Pascal Oparada
Business Mogul and Philanthropist, Mr. Valentine Ozigbo, Founder of the Chineto Ozigbo Foundation has called on the Federal Government to place an immediate ban on inter-state movements in order to flatten the curve on the spread of the deadly #CoronaVirus in Nigeria.
Mr. Ozigbo, the immediate past President and CEO of Transcorp plc, made this call in a video message released Friday, March 27, 2020 on his Twitter account @valentineozigbo and Instagram handle @valyntino.
While commending the actions taken so far by some state governments in closing their borders to curb the spread of the virus, he emphasised that an immediate total ban on inter-state movements by the Federal Government would be a more far-reaching effort to save lives from the raging #Covid19 pandemic.
“The reason is we’ve learnt from the mistakes and successes of others,” the business leader said in the passionate appeal.
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“We’ve seen how China, where they started from, have moved from having the greatest acceleration to the greatest deceleration. In fact, at some point, at Wuhan: zero case. What did they do rightly?
“What they did was aggressive isolation; staying at home and banning any form of movements except for essentials. Getting everybody complete lockdown, has helped immensely in whatever other actions that they’ve taken.”
Mr. Ozigbo who also commended Nigerian airlines for halting their operations as a measure to curtail the spread of the virus, noted that although Nigeria was gravely vulnerable as a country, it was far more vulnerable in local communities and villages. According to him, “If this virus should find its way into our villages and local communities, there won’t be any line of defense. My plea is that we don’t allow for this to get so bad before we take these actions.”
On Tuesday, Ozigbo had urged President Muhammadu Buhari to ‘immediately ban interstate movement’ to curb the spread of COVID-19. Two days later, the country’s information minister, Lai Mohammed, hinted that it was considering implementing the measure.
The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed over 21,000 lives since it began in December last year and over 500,000 have been infected around the world.
#BanInterstateMovement
