COVID-19 lockdown: Why Lagos is launching ‘register-to-open’ initiative and how it will affect businesses
Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has announced a new initiative ‘Register-to-open’ that will soon be launched by the State as part of measures to curb the widespread of the deadly coronavirus as the state prepares to reopen full business operations.
The governor at his press briefing on Sunday evening said the new initiative will assess the readiness of businesses planning to resume operation and the measures put in place to prevent spread of the virus at their facilities.
“We want these businesses to begin to tune themselves to the realities of COVID-19 with respect to how their spaces need to look to reopen with a strict process for monitoring and space management,” he said.
The new plan to reopen the state economy is coming a week after Sanwo-Olu warned that the government may be forced to impose another phase of lockdown if residents fail to comply with the measures put in place when the lockdown was eased on May 4.
He had said on Saturday May 9: “If we do not see an improvement in the next couple of days, we will be forced to invoke again the very painful decision of bringing the entire system under lockdown again.”
When the governor warned of total lockdown on Saturday May 9, Lagos had 1,764 confirmed cases, one week after, the state recorded 786 new cases bringing its confirmed cases to 2,550 as of Sunday May 18, 2020. Figures released by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) also showed that cases in the country has increased from 2,802 on May 4 (when the ease of lockdown started) to 5,959 on Sunday May 17 representing about 113 percent increase in 13 days.
While explaining Register-to-Open initiative, Sanwo-Olu said: “It means all players in the restaurant business, event centres, entertainment, malls and cinemas will go through a form of re-registration and space management.
“There is a regulation that will be introduced to supervise this move. We will be coming to their facilities to assess their level of readiness for a future opening.”
He, however, did not state when the reopening will begin, “I don’t know when that opening will happen in the weeks ahead, but we want these businesses to begin to tune themselves to the reality of COVID-19 with respect to how their workspaces need to look like,” the governor said.
“For us, it is not to say they should re-open fully tomorrow (Monday) or any time; there has to be a process guiding the re-opening.”
What this initiative means is that the Lagos State Safety Commission and the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), the coordinating agencies, will assess the readiness of businesses in the identified sectors for supervised operations.
Many Nigerians had raised concerns over the ease of the lockdown on May 4 and feared that it may lead to spike in community transmission. Scenes from Lagos on Monday May 4 justified the fears as residents were seen at banks, bus terminals and other public places lumped together in total violation of social distancing rule.
Although Sanwo-Olu has warned that the latest move to reopen other sectors of the economy should not be misinterpreted as a licence for full opening, some social media users have been questioning the move, asking if the state has done enough review of the two-week ease of lockdown before planning to reopen centres that attract large gathering of people.
A popular Twitter user and founder of food delivery service, Soupa Market, Olashile Abayomi-Wealth wrote “To be honest, nothing should be opened at the moment… Everything is not money. Testings are poor and cases are on the rise. Community transmission is a sure deal as people move freely without any form of prevention… Manage this first sir.”
Another Twitter user, Sola Bejide wrote: “Have we done a review of the level of compliance of the #EasingTheLockdown yet? The reports from media houses suggest that the level of conformity to guidelines by Lagosians and businesses is very poor. Businesses are already opened all over with little or zero compliance.”
Chika Ezewuzie tweeted: “In my opinion, every sector of the Lagos economy should have been made to key into the Register to open initiative before easing the lockdown. A lot of the businesses who have resumed work flout all the NCDC guidelines in the pursuit of money. Everybody SHOULD be involved in this.”
Another Twitter user with the handle @ashadysuzzy69 was concerned about the honesty of the agencies that will be assessing the centres before allowing them to reopen.
She tweeted: “I hope “register to open” won’t turn to another avenue for officials to start collecting re-opening fees. Lagos state and Local government officials are notorious for this. Whatever you do, you need to protect the interest of business owners because they create the jobs.”
