Statement By Movement For African Emancipation On The Emergence and Effects of The Covid-19 Lock Down on the Nigerian Masses  

To the Nigerian Masses, the sovereign peoples of Nigeria.
 
In the wake of the global pandemic health emergency Covid-19, the hardship the poor Nigerian masses are facing has been emphasized even more, and this hardship will likely continue to increase in this time of peril.
 
Prior to the arrival of this global pandemic, Nigerian masses have been battling to survive economically. It is now a tug of war as survival instincts will or might push some Nigerians to the wall. The masses in particular the most poor and downtrodden are hard hit by this pandemic and there are little or no palliative measures to cushion the effects.
 
The victims of the pandemic are being given medical attention on the basis of economic status, as it has been always been in this country prior to the coming of the coronavirus, best medical care is strictly for the rich while the poor will have to face the wrath due to their economic conditions.  We are quite sure that the number of Covid-19 cases in Nigeria is higher than is already stated, and we are just waiting to see if perhaps our hot weather has helped to limit the spread. We know that otherwise we are not well prepared.  And the cases that have entered Nigeria could have been seriously reduced if we had a government that cared for the people. Instead, we saw and heard how our international airspace remained open for several days; it is even alleged that it was due to the fact that the President’s daughter was yet to arrive from abroad. 
 
A government that has shown time again and again that it cares nothing about the masses of this country is suddenly claiming that it will be our savior. Is it because the mis-leaders fear that the Covid 19 does not respect economic status and that if they don’t take action to stop it from spreading to them they have no walls no hide behind?  Now they have declared a lockdown – supposedly in our interests.
 
A lockdown imposed on the people with no plan for they shall survive economically is not the right approach for us.  The process of palliative measures especially of cash and food disbursements is also no doubt being corruptly administered. The measures are too little and too ineffective to assist the masses to survive during an economic shutdown.  The Nigerian masses were barely surviving before Covid-19 arrived, due to no fault of our own but due to the failure of our mis-leadership to create enabling conditions for jobs, health care, and food security.
 
The coronavirus is an extra killer to add to all the other killers killing Nigerians which our governments have allowed to happen. Hunger, malaria, motor accidents, infant deaths from lack of health care, explosions on a regular basis, religious terrorism, etc.  If our government had done what was necessary the people will be better able to cope with the coronavirus effects. Instead our government resort to measures of quarantine and lock down which can only work if people are able to feed themselves. Our health care system has been abandoned and left to ruin. Many are jobless with their situation made worse by bans on means of livelihood such as okada and Keke Maruwa.  The government pretends now to be charitable yet its corruption is showing up as even measures to provide food are not reaching many people. Nigerians have been subjected to so much humiliation that they are expected to receive whatever rotten food the government chooses to ‘assist’ them with. The government will not even approach the people with dignified assistance, that whatever is given is what is people’s right not a charity to them that they should be grateful for. And when they impose lockdowns, the soldiers and police do not deal with defaulters as if they are people they serve but instead will mete out harsh punishment as if they are dealing with their slaves. 
 
This is all because the Nigerian ruling class has failed the people of this country. They have dragged the labour of our heroes past to the gutters and it is stained with dirt and filth. The sovereignty of our country has been sold by selfish and callous opportunists in corridors of power. In times of crisis such as these, they portray themselves as progressives and friends of the people but in reality they are the saboteur and enemy of our collective progress as a people and as a nation. They have created a constant crisis for the people to deal with and then when new crises come, they pretend to care.
 
Effort have been made constantly by the downtrodden, united by the “struggle from oppression” to appeal to the ruling class that the economic conditions in which they found themselves under their rule is not befitting of citizens whose country is rich in minerals and various natural resources. All these attempts, efforts and struggle fell on deaf ears and no actions were taken by the misleaders to change their economic conditions. None of the things asked was hard to implement. It was a just and patriotic agitation for a better living condition, after all, Nigeria belong to all of us. The wealth and riches of the land must be evenly distributed to all citizens but such is not the case; the ruling class has taken it as their own. They have become the owners of the country. 
 
Organizations emerged, fighting for the rights and improved condition of citizens of this country. The ruling class, who have no conscience, manipulative in its ways, did everything possible to destroy these organisations, including locking up its leaders on false pretexts, bribing activists, and taking illegal actions since they have bought the judiciary. It is a money crazed society and they have weaponized poverty. We shouldn’t be surprised when people sell out for handouts from the enemy of the state. But we shouldn’t be discouraged, the struggle from our oppression must continue. The goal must be the driving force. We must continue to demand for what is rightfully ours as citizens of this country. 
 
WE the masses of this country must be stubborn about our convictions and our quest for a collective change in all spheres of the vile state of living we have been conditioned.
 
Coronavirus reminds us that we can no longer continue like we have been doing. We can no longer continue to die and suffer due to government failure. We, the people of Nigeria, deserve better. We must organise and arise in order to birth a new society, one in which government serves the people rather than being their master and exploiter.
 
Nigerian Masses, Arise for Freedom!