The Socialist Party of Nigeria, SPN, has berated the Federal Government over the lockdown imposed on Lagos State, Ogun State and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, starting from Monday.
The lockdown, according to President Muhammadu Buhari in a nationwide broadcast was to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
In a statement issued by the SPN, the lockdown would be injurious to the people of the state as the Federal Government did not make any serious provision to cushion the effect of it action on the people of the state, particularly, the less privileged.
The statement signed by the Acting National Chairperson, Abiodun Bamigboye, and the National Secretary, Chinedu Bosah reads in part: “Despite containing so many fine words and a recognition that we confront both “a health emergency and an economic crisis”, the Socialist Party of Nigeria (SPN) finds this presidential address shorn of any serious and concrete steps to assist the workers, the poor masses and even small and medium scale businesses all of which would be the hardest hit by the time the storm blows over.
“According to the address, the President announced that for residents of satellite and commuter towns and communities around Lagos and Abuja whose livelihoods will surely be affected by some of these restrictive measures, the Federal Government “shall deploy relief materials to ease the pains in the coming weeks”.
“Also, the president directed that “conditional cash transfers for the next two months be paid immediately” to the most vulnerable in society. But this is not a new project. The conditional cash transfer has been in existence before now. It is part of the Social Investment programme of the Buhari government kick-started since the first term of the administration which contains provisions to give N5, 000 per month to the aged and vulnerable in society. By directing the immediate payment of the two months value of this cash transfer, all the Buhari government is giving out as cash payment to the aged and most vulnerable to assist them to stock up in order to survive the current period of lockdown and severe movement restriction is a paltry N10, 000 – an amount that cannot buy a bag of rice! More so the aged, even though only a few of them are beneficiaries, are a tiny fraction of our population. While we support every measure to care for our aged, we ask: what happens to the able-bodied who are about 80% of the total population i.e. workers families and the families of the poor and unemployed? Furthermore, the president announced “a three month repayment moratorium for all TraderMoni, MarketMoni and FarmerMoni loans be implemented with immediate effect”. The relief announced by President Buhari is like a drop in an ocean.
“In all of these, the Federal Government did not take account of how the dislocation of economic activities consequent upon the lockdown would adversely affect workers in the public and private sectors, the informal sector workers, the poor and the unemployed in a country that lacks social security. These are not just located in “satellite and commuter towns”, in fact, the working population and poor masses are more concentrated in the inner cities of Lagos, Ogun and FCT than the outskirts. As the SPN has consistently argued, any lockdown effected without providing adequate relief for workers, the poor and unemployed will lead to a human tragedy as a result of hunger. Riots may break out while burglary, armed robbery and other violent crimes may rise exponentially. The daredevil house-to-house robbery in Ibadan, Oyo State in broad daylight on Sunday 29 March 2020 which left many injured is an indication of what could happen over the course of the 14 days.
“Our position as a political party is that the relief promised in the presidential address is inadequate and skewed towards bailing out big business and the rich while leaving the workers and poor with nothing and therefore we reject them. For instance, while not giving anything significant to the workers and poor, the President directed “development financial institutions to engage development partners and negotiate concessions” for on-lending facilities using capital from international and multilateral development partners in order to “ease the pains of borrowers”. We support state intervention to prevent economic collapse but a big chunk of those who access capital from international and multinational development partners are big businesses and the rich elite. The highly publicised donations from the rich businessmen and politicians will not hide the fact that they are being bailed out or financed by the state while tens of millions of Nigerians are left to look after themselves and their families.”
