Governors of the 36 States of the Federation, under the aegis of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF), have resolved to adopt a new data obtained to strengthen the distribution of coronavirus palliatives put in place with support from various organisations and persons.
The decision was taken after receiving an update from Olubayo Adekanmi, Chief Transformation Officer, MTN Nigeria, on the ongoing work with the NGF Secretariat to estimate the vulnerability profile of all States based on their populations, age risk, international travel profile, population density and state contiguity, epidemiological metrics and spending patterns.
This was contained in a communique issued by the NGF Chairman and Governor of Ekiti state, Dr Kayode Fayemi, at the end of the 4th COVID-19 teleconference meeting held on Thursday.
The forum also received update from the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, on the response of his ministry to the COVID-19 pandemic, including support to State Governments to help them identify vulnerable persons through a data mining study coordinated by the Nigerian Communications Commission with the support of telecommunications providers in the country.
The forum, which hailed the Minister for taking a functional role in the COVID-19 response, assured him of their resolve to use all relevant data available to target palliatives to the most vulnerable persons in the most effective and efficient manner.
The governors said necessary measures were being taken to strengthen operations in their Emergency Communication Centres (ECCs) to improve the communication response between distressed citizens and Emergency Response Agencies (ERAs) including the State Emergency Agency, ambulances, Police, Fire Service and the Federal Road Safety Corps. They stressed that operations will be resident in the ECCs to process distress calls and contact relevant ERAs.
“We, member of the Nigeria Governors Forum at our meeting held today (Thursday) deliberated on the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.
“The NGF Chairman briefed State Governors on ongoing COVID-19 coordination efforts between the Forum and various organisations including the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID) and MTN,” the communiqe read.
By Muideen Olaniy,
Daily Trust