The Federal Government has extended phase three of the eased COVID-19 lockdown by one month. Chairman of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha speaking at a briefing of the Taskforce on Monday, January 25, noted that the guidelines for the current phase of the eased lockdown have been reviewed.\u00a0 Government employees on grade level 12 and below are to continue working from home. Bars, event centres and other recreational venues are to be closed for the period, while public gatherings have been restricted to 50 persons. It will be recalled that Nigeria commenced phase three of the eased lockdown on September 4, 2020 with the resumption of international flight operations, restricted public gatherings, re-opening of schools, restaurants, event centres, etc. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In adherence to the Federal Government\u2019s directive on\nthe resumption of schools in the midst of a second wave of COVID-19 infections,\nseveral educational institutions resumed on Monday, January 18. Following this,\nthe Federal Ministry of Education clarified that students should not be\nrequired to take COVID-9 tests in order to be allowed into their schools. The\nFederal Government however, reiterated the need for strict adherence to\nnon-pharmaceutical COVID-19 interventions to curb the spread of the disease. The\nre-opening of schools was not without criticism over the fear of spread of the\nnew strain of the virus, with media reports indicating unsatisfactory\ncompliance with stipulated health protocols. The Academic Staff Union of\nUniversities (ASUU) while stating that its members were ready to resume\nclasses, insisted that the Federal Government must guarantee their safety\nbefore lectures could commence. The President of the Union, Prof. Biodun\nOgunyemi also stated that the Federal Government and management of tertiary\ninstitutions were yet to assess the state of facilities in the universities at\nthe stipulated time for resumption, to ensure their adequacy in view of the\nefforts to curb the spread of COVID-19. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Boss Mustapha had earlier stressed the need for\nimprovement in the level of compliance to health protocols, while describing\nthe country\u2019s situation as a difficult one \u201din which a balance must continue to\nbe struck between lives and livelihood.\u201d He enjoined Nigerians to do everything\npossible to avoid a second lockdown. However, the position of the Nigerian\ngovernment is in contrast with its directive to citizens to enroll with the\nNational Identity Management Commission (NIMC) for their National Identity\nNumbers (NIN), to be linked to their SIM cards, in the midst of a ravaging\npandemic. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal Government has extended phase three of the eased COVID-19 lockdown by one month. Chairman of the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha speaking at a briefing of the Taskforce on Monday, January 25, noted that the guidelines for the current phase of the eased lockdown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1866,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[195,194],"class_list":["post-1859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-keeps-schools-open","tag-nigeria-extends-phase-3-covid-19-lockdown"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1859"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1867,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1859\/revisions\/1867"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}