President
Muhammadu Buhari will address Nigerians by 7pm on Monday.
The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity,
Femi Adesina, announced this in a statement hours before President Buhari is
scheduled to address Nigerians.
“Television, radio and other electronic media outlets are
enjoined to hook up to the network services of the Nigerian Television
Authority (NTA) and Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) respectively
for the broadcast,” he said.
The President is expected to address Nigerians on the
coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic as some residents in Lagos, Ogun, and the
Federal Capital Territory expect to know whether the lockdown would be extended
or not.
More than a million positive cases of COVID-19 have been
confirmed with thousands of deaths recorded in many countries across the world.
As of April 12, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC)
said a total of 323 cases have been
confirmed with 10 deaths in the country
It noted that 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT)
have recorded at least one confirmed case of coronavirus while a total of 85
people have been discharged.
On
March 29, President Muhammadu Buhari declared a lockdown in Lagos and Ogun
States, as well as Abuja, as part of measures to curtail the spread of the
disease and ease the stress of identifying contacts with confirmed cases.
In his last broadcast, President Buhari said the movement
restriction would last for an initial period of 14 days effective from 11pm on
March 30.
Ebrimson,
who spoke on Monday during an interview on Sunrise
Daily, explained, “I think we are dealing with the issue of
apprehension. Earlier this month, there was a cult supremacy battle in Ifo and
the police rose to the challenge and got some of them arrested.”
“Thereafter, this snowballed to Agbado, Ijoko, Ota area and we
put up a team to go after the cultists and ever since then, we have been making
arrests.
“People have been calling me, there is no day I don’t receive
close to 100 calls. Most of these calls are false alarms. The social media is
dishing out fear,” he added.
He explained that the decision was taken based on the advice of
the Federal Ministry of Health and the NCDC.
The President then advised residents of the affected places to
postpone travels while all businesses and offices there should be fully closed
during the period of the lockdown.
Ahead of the day which the lockdown is expected to end – April
13, some residents in Lagos and Ogun State have raised alarm about unrest in
their communities.
PTF
Coordinator Says COVID-19 ‘Will Go Away’, Keeps Mum On Lockdown Extension
Akinola Ajibola
Forwarded by E.E.Jerry
Updated April 13, 2020
The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on
COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, has urged Nigerians to continue to show understanding
with the Federal Government in the period of the coronavirus pandemic.
He
noted that adequate measures were already in place to curb the spread of the
disease, stressing that it was only a matter of time before COVID-19 wipes out.
Dr
Aliyu made the remarks while giving an update on the activities of the task
force during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunday
Politics.
“It
(COVID-19) will go away; it’s only a matter of time but what we don’t want is
for COVID-19 to carry away a lot of our people and that wouldn’t be the right
thing,” he said on the political programme.
The
national coordinator added, “We will continue to push, we will continue to
work, to try and keep this pandemic down but certainly, if people can observe
those simple measures that we have advised, it will go a very long way towards
making sure that the public remains healthy until this pandemic dies out
because COVID-19 will go away.”
More than a million positive cases of COVID-19 have been
confirmed with thousands of deaths recorded in many countries across the world.
In
Nigeria, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said a total of 323
cases have been confirmed with 10 deaths as of April 12.
It
added that 19 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have recorded at
least one confirmed case of coronavirus while a total of 85 people have been
discharged.
As
part of measures to curtail the spread of the disease and ease the stress of
identifying contacts with confirmed cases, President Muhammadu
Buhari declare Lagos,Abuja and Ogun lockdown. The President, in a broadcast on March
29, stated that the movement restriction which would last for an initial period
of 14 days would take effect from 11pm on March 30.
Ahead
of the date which the lockdown is expected to end – April 13, some residents in
the affected areas have raised security concerns.
Asked
whether there was any indication that President Buhari would extend the
lockdown, Dr Ahmed insisted that the task force has submitted its
recommendation and the decision to extend would only be taken by the President.
The
national coordinator, who frowned on the action of some state governments to
relax restriction protocols recently, stressed that a majority of the
infections were not linked to travels abroad or linked clearly to positive
cases.
He
said, “In other words, community transmission, I believe, is already happening
and we need to pick up those that are positive so that we can isolate them very
quickly and make sure that transmission stops.
“So
far, we have done well over 3,000 tests. For a population like Nigeria, that’s
not really high.”
According
to Dr Aliyu, one of the problems is that the government is not getting a lot of
demand from certain parts of the country, especially in the North.
“We
know there are challenges in terms of getting the test done. People have
complained about the difficulty in accessing our telephone services and we are
certainly working with NCC and others to increase the telephone channels,” he
added.
God
help the world.
