In the midst of conflicting positions by citizenry of the country, especially residents of Lagos State, regarding the proposed relaxation of the on-going COVID-19 lockdown, the actual easing of the lockdown imposed on Lagos and Ogun States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), about a month ago by the Federal Government in conjunction with the state governments to contain the spread of the deadly virus will start on tomorrow, Monday 4,2020.
Many residents of the state that hold the stance that there is need for more stringent measures against the spread of the deadly virus which has now attained the level of community spreading, have called for the extension of the lockdown in order to continue the tracing and tracking of carriers of the virus.
They are also of the opinion that government can only carry out more house – to- house tests on the residents to ascertain active cases when people stay at home.
Whereas, those who are against the lockdown argued that the stay at home order was not effective in many parts of the state because of the failure of the government to provide stimulus packages for residents many of whom they claimed were without economic power or food items to live on during the lockdown.
They are also of the view that the country cannot afford further blow on its badly managed economy which according to them had already suffered strains prior to the lockdown.
Since President Muhammadu Buhari, in his nationwide address on Monday, April 27, 2020, announced the commencement of the process of easing the lockdown, the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has announced the discovery of more cases across the country while more deaths have also been recorded, a situation which confirmed the increase in the rate of community spreading of the virus, though many have also recovered from the attack by the ravaging virus.
The government, in managing the situation, has made the wearing of facemasks in public mandatory while also advocating strict adherence to other measures that have been put in place since the beginning of the pandemic. Among these measures are social distancing, regular washing of hands with soap, use of sanitizer and keeping personal hygiene.
In Lagos State, government has announced new guidelines for transportation while commercial motorcyclists, popularly known as ‘Okada riders ‘, have outrigthly been banned from operating starting from Monday, May 4 (tomorrow).
Despite these good initiatives and measures put in place to curtail social interaction among residents during the period of easing the lockdown, there is still so much to be afraid of, especially regarding the government’s enforcement capacity.
This is so because the way and manner by which the government enforced the lockdown order in many parts of the state still leaves so much questions unanswered.
In many parts of the state, especially in Ikorodu, many were seen on daily basis going about their businesses as if nothing was happening and government failed to rein them in accordingly. All the government could mustered was just verbal ‘threat’ when the situation actually called for more decisive actions to make the residents understand the danger posed by the deadly virus human existence globally.
Now that the government has finally succumbed to pressure to ease the lockdown to open up economic activities, it is left to be seen how the new guidelines coupled with the ones already in place are going to be enforced, particularly in many garages that are loosely organized.
In the entirety of Ikorodu division, it’s only Igbogbo and Imota motor garages/parks that are fenced and even despite that, there are many entries into them. In this case, how are passengers trooping into these garages are going to be managed to ensure that they comply with the social distancing order and other directives.
Also, what measures have been put in place to ensure that commercial buses comply strictly with the stipulated number of passengers they are now entitled to carry? How is the government going to ensure that these buses are fumigated from time – to – time? How is the same government and its agencies which failed to enforce stay-at-home order during full lockdown, enforce the use of facemasks at various points, parks and markets among other public places? And going by what we witnessed at various markets during the lockdown, how is the government going to ensure that buyers and sellers maintain social distancing?
These questions and many more are what the government will have to contend with now that it has decided to ease the lockdown to restart the economy at the expense of the general safety of its citizens.
The state government would also have to contend with the irresponsible acts of the various security personnel deployed to enforce the no movement order in the last one month, especially the policemen since the same set of people would be relied upon to ensure that people, particularly commercial drivers, Okada riders, tricyclists and other motorists, comply with the new and old regulations put in place to combat further spread of the pandemic.
We hope that this decision to ease the lockdown would not reversed the gains already recorded by the government in the last one month, particularly as its regards its prompt response and management of the Coronavirus crisis which has earned it well deserved commendations nationally and internationally.
