Why Lagos is planning to reopen for full business despite rising cases of COVID-19
Despite the rising cases of COVID-19 in Nigeria, the Lagos State government has revealed that it is considering reopening the state for economic activities after two weeks of easing the lockdown.
Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, while speaking at a media briefing on Sunday, said that the state cannot afford to keep people and businesses on lockdown permanently. He added that instead of locking down businesses indefinitely, the state would be rolling out a register-to-open initiative, where businesses that are able to prove their readiness for reopening would be allowed to do so.
”In the coming days, we will be starting what we call Register-to-Open, which means all players in the restaurant business, event centres, entertainment, malls and cinemas will go through a form of re-registration and space management,” he said.
“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.”
Last week, the Lagos state government had conducted an opinion poll on Twitter to determine whether Lagosians wanted an extension to the lockdown or not. Out of the 79,000 people who responded to the poll, 48.7% wanted an extension, 40.9% wanted the state to reopen, while 10.4% were neutral.
But Sanwo-Olu disclosed on Sunday that the state may not enforce a total lockdown again, instead, it will focus on reopening more businesses to improve the economy of the state.
“We are at a level where we are reviewing the other arms of the economy,” the governor said.
“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 work spaces need to look like.
“For us, it is not to say they should re-open fully tomorrow or any time; there has [to] be a process guiding the re-opening. We will be mandating LASEPA and Safety Commission to begin the enumeration process and the agencies will be communicating with all relevant businesses and houses in the days ahead.
He urged all businesses and places of worship to maintain the status quo with regards to the already established lockdown guidelines.
“I must, however, caution that this should not be misinterpreted as a licence for full opening; it is certainly not. The State’s economy is not ready for that now.”
Lagos has so far recorded 2,250 confirmed cases of COVID-19 with 556 recoveries and 36 deaths out of a nationwide total of 5,959 cases with 1,594 recoveries and 182 deaths.
