BY CHRIS GYANG

The IMF has granted debt service relief to 25 countries, most of them in Africa, to cushion the effects of COVID-19.

But Nigeria has been conspicuously denied this ‘paliative’. Why?

IMF, other Bretton Woods financial institutions and the West know that Nigeria is a very rich country which resources have been stolen by very few individuals. They derisively, ironically, refer to Nigeria as an extremely rich country with one of the highest poverty levels in the world!

It’s at this critical period of facing the life and death challenge of fighting the CORONA-19 pandemic that this dark fact about the kleptomania of our leaders is hitting home real hard. Sadly, the Buhari government has encouraged unbridled corruption, which is openly playing out in the so-called disbursement of paliatives to the poorest of poor Nigerians.

Buhari and Lalong should not delude themselves that some of the masses have heeded their orders to stay indoors out of respect for them as leaders. No. The masses complied chiefly out of the fear of the deadly virus. They stayed indoors simply out of self preservation. Citizens are strenuously struggling to preserve what is left of their miserable lives that have been destroyed by the 5 years of the Buhari and Lalong lacklustre leaderships.

The word on the streets now is that these purported leaders should also be given the benefit of the doubt. After the lockdowns and fumigation, anything is possible. The masses are beginning to realise that they have been odiously short-changed.

It’s so pathetic that millions of poor Nigerians who have been forced into lockdown can’t afford to feed themselves and are declaring that it’s better to die from the effects of the virus than in their sequestered conditions at home from poverty. A poverty that has, obviously, been deliberately caused by a thieving, selfish and remorseless elite.

Lastly, the other words on many Plateau streets are that most citizens who remained indoors waiting to see Lalong’s fumigation teams coming to their communities failed to see any; up till now that the exercise is expected tomorrow.

So who’s fooling who? That’s what Plateau people are wondering now.

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IMF, POVERTY IN NIGERIA & FUMIGATION IN PLATEAU STATE – CHRIS GYANG