Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has urged Nigerians to be patient with the government, especially the residents of Lagos, Ogun and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) where the lockdown is being enforced.

The NCDC Director-General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu, made the appeal on Thursday during an interview.

He stated that although the government was working hard to curtail the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, the objective of the lockdown was not to end the outbreak.

Dr Ihekweazu, “The goal of the lockdown is not to get to the end of this outbreak because that is not a realistic goal; the goal of the lockdown was to keep people a little bit apart to stop transmission to some extent.

“The second goal was to enable the public health response to build up its efficiency and that is really what we have focused on in the last two weeks and what we will work very hard on in the next 10 days to make sure that we finalise.”

Although it has not been perfect, the NCDC boss insisted that there were indicators that there have been fewer contacts among individuals by 60-70 per cent.

He stressed that tackling COVID-19 was easier said than done in a complex country like Nigeria which has population density and unique challenges.

According to Dr Ihekweazu, what the health agency is trying to achieve in the short term is not to stop transmission because that will be very difficult to do as no country in the world has achieved that.

He also reacted to the differences in laboratory test results and called on the authorities in various states to mall disputes and face the challenge

Ihekweazu believes every state in Nigeria will have its share of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

He stressed that the Nigerian government was making efforts to curb the further spread of the disease, noting that it has been a tough task.

“We have responded to Lassa smoothly and nobody shut down the country because it wasn’t necessary, the response was fairly efficient.

“Now, COVID-19 is on a much larger scale – at the moment in 22 states but it will grow to every state in Nigeria, there is no reason why it won’t – it is a respiratory virus,” the NCDC boss said on Thursday.

He also reacted to the differences in the figures of confirmed COVID-19 cases released by the NCDC and the numbers in some states, especially in Lagos and Kano.

Dr Ihekweazu stated that the health agency has been working hard to tackle coronavirus while the authorities in various states have their roles to play.

He insisted that Nigeria cannot run away from the outbreak and the NCDC would continue to be transparent with the results, to stimulate more response from various aspects of the government.

The NCDC boss said, “We just activated the lab in Kano a few days ago. So, these are the results of the increased testing capacity that we are providing for the country.

“The tests are fairly robust; I can’t say 100 per cent but they are as close to that as possible. We had the highest number of positive cases in a single day.”

“Since the onset of the outbreak, we are testing a lot more (and) that is beginning to show. It is only so much we can do from NCDC; we are working with the state governments.

“They actually own the response at the state and local levels, and we need all of them now. We really have to face the reality that this is an outbreak, this is a virus.

“It will circulate in Nigeria, absolutely no doubt and our responsibility as a country is to prepare more, to be able to detect, isolate, treat, list contacts, and stop transmission,” he added.