13th April, 2020
The Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) has warned the government against pushing the poor to the wall by the indefinite extension of the lockdown order to curb the spread of COVID-19.
President Muhammadu Buhari had declared a lockdown of Lagos and Ogun states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) for an initial 14-day period.
Many other states in the country, however, followed suit with restriction-of-movement and stay-at-home orders of their own.
Although the lockdown was expected to last from Monday, March 30 to Monday, April 13, a presidential statement on Saturday said the lockdown would remain in place until otherwise advised by experts.
According to PRP, any human locked up without being provided with a means of sustenance or palliative will rebel.
The party in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Abdul Gombe, warned that the country could face famine and the near-total collapse of the economy if productivity, especially in the agricultural sector, was not sustained.
PRP said that since the agricultural sector employed many of the poor people in the country, the government must critically assess the impact of the pandemic on the sector to prevent the poor from rebelling.
“There is need to agree and transparently put in place measures to address growth in the land,” the statement read in part.