Hunger looms amid coronavirus lockdown in Kwara

By Abdulwahab Tajudeen

Immediately news broke that there will be a total lockdown that will take effect in Kwara State from Friday, April 9, 2020, citizens — of middle class and lower class alike — have been showing their concerns over the new order by the state government. A walk down the street fed my ears with lots of buka banter in what we can call the people’s opinions on the total lockdown enacted by the state government.

Aside from “Covidiots”, self-illusional theorists and political vuvuzelas finding all necessary conspiracy theories to debunk the existence of COVID-19 in Nigeria or claiming the pandemic was caused by the 5G network, the effects of COVID-19 is on everyone’s lips, old or young; strong or weak; able or disable; unemployed or employed Kwarans trying to lend their voices on how government can be prepared for the aftermath of total lockdown.

How about those who are not financially ready for the total lockdown? People are still going about their daily businesses in some parts of the state; these people won’t have the capacity to feed their families if they don’t go out in a day. They are in lamentation as the news was aired on radio and television.

These people understand how important staying at home is to their health and how important to stay healthy and Coronavirus free but talk about hunger-virus.

Nigeria is Africa’s wealthiest, most populous African nation with its fastest-growing economy. Despite this, more than half of the country live below the poverty line and the northern region of the country suffers the world’s third-highest level of chronic undernutrition among children due to the insecurity that plague the region.

It has been noted that about 5.1 million Nigerians are malnourished – in a country where Kwara is a state – think about the numbers of malnourished Kwarans before the novel coronavirus and not talk about the numbers during the outbreak and aftermath of the outbreak.

The state government should note that hunger-virus can decimate all the plans and goodwill this administration might have for the masses if the outbreak of hunger is not well managed at this period.

Increase in crime rates – lose of lives and properties can be averted by the state government only if the palliative relief meant for the masses are not shared within the kitchen members of the government.

The committee overseeing the distribution of the relief should be fair enough – Kwarans are one – there shouldn’t be fair treatment for your family above the needy – the poorer languishing in abject poverty. Know those who really need and deserve this relief and let it get to them at the appropriate time.

Kwarans should brace up for times ahead. COVID-19 is a reality and we must not give it a chance and turn our state to the epicentre of the virus. We should believe this is one of the hard moments life promised and we must live to win and celebrate later.

We should keep calm and follow all the laid down rules: wash our hands regularly, maintain social distancing and avoid social gathering till we win the war against this novel virus.