The Pan Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, has faulted the timing of the lockdown announced by President Muhammadu Buhari, saying people should have been given few days notice to prepare for the shutdown.
“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 group said in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Yinka Odumakin, on Monday.
The group also picked holes in the presidential broadcast, saying the only thing new in the speech is the lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The statement said: “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.”
Afenifere further noted that it “is 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 N-Power 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,” Odumakin added.
He however advised that despite the loopholes in the pronouncement, “we encourage our people to cooperate with government to curtail the spread of this pandemic.”
Daily Trust reports that President Muhammadu Buhari had on Sunday night ordered a total lockdown of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states, as part of measures aimed at curbing the spread of the disease.
In a special presidential broadcast, he had also listed several government’s interventions put in place to tackle the disease.
He also gave lists of organisations and people who were not to be affected by the lockdown order during the nationwide broadcast aired on national television and radio yesterday.
