The Federal Government of Nigeria has asked its citizens to be ready for more ferocious measures to reduce the continuous spread of Coronavirus Disease.
Currently, the official number of cases in Nigeria stands at 35, cases have been reported in Lagos, Abuja, Edo, Ekiti and Ogun.
The government has disclosed that it might have to employ the services of the military and the Nigeria Police to trace contacts.
Speaking at a briefing in Abuja, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the Minister of Information and Culture made this known.
The minister expressed concerns over the number of contacts that would have gone into the society now, however, they are yet to be traced.
He said, “more than 1,300 contacts who have dissolved into the society and yet to be traced.”
The government said with the apparent increase of infections every five days, thousands would have been affected.
He said: “We should be ready for tougher measures. The forms they will take will be out from the end of today or tomorrow. But Nigerians should be ready for tougher measures.
“If we don’t do proper contact tracing, the figure will multiply every five days. Nigerians must take ownership of this initiative.
“We won’t hesitate to use whatever measure to ensure that you do not endanger other Nigerians. Containment is very cheaper than cure.
The minister made a plea to everyone who must have travelled to one place or the other of recent to give themselves to relevant agencies.
He said, “A few people have helped. If you know you travelled recently, give yourself up to relevant agencies.”
”If the situation warrants, we may be forced to use the police and the military for contact tracing.
The police is already working on that. We don’t want the figure we have now to multiply. We should work towards containment which is cheaper,” he added.
