14 Days Extension: Feed Your Poor Citizens With Security Votes To Avoid Uprisings-: Huriwa Tell Governors:
Even as the 36 states governors, on Wednesday controversially endorsed a two-weeks' inter-state total lockdown without consideration for the provision of palliative to their people as part of their own measures aimed at containing the spread of coronavirus pandemic across the country, the Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has canvassed the daily quality three squares meals/feedings of the citizens of the respective 36 states by their governors from their huge and unaccounted security votes or be ready for an imminent upsurge in violent UPRISINGS and high crime rates.
HURIWA recalled that the inter-state two weeks total LOCKDOWN formed the fulcrum of the overall decisions adopted during the sixth teleconference led by Governor Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, during which the governors stressed on the need to decentralise the COVID-19 response.
HURIWA recalled that the Governors unanimously agreed to the implementation of an inter-state lockdown in the country over the next two weeks to mitigate the spread of the virus from state to state. Only essential services will be permitted, they contended.
HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director Miss Zainab Yusuf said that it was inhuman, inhumane, wicked, atrocious and heartless that the 36 State governors whimsically reached an irrational and belated decision for a total lockdown for two weeks at the time that virtually all committed and civilized nations have managed to contain the spread of the CORONAVIRUS disease in their nations because those politicians at both the National and subnational levels worked meticulously on the UNIFIED and SCIENCE BASED MEASURES all across the territorial geography of their nations and not in piecemeal as is the case unfortunately in Nigeria whereby the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration and the governors of the 36 states of the Federation are working at cross purposes due to the absence of a CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP IN THE ABUJA'S SEAT OF POWER.
HURIWA said that whereas some states like Kano, Katsina went about their businesses as if the CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC would not penetrate their borders, the President who has showed no visible and encouraging leadership examples since the emergence of the CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IN NIGERIA except through occasional pre-recorded broadcasts, only declared a month long total lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun State BECAUSE he couldn't properly articulate a UNIFIED HOMEMADE LOCAL MEASURES TO STAVE OFF THE SPREAD OF THE FEARED CORONAVIRUS DISEASE.
HURIWA further criticised both the FEDERAL GOVERNMENT and the GOVERNMENTS of the 36 STATES for failing to approach the fight against the CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IN NIGERIA like other fellow African political leaders such as Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Yoweiri Museveini of Uganda or the Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo.
HURIWA stated thus: " It is well known that if not for the charismatic leadership character of President Nana Akufo-Addo of Ghana, the Ghana's own scenarios would have assumed a basket case in no time. Note that the West African nation of Ghana that is a neighbor to NIGERIA but with fewer natural resources is one of the continent’s most impacted countries in terms of coronavirus infection. The country has recorded 636 confirmed cases (as of April 15). The first cases were confirmed on March 12, 2020.
The government has achieved the phenomenal record of distinction of been lauded for its progress in the area of testing. Although Ghana placed a distant second behind South Africa according to a recent report by Worldometer – a site that specializes in global statistical aggregation, it still dwarfed Nigeria the supposed giant of Africa and the nation that just before the arrival of the CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC IN NIGERIA was the largest economy in Africa but yet the testing capacity of Nigeria for COVID-19 is outrageously disappointing when compared to Ghana. This is because whereas the Ghanain leader leads the National UNIFIED efforts of their own nation against the CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC, the Nigerian leader is more of a recluse who has never been seen by the citizens in public but rather chose to speak to the citizens via a pre-recorded television broadcast. Ghana Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah in reacting to the increase in cases stressed that it was largely due to proactive measures by government.
He wrote in a tweet thread of April 13: “The mix of measures to aggressively go in search of it while limiting importation is the reason for which we have found 274 more cases.
“The enhanced tracing and testing coupled with the mandatory quarantine systems is yielding results. Had we not adopted this approach, the 274 extra will be with us potentially continuously spreading the virus.”
HURIWA has therefore called on Nigerians to insists that the irreducible minimum benchmark for accepting the further draconian 14 days total inter-state shutdown is for the governors to transparently utilize their security votes through the community, Religious and respected stakeholders to feed the poor people of their states with three quality square meals per day.
HURIWA further affirmed that: "Anything less than this irreducible minimum benchmark must not be accepted even as the Rights group said the governors must make adequate logistical arrangements to provide 24/7 security to all parts of the 36 states of the Federation to check the expected rise in violent crimes and attacks by hoodlums and kidnappers on vulnerable communities in their states. We advise the communities to also make their own internal security arrangements to check the infiltration of their communities by hoodlums."