President Muhammadu Buhari has extended the current restriction of movement in Lagos and Ogun States as well as the Federal Capital Territory (FCT ) for another 14 days effective from 11:59 pm on Monday, 13th of April, 2020.
President Buhari declared the extension during his second national broadcast on Coronavirus which was delivered today.
Justifying the extension, Buhari said, “This is not a joke. It is a matter of life and death. Mosques in Makkah and Madina have been closed. The Pope celebrated Mass on an empty St. Peter’s Square. The famous Notre Dame cathedral in Paris held Easter Mass with less than 10 people. India, Italy and France are in complete lockdown. Other countries are in the process of following suit. We can not be lax. The previously issued guidelines on exempted services shall remain. This is a difficult decision to take, but I am convinced that this is the right decision. The evidence is clear. The repercussions of any premature end to the lockdown action are unimaginable. We must not lose the gains achieved thus far. We must not allow a rapid increase in community transmission. We must endure a little longer”.
He revealed that the Nation has identified 92 per cent of all identified contacts while doubling the number of testing laboratories in the country and raising the country’s testing capacity to 1,500 tests per day.
“We also trained over 7,000 Healthcare workers on infection prevention and control while deploying NCDC teams to 19 states of the federation. Lagos and Abuja today have the capacity to admit some 1,000 patients each across several treatment centres. Many State Governments have also made provisions for isolation wards and treatment centres. We will also build similar centers near our airports and land borders”, he added.
The President stated that Nigeria had 323 confirmed cases in 20 states, adding that the Nation now has ten fatalities. “Lagos State remains the center and accounts for 54 per cent of the confirmed cases in Nigeria. When combined with the FCT, the two locations represent over 71 per cent of the confirmed cases in Nigeria”, he pointed out.
However the speech did not address burning issues associated with the lockdown in the past few days most especially, the issue of security and hunger complained by residents of the country.
In the past few days, residents of Lagos, Ogun and Oyo States have been besieged by armed robbers and gangs that are using the opportunity to loot shops, raid houses, rape and kill.
The residents have been forced to do nightwatch and constitute themselves into vigilante groups in other to secure their homes and streets.
Residents of these states also complained that the palliative measures and cash transfer promised by the federal government did not get to them, wondering who were the beneficiaries of these palliatives.
Some top government political office holders, including the Oyo State Governor, Engr Seyi Makinde, have complained about the transparency of the distribution of palliative materials and cash transfer, to be specific.
A legal luminary and human rights activist, Femi Falana (SAN) have also condemned the manners in which the palliative measures and cash transfer have been handled by the federal government.
Condemning the activities of the Nigerian soldiers in enforcing the lockdown order of the federal government, Falana lamented the mal-treatment of Nigerians by the law enforcement agents, stating, “We have lost about 13 people to the enforcers of the lockdown order. Soldiers have no business with the enforcement of the lockdown order. It is what police and members of the civil defence should have been allowed to handle”.
