Sanwo-Olu suggests delay by Buhari‘s govt led to COVID-19 spread

The time supposedly wasted by the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government before closing the country’s borders, seaport, and airports, has been blamed for the spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria.

Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, appeared to lay the blame on the Federal Government during an interview with CNN on Wednesday.

He also blamed the failure of returnees from high-risk COVID-19 countries to self-isolate for the spread.

Lagos is currently the epicenter of COVID-19 in Nigeria with over 900 cases out of the country’s total of 1728.

Sanwo-Olu said the state was ready to curb the spread but did not because it had to wait for the Federal Government to shut airports, seaports and land borders.

He said, “Given the population that we have, we are a bit ahead in terms of preparation, as a state, but we are sub-national. We couldn’t give directives as to when Nigeria should close the airport, seaport, or in-land border.

“We don’t have control over that. We were just wrapping up our own facilities and the training officials, and that was why we were able to track the index case over two months now.

“In the country, 33 or 34 states have had one case or the other. For us, it is a double X thing. The population is huge, so we will be a fool of ourselves to just think that it is going to be a spike and we will be out of it. Because we did not close all of the importations early and people were not also doing full isolation when they came, it was really difficult for us to do contact tracing before it got to the community – which is where we are now.”

It took the President Buhari-led administration over one month to shut the county’s airports, seaports and land borders after Nigeria recorded its first COVID-19 case.

Recall that the COVID-19 index case in Nigeria was recorded on February 27, but it was not until March 29 before President Buhari officially shut airports, seaports, and borders.

By this time, the virus had infected 111 persons.

Sanwo-Olu, during the interview, also said that Lagos had tested 7000 samples and could record higher positive cases of.

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“We are pretty much getting to the peak season. We will soon see a large number because testing is now wrapped up. It is a public health issue and we needed to take our protocols from NCDC and other international organisations.

“Testing kits were rationalised and we could not do more than we were given. Even the accreditation requires processes. We have learnt it now and we are applying it,” he said.

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