Adebayo Abdulrahman
The government of Oyo state has declared the failure of the country’s president, Muhammadu Buhari to place the state onlockdown as part of measures to curtail the further spread of COVID-19 across the country as surprising.
The state government disclosed this in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Seyi Makinde, Mr. Taiwo Adisa who wondered why the state was not among the states announced for a lockdown by the federal government despite sitting third on the list of states by the number of confirmed cases.
In his words, ”We were surprised because statistically, you will think that the President will look at the numbers. You dont expect the state that comes least to now become the focus of Federal Government activities.
”It is not something good to brandish that we hold that record of being the third on that log. Ogun with three is benefitting from the lockdown while Oyo with seven is not.
“Yes, Ogun is close to Lagos but Ibadan is one hour away from Lagos and Oyo has a higher number in terms of victims of the virus. So, we wonder why the Federal Government will leave out Oyo.
”We have heard stories of Lagos benefitting from largesse of donation from the Federal Government and nothing has been said about Oyo.’’
Despite his refusal to attribute the decision of the Federal government to marginalization or politics, Adisa emphasized the need for the Federal Government to allow statistics to guide their implementation of measures to contain the spread of the virus in the country.
On the failure of the FG to allow the state benefit from donations into the account of the government to fight the virus, he said, ”Oyo has taken up its matter in its own hands.’’
”Luckily some good-spirited citizens, residents of Oyo State who probably saw that gap have also risen to the occasion.
”We have open accounts for donations and the state has started receiving donations based on the goodwill of Nigerians who saw that the state was maybe marginalized in the issue” he added.
Adisa also disputed the possibility of the state experiencing an influx of people from Lagos and Ogun states. He argued that the state is already on lockdown and it has restricted interstate movement.
He added that ‘’even for intra-state movement to take place, there has to be a necessity as to whether you are carrying essentials’’.
He then announced that the ban on markets is not a blanket ban on all the markets because markets that sell essentials are not on lockdown.
