Written by Emediong George
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday stated that Nigeria must do all it can to avert a second wave of coronavirus infections in Nigeria.
The president, in a tweet via his official account said that the country’s economy is too fragile to bear another round of lockdown.
The tweet read: “Looking at the trends in the other countries, we must do all we can to avert a second wave of covid-19 in Nigeria. We must make sure that our cases, which have gone down, do not rise again. Our economy is too fragile to bear another round is lockdown”.
Recall that in March this year, Buhari imposed a total lockdown in all the states to control the spread of the virus. Consequently, the lockdown reduced economic activities and Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GUP) contracted by 6.1 percent in the second quarter of 2020.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects that Nigeria’s economy will contract by 4.3 percent in 2020 in real terms; recording its second recession in five years.
According to the Nigerian Center For Disease Control (NCDC), the country so far has recorded a total of 62,371 confirmed cases, 54,095 recoveries and 1,139 fatalities.
Lagos accounts for close to half of the country’s total recoveries with 20,145 patients discharged in the state, although it also has the highest number of cases with 21,017 infections.
