> By Emmanuel Onwubiko
>
> “Hunger can not be quarantined”
> Ex-Governor Peter Obi.
>
> Exactly two years ago or a little less than that length of time,
> Nigeria overtook India to become the World’s Poverty capital. The
> symbolism and significance of this clearly overwhelming human
> catastrophe is that Nigeria with a population that hovers within 180
> million or two hundred million has the largest concentration of poor
> households numbering over 90 million far and above India with a
> population of well over 1 billion or so people.
>
> The truth is that even amidst the claims of the existence of some
> forms of corruptions amongst the political class in India, the
> government still devoted substantial percentage of their financial
> resources to aggressively train their manpower in some rare skills
> that are competitive internationally to an extent that these skills
> MOBILIZATION of the population of India saw a progressive shift from
> the deeply rooted social failures that gave rise to widespread poverty
> and unemployment in India which inevitably may have accounted for its
> departure from the disgraceful position of the global POVERTY capital
> and thus handed over the horrific medal of infamy to the so-called
> Africa’s biggest economy-Nigeria.
>
> Although President Muhammadu Buhari and his media spin doctors
> attempted to dispute this apparently indisputable fact that Hunger,
> Poverty, violent crimes have taken the shine off Nigeria and has
> crippled the nation to the dangerous dimension of becoming a basket
> case.
>
> Tried as much as they could without success, the same President who
> upon been declared the winner of the disputed March 2019 Presidential
> election, took over 8 Months to constitute a cabinet ended up
> summersaulting in the feeble attempt of his media minders to dispute
> the report which classified Nigeria under the watch of PRESIDENT
> Muhammadu Buhari as the nation with the greatest concentration of
> absolutely poor household in the entire planet Earth.
>
> Muhammadu Buhari personally belied the lame propaganda of his
> officials to engage in dubious self denial regarding the poverty state
> of Nigeria when he stated that he has lined up programmes to
> kick-start the economy of Nigeria basically through aggressive
> agricultural financing to take 100 million Nigerians out of poverty.
>
> So from the horses mouth we have been told by the current political
> administration in Nigeria that there are actually nothing less than
> 100 million Nigerians that are ‘imprisoned’ by poverty.
>
> The claim by President Muhammadu Buhari that there are at least 100
> million Nigerians that are too poor to eat two square meals per day
> was reported by the bewildered media that attended the public event at
> which he made this admission.
>
> This Presidential admission was made as Nigeria marked June 12 as
> Democracy Day, last year in which clearly President Muhammadu Buhari
> made a solemn promise to take 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in
> 10 years. For a man elected to spend only four more years and no more
> to promise to take 100 million people out of poverty in ten years
> shows the manifest dishonesty in the entire gamuts of the public
> speech containing the outlandish pledge.
>
> Speaking at the inaugural June 12, Democracy Day celebration in Abuja,
> Buhari said that his administration would ensure rapid and positive
> growth in the economy to move Nigeria away from poverty.
>
> Hear him: “Our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to grow by
> 2.7 percent this year. Our external reserve have risen to 45 billion
> dollars enough to finance over nine months of current equal
> commitments. This administration has laid a foundation of taking bold
> steps in transforming our country and delivering our people from the
> shackles of poverty.”
>
> Now this is how President Muhammadu Buhari said he will lift 100
> million Nigerians out of poverty: “First we will take steps in
> integrating the rural economy to national economic grade by extending
> access to input to rural farmers as well as credit to rural micro
> businesses and opening up many critical feeder roads. Secondly, all
> small scale enterprises in towns and cities would share facilities
> currently available so that we can continue to encourage and support
> domestic production of basic goods to improve our lives,” he said.
>
> He added that in the next four years his administration would remain
> positive to improve the lives of people.
>
> Sadly, hardly had the government improved the living conditions of
> millions of poverty stricken citizens of Nigeria before the outbreak
> of the CORONAVIRUS disease IN NIGERIA which started in Wuhan China.
>
> Nigeria was almost financially ruined by poor economic policies and
> official corruption, gross absence of respect for procurement laws and
> the total neglects of the principles of transparency and
> accountability by top federal and State government officials before
> the coming of Covid-19 with vengeful devastation.
>
> Most of the 36 States became financially insolvent to the disgraceful
> extent that the Federal ministry of Finance went around the World
> borrowing heavily just to meet the financial demands and obligations
> of even the payments of salaries to the workforce. The states borrowed
> heavily from banks to pay salaries of political appointees even as
> the allocations coming from the central pool in Abuja are used to
> service these debts and the rest pocketed by the governors. Primary
> and secondary healthcare facilities in the States have collapsed.
