Samia Yaba Christina Nkrumah is a Ghanaian politician and Chairperson of the Convention People’s Party. In the 2008 parliamentary election, she won the Jomoro constituency seat, which was her first attempt.

As at now, every individual is giving his or her own submissions as to why there should either be a lockdown or not, and how one must cope should there be a lockdown.

Many are the views of some high profiled individuals, politicians, celebrities, and the ordinary citizen, based on their own understanding, which Some are for the motion that there should be a lockdown to avoid the spread of the deadly virus, while others are also against the motion.

However, on Thursday the 27th of March , 2020, at exactly 11:10pm, the President of the Rublic of Ghana addressed the nation, being his fourth national address since the country was hit by the coronavirus, and announced a lockdown of certain parts of the country, effective on Monday 30th March, 2020.

In response to that, Samia Nkrumah has also brought her view on board on what a lockdown means, how it affects the economy, its consequences, and how people should cope with it. On her facebook page, she wrote a few things for Ghanaians.

Read the full post below….

“A lockdown means that, the people engaged in the production and distribution of food will still be able to operate. Just as medical and security personal; nurses, doctors, police, army, and so forth. Essential services offered by banks and pharmacies will not be stopped. You will still be able to get to the market or a shop to buy food but in a carefully-organised manner. We can do this. 

India, with a population of 1.5 billion and about 500 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 9 deaths, has gone into a lockdown two days ago. In Ghana, we’re 30 million with 136 confirmed cases and 3 deaths. Both our countries have millions living hand to mouth.

The Ghana Medical Association has called on the Government to seriously consider a lockdown. The Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research is calling for help with new equipment. The Trade Union Congress representing organised labour nationally has urged for a lockdown if necessary. The Union of Professional Nurses has made the same demand.

These organisations understand better than all of us that our healthcare system simply won’t be able to cope with a spread of the virus. And if you have a major health crisis you have an economic crisis too.  

Let’s consider that a lockdown will only be useful to us at this initial stage before and not after a crisis has occurred. It’s the strictest precaution to take to pre-empt a situation, one we can’t control.

Is there a political choice to be made here? Yes. Will that entail a sacrifice on communities, companies and individuals? Yes. Will the government have to cushion some people? Yes. We’ll all have to mobilise and each one of us will have to help. 

Be brave. Don’t panic. Be pro-active. #covid19 #covid19ghana #ghana”