Oyo State government has announced that it will commence name and shame as a new strategy to consolidate on its self-policing strategy of containing the spread of COVID-19.
According to the government, the name and shame strategy would entail publicly naming corporate organisations, events, gatherings or individuals, who conduct themselves in violation of the stipulated protocols and guidelines of COVID-19.
This is also as the government extracted the commitment of stakeholders to enlist for the fight against the spread of the novel virus.
The stakeholders, including government officials, religious leaders, traditional rulers, trade unions, market groups, business owners, among others, assures the government of their support during an event tagged: “COVID-19 Containment Stakeholders Town Hall Meeting” at the Western Hall, Agodi Secretariat, Ibadan.
Explaining the rationale behind the ‘shame and name’ strategy, the Chairman, Decontamination and Containment Committee of the COVID-19 Task Force, Prof. Olanike Adeyemo, said keeping the identity of defaulters of COVID-19 protocols had led to a wider spread of the virus in the community.
Prof. Adeyemo, who is the Deputy Vice-Chancellor on Research, Innovations and Strategic Partnerships, University of Ibadan, announced that a mobile app named citizens compliance reporter platform has been launched for citizens to send pictures and videos of defaulters of the novel coronavirus.
“We have started the naming and shaming strategy and that is what the citizens’ compliance reporter platform will do because all the pictures we have were taken by innocent citizens that sent them. Every citizen will be recruited as frontliners to monitor each other as self-police to ensure that they are in compliance,”Adeyemo said.