>
> Then again, the agencies of the national government that generate much
> of the external revenues such as the Nigerian National Petroleum
> corporation (NNPC); and those that generate domestic revenues through
> taxations like Nigerian Customs Service(NCS); Nigerian Immigration
> Service and the Federal Inland Revenue Services (FIRS) are so badly
> administered and due to apparent governance failures there are
> loopholes and contradictions in the exact amounts generated by these
> agencies because even as these agencies are always in the public media
> announcing huge turnovers the Federal Government of President
> Muhammadu Buhari is globetrotting in search of loans from all
> conceivable places.
>
> This is the exact position of Nigeria before the advent of COVID-19
> AILMENT into the Country.
>
> For the specific purpose of re-emphasis, let me restate that
> CORONAVIRUS challenge came at a time of a multitude of sociological
> issues of mass poverty, mass hunger, unemployment, gravely
> deteriorated and neglected health sector and frightening widespread
> violent crimes.
>
> Another sociological factor remains that Nigeria being a nation that
> the ruling class have so much underdeveloped to a level that it is a
> nation of strong individuals and deliberately weakened institutions,
> it then seems practically impossible for the systemic and deeply
> entrenched social maladies aforementioned to be confronted and
> decisively resolved or minimally controlled.
>
> The institution put in place to dispense and re-distribute the Social
> investment funds (NSIP) has so far not provided transparent account of
> how the officials have wasted so much money running into Trillions in
> the last five years but have barely reached less than a million poor
> Nigerians. This interventionistic institution has been paying a ghost
> consultant the whooping sum of N100 million Monthly for doung God
> knows what. The fact that the consultant is anonymous manifests the
> absence of governance standards in the adminisfration of the SIP
> domiciled under the OFFICE of the President for five years before been
> divested to create a seaparate ministry of humanitarian affairs and
> social development. This is one leg of the sociological factors.
> Another is the inefficient and ineffective security architecture in
> Nigeria.
>
> The security forces have their internal operational issues such as the
> disproportionate deployment of majority of the armed security forces
> to protect few individuals in government and so only very few are left
> to provide security of lives and property of millions of Nigerians.
>
> In Nigeria there are about fifty percent of the security forces that
> are guarding and running domestic affairs for prominent Nigerians and
> infact all that it will take a rich Nigerian to get armed guards made
> up of police and soldiers is to bribe the commanders or the
> commissioners of police as the case may be.
>
> Then there is something like forty percent of security forces paid
> through the tax payers fund but who are actively engaged in running
> extortion rings all over Nigeria.
>
> So effectively, only about ten percent of the security forces are
> actually working to protect lives and property of over 199 million
> Nigerians. So the consequence is that violent crimes of all genres are
> widespread and are getting out of hands ad are compounded by the poor
> handling of the LOCKDOWN by the Nigerian state.
>
> These factors were on ground before COVID-19 came and then the Federal
> Government of President Muhammadu Buhari decided to lockup and
> lockdown Nigeria.
>
> This translates to a monumental disaster that has been unleashed
> because as I expounded above, those social issues of hunger, poverty,
> violent crimes that have torn Nigeria into shreds have not disappeared
> nor have they been quarantined for the one month that the President
> BUHARI decided to lockdown Federal Capital Territory ( FCT); Ogun and
> Lagos just as the entire Northern States are operating as if they are
> not part of NIGERIA WITH the banks operating in those places whereas
> the residents of Abuja, Ogun and Lagos do not have the privilege of
> even withdrawing their money from the banks to restock their kitchens.
>
>
> President Muhammadu Buhari unlike most other responsive World leaders
> who talk to their people daily, but in Nigeria there have been two
> recorded television broadcast of the president who has not been seen
> since his CHIEF of staff Abba Kyari came back from Germany with
> Covid-19.
>
> In those two recorded television broadcast the president made heavy
> weather about the relevance of observing the regulations worked out by
> the world Health organisation regarding the combating of the
> CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC. But his decision to lock up over 100 million
> poor Nigerians and has only promised to feed only 3.6 million poor
> people means that his government is in breach of the fundamental law
> guiding the declaration of LOCKDOWN. The World Health organisation has
> clearly stated that lockdown will not work in poor Countries without
> palliatives.
>
> The World Health Organization (WHO) strongly advised governments
> imposing lockdown restrictions to provide palliatives for their
> citizens to enable them to comply.
> ‘How do you survive on lockdown when you depend on your daily labour
> to eat?” WHO’s director-general, Tedros Ghebreyesus, asked at a
> press briefing in Geneva on Monday.
> Ghebreyesus said he was aware some governments were trying to impose,
> extend and lift restrictions but added that it should not be at the
> expense of human rights.
