How we are controlling Covid-19 in Isolo – Shammeh

During a question and answer session on KUKURUKU WhatsApp platform monitored by Damilola Kushimo, the Chairman of Isolo Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Hon. Shamsudeen Olaleye (Shammeh), explained how his local council has been tackling coronavirus pandemic since it’s outbreak. He also talked on how the pandemic has affected the running of the council’s affair and their projects as a result of inability to generate revenue. Excerpts:

We are looking at the role of local council authorities in combatting COVID-19 in their communities. As the Executive Chairman of Isolo LCDA, can you tell us the role played by tour local council in fighting Covid-19?

Isolo LCDA has played its role in the fight against Covid-19. This we started by sensitising people at the outbreak of the pandemic early in the year. We sensitised all stakeholders in Isolo LCDA. By stakeholders I mean members of the community through the CDAs and the CDC, the artisan groups and the traditional rulers. We called everybody to the council where technical advice was offered.

On hand at the day of the sensitisation were the HOD of Environment and the MOH. Demonstrations were made on how we were supposed to wash our hands and the need for us to sanitise our hands at every given opportunity.

At that sensitisation programme, people were fully briefed on the reality that Covid-19 is here and those things that brought it about. After the sensitisation programme, we equally went on radio jungles to tell all and sundry the need for social distancing, the need to wash hands, the need to use face masks. At the end of that segment, we began the distribution of sanitisers. We mass produced sanitisers which we distributed across the LCDA.

We used such media as the CDC, the religious leaders, traditional rulers, councillors and supervisors in the distribution process. We distributed massively the sanitisers that we produced. Thereafter, the issue of contact tracing came up. We collaborated with the state ministry of health in the area of contact tracing.

At a time, we discovered that about three cases of people who tested positive for Covid-19 were actually in Isolo LCDA. We tried to identify these people and we did a lot of contact tracing. We tried to find out who and who had had contact with those people when we discovered that they tested positive. Of course, at the early stage people were still coming into the country. We had a case or two cases of people who were Chinese who worked with a Chinese company in Isolo. We mounted a surveillance on this people to ensure that they were thoroughly quarantined and we had cases of some people of Igbo extraction who came in from China who were living somewhere in Okota. We traced their contact and we ensured that they were adequately quarantined.

After we left the area of quarantine of the affected people, we moved into provision of palliatives. It should be noted that the state government kick started the idea of giving palliatives but we would say that there was no amount of palliatives that could be distributed by the state government that could be said to be adequate so, the need for the local government to complement the efforts of the state government became imperative.

For this, we started by segmenting the distribution of palliatives. We started by distributing to those ones that we felt were underprivileged in terms of ability to meet up with daily responsibilities when the lockdown was imposed. We gave palliatives to the widows and the elderly ones at the first stage. At a later stage, we gave to the youths and at another stage we generalised it. The palliatives that we gave to the people were a support from the government of Isolo LCDA. Thereafter, we have toed every line that the NCDC through the State Ministry of Health outlined and at every given opportunity, we have continued to sensitise our people that Covid-19 is real and that people should observe the rules as prescribed by the government and the need for people to take precautionary measures.

The Federal Government mentioned Oshodi-Isolo LG as one of the 18 local governments for possible lockdown due to increase of Covid-19 cases in those areas. What efforts did you put in place in readiness for the possible lockdown?

We heard and read about the 18 LGAs that were slated for lockdown. We read and heard about them but we await directives from the state government on this issue. Until the state government shows a direction, we still have to keep our fingers crossed.

The pandemic has crippled the world economy and affected revenue generation due to closure of businesses and restriction o movements and activities. How has the running of the council affairs going, despite the short fall in revenue generation?

The World economy has been crippled. Economies of all nations have been affected. Nigeria is not an exemption and Nigeria not being an exemption means that our state; Lagos State is not spared from it. Then the local governments have no hiding place in the effect of the economy being thoroughly affected. As it stands now, the council is not operating at full capacity and that is what is happening in all local governments. As directed by the state government, only senior staffs of the council, by that I mean senior staffs who are on level 15 and above, are working and as they are working, they are not working five days of the week, they are working three days. Only those other officers that have essential services to dispense are allowed to come into the council.

