PDP Attacks FG Over COVID-19 Spread And Lockdown

The Peoples Democratic Party has attacked the Federal Government for the spread of the coronavirus in the country, saying if the government had been proactive enough and implemented precautionary measures on time, there would have been no COVID-19 cases in Nigeria.

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Mr Kola Ologbondiyan, in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Friday, also said there would have been no lockdown and the resultant hardship on Nigerians if the government had done the right thing on time.

Ologbondiyan said the PDP had raised the alarm on time and advised the government to have taken measures to prevent coronavirus from entering into Nigeria.

He said sadly, the government failed to adopt the measures.

Ologbondiyan said:

“The position of our party is that if the Federal Government had taken precautionary measures, COVID-19 would not have come to Nigeria and the hardship being faced by Nigerians as a result of the lockdown would have been avoided.

“However, we have resolved as a party to begin to look for solutions. Now. the reality has dawned on us and we believe that as a party, we should be a solutions provider.

“We had said that the government should provide palliatives and that if they did not, the lockdown might be a lockout.

It is already manifesting by the killing of a civilian in Warri, Delta State by the brutalisation of Nigerians on the road by the military.

So we believe that there are safer measures that the government ought to have adopted but the government went to sleep and they are trying to force it now. That is the challenge.”

The PDP spokesman said the party was monitoring the disbursement of money to vulnerable Nigerians, adding that the method of the funds disbursement called to question the Federal Government’s claim that it had been paying social security or incentives to the poor.