Sanwo-Olu cautions religious bodies over covid-19 variants

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Friday, cautioned religious institutions in the state to be vigilant and continue to adhere strictly with all safety protocols to prevent infection of COVID-19 variants in the country.

Sanwo-Olu gave the charge during a Special Thanksgiving Kumar/Prayers in commemoration of the second anniversary in office, held in Alausa Central Mosque, Ikeja.

The governor, who was represented by his deputy, Dr Obafemi Hamzat, also urged parents, particularly, men to be responsible for their families in order to train their children uprightly.

He warned that there were new variants that could be recorded in the country owing to the influx of people into the country with reported cases of the deadly variants of the pandemic.

The governor said: “The most important thing is for us to thank God, the Almighty Allah for his mercies. When the pandemic started, everybody in the world said that they are afraid for Africa, that they will be picking bodies on the streets.

”But Allah did not allow that to happen. Not because we are good people, so we must thank God for his mercies. And we must thank our Imams and of course our Christian brothers.

”COVID is not yet gone, it is better but it is not yet gone, so we must tell ourselves because we can see what is happening in Brazil, you can see what is happening in India. So the new variants can still come in, so we have to be careful and vigilant May Almighty Allah protect all of us.”

Citing the EndSARS protest that shook the state, he urged all to eschew anger and bitterness, as such would cause more harm than good.

”But like a former governor will always say, anger is never a strategy because you don’t gain anything from anger.

”So we saw what happened with EndSARS, legitimate concern, very legitimate, the protest was initially peaceful but we saw the end result. So it is from the same purse that we will go and fix those things, instead of fixing something else,” he said.

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He also charged parents to assume their responsibilities toward their children, so as to ensure a better society.

The governor, stressed that it was the responsibility of the father and mother to cater for the children, so that their attitude would be well built.

”Therefore, it is important that we all take care of our children. What is happening to us as a people?

”In Lagos today, there is a study going on, there are over 600,000 women that their husbands are not dead but they are widowed, but their husbands are alive, they just left.

”So somebody has three kids with a wife and he just left, how does society survive that? What are we telling ourselves as parents? If the family is destroyed, everything is finished. You must feed the family.

”So our Imams, our churches must talk about the family, the importance of father, why we should take care of our children. We must do everything to raise our children well,” he said.

By John Chukwu…

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