Between Coronavirus & Hunger-Virus

By Charles Ogbu

Any govt, whether at the federal, state or local level that is asking people to stay at home as a way of curbing the spread of Coronavirus WITHOUT providing relief materials such as food, water and most especially electricity for the same people is an irresponsible govt.

Praising the President, Governors or local govt Chairmen for the lockdown is the height of conscientious idiocy bordering on the fringes of lunacy. Declaring a lockdown doesn’t make one a leader. Even a complete imbecile can declare one. What makes a leader is the wisdom to know that when you force people who mostly exist on subsistence level to stay indoors and not go to work or go to the market, it is your job to provide for them for as long as the lockdown lasts.

Hunger is an existential threat to every living thing. More dangerous to our very existence than even a million and one Coronaviruses. And when you consider the fact that MOST Nigerian families cannot eat if they don’t go out every day, you’d begin to appreciate how moronic it is to declare a total lockdown without providing anything for the people you are forcing to stay at home.

If we want to do ‘copy and paste’, we should at least do it well. In other countries we are copying this lockdown from, citizens are provided with 24/7 electricity, running water, free money and they wake up in the morning to see food waiting for them at their doorstep. Here in Nigeria, the govt is only forcing people indoors with absolutely nothing.

No light, no water, no food, no money.

Yet,

You want people to stay at home for two weeks which from every indication, is going to be extended. If they stay at home and starve to death, has the purpose of your so called lockdown not been defeated?

Meanwhile, when COVID-19 was very far away from here, Nigerians begged this irresponsible govt to close all our borders just like most countries did but the same govt which closed our land borders over foreign rice refused to do the same over a deadly pandemic. Now that their friends, families and fellow members of the political cult have imported and spread the virus all over the country, they now want the poor masses, most of whom do not have international passport not to talk of having traveled abroad to suffer for their criminal negligence. Nothing could be more wicked than this!

If there has ever been a time the people need to use every means to hold the political class to account, that time is now.

I had wanted to publish the phone numbers of all our National Assembly lawmakers for people to call and text, demanding they use the same means they used to share rice, beans and garri when they are begging for vote to also share the same food items now that the masses need it most. But the thing is, I don’t think we should focus only on National Assembly members and ignore their counterpart at the state level, the local govt chairmen and councilors, all of whom are even closer to the grassroots than the ‘Abuja boys’. Now the problem is, I don’t have the means to acquire the contacts of the aforementioned people. So I’m urging you all to individually source for the phone numbers of your own local govt Chairman, councilor, member representing you at the state house of Assembly, federal house of Reps as well as the Senate and OCCUPY THEIR PHONE with texts and calls, demanding they go beyond distributing cheap stuff such as hand gloves and facemasks and start distributing food to the same people in whose name they are receiving outrageous salaries and allowances.

This is the time to know who is a true leader and representative of his people. I see some politicians busy copying the same messages from W.H.O and pasting same on big signboards with their names attached to it after which they feel they’ve done something great for their people. That’s nonsense!

Make no mistake, this lockdown might last for MONTHS. I take no joy in telling you this and I will give anything to be proven wrong but to be honest, we are in for a long ride.

Ignore the donation some of the politicians are announcing. Some of the pledges won’t be redeemed and most of the redeemed ones will simply be looted. It is silly for a politician from a state with no functioning isolation centre, no equipped hospital and certainly no ventilator to be announcing a donation of 500 million naira or one billion naira to the FG to aid the fight against Coronavirus. Is the virus a native of the federal govt? If you are genuine, why not use that money to build or equip existing isolation centre as well as get protective gears for health workers in your state?

Hunger-virus poses more threat to Nigerians at this particular time of lockdown than Coronavirus.

Occupy The Politicians’ phone lines until they share food the same way they do when they are seeking our vote. This is not you begging for food. This is you demanding your rights because these politicians represent you. All the salaries and allowances they are collecting plus the siren and escorts they move about with is because of you. The legitimacy of the office they occupy flows from you. So they owe you. It is time to call in the debt!