Peter Obi advises authorities on easing lockdown

Peter Obi, the 2019 vice presidential candidate of the PDP, has advised authorities both locally and internationally to employ caution in easing the lockdown.

Concerning Nigeria, the former governor of Anambra State lamented that the country hasn't been able to carry out enough tests for COVID-19.

Peter Obi stated this hours before the expiration of the 14 days lockdown period declared in Lagos, Abuja and Ogun by the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

“Let me generally appeal that from all advice locally and internationally, easing the lockdown in any part of the country should be done with extreme caution at this stage. As a country, we have not been able to carry out reasonable number of tests to be able to ascertain the real COVID 19 situation on ground in the country.

“We have only so far conducted less than 10,000 tests when our contemporaries in Africa have done a lot more,” he said.

Peter Obi added that other African countries have done well than Nigeria in the fight against COVID-19 because they have been able to ascertain the state of the virus in their country.

“South Africa, the second-largest African economy, has tested 161,000 people, confirmed 4361 positive cases and recorded 86 deaths. Egypt has carried out 90,000 tests where 4319 tested positive with 307 deaths recorded. Ghana has conducted 88,188 tests so far, out of which 1279 people tested positive and 10 deaths were recorded”.

“Nigeria has only conducted 10,061 tests with 1182 positive cases confirmed and 35 deaths recorded. This shows that 12% of the total number of people tested in Nigeria were confirmed positive, a worrisome situation that should keep everyone indoors. In South Africa, Egypt and Ghana, a 2.7%, 4.8% and 1.45% of the total number of people tested were confirmed positive respectively. It will be too early to relax in Nigeria”, Obi cautioned.