As well-intentioned and important as the federal government’s stay-at-home order is, that order is passing through an acid test as many residents of the affected states, especially Lagos, are out on the street, citing hunger and discomfort in their families.
This is happening barely 48 hours into the order that is scheduled to last for an initial 14 days, meaning that, probably, before the end of the first one week, the order must have died. Some residents have even threatened to protest if the order persists without safety nets from the government.
Amobi Obidiegwu is a middle-aged man with an eight-member family living in Ejigbo, a Lagos suburb. Until 2018, he was a staff of a beverage producing company in Ikeja Lagos where he served as a office assistant—a job he lost when the company decided to downsize its operation.
Obiediegwu has since then trained as an iron fitter, moving from one construction site to another to eke out a living and to fend for his family. He is a daily-pay worker whose income depends on his going out to search for work at construction sites.
For him, the Stay-at-Home order handed down to the residents of Lagos, Abuja and Ogun which restricts all forms of movement amounts to mercy-killing because the only way he and his family can continue to live is by his going out to get money and buy their needs. But now, he cannot move about.
“It is good that government wants to save us from the deadly disease, but I think that for people like me, what will kill us fast is hunger. As I am talking to you now, I don’t know from where our next meal will come. My house is empty and hunger is just by the door,” Obidiegwu, who spoke with BusinessDay Wednesday morning, lamented.
Reminded that the stay-at-home order was for his own good and that of his children, an angry Obidiegwu agreed but asked why nothing was coming from the government to help the poor.
The federal government had, as part of measures to contain and curtail further spread of the deadly coronavirus in the two major cities of the country as well as Ogun State, directed that movement should be restricted and that people should stay in their homes for the next 14 days, beginning from Monday, March 30, 2020.
In Lagos, compliance level was quite high on Tuesday. But just 24-hours later, a good number of the residents are becoming restive and impatient, citing hunger and discomfort in their homes due to lack of electricity and other social amenities to keep them indoors.
Ordinarily, Lagos is a very difficult and challenging environment where many of the residents are daily income earners. For people in this group, hunger has taken a disquieting position in their families, forcing them out to the streets in search of whatever they can lay hands on for survival.
“I don’t really know how long we have to be in this mess; government has directed that we should stay at home but has not made any provision for us; no food in the house; no money to buy anything and there is no light that can even make you stay indoors,” Gbenga Osunyomi, a vehicle licensing agent, complained to BusinessDAY.
Osunyomi, who has not been having it easy on account of the slowdown in the economy, said he had expected the government to give out money to people to cushion the effect of the coronavirus. “Even if they cannot give us cash, why not give out foodstuff as it is done in other countries?” he queried.
Driving through the streets of Lagos shows that many residents are really uncomfortable with the presidential directive. So many people are out on the street, discussing in clusters and making a huge joke of the precautionary measures put in place, especially social distancing.
Apparently, a lot of the people do not understand the meaning and essence of the stay-at-home order by the government, creating the impression that they are doing government a favour by staying in their houses and avoiding contact with people on the street who may be infected.
“Coronavirus is not just a health problem; it is also an economic crisis which is why the government is trying hard to ensure that it does not spread to a point where it will not be controllable. By asking people to stay indoors, government trying to make it easy to contain the virus and also to save the economy from total collapse,” Jude Oloyide, a health worker at a Lagos hospital explained Wednesday.
Oloyide observed that many people were yet to come to terms with what is on ground, advising that government has to step up enlightenment, “because many will die for lack of knowledge.”
CHUKA UROKO
