Human rights Activist, Barrister Yaqub Eleto
Covid-19: President Buhari’s Lockdown Declaration Illegal, Hasty, Unfounded – Activist
A lawyer and human rights activist, Yaqub Eleto, has described the Sunday’ evening’s President Muhammad Buhari declaring total lockdown of some parts of the country due to corona virus pandemic, as hasty, unfounded and illegal.
It will be recalled that President Buhari, had on Sunday evening declared that there will be restriction of movements in Lagos and Ogun States and Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja, will from 11 p.m. on Monday, March 30, till April 13, 2020.
The action, President Buhari said is to curtail the spread of the deadly virus.
However, in a Swift reaction to President Buhari’s declarations, Barrister Eleto said, the president’s decision to lockdown Lagos State, is against the spirit and letters and the intendment of the drafters of Section 5 and Section 305 (3) (e) of the 1999 Constitution. Adding that before such Executive Order could be made, the President ought to recourse to the National Assembly, who will pass it by a two third majority.
Eleto also condemned the President for using the word ‘lockdown’, which he said was borrowed from World Health Organization (WHO), China and United State of America (USA).
His reaction: “the declaration of a lockdown in Lagos State by President Muhammad Buhari on the 29th day of March, 2020 is unconstitutional, illegal, hasty, unfounded and draconian. I condemn it in all its entirety as it is against the spirit and letters and the intendment of the drafters of the constitution in Section 5 and Section 305 (3) (e) that before such proclamation or executive orders should be made, there should be recourse to the National Assembly who will pass such proclamation by a 2/3rd majority.
“In this instance such consent was not sought and obtained by the president before the order was made.
“It should also be noted that in another look, the word ‘Lockdown’, is novel to our constitution but borrowed from the World Health Organization (WHO), China and the United States. The word lockdown is used as a medico-legal term for quarantining a state where there is epidemic or to restrict cross border movements during outbreaks of epidemics.
“Lockdown is often imposed when the government of the day had tried all efforts at ensuring citizens comply with mild government regulations and when citizens fails to comply and when the spread is at an outraged figure government can go ahead to lockdown the city for case finding, contact tracing and suspension of public gathering at will”.
Eleto however commended APC led-government for its quick response in curtailing the outbreak, but urged the government to have rethink in locking down the States mentioned.
“While we commend the effort of Government in responding to the outbreak and trying to control the situation. We urge government to rethink its lockdown of Lagos State, Ogun State and FCT Abuja and resort to compliance of social distancing, suspension of public gatherings and Government go on aggressive quarantine of some parts of the affected states.
“Lagos State has a population of 26.5 million inhabitants with 9 million unemployed and 33% living below poverty line. It would be disastrous for government to lockdown such states within 24 hours without strong and concrete palliatives measures put in place to assuage the possible outcry that might break out with high prevalence of crime and criminality, including mass murder, insurgency, militancy, armed robbery, kidnappings, and drug abuse”
The human rights activist urged Lagos State government to continue with the partial lockdown and to ensure its strict compliance. While also called for even distribution of palliative measure for the downtrodden in the State
“I therefore urge the Lagos State government to continue on their partial lockdown with stricter enforcements in compliance with the recently passed law of the Lagos State House of Assembly. We also urge the Lagos State to ensure even distribution of the palliatives to places in Lagos state where poor people are dominated not only elite areas of Ikoyi, Obalende, Victoria Island, Lekki and others”.
Admitted that a 14-day lockdown will bring untold hardship on the downtrodden population whose means of livelihood is grossly dependent on daily activities e.g the market woman, the bus driver, the purewater seller etc
A quick question, if just 1000 people got infected with the corona virus today, do you think Nigeria, Lagos have the necessary medical facilities to quarantine 1000 people, having quoted that lagos population is 26.5million, as it stands, the number of infected people may not be up to 200 yet, but have you taken a walk to those NCDC centres to look at how adequately they are being treated? Do you have enough healthcare workers to combat 1000 people at a time, which if it gets to such number, the further spread will be wild and oh God help us!
Much as the action of the president might be without recourse to procedure, i dare say it is long over due, you do not want to be here when thousands gets infected like the advanced countries who even have better and more reliable healthcare facilities.
What we should be discussing is the way forward, how the government of these three states can organize a food items distribution to people in dire need of them, i do not know how Nigeria will do it, but money could be sent to families in however amount.
A recap; The lockdown is long over due but relief items should be distributed to prevent Nigerians from running from Corona spread to hunger and subsequent death, cause either ways, death could result from the virus or hunger.