A legal practitioner, Mr. Chukwunonso Daniel Ogbe has asked Court to order the Government of Enugu State to lift the lockdown imposed in the State for the purpose of checkmating the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic following the “failure and/or refusal of the Government of Enugu State to provide adequate palliatives for the citizens of Enugu State who she ordered to stay at home.”
The suit with No. E/163M/2020 between Mr Chukwunonso Daniel Ogbe v. Government of Enugu State & Ors was filed on the 20th of April 2020 at the High Court of the State.
According to the Claimant; “The action which I filed followed the failure and/or refusal of the Government of Enugu State to provide adequate palliatives for the citizens of Enugu State who she ordered to stay at home.”
“Denying people their right to their means of livelihood with the consequential hunger that is dealing with many citizens of Enugu State, also amounts to the violation of the right to life which the Government of Enugu State seeks to protect in the course of checkmating the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
“It is instructive to note that a Court in Malawi last week prohibited the Government of Malawi from going ahead with a lockdown proposed to be imposed in Malawi. The Government of Ghana has also lifted the lockdown she imposed in some Ghanaian cities same with the Government of Iran.”
“It is irrational to force people to stay indoors without providing food and other basic necessities of life for them. Those who are well to do and those who can afford to eat either once or twice daily, may not really appreciate the enormity of havoc the lockdown imposed in Enugu State and most other States in Nigeria is causing. Other realistic measures such as mandatory wearing of face mask, among others, could be resorted to in order to checkmate the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic in Enugu State.” Mr. Ogbe argued.
The suit is yet to be assigned to a judge.