COVID-19: Nigeria’s Economy Too Fragile To Handle Another Lockdown, Says Buhari

Posted by Nwa Diokpa African News, Featured, Latest Headlines, News, News Across Nigeria, News From The State Thursday, October 29th, 2020

(AFRICAN EXAMINER) – President Muhammadu Buhari has stated that Nigeria must do all it takes to avoid a second wave of Covid-19 infections.

Buhari disclosed this on Thursday on his Twitter account on Thursday saying the country’s economy is too weak to afford another round of lockdown.

“Looking at the trends in 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 of lockdown,” he wrote.

President Buhari had in March imposed a total lockdown on some states including Lagos, Ogun and Abuja to flatten the curve and prevent the spread of the virus.

Due to the lockdown, economic activities reduced and the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by 6.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 and the international Monetary Fund (IMF) had projected that the country’s economy will contract by 4.3 per cent in 2020 as Nigeria records its second recession in five years.

The COVID-19 cases in the country that have been on downward trend have started to increase.

According to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Nigeria has recorded a total of 62, 371 confirmed cases, 58,095 recoveries and 1,139 deaths.