Northern Nigeria State governors have said that they cannot sustain the economic impact of the lockdown targeted at containing the spread of COVID-19 in the region..
President Muhammadu Buhari had on Monday extended the lockdown of Lagos, Ogun and the FCT by another 14 days in a bid to help stop the spread of the pandemic.
The states, who adopted a movement restriction strategy earlier, have now said they cannot continue with the move despite having the largest share of palliatives from the Federal Government.
Governor of Plateau State and Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum, Simon Lalong, in a statement said that "Each state would adopt the measure suitable to its setting because total lockdown of the region will come at a very high cost since most of its citizens are farmers who need to go to farms as the rains have started".
The Northern governors also discussed the issue of palliatives from the Federal Government where they regretted that so far no state in the region had received a dime as special allocation despite the fact that some of them had recorded cases while others were making frantic efforts to prevent any outbreak, as well as prepare against any eventuality.
“Since prevention is better than cure, they canvassed that the Federal Government grant them some special funds just as it has done to other states.
“The Northern governors lamented that there is no testing centre in the region. They resolved to again liaise with the Federal Government to ensure that each state at least gets one testing centre while highly populated ones get two.
The governors also discussed the economic impact of COVID-19 on the region and decided that they needed to take a holistic look at the economic prospects of the region with a view to repositioning it for the future by diversifying in areas of comparative advantage such as agriculture, manufacturing, tourism and human capital development
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