The Federal government has been called on to ensure even distribution of COVID-19 relief materials to the grassroot avoid increased hunger in the country.
Alhaji Ado Shuaibu Dansudu, National President, Arewa United Consultative Forum and National Vice Chairman, Arewa Youth Development Association of Nigeria who made this call in an interview with journalists in Lagos, said the call became necessary following robbery in the state as a result of the lockdown by the government.
He noted that if the situation was not handled by the government it could lead to increased criminal activities in the country saying that the lockdown had made everybody to be refugees in their own country.
Dansudu says relief materials should be distributed by government to reach every citizento alleviate the sufferings of the masses and further reduce the crime rates in the state.
“I want government to consider the homeless and areas boys in their relief package, thugs and others, they should find a way to feed them too because if they are hunger, they will cause a lot problems, even now there are areas you cannot pass around 7pm, 8pm, if they do not do any thing about it, there will be problem in the community, these people should be taken care of properly for people to stay at home without fear and move freely within their areas, the homeless and area boys must be taken care of.”
He observed that the relief materials sent to Lagos state was not enough to serve a local government area saying, that every household should benefit from the palliatives of the federal government.
“The food government says they have distributed is not enough, the 150 trailers they say they are giving is not even enough for Lagos state alone, at least every family is suppose to get a bag of rice, they should distribute the rice in line with the population.”
” If there is no food, there will be problem and if coronavirus does not kill, hunger virus will kill, poverty virus will kill, if there is a family and the head has nothing to offer to a family, hr may have high blood pressure that might lead to death, government needs to work hard to help the masses so that at least they can garri a day.”
He noted that the price of food items have become expensive because most of the states where food are sourced for onward movement to Lagos are also on lockdown, adding that this had also led to increase in transportation.
“The price you are buying beans is not different from the price you were buying it before the lockdown but am sad that the price of garri has gone up, we are buying garri before N300-N350 but now N700 a 100% increase. Tomatoes and pepper is very, very cheap.”
Dansudu however commended the various government for the steps taken so far to contain the pandemic and urged Nigerians to follow all directives from the government in order to remain safe.
Dansudu declared that it was better to obey government on the issue of Coronavirus and stay alive than to die in ignorance of the disease stressing that they have been enforcing the social distancing, washing of hands and providing saniterzers but disclosed that social distancing was difficult in markets
“We have sanitizer, they use it when they come to market, we do it 3 times a day, we do not have face mask, it is difficult to get, very, very scarce, if we have everybody must put it on. Social distancing in the market is difficult, people are moving around buying and selling.”
