Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde, has said the state would not follow the example of Lagos and others who have begun a total lockdown to control the spread of the coronavirus.
Mr Makinde spoke on Tuesday in a telephone interview with Fresh FM, a radio station based in Ibadan.
The transcript of the interview was released by the governor’s media office.
He said he was not considering total lockdown because it could jeopardise the livelihood of a lot of people who feed from daily sales.
“Oyo is not going to be locked down because every other state is doing that. Yes, Lagos can be on lockdown, Ogun can be on lockdown, Oyo state, yes, people have been saying have a total lockdown and then I have been asking them questions,” he said.
“What will be the benefits here? Are there alternative courses of action for us to take? If you ask people not to come out, you lock down the market places, there are people who what they sell today – the profit from today’s activities is what they will eat tomorrow.
“There are many people like that within our environment. So, are there alternatives available to us? Can we do selective lockdowns? That’s why I imposed the curfew, to say look irin ti o ba ye ka rin.”
Makinde said he was yet to show symptoms of the coronavirus after testing positive for it.
He added that he was misunderstood when he made a joke of the disease during a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rally held in Ibadan on March 18.
“They said we should not do this rally because of coronavirus. It was their leader that said coronavirus is in their party, yes or no? Have you used your hand sanitiser? There is no coronavirus in our own party,” the governor had said.
He, however, told the radio station that he never doubted the reality of the disease.
“Okay, first, you know we had a rally, I believe two weeks ago and then I have seen the video that has been circulating on social media which is being misinterpreted to mean that, I doubted at any time, the existence of COVID-19. The reality is no, I actually never did,” he said.
“I had used COVID-19 in the same metaphorical way that their APC leader did when they were fighting about their chairmanship and he said, well, the virus has gotten into the party.
“So, I made a joke out of it and the video has been circulating that I said there is no coronavirus, that it only exists in the APC. Well, it was a metaphor.
“But to the good people of Oyo State, I want to say again: COVID-19 is real. So, they must follow all the measures government has put in place to prevent, contain and control this virus.”