>
> He also said that for countries with large poor populations,
> particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America, the stay-at-home order
> used in some high income countries may not be practicable.
>
> He said it was because most of them were already living in overcrowded
> conditions with few resources and little access to health care.
>
> He also said that 1.4 billion children who were not in school due to
> the lockdown stand the risk of being abused.
>
> “News reports from around the world describes how many people are in
> danger of being left without access to food.
>
> “We also call on all countries to ensure that where lockdown
> measures are used, they must not be at the expense of human rights.
> Each Government must assist their situation while protecting all their
> citizens, especially the most vulnerable,” he said.
> But he warned that either way, the lockdown should be lifted slowly,
> not immediately. He also urged everyone to keep complying with the
> public health advisory on COVID-19.
>
> Speaking further, he said, “Some countries and communities have now
> endured several weeks of social and economic lockdown. Some countries
> are considering when they can lift the lockdown, others are
> considering whether and when to introduce them.
>
> “In both cases, this decision must be based first and foremost on
> protecting human health and guided by what we know about the virus and
> how it behaves. Control measures must be lifted slowly, it cannot
> happen all at once.”
>
> In view of what the WHO said with regards to the necessity of making
> palliatives available to all the poor citizens if the Nigerian
> government will have any justification to lockdown the commercial and
> political capitals of Nigeria for a Month, it has become crystal
> clear that President Muhammadu Buhari is in violations of
> international human rights laws.
>
> To make matters worst, the armed security forces can’t protect the
> people who are observing the compulsory lockdown from the bloody
> criminal attacks of violent bandits and armed robbers who have
> continued to go on unrestrained rampage in Ogun, Lagos. This is one of
> the factors that the well respected erstwhile governor of Anambra
> state Mr Peter Obi envisaged when he warned against not providing for
> the poor and disadvantaged in the current lockdown.
>
> The Vice Presidential Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr.
> Peter Obi, had expressed concern over the plight of vulnerable and
> unemployed Nigerians whose survival is tied to their day-to-day
> activities.
>
> Obi who was reacting to the imposed total lockdown of the country
> being announced by federal and state governments, said that whilst all
> possible measures should be deployed to stop the spread of the
> coronavirus, appropriate measures should be taken to mitigate the
> suffering of the very vulnerable in our midst.
>
> According to Obi in a statement from his media office, there are
> several millions of our populace who are unemployed and underemployed,
> whose means of livelihood depends on daily income which the present
> situation will definitely worsen.
>
> Obi said that in locking down the country, such vulnerable people
> should be factored into government policies, as is the case in other
> countries, by putting measures in place to cushion the effects of the
> lockdown on them.
>
> Peter Obi a Philosopher said: “it would be counter-productive to
> keep only the elite in mind when taking such far-reaching decisions as
> closing down markets without having some cushioning measures for the
> traders.”
>
> Obi also tasked elected leaders in the country as follows; “This is
> the time to be with your people in your various constituencies.”
>
> He said it does not make sense that elected public officials,
> especially the Legislators, should be observing the stay-at-home in
> various places outside their constituencies at this trying time,
> instead of being with their constituents to help their people to find
> solutions to their problems and challenges.
>
> Obi said that by being in their constituencies to monitor the
> situation, the elected leaders will be in a position not only to
> support their people in their time of need, but to also properly
> advice government on how to address the fallouts of government
> policies.
>
> Finally, Obi called on leaders of all segments of society to make
> sacrifices and show commitment at this critical period in the history
> of our dear nation.
>
> What this means is that the Nigerian government must design a home
> made solution to the all important issue of containment of the
> COVID-19 AILMENT in Nigeria and stop borrowing Western models even
> without following the complete steps adopted by those advanced
> societies to care for their citizens and to reduce the financial
> burdens of the LOCKDOWN.
>
> So hunger, poverty and WIDESPREAD violent crimes which have inevitably
> eclipsed the worrying COVID-19 challenge in Nigeria must be confronted
> with precision and measures put in place to provide solutions to
> them.
>
> President Muhammadu Buhari as someone who spent considerable amount of
> time living as an average citizen in Kaduna and interacting and
> interfacing on regular basis with the wretched of the Earth before he
> was financed by rich politicians like former governors Bola Ahmed
> Tinubu, Rotimi Amaechi amongst others to ascend the Presidency in 2015
> and for the irrevocable final four years in 2019, must listen to the
> voice of reason and introduce humane measures for combating the
> CORONAVIRUS disease without pushing millions of our citizens to their
> untimely death.
>
> *Emmanuel Onwubiko is the Head of the Human Rights Writers Association
> of Nigeria
>
andblogs@www.huriwanigeria.com
> [1];www.huriwa@blogpot.com
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