COVID19: Nigerian Leaders Should Focus On Welfare of Citizens — O.G. Ogbom, Esq

A Port Harcourt based legal practitioner and Senior partner at Law Freight Attorneys, Mr. O.G. Ogbom, Esq has advocated for “the need to update our definition of Leadership to focus more on Social Welfare.”

In a statement made available to TheNigeriaLawyer (TNL), Ogbom said: “African leaders may just need to update their definition of leadership to focus more on social welfare and capacity building. The rate at which Executive Orders not based on any known law are flying around gives course for concern. Governors of most states in Nigeria are busy ordering for stay at hime with full force without any measure to combat the looming hunger.”

To him “Leadership goes beyond unleashing Executive orders that are not well thought out. One is forced to ask the steps these Governors have taken to cushion the effect of the stay at home order before unleashing them on the people. Most states in Nigeria have shut down all markets in the states without recourse to how their people will survive the order. Some of the Governors have hurriedly rushed to banks to open bank accounts in the name of donations to combat Covid19, when the only known step some of them have taken, is the donation of the account numbers without more.”

The statement reads in part:

“It keeps getting clearer that most leaders in Nigeria do not understand what leadership is all about. Most of them have quickly constituted taskforce committee to wantonly and unlawfully destroy legally acquired properties they were voted to protect in the name of enforcement and implementation of Government “Stay at Home” order. These Governors will not set up committee or give their local government chairmen matching orders to see to the need of those who can not feed as a result of their carelessness.

“Like the biblical saying, this too shall pass. But Nigerian leaders will still fail to learn one or two from Covid19 experience. If there is anything to take away from our experience so far, it is the fact that; one can not enforce the impossible. Law is made for man and not man for law. “Stay at home” will not work if it becomes counter productive.”

Ogbom advised that “As we put in place taskforce committees to enforce and or destroy the properties of those who have refused to obey the order as a result of hunger and starvation, we should also put in place social welfare committees supervised by local govt Chairmen to rescue the people from the looming hunger and starvation.”