President Buhari Extends Gradual Easing by Two Weeks

• President Buhari Extends Gradual Easing by Two Weeks

President Muhammadu Buhari through the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 has extended the ongoing partial easing of the lockdown by another two weeks, effective from today Monday 18, May 2020 to June 1, 2020.

Boss Mustapha, the chairman of the task force and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, made the announcement during a press briefing in Abuja on Monday.

According to him, this is not the time to relax restrictions meant to curb the fast-spreading COVID-19.

In his word, he said “The reality is that in spite of the modest progress made, Nigeria is not yet ready for full opening of the economy and tough decisions have to be taken for the good of the greater majority. Any relaxation will only portend grave danger for our populace.?

“Advisedly, the current phase of eased restriction will be maintained for another two weeks during which stricter enforcement and persuasion measures will be pursued.

“The two weeks extension of phase one of the eased restriction is also to enable other segments of the economy to prepare adequately for compliance with the guidelines preparatory to opening in the coming weeks.

“For the presidential task force, we share your pains but our future is in the hands of every Nigerians and future decisions will depend greatly on our compliance.

“Based on the recommendations of the Presidential task force, Mr President has approved the following

• The measures, exemptions, advisories as scopes of entities allowed to open under phase one of the ease lockdown shall be maintained across the Federation for another two weeks effective from Today 18th May until the 1st of June 2020.
• Intensify efforts to tame, communicate, trace, identify and manage cases.
• Elevating the level of community ownership of non-pharmaceutical interventions.
• Maintain the existing lockdown in Kano for another two weeks.
• The imposition of precision lockdown in states or metropolitan and high burdened local governments that are reporting a rapidly increasing number of cases when the need arises. This will be complemented with the provisions of palliatives and continued re-evaluation of the impact of the interventions. and
• Aggressive scale-up of efforts to ensure that communities are informed, engaged, and participating in the response with enhanced public awareness in high-risk areas” he said.