With the country experiencing a daily rise in the figure of COVID-19 cases, the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, NGF, will on Wednesday, April 22, meet is to review the situation and various measures taken by state governments at various stages since the virus broke out in Nigeria.
The NGF made disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja on Monday through its Head of Media and Public Affairs, Abdulrazaque Bello-Barkindo.
According to Bello-Barkindo, the meeting would be the sixth teleconference of the governors since the COVID-19 pandemic found its way into the country.
He said that the Director-General of the NGF, Asishana Okauru, in an invitation to members of the forum, asked governors to prepare to discuss the journey so far and provide state-by-state updates on the dominant issue of the season.
Bello-Barkindo stated:
Four states, namely Bauchi, Ogun, Lagos and Oyo will be invited to share their experiences with the rest of the country.
The National Economic Council Ad-hoc Committee and the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 are also expected to make presentations before the governors at the meeting.
The meeting, which will start at 2 p.m. will also deliberate on palliatives to the most vulnerable in the society and how the federal and state governments are collaborating on the pandemic and the type of assistance that the president will be rendering to states.
Many governors attended the five previous meetings and their contributions.
Meanwhile, since Nigeria witnessed her first case in February, the figure of COVID-19 does not appear it would halt very soon despite measure by the federal and state governments across the country to stop the spread.
The move to curb the spread of the virus in the country has seen many states governor close their borders to neighbouring states just as President Muhammadu Buhari extended, by another 14 days, the lockdown directive imposed on Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory.
However, the stay-at-home directive has not yielded a very positive result as hunger has forced a host of residents to violate government’s order; a move that has aided the communal spread of the virus in country whose testing capacity is very low.
