Cleannation Foundation, an NGO, has appealed to Osun Government not to extend the 14-day lockdown put in place to contain the spread of coronavirus in the state.
Addressing a news conference on Tuesday in Osogbo, Executive Director of the NGO, Ayo Okelana, said that shutting down the state for another 14 days could be more damaging than the effect of the ravaging COVID-19.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Gov. Gboyega Oyetola had on March 29 announced the lockdown of the state to contain the spread of the virus.
The 14-day lockdown will expire by 12 am on Tuesday and the governor is expected to address the people of the state on whether the lockdown will be extended or not.
There are 20 confirmed Coronavirus cases in Osun as announced by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), while 11 patients had been discharged.
Okelana, however, said that many painful incident took place during the 14-day lockdown, which according to him, is an indicator an agrarian population cannot be treated as a metropolitan centre.
He said the state government could follow the pattern of other states in the southwest who, he said, had worked out modalities on regulating the movement of their people without shutting down their economic life.
“Shutting down of a state where the people are 95 per cent non-civil servants, and without adequate provision for their subsistence, could be more damaging than the effect of the ravaging virus.
“It has become imperative to go beyond making suggestions and giving directives in order to stem the tide of the spread of COVID-19.
“But to save lives, reduce ill health and ensure that the economy in which the people of Osun State operate does not become weakened and stretched,” he said.
Okelana, however, commended the state government on its quick response in tackling the outbreak of the virus in the state.
“The class of rescue pattern Osun adopted in tackling the virus is rare in Nigeria and highly commendable,” Okelana said. (NAN)
