A Port Harcourt-based legal practitioner, Mr Sogbeye Eli, has called on Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers State to ease lockdown on essential services like markets, petrol stations, healthcare service providers and pharmacies.
Eli, in a memo to the governor in Port Harcourt on Saturday, said that relaxing the restriction on essential services was necessary to reduce the pains of the stay at home order.
He however endorsed expert advice on strict social/physical distancing of two to three metres between buyers and sellers to avoid possible community spread of the Coronavirus virus.
“This model marks out a three metres distance between the buyers and sellers as well as between the buyers on a queue in the operation of our markets.
“If this is enforced strictly whilst also observing compulsory face masks, hand gloves, where inevitable and other safety protocols, there would be no spread of the virus.
“The possibility of a social or security crises arising from hungry citizens resorting to crimes to survive would also be averted,” he said.
Eli, who is also a public analyst, urged the Rivers Government on its watch execute the decontamination of all public places within Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor Local Government Areas during the lockdown.
He said that markets, bus stops, places of worship, schools, public parks, etc, should be decontaminated within the next seven days or so before the lockdown be relaxed.
According to him, Wike’s administration will have scored a bull’s eye in managing the coronavirus within the state by scaling up citizens testing for the virus to determine the true health status of Rivers.
“The government must carefully and work in collaboration with federal agencies like the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) and engage dutifully in fine tuning her boundary monitoring strategies to avoid infiltration and ungovernable spaces.
“The latter would make a total mess of the ongoing lockdown which may lead to avoidable extensions of same and increase the burden on the citizenry,” he added.
Eli urged the governor not to treat his suggestions as coming from an opposition politician but consider implementing them to the benefit of Rivers residents.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Wike had announced an indefinite lockdown of Port Harcourt City and Obio/Akpor LGAs to curb the spread of COVID-19.
