Anthony Iwuoma
The Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has insisted there would be no lockdown in the state despite rising cases of positive Covid-19 cases.
Makinde, who had also recovered from the virus, said in an interview with Fresh FM on Monday that rather his administration would commence distributing palliatives to the people.
He added that civil servants upwards level 13 had been directed to resume duties on Monday.
According to the statistics released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) on Sunday night, Oyo State accounts for 21 positive cases.
That notwithstanding, Makinde maintained that there would be no lockdown in the state because “the economic health of the state is as important as the public health,” insisting on local solution to the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said: “As I have often said, we have to find a local solution. We can’t keep making reference to United States of America, how about other parts of the world? You have to compare what people have done right.
“America should not always be the point of reference, there are other places in the world doing far better than America. We should only borrow from things that will work for us and that can come from any part of the world. It can come from as near as Ghana. Ghana has just lifted its lockdown, they are moving on with their life.”
As regards the directive to the civil servants to resume duties regardless that only a negligible number of of persons, 610, had been tested, the governor explained: “We will keep on testing. This is not going to go away like yesterday and that is exactly what I have been telling a lot of people.
“Okay, you have given palliatives out and this is the direction that you are going to go, in a manner that you are flipping a switch on and off. No, it’s not going to go that way. I think we need to look at this in terms of light dimmers where we can turn the knob and the light may be bright or you may turn the light off.
“We are in this for a long haul and our output should not be like flipping a switch, our output will be with us for a while. And that is exactly what we are doing.
“I mean consciously, we are going out saying let this category of people resume, let the market work, let the farmers take advantage of this planting season.”
The governor had earlier ordered the people of the state to wear face masks in public and disclosed the engagement of 100 tailors to mass produce them for people people.
