President Buhari Assures Of Continuous Economic Relief Provision Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

President Muhammadu Buhari has assured of continuous provision of economic relief to Nigerians to cushion the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on them.

In a statement issued through his Media Aide, Garba Shehu, on Thursday to mark this year’s celebration of Eid-del-Kabir, President Buhari called on Nigerians to continue to exercise patience and understanding over the inconveniences created by precautionary measures taken to curtail the pandemic, especially the regulations on places of worship.

According to the statement, the President said the outbreak of coronavirus has made it difficult for people to gather in places of worship as they are used to, urging worshipers to abide by the guidelines for safety of their lives, and loved ones.

“The coronavirus has had devastating adverse impacts on our social, economic and spiritual lives,” said Buhari in the statement.

“The preventive guidelines we have introduced to contain the spread of this deadly disease have unfortunately limited people’s freedom to gather and worship in large numbers in mosques and churches.

“Every measure that has been introduced to contain this disease may have its unintended consequences on the daily lives of our people, and I, therefore, call on muslims and other faithfuls to continue to show more understanding with the government as we take correct steps to protect our people through the social distancing.

“No elected government would intentionally take away its people’s religious freedom by limiting the number of people that will gather in worship centres at the same time.

“The guidelines are dictated by necessity in order to safeguard public health and should, therefore, not be perceived as infringement on people’s right to worship.”

Commending the sacrifices of Muslims and Christians in abiding by the COVID-19 guidelines for the good of society,  the President further said, “On our own part, we shall continue to provide economic reliefs to the people to minimize the unintended hardships these guidelines have inflicted.”

He therefore wished muslim faithful a happy Eid-Del-Kabir celebration and called on worshipers not to forget the symbolic significance of the sacrifices of the celebration.

“Muslims should imbibe the noble virtues of our great prophets in order to establish closer connectivity between religious teachings and practice,” he added.

“We can create the greatest impact by putting into practice the noble teachings of our religion. In whatever we do in life, we must put the fear of God in our daily activities in order to make our society better.”