NCDC issues guideline for elections

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has issued a guideline for safely conducting state and local government elections, especially as the COVID-19 pandemic threatens.

It urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), parties, politicians and election monitors to place a premium on the lives of the electorate by adhering strictly to the guideline and bearing in mind that the deadly virus thrives in mass gathering.

The government encouraged all to comply with protective measures – limiting mass gathering, ensuring physical distancing of at least two metres, promoting hand hygiene and a mandatory use of face masks.

The Director-General of the NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja during the briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19.

He said: “Today we are announcing and launching a new guideline for the conducting of elections during the COVID-19 outbreak in Nigeria.

“Some states will be holding state and local government elections this year, being the first time we are holding elections of this significance during the pandemic.

“Therefore, we have developed this guideline to support everyone involved – parties, INEC, but most critically, Nigerians that will be going to vote in this difficult times.

“Voting still remains a civic responsibility and although we are in the middle of a pandemic, we have to find a way of doing this safely and we have to adapt to the new normal.

“As we know, the virus thrives in mass gathering, so there is a challenge we have in the way we have conducted our elections –  pre-elections, during elections and post-elections. So, in doing this guideline, we try and offer advice on how to do this safely.”

The NCDC boss added: “We strongly encourage the use of television, radio, mobile vans, social media and other forms of communication as our politicians solicit votes.

“We advise careful adherence to mass gathering guidelines. Unfortunately, the virus doesn’t recognise whether we are conducting elections, religious gatherings or business settings – it just thrives when people come together.

“We have provided specific guidelines for theses settings and none of them will be surprising and we’ll be explicit about it.

“We urge our political leaders to take responsibility and lead by example. Leadership will be critical in this era and we advise them to think of the lives of the electorate first. The electorate staying alive is much more important than any vote you can win.”

Schools reopening

Lagos State government’s decision to rely on advice from the Federal Government  as well as the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in determining when to reopen schools in the state is the right and proper thing to do.

The state’s commissioner for education, Folashade Adefisayo, said the state government was discussing with the Federal Government to arrive at a date. The two governments are however being guided by the NCDC.

Speaking while highlighting the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration’s plans for education during an online discussion tagged  ‘Covinspiration Show’, to keep the public abreast of the administration’s activities in the last one year, the commissioner said the decision to reopen the schools cannot be unilateral because COVID-19 affects the entire country, and indeed the whole world.

“We are watching the behaviour of the pandemic to see what happens next and we are working with the Federal Government on the reopening of the schools in the country. This is not a decision that any state can unilaterally take on its own.

If we are certain that the children are safe, we will reopen the schools for learning to resume”, Adefisayo said. She added that “After the protocol is completed and health officials assure us that the coast is clear, we will give the schools some days to adjust their premises in accordance with the guidelines on commencement of academic activities”.

It could not have been better said. Indeed, this is the appropriate model that all state governments should adopt. This is not a matter to be emotive or partisan about. Coronavirus  is no respecter of political party or status.

It has consumed some of the high and mighty in many parts of the world, including Nigeria, and some of them were only lucky to have returned home after being treated for the novel virus and discharged.

COVID-19 has brought about some of the world’s worst devastations in recent times, in terms of its human casualties and socio-economic disruptions, barely five months after it surfaced in Wuhan, China, in December, last year. And the world is still counting its losses because there seems no end in sight yet, especially with a cure still elusive.

Although economic and other activities are being unlocked globally after periods of lockdown, Nigeria inclusive, we know we are not there yet to throw our school gates open for resumption. Coronavirus is at the community transmission stage in the country, hence the spiralling increase in the number of confirmed cases nationwide.

Lagos has to be particularly concerned because it is the epicenter of the infection in Nigeria, and understandably so.

The state is Nigeria’s industrial hub; it is also a melting pot of sort, as it plays host to many Nigerians from other parts of the country, due to its many economic opportunities.

We don’t have to expose our most vulnerable segments to avoidable risks. As we know, children will always be children.

They love to play together, and there is danger in this, as social distancing is one of the main points stressed by experts as one of the ways to avoid coronavirus. Children’s inquisitive nature can easily expose them to the virus.

We need to avoid stories that touch the heart; hence the need to be extra-cautious in reopening schools, whether at the nursery, primary, secondary or even tertiary level. Some of the undergraduates now are babies by the standards of the immediate past. So, caution is the word all round.

This would appear to be the Federal Government’s guiding principle on the matter. Hence, it is considering sectionalising classes for all the tiers, before talking of reopening schools.

Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, disclosed on May 27 during a briefing by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 in Abuja that there may be morning and afternoon sessions when the schools resume.

“We are going to publish a specification on what we expect the reopening to look like. For a country that has over 115,000 primary schools, you will understand that 35,000 of these who are private must agree to set up the same standard in other to allow children to go in”.

We leave state governments that have been acting as islands unto themselves on COVID-19 with the words of wisdom by the minister: “Until we are sure these children can go to school, return safely and not put those who are more susceptible than them at risk, then we are running a huge risk and God forbid, in our hurry, something happens to our children, I am not sure anybody will be able to retrieve what has been lost.”

Lions Club lifts NCDC with $10,000 medical supplies

The Lions Club International Foundation (LCIF) of District 404 A1 has donated personal protective gears, and other medical supplies, worth $10,000 (about N3.9 million) to boost Nigeria Centre for Diseases Control’s (NCDC)’s fight against the novel Coronavirus.

Handing over the supplies to the Lagos State Centre on Thursday, at the NCDC Lagos Office, Yaba, the District Governor-elect, Adetokunbo Aromolaran said the donations were the Lions Clubs way of appreciating the NCDC and the medical and health workers who are in the frontlines to save lives and contain the dreaded spread of the virus.

“LCIF decided to do something to support the system, especially those in the frontline by supplying them with materials with which they too could protect their lives while they are working hard to save the lives of others, ” Aromolaran said.

The District-Governor, who was accompanied by other members  including the Past LCIF President and Africa’s leading major donor Lion Hameed O. B. Lawal, Past District Governor Alex Irotumeh, Chairperson LCIF District 494 A1 Lion Omotunde Johnson and Air Vice Marshal Anthony Okpere (rtd), said Lions Club International has already set aside a $300 million global grant to fight diseases, natural disasters and epide such as COVID-19 around the world.