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How nationwide lockdown will affect COVID-19

Many states are gearing for nationwide lockdown to prevent community transmission of coronavirus (COVID-19). ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE writes on how this may affect transportation

Perphase the biggest debate across the country in the last few days is whether or not the Federal Government should declare a nationwide lockdown to contain the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

A nationwide lockdown, health experts averred, is to prevent the  spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities. With the nation’s fragile health system, health workers fear containing the ravaging virus may become more complex leading to an upward spiral in casualties.

Residents of Lagos and Abuja have been under a lockdown since March 30. The aim was to limit the spread of the deadly infection and   enable those who have contracted the illness to stay at home for the symptoms of the sickness to manifest so they could be evacuated, a procedure, which takes between five and 14 days. The stay-at-home order was to the limit of exposure of those who are yet to contract the sickness.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) had put the figure of total number of cases in the country at 131, with two deaths. There were 81 cases in Lagos, 25 in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and three in Ogun State on March 31.

As at last Saturday, despite the partial lockdown, the figure had risen to 1,182, with 222 discharged and 35 deaths. More states have also joined the growing list taking the figure to 26 states out of the 36 and Abuja.

Same Saturday, no fewer than 12 prominent persons in Kano had died mysteriously of a sickness, which source has confounded the state government.

For most of last week, many states, especially from the Northeast and Northwest, reportedly resorted to turning back travellers from states like Lagos and Kano.

Instructively, the lockdown extension, directed by President Muhammadu Buhari seems to be failing across the two states of Lagos and Ogun and Abuja, where it was declared. Across these three states, the restriction order was obeyed more in breach.

For instance on Saturday, no fewer than 20 buses were impounded in Lagos by the government. Also arrested were motorbikes running both commercial and logistics.

Many of the offenders complained that the lockdown was already taking a huge toll on their health and economy.

Julius Adewole, whose motorcycle was impounded, said he was recalled by his company, a logistics firm that runs delivery services last Wednesday. He wondered how they would survive if they were denied operation.

A trader, Mrs Judith Ugwu, whose return from Mile 12 Market was truncated as her car was impounded by the government operatives made up of Lagos State Transportation Management Authority (LASTMA), Nigeria Police and the state’s Task Force, wondered how traders would get their products to the market if their vehicles were impounded.

The Special Adviser to the governor on Transportation Oluwatoyin Fayinka said the government had embarked on the enforcement to prevent further transmission of the deadly virus.

According to him, what the government would have desired is voluntary compliance, which he said it enjoyed from the people in the early days of the restriction ordered by the governor and eventual lockdown by the President.

He added that the state is bothered about the rising cases of the pandemic and would do everything to ensure that cases , which are the highest in the country are reduced.

The rising cases in Lagos State were affecting the relevance and necessity of the lockdown. A former governor of the nation’s Central Bank of Nigeria(CBN) Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo only last week argued that African countries, including Nigeria, should review the lockdown.

For him, with largely informal and subsistent economy, the countries can not copy wholesale the solutions of the west and Asian nations. “African governments,’’ he said, ‘’cannot pay their citizens to stay at home as developed nations do,’’ warning of huge socio-economic disorder if the regime of lockdown continues.

Yet, health workers insist the number has continued to grow nationally because many of the citizens have continued to flout the stay-at-home order. They said two factors – the grown capacity for testing, occasioned by more states coming up with testing and isolation centres, and the prevalence for many citizens to travel despite the restriction order.

A wellness and nutrition expert Olajide Atanda said the Soludo solution flies in the face of logic. He said had some countries, such as United States, applied total lockdown early, it would not now be the world’s Coronavirus pandemic casualty capital.

Both cases and death rates in the US are the biggest because the President refused to apply the breaks, thus promoting community transmission.

For Atanda, though Nigeria has a subsistent economy with 60 percent of the population in the informal sector, this period is so precarious that all should cooperate with the safety protocols as enunciated by the health experts, especially the NCNC.

Atanda was not alone. Many insisted that though there were pockets of restlessness across the country and violence already recorded in some states, such as Lagos, which recorded the resurgence of the One Million Boys, a band of hoodlums, who visited several communities with violence in the last two weeks, yet, these were not enough reason for the government to abdicate its responsibility of protecting lives.

A lawyer, Dare Olufusi, said the government has a constitutional responsibility to protect the lives.

According to him, what Nigeria needs is not only an extension of the lockdown in some parts of the country, but a nationwide lockdown to prevent movement.

For him, many still embark on inter-state travels. Several travellers use the dead of the night to move from state to state, with such movements serving as a fertile ground for the transmission of the disease.

For health experts, flattening the curve might become more complicating, if Nigerians continue to wilfully flout the stay-at-home order.

They argued that community transmission would continue to proliferate where people refuse to abide with the protocols of safety, such as the social distancing, which implores people to stay at least two metres away from one another, wash their hands regularly and avoid touching their mouth, ear and nose with their dirty fingers.

Other protocols include the use of facemask, regular use of sanitisers and hand gloves to prevent contamination.

For many still embarking on travels at these difficult times, many of these protocols are being flouted at will. Many of the buses impounded on Saturday in Lagos had sandwiched passengers as usual without recourse to leaving at least a seat space in between passengers.

For some of the vehicles found to have the right to be on the road, government officials, had to force the passengers to obey the seat distance directive.

A media executive reviewing the situation said the fear was that the lockdown may be ineffectual if extended nationwide.

For the media executive who preferred not to be mentioned, the case of Lagos has shown that the lockdown has failed in many parts and the government should review its application as it might not succeed, if extended to all states.

Ahead of such possibility, the Nigerian Governors Forum at its emergency meeting last week, had acquiesced to a nationwide lockdown.

They argued that with several governors already locking down their domain, a federal seal might not be out of place. They, therefore, agreed to a 14-day lock-down in the first instance, meaning that the window of an extension exists.

As if this is not enough, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture last week also unveiled strategies to ensure the regular movement of food and other agriculture produce from the production centres to the various markets across the country.

The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Sabo Nanono, who inaugurated a seven-man Joint Technical Task Team on Emergency Response to COVID-19, said the team is mandated to ensure free movement of agricultural products across the country.

Nanono urged governors to ease the team’s efforts by facilitating free movement of agricultural products across the country.

He charged the leadership of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW) to ensure that transporters who convey agricultural products adhered strictly to the guidelines for movement of goods, adding that vehicles ferrying agricultural products should not convey passengers, saying such is against guidelines.

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