COVID-19: Enforce enabling laws to contain spread – Obasa to Sanwo-Olu

Sunday Ani
Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, has called on the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, to enforce the necessary enabling laws so as to contain the continued spread of COVID-19 pandemic in the state.
He made the call Thursday evening when the House received the state Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, and some officials of the ministry as well as representatives of the 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) and 37 Local Council Development Areas (LCDAs) in the state.
Obasa appealed for all hands to be on deck so as to be able to deal with the pandemic once and for all, saying, “This is not the time to relent, neither is it time to take the back seat. All hands must be on deck.” He also called for new ideas to confront the looming challenges.
While commending the state executive under the leadership of Gov Sanwo-Olu for the role it had played so far in combating the pandemic, the Speaker maintained that necessary laws must be applied in order to stop the continued spread of the deadly virus.
He said: “I believe we should come up with new ideas in dealing with the coming challenges. There is a law which we have passed and people must obey these laws. If there is need to amend certain parts of the law, let us do that. People who are infected should not refuse to go to Isolation Centres. Those who flout this law, should be arrested, that is why we have the law.”
He implored officials of the LGAs and LCDAs to join the fight to end the pandemic, saying, “As local government officials, this is the time to show action and convince your people at the grassroots.
“This is the time to show them that we can get over this pandemic. You need to give them reasons to listen and obey the government because leadership is about showing the way.
“We don’t have to relent in our campaigns and say the people are not listening to us because if we continue like this in the next three weeks, everything will be down and your offices will become useless; there won’t be revenue generation and allocation will seize. So, every local government must come up with new ideas to confront this pandemic.”
Earlier, the Commissioner for Health, who briefed the lawmakers on the challenges confronting the executive in dealing with the deadly virus, disclosed that a very large number of people had been infected with the disease but because they were asymptomatic, they had been going about infecting other people.
He also decried lack of acces to drugs for those in the Isolation Centres, saying, “One of the major problems we have is access to drugs to treat patients. Since the drugs are not produced locally, it has been difficult getting them and because this pandemic is a global thing, the demand for these drugs are in excess.
“Also, we have about 35 ventilators that have not been fully activated because we don’t have the personnel to man them. For one ventilator, you need about six different medical personnel to handle it. But in a matter of days, the ventilators will be activated for use.”