A pro-democracy organisation, Royal Peoples Platform (RPP), has urged Lagos residents to appreciate the efforts of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu at seeing the end of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), by obeying the stay at home order.
Its national president, Prince Dare Aladekoba, lamented that the compliance with the restriction orders was not 100 per cent as expected: “The only way to defeat the disease is by complying with the restriction order.
“People still view the restriction order as punitive and trampling on their fundamental rights of movement and association. They have easily forgotten that in war situation, nobody has the audacity to claim his or her rights.
“People have been complaining to us as human rights group that their rights are being trampled upon by the lockdown and that they want the lockdown stopped for them to move around freely without hindrance.
“Yes, we know freedom is people’s right universally. But we are succeeding in convincing some of them that, in pandemic situation of COVID-19 nature, people are bound to forgo their rights on their own volition to the authorities to guarantee their safety and survival.
“Fundamental human rights, we tell them can only be claimed when one is safe and alive. And since it is the duty of government to guarantee that for the citizenry as part of social welfare as stipulated in the Nigerian Constitution, the citizenry on the other hand should cooperate with the authorities to achieve just that.”
He gave kudos to Sanwo-Olu for putting in place some effective palliative measures to assuage the hardship the stay at home order would have caused, cautioning that nobody should have excuse to flout the restriction order:
“People must have now realised that coronavirus is real and not fabricated, deadly and highly contagious. They should keep away from any act that can bring them in contact with the monster.
“And if you are on essential duties and must go out, you have to be careful by taking all the necessary precautions. Epidemic period is when people have to be organised to avoid avoidable calamity. If eventually one contracts it, he should know it is not the end of his life as it is not a death sentence.
“After all, some victims have survived it. It is a war situation we are in now. And in war situation, the first rule is survival. We should obey all the restriction orders to survive because prevention is better and cheaper than cure.
“If the need arises for another round of lockdown, we would support it. But the government should allow the people to re-energise themselves by giving them an opportunity to store provision for the next level of restriction.
“There is no doubt that people have run out of stock in terms of provision and food stuffs.
“When going out, government should make wearing of face mask mandatory. There must be zero tolerance to overloading by commercial vehicle drivers. Children should also be disallowed from going out.”