CUPP Advises President Buhari To Extend Lockdown Over Spread Of COVID 19 Outbreak

“after receiving credible health intelligence and having researched into the reported planned lifting of the lockdown in Abuja, Lagos and Ogun states, consulted health experts,

conducted a detailed survey, analyzed the pattern of spread since the imposition of the initial lockdown and reviewed the guidelines for the lifting released by the Presidential Taskforce, has rejected the decision by President Buhari to lift the lockdown without putting in place measures that can control the growth rate of infections.

“Based on the outcome of the efforts, we have come to this unimpeachable conclusion that what Nigeria rather needs now is a national lockdown and not lifting off the partial lockdown.

“This is fundamental because like we had highlighted in previous statements, a lockdown on its own without complementary action was not going to achieve much. The statistics of the pandemic today justifies this position of ours,” it insisted.

“We hereby declare that President Buhari’s lifting of the lockdown without complementary action cannot achieve the targeted aim of revamping the economy as the virus will painfully and unfortunately spread again and thereby force the government to shut down again and this time under dire circumstances,”

“That is why we are not comfortable with the plan to officially open the lockdown and allow people to move in crowds with no capacity to handle the possible fall-out,” it explained. The CUPP, while noting that, “No money, no economy, no attempt to assemble our doctors and local herbal experts to try something,” claimed that, “Even those trying to develop a local vaccine are not getting attention.”

“Fellow countrymen, we know it is hard but the APC government led us to this hard spot. They wasted over 10 trillion in revenue and borrowed funds and could not bail the economy hence everybody’s pocket went empty within 24 hours of lockdown because the economy was already dead.

“The little left they hid under palliative to take it away. It is not our fault that we had leaders who came to change and indeed changed us into the poverty capital of the world, broke down our security in all parts of the country, and divided us on the ethnic and religious ground but let’s not allow them to use incompetence in handling our current health challenge to kill us,”

“We reject the planned move to allow people to return to the streets when the level of indiscipline, corruption and desperation to make money is high while capacity for crowd control and relevant institutions are also weak,”

“We have also looked at the case of Ghana, Germany and other jurisdictions that lifted the lockdown earlier than they should have and the virus infection spiked. Ours is a nation with weak health infrastructure because the APC did not buy even paracetamol or build any hospitals or invest in health research, hence prevention of the spread of this disease is our best module. 

“Upon the lifting of the lockdown, people will troop out in large numbers. If some businesses are allowed to open, what will happen to other closed businesses? How can the surge be controlled? Instead of grandstanding, the government should be bold to tell the people its incapacities and admit its failure even during the lockdown and not rely on false optimism to plunge the country into more problems.

“The pressure to lift the lockdown was caused by the suffering of the people and level of poverty caused by a regime which turned COVID-19 response into another looting jamboree with several billions of dollars spent and nothing tangible reaching the people which necessitated the pressure from the people to return to work, a move that will be too early and counterproductive.

“Hospitals in Lagos are already overwhelmed and there is a shortage of bed spaces the same will soon happen in Kano, FCT and Borno, Gombe. If there is a spike, how will the victims be cared for? When that unfortunate time comes, the President will not remember the economy.

The Great Plague of Marseille is a huge warning to governments never to prioritize the “economy” ahead of human lives and public health. It can be a very costly mistake. “Also Nigeria has at least 113 health workers already infected. It shows that the medical manpower for the fight has already been greatly reduced.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has within the availability of its resources done its best and commendably too but has obviously shown that it has been overwhelmed because it does not have the capacity for aggressive testing, contact tracing, isolation and treatment.

The sheer number of figures putting more pressure on the NCDC will make the situation worse hence lifting the lockdown now will compound the challenges.

 “After extensive investigation and review of information at our disposal, facts show that government has not put in place any sustainable sensitization or proper machinery in motion to curtail the spread of the virus after the lockdown lifting.

“The Nigerian Centre for Disease Control testing ability has not been properly strengthened to handle mass infections that will come out from spread if lockdown is lifted, the enforcement has not improved as men of the police are still collecting bribe to allow defaulters to move on across states or extorting them, the use of masks have not been made

legally compulsory to allow for prosecution or punitive action against defaulters, the access to masks by poor people or less privileged who will be thronging public places, buses and markets have not been put in place, and in view of that, we the opposition wish to warn that we do we not subscribe to the nationwide lifting of the lockdown with weak health measures which cannot handle a viral spread.”