You can imagine a situation where a council with close to about 700 staffs is operating with less than 50 staffs and only three days in a week. It shows clearly that the capacity of the council has been seriously hampered both administratively and in the area of revenue generation. What we get now are from the people who have the public spirit; the people who accept that they must perform their civic responsibilities and are coming on their own to pay rates. That is the set of people who are paying their rates now and I will tell you that that is minute; the people paying rate at this time are negligible to signpost the fact that the council is generating next to nothing at this time. And taking it nationally, you will observe too that the prices of oil nosedived at a time only coming up recently. When the revenue from the oil is low, it directly impacts on the revenue available to local governments. What is put to us is below what we had budgeted for. So, in all aspects and in all ramifications, the earning capacity of the local government has been seriously hampered by this pandemic and the capacity of the local government to really dispense such service as expected of it cannot be guaranteed any longer.

We saw the example of this from Federal Government that has had to review the budget for the year. The state government had done so and the local government had followed the suit by reordering our budget. So, those inspirational projects that we have embedded into the budget for the year are no longer realisable and in facing the reality, we have had to reordered our priority. We have looked at those projects that are compulsory for us to embark upon at this time while we are looking towards the area of environment and health sectors. Those are the ones that are gaining our concern at this time. So, I will say clearly that the pandemic has had an untoward effect on the capacity of the local government.

The Federal Government has suspended the resumption and reopening of schools but some people are calling for their reopening. As the Chief Security Officer of Isolo LCDA, what is your view on reopening of schools especially the basic schools?

On both sides of the argument for opening and reopening joined my own consideration. Consideration in the sense that people arguing for immediate reopening of schools are looking at the calendar of schools, the effect of having to waste a year and the fact that WAEC has made up its mind to conduct exams. So, the people arguing for the early reopening of schools are having a point. But for other people saying schools should not be opened at this time, of course we will not say that they miss a point because we may be talking about school students who may not likely adhere strictly to the dictate of social distancing and whose immunity is very low.

Because the incidence of Covid-19 is still on the rise, people who argued that schools should not be reopened yet will equally have a point. But my own take is that if the state government says yes, it is time to reopen, we in Isolo LCDA are ready. We know the next step to take. We have decontaminated schools, we have dominated and we only need about 48 hours to get the schools ready for operation as it should.

Sir, Covid-19 pandemic came with its problem but brought about solution to some neglected issues in the country such as upgrade of health facilities. How will you describe the face of the country health sector since the Covid-19 pandemic, and do you agree with the fact that the pandemic has helped uplifted the health sector?

Yes, to answer this question without fear or any form of sentiment. It is clear that this pandemic has exposed our weaknesses in the health sector. Well, I won’t call it a blessing, it is a wakeup call for anyone in the authority to look at the health sector critically and see those things that they can do to uplift it. This pandemic in its own way came as a surprise and took so many countries unaware. Even those advanced countries that we look up to came to fail in the face of this pandemic.

The US couldn’t offer everything that this pandemic demanded so also Germany and other countries of the world that we consider to be up there. So, Nigeria will not be a serious exception. But let us give kudos to the authorities in Nigeria because if you consider the mortality rate to the number of cases that we have on hand, it is below 5 per cent. If I may say, this is commendable compared to the mortality rate in such other countries like the US, Germany, Italy, Spain. Those big countries that we run to when we have health issues in Nigeria are unable to curtail it as much as we have done in this country. That is not to say that the gap hasn’t been noticed, it is a wake up call for people in authority including my humble self to see to the uplifting of our facilities in anyway possible.

Sir, 25th of this month, July 2020 marks your three years in office. How will you describe the journey so far? Would you say you have achieved and performed 75% of your promised agenda to the the people of Isolo?

Yes, I will say it has been challenging and equally exciting time in the office. To say that we have achieved 75 per cent or whatever percentage, I will rather say that I am happy that we have many legacy projects in place because it was our intention from the beginning to have projects that will speak for us long after we might have left office and that we have achieved moderately. Pandemic hasn’t helped that issue but, be that as it may, we hope that the before our tenure comes to an end we would have left something that will speak for us long time to come.