Signing of quarantine order, expansion of social investment programmes and other measures announced in Buhari’s second broadcast
President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday evening had his second statewide broadcast on COVID-19 where he announced the extension of the lockdown in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Ogun States for another 14 days.
The President first addressed the nation on Sunday March 29, a month after the country recorded its index case of COVID-19 on February 28, 2020. The first broadcast came after a lot of pressure from Nigerians. During the broadcast, he had announced cessation of movements in FCT, Lagos and Ogun as part of measures to curb the spread of the deadly virus.
According to the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), as at 09:50 pm on Monday, there are 343 confirmed cases of COVID19 in 19 states in Nigeria, 91 have been discharged with 10 death toll.
Aside extending the lockdown, the President, who said he is concerned about the increase in number of confirmed cases and deaths being reported across the world and in Nigeria, also announced what his government has done in the last two weeks and what it plans to do in the coming weeks.
Buhari said he has signed the Quarantine Order and additional regulations to provide clarity in respect of the control measures for the COVID-19 pandemic which will be released soon.
To cushion the effect of the lockdown on traders, day-workers, artisans and manual workers who earn a daily wage, the President said he has directed that an additional one million people be added to the ongoing social investment programmes rolled out two weeks ago.
“In the past two weeks, we announced palliative measures such as food distribution, cash transfers and loans repayment waivers to ease the pains of our restrictive policies during this difficult time. These palliatives will be sustained,” Buhari said.
“I have also directed that the current social register be expanded from 2.6 million households to 3.6 million households in the next two weeks. This means we will support an additional one million homes with our social investment programs. A technical committee is working on this and will submit a report to me by the end of this week.”
Here are other successes and new measures announced by the President:
What government has done with the 14 days of initial lockdown:
1. Training of over 7,000 Healthcare workers on infection prevention and control as well as deployment of NCDC teams to 19 states of the federation.
2 Implementation of comprehensive public health measures that intensified case identification, testing, isolation and contact tracing capabilities.
3. Identification of 92% of all identified contacts. Number of testing laboratories in the country has been doubled and testing capacity has been raised to 1,500 tests per day.
What government plans to do in the coming weeks:
1. Ministers of Industry, Trade and Investment, Communication and Digital Economy, Science and Technology, Transportation, Aviation, Interior, Health, Works and Housing, Labour and Employment and Education have been directed to jointly develop a comprehensive policy for a “Nigerian economy functioning with COVID-19”.
2. The Ministers will be supported by the Presidential Economic Advisory Council and Economic Sustainability Committee in executing this mandate.
3. Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, the National Security Adviser, the Vice Chairman, National Food Security Council and the Chairman, Presidential Fertiliser Initiative have been directed to work with the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 to ensure the impact of this pandemic on 2020 farming season is minimized.
4. Security Agencies to maintain utmost vigilance, firmness as well as restraint in enforcing the restriction orders while not neglecting statutory security responsibilities.
