Afenifere, the Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, has slammed President Muhammadu Buhari over the restriction of movement in Abuja, Ogun and Lagos states for two weeks to curtail the spread of COVID-19.
Politics Nigeria reports President Buhari had on Sunday ordered a total lockdown of Abuja, Lagos and Ogun State in a bid to contain the spread of Coronavirus.
Condemning the order of the president, Afenifere’s spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin, on Wednesday said the president was wrongly advised and his advisers did not consider Nigerians before ordering a lockdown.
Odumakin added that Buhari and his aides and cabinet members only care about making money from oil than the welfare of Nigerians.
He noted the speech of the president on Sunday did not meet the expectations of Nigerians, adding that the Nigerian leader has not added any value to the fight against COVID-19 in Nigeria.
He said: “You can’t just shut down states like Lagos and Abuja as if you are shutting down a ministry. You must consider the people who are living there, he has been in town for several weeks when COVID-19 started without one word but he just woke up one night and said you are shutting some parts of the country in 24 hours.
“He didn’t get in touch with the governor of Lagos who had shifted the shutdown till Friday; this shows he never got in touch with him. Buhari is just running Nigeria from Abuja without taking into consideration how others feel.
“You can see that even in New York the governor told Trump that he’s the one that can shut down the state but that is not obtainable here because we run some kind of Federalism and that’s why all these abnormalities are happening.
“Even in the President’s speech, he asked other states to emulate Lagos instead of asking them to copy from the Federal Government. Looking at his speech, the federal government has not added any value to the fight against Coronavirus.
“They don’t care about the economy so long as they have collected their oil receipts, if they are running a productive economy they won’t behave like this.
“It’s clear that the interest of the masses, economy and those who depend on the daily economy were not put into consideration but for them, oil receipts were more important.”
