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Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) caucus in the House of Representatives, on Sunday, charged President Muhammadu Buhari to rescind the decision to relax the lockdown order in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Ogun states from tomorrow.
The caucus, in a statement by its leader, Kingsley Chinda, expressed worry over the increase in COVID-19 infections across the country in the past few days.
The PDP lawmakers stated that the paramount responsibility of government should be the protection of lives.
President Muhammadu Buhari had on March 30 declared a two-week lockdown in Lagos, Ogun and Abuja as part of measures to contain the spread of the coronavirus in the country.
The president later extended the lockdown for another two-weeks, which elapsed on April 27.
In a broadcast last Monday, President Buhari announced that there will be a gradual easing of the lockdown in the affected areas with effect from tomorrow.
However, the PDP lawmakers said that the relaxation of the lockdown is premature as there is no evidence that the spread of the virus has been contained.
According to them, “available evidence and statistics from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) show that Nigeria is far from winning the fight against Covid-19, as even within the lockdown, rather than reduce, the casualty rate and number of those tested positive to the virus is increasing on daily bases.
” Clearly, this should be a matter of great concern to all reasonable and well meaning persons, irrespective of political, religious or tribal affiliations and/or considerations.”
The PDP lawmakers added “as a caucus in the House of Representatives, we are deeply worried about this and accordingly hereby express in very strong and unambiguous terms our utmost dismay, concern and total opposition to the stance of the Federal Government to prematurely relax and/or lift the lockdown order in the affected places earlier mentioned, and to hurriedly ask workers back to their offices, while the virus continue to ravage our people and our cities.
“It is somewhat difficult, obviously very surprising and disturbing to decipher the genuine reason behind the Federal Government’s sudden decision to relax the lockdown order in the midst of the prevailing and ravaing Covid-19 pandemic, taking into cognisance the experience of other countries where lock down was prematurely relaxed.”
The caucus further stated that it is “also, instructive to note is that whilst declaring a relaxation of the lockdown order, beyond the usual campaign on hand washing; use of hand sanitizers, facemasks and social distancing, the Federal Government obviously did not put in place any other effective measure designed to stop the spread of the dreaded virus.
“Already, the situation in Lagos and Kano states is scary. These cases and more are enough to cause us even greater anxiety and concern.”
The opposition lawmakers added that “it is very apparent that the government is clearly more concerned about the economic benefits of reopening an already weak and ailing economy than the preservation of human life.
“This is without doubt a very callous, insensitive and most unfortunate response by the Federal Government. The only plausible alternative to this is that the government has run out of ideas on what to do”.
