President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday signed the Covid-19 Regulations 2020 to declare Covid-19 as a “dangerous infectious disease.”
A statement from the presidency, issued and signed by Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity Mr. Femi Adesina, noted that the president had signed the regulations “in exercise of the powers conferred on him by Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Quarantine Act (CAP Q2 LFN 2004), and all other powers enabling him in that behalf.”
The statement said the regulations, effective March 30, 2020, “also gave legal backing to the various measures outlined in the President’s National Broadcast on March 29, 2020, such as Restriction / Cessation of Movement in Lagos, FCT and Ogun State and others toward containing the spread of the pandemic in the country.”
The government’s chief lawyer and Attorney General, Malam Abubakar Malami (SAN), reportedly dismissed a reported legal challenge on the propriety of Buhari’s lockdown orders of March 29.
He said the quarantine act empowered the president to restrict movement when a “dangerous disease” breaks out.
According to lockdown rules, Nigerians can still perform on-line transactions and use ATMs during these restrictions, “exemption is granted financial system and money markets to allow very skeletal operations in order to keep the system in light operations during the pendency of these regulations,” the spokesman stressed.
Meanwhile the official tally in the country rose to 131 as of March 30. Twenty new cases of Coronavirus were reported; 13 in Lagos, 4 in FCT, 2 in Kaduna and 1 in Oyo State. Lagos