Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka on Monday warned governors and members of the National Assembly to watch against any Federal Government attempt to usurp their powers.
Soyinka questioned President Muhammadu’s power to impose a 14-day curfew on Lagos, Ogun and Abuja, in a bid to contain the Coronavirus pandemic.
He invited states and the lawmakers to determine whether the president acted in accordance with the law.
The playwright, who yesterday completed his 14-day self-isolation after returning from the United States, stated this in a statement ‘Between covid and constitutional encroachment’.
The shutdown, which will be for an initial two weeks, “is the containment period to identify, trace and isolate all individuals that have come into contact with confirmed cases,” Buhari said on Sunday night.
Soyinka said: “Constitutional lawyers and our elected representatives should kindly step into this and educate us, mere lay minds. The worst development I can conceive is to have a situation where rational measures for the containment of the Corona pandemic are rejected on account of their questionable genesis. This is a time for Unity of Purpose, not nitpicking dissensions.
“…Does President Buhari have the powers to close down state borders? We want clear answers. We are not in a war emergency. Appropriately focussed on measures for the saving lives and committed to making sacrifices for the preservation of our communities, we should nonetheless remain alert to any encroachment on constitutionally demarcated powers.”
He urged Nigerians to exercise “collective vigilance”, adding that failure to do so, could “compromise the future by submitting to interventions that are not backed by law and constitution.”
According to Soyinka, the President who has been “conspicuously AWOL, the Rip van Winkle of Nigerian history, is now alleged to have woken up after a prolonged siesta and begun to issue orders.
“Who actually instigates these orders anyway? From where do they really emerge? What happens when the orders conflict with state measures, the product of a systematic containment strategy — `including even trial-and-error and hiccups — undertaken without let or leave of the Centre?
“So far, the anti-COVID19 measures have proceeded along the rails of decentralised thinking, multilateral collaboration and technical exchanges between states.”
He noted that the Federal Government has been part of the fight against the virus, “and one expects this to be the norm, even without the epidemic’s frontal assault on the Presidency itself.
“Indeed, the Centre is expected to drive the overall effort, but in collaboration, with extraordinary budgeting and refurbishing of facilities.”
But, according to him, stakeholders should ensure that seriousness and urgency of this virus, “should not become an opportunistic launch pad for a sneak re-centralisation, no matter how seemingly insignificant its appearance.
“I urge governors and legislators to be especially watchful. No epidemic is ever cured with constitutional piracy. It only lays down new political viruses for the future.”