Lock-down By Mr President Is A Necessity For Our Country At This Trying Period — Sabastine Anyia Esq

I have read from tabloids and media the writeup of Ebun. Olu Adegboruwa SAN, Inibehe Effiong Esq, Femi Falana SAN and our revered Prof. Wole Soyinka arguing that Mr. president of the federal republic of Nigeria has no power or constitutional rights to order for a lockdown of Lagos, Abuja and Ogun states. In other words, the restriction of movement in the above states by presidential fiat is illegal.

I have also read the publication of Fatai A. Adebanjo (LP) and that of our Honorable Minister for Justice and Attorney General of the Federation. I have also read how the COVID 19 pandemic was handled in China, how USA, Russia and other European countries are handling the pandemic in their countries.

There is no gain saying that. COVID 19 respects no national borders, no social bounds, no political systems and no cultural values. It is tormenting the whole world. The question now is how do we handle it to stop the spread?

For almost 2 months now, it has infected hundreds of thousands of people. According to the WHO report, an infected person appears to spread it to an average of 2.6 people and after 10 generations of transmission, with each taking 5-6 days, that one initial case has spawned 3,500 in matter of days and that is what the world is seeing.
China did not look for the provisions of their constitutions or laws to help them out, they broke the cycle of human intervention by taking “extreme”, “draconian” and “aggressive” steps to respond to this deadly virus.

Lockdown was the solution to this dreaded COVID 19, it is now a norm to tackle corona virus.

When this decision was taken in China, people fought against it. Some said it was a violation of individual rights, others said the President of China has no constitutional right to order for a lock down but he insisted and it worked for the Chinese people.

There is a saying that the balance between individual rights and public safety is always an ever-changing equation. Yes, I agree entirely with it.
If we cast our minds back, we will remember that it was after 911 that all airports in the world began to impose draconian safety checks on passengers and people accepted it because we traded a little of our freedom for the greater good of the public.

If we are sincere to fight this pandemic then we must follow China’s example by shutting down factories, public transport systems and force people to stay indoors. This is the only way we can avoid the spread and save millions of Nigerians from dying.

We should keep our knowledge of the law by the side and look for the best and practical ways of saving Nigerians and humanity from dying in millions. This is exactly what Mr. President has done. We must have the courage and resilience to stay housebound for days, weeks and even months as the case maybe.

We must also view the quarantine as a civic duty and allow it work. Public health methods are universal, they either work or they don’t. It worked for China, it will also work for us after all we are all humans and our epidemiology is the same.

Facing a global pandemic like this every nation needs a contract sign between its people and the government for the protection and well being of its citizenry.

This is a peculiar situation that calls for peculiar response. Desperate times ask for desperate measures. This is a desperate time, we should not put law and politics ahead of public health.
Listening to CNN, Press TV, and other news channels, every nation is testing its own method of controlling this scourge through trial and error. Some paid a high price while others not that high. There is no decision without trade off.

The sections of the constitution and the quarantine laws cited by the learned senior advocates and their beautiful arguments are plausible and plaudable but not needed now.
What Nigerians need now is the way out of this danger. We must not argue and contest everything because of our knowledge of the law.

The Holy book warned “My son, be admonished of making many books there is no end; and much of study is a weariness of the flesh” Eccl 12:12.

I suggest Mr. President locks down the whole country for 2 weeks and see if we can flush out this pandemic from our country.

The well being of the citizens of our country should be of our paramount importance.