#EndSARS Protest: I Foresee This Looting Coming And I Warned During COVID-19 Lockdown, Says Gov Bello

Governor of Kogi State, north central Nigeria, Yahaya Bello has not hidden his non admissive that the novel Coronavirus disease is not as dangerous as  it is been portrayed to the people by the authorities in Nigeria.

The governor revealed on Channels TV’s Sunrise Daily early on Tuesday that a lot of things  were forced on the people by the government to curtail the spread of the worldly acclaimed disease otherwise known as COVID-19. One of the actions was the lockdown of the country by the Federal Government which was declared in some states in March this year, which later spread to all parts of the country. The economy of the most populous black nation was shutdown with individuals and businesses still finding it difficult to stand till now.

“How do we get into the mess we found ourselves?,” the Governor asked rhetorically. “Early this year, an alien disease was imported into our country. I spoke and advised on how best we could handle the situation. Unfortunately, those who planned the scenario of COVID-19 failed to listen. COVID-19 to the best of my knowledge is glorified malaria, and one of the very unfortunate effects of COVID-19 in Nigeria was the lockdown declared by the government.

“Billions were siphoned in the name of COVID-19. This was done by Nigerians in and outside the government. I could remember Kogi State is the only state that officially refused to declare any lockdown because I didn’t see any reason for it and I didn’t accept the fact that COVID-19 is a killer disease. Unfortunately, Nigerians are still blindfolded by this COVID-19 thing.

“The effect of the lockdown is what we are experiencing now. Youths were lockdown at home for months, the country was lockdown and students were lockdown because Academic Staff Union of Universities has been on strike,” the governor said.

Speaking on the targeted looting of the relief materials giving to various states by the Coalition Against COVID-19, a private sector driven initiative to cushion effects of the pandemic in Nigeria, Governor Bello said the whole arrangement of CACOVID palliatives distribution was faulty from the onset.

“Not every state governor supported the way CACOVID palliatives were handled. How can a governor hoard palliatives meant for his state? What we saw was trailers loaded with food items giving to us when we have our local entrepreneurs who could supply us with all these items. In Kogi State, we always distribute relief materials of various items to the people periodically during any festive period of Muslim and Christians sects. We are always with the people all the time. I am the number one youth in government in this country today.

“The incident of looting in Lokoja was avoidable because Lokoja Local Government was the only local council in Kogi State which failed to distribute its own share of palliatives in time; other local council has done their own. Unfortunately, the social media fuelled the anger of the people which resulted into the looting and vandalisation.

“The distribution of CACOVID palliatives has been ongoing since September we received them, until this unfortunate incident of looting happened,” the Governor said.

Bello, however, said that the #EndSARS protests, which started the crisis that led to looting and vandalisation, was politically motivated to discredit the government of President Muhammadu Buhari and one of the prelude activities ahead of 2023 general election in the country.

According to him, despite the federal government meeting up with majority of the demands of the protesters “what we saw was the continuation of the protests, which has no leadership character. The protest movement was set up by some politicians who had benefited in SARS excesses in the past “