Adebayo Folorunsho-Francis
Lagos State Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, says if the country undergoes another COVID-19 lockdown, it could unsettle the economy and degenerate into a state of insecurity.
He said that the lessons learnt from the success of Ebola and the outbreak of coronavirus last year prepared the state in anticipation of a second wave of the virus.
Recall that the Presidency on Sunday warned Nigerians to continue to observe the guidelines released to curtail further spread of COVID-19 in order to avert fresh lockdown.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, said this in a statement titled, ‘Presidency: Nigerians should comply with mandatory mask wearing to avert lockdowns.’
While appealing to Nigerians to cooperate with the government to ensure the success of the policy, the presidential aide said Buhari introduced the order with the best of intentions and not with any motive to punish citizens.
Abayomi, however, warned that a second lockdown could degenerate into economic chaos.
Speaking on a live TV interview on Wednesday, Abayomi reiterated that any serious government must strive to strike a balance between public health response and sustaining the economy.
“If we go through another lockdown, we know what could happen. The economy goes flat and we generate a state of insecurity. It is a tripod – health, economy and insecurity. That’s what we do.
“We anticipated COVID-19 will come and we prepared to avoid getting caught unaware. We went through the first one and anticipated that there would be a second one because we were watching the global landscape and also know how pandemic behaves.
“Of course, it came and coincided with the festive season and reopening of the economy. One of the things we do as government is to balance the act between public health response and sustaining the economy. Health works with economy and economy works with finance,” he said.
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