorest of the poor in each of the local government went well without its shortcomings of politicking is to conclude that Satan has been exterminated. Because as of the time of piecing this write-up together, accusations and counter accusations of nepotistic tendencies characterising the sharing were rife!
As the lockdown order winds up, the untoward activities of some security agents saddled with effecting the lockdown order have been below expectation. Fresh in memory is the 28-year-old Joseph Pessu that was hacked down in cold blood on April 2 for allegedly refusing to stop at a roadblock by a trigger-happy soldier, the second day of the first phase of the lockdown. Stories also abound on how a tricycle rider and father-of-three was clubbed by a vigilance man to death at Otokutu in Ughelli South Local Government Area for refusing to part with N50 and some innocent residents in the state were ripped off their hard earned monies by policemen for allegedly violating the lockdown order.
Perhaps, bottled up under the growing frustration orchestrated by mainly hunger in the Sapele saga, the hoodlums, not the protesting women and children, reportedly seized the ensuing melee to begin to loot nearby locked shops whose owners were observing the lockdown order.
Eyewitnesses said in a bit to calm frayed nerves and disperse the protesters, some overzealous men of the vigilance group (some said policemen) opened fire on the protesters, injuring three persons including a 15-year-old-boy, Christian Okeogwale. The badly injured arec still recuperating in some hospitals in Sapele and environs.
The Delta State Commissioner of Police, Delta State, Mr Muhammed Inuwa, would not agree with the allegation that his men carried out the unprofessional conduct against the armless protesters, he rather accused members of the vigilance group in the town as responsible for the shootings. His men, he insisted, acted most professionally with description during their encounter with the protesters.
However, 24 hours after the Sapele protest, CP Inuwa addressed the media in Asaba, disclosing that no fewer than 18 suspects, including the woman who led her colleagues to register their grievance in the streets, had been arrested and would be prosecuted for breaking down the COVID-19 lockdown order in the state.
Meanwhile, Saturday Tribune gathered last Wednesday that the Police authorities in Delta State, last Monday, had dropped the charges against the Sapele women protest ringleader, Mrs Rosslyn Akpamrdo and 17 others who were arrested over the state government›s lockdown extension following the intervention of some stakeholders from Sapele including Sapele LGA Chairman, Chief Eugene Inoaghan and Rev Fr. Christopher Ekabo a member of the Delta Christian Pilgrimage Board.
Although the image-maker of the Deltan Police Command, Onome Onovwakpoyeya, could not be reached for confirmation, Rev. Fr. Ekabo, told an online medium that as of Tuesday, papers for the suspects were being processed for their eventual bail with a stern warning to desist from future breakdown of law and order.
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