COVID-19: Govt should account for Donated funds says Lawyer

By Chukwudum Ebele

Daddy Amaechi Okeke, a legal practitioner at Nkpor, near Onitsha, Anambra state has charged the federal and state governments to give accurate account of how they spent all the funds donated by individuals and corporate bodies for them to cushion the effects of COVID-19 pandemic.

He insisted that without giving the account of the funds, Nigerians would think that governments have misappropriated the funds to enjoy themselves from the comfort of their homes, while telling the people to observe social distance, half-day work and enforcing border lockdown and dust-to-dawn curfew associated with it.

Speaking to newsmen on the on-going COVID-19 pandemic, Okeke noted that huge amount of money was donated to the governments at both federal and state levels yet they could not provide testing machines with the funds, rather they complicated everything in the name of politics.

“Government should relax the lockdown so that people will not die of hunger. Curfew is against fundamental rights of people. Security agents have arrested many people in the name of curfew but did not arraign anybody in court in that regard”.

“Down here in Anambra state, Governor Willie Obiano is busy inaugurating COVID-19 committee at both local government and ward level. Our school children have been disorganized. COVID-19 is worldwide but Nigeria’s own is tainted with fraud because they are not telling us the truth”.

“We have been hearing about testing machines and drugs but we have not yet seen any with our eyes. We have some herbal medicines but the Western world would not want Africa to be the provider of cure drugs. Government should have provided testing centers in each of the senatorial zones to test everybody and ascertain peoples’ status. rather than this locking down and locking up”, said Okeke.