COVID-19: Buhari to decide on govs 14-day national lockdown stance –- PTF

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, Boss Mustapha, has said President Muhammadu Buhari will decide on the two weeks national lockdown proposed by the state governors.

Governors of the 36 States of the Federation, under the platform of Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF), had on Wednesday agreed to the implementation of an inter-state lockdown in the country for the next two weeks to help check the spread of COVID-19 from state to state.

The SGF, speaking on Thursday in Abuja at the 18th joint national briefing of the committee, said that every inputs including that of the governors would be collated by the committee and a report will be written and submitted to the President.

He said: “Basically, what they [governors] are suggesting is that travels from one state to the other should be stopped with certain exemptions of essential services, petroleum products, farm inputs, fertilizer so that we can keep the wheel of our economy ready.

“That is their proposal, federal government is yet to take a decision and as to whether that will be part of our report, the presidential task force will meet and take holistic look at all the proposals that are coming in as to the next line of action going forward.

“This will not be taken in isolation and so I want to assure you that we are working in synergy and collaboratively with the state governments and subnational entities that with this phase going into the third phase, it will be more collaborative that we would have taken into consideration the inputs and interests of different segments of our society.”

Also speaking on the issue, the PTF National Coordinator, Dr Sani Aliyu, commended the NGF for the decision to block inter-state movement for 14 days, noting this was necessary if Nigeria would halt inter-state spread of COVID-19.

He added: “PTF continues to engage very closely with the state governments, we are particularly pleased to note the decision by the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to restrict inter-states travel. This is really important when it comes to reducing the risks of inter-state spread and transmission of the virus.”

The Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) in its Wednesday report said Nigeria now has 873 cases after recording another 91 in the last 24 hours.

“As at 11:25 pm 22nd April there are 873 confirmed cases of #COVID19 reported in Nigeria”, NCDC said in a post on its Twitter handle.