Following the gradual easing of the lockdown in Lagos State started yesterday, Monday 4th May, a number of Lagosians were excited to be anywhere else but their homes.
Pictures of overcrowded places flooded social media, forcing the NCDC to react.
Consequently, the director-general of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Chikwe Ihekweazu, has asked Lagos State residents to organise themselves or face reimposed restrictions
According to the DG, the leadership may be forced to reimpose lockdown restrictions to combat the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19).
President Muhammadu Buhari had put Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja on lockdown since March 30, 2020, to contain the spread of COVID-19, which has infected over 3.5 million people across the world.
While speaking during the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on Monday, Ihekweazu acknowledged that initial reports across the country “are not too pleasing“.
The NCDC DG appealed to individuals and corporate organisations to take responsibility so that the exposure and transmission of the virus can be properly managed.
He said the PTF hopes that Nigerians will learn how to normalise going about daily lives while also adhering to the preventive measures advised by the government.
Ihekweazu warned that an explosion in infection figures will mean that the lockdown may be reintroduced to control the spread of the coronavirus disease.
He says: “We knew today would be a problem because for the first time people were let out of their homes.
“But now that we’re out, the challenge for us as a society is how do we now organize ourselves to mitigate these risks and limit transmission from each other.
“Yes, we might have a few extra infections today and tomorrow, but what we don’t want is an explosion of new infections.
“If we do have that explosion, there will be almost no choice left for the leadership of the country than to ask all of us to go back into our homes.”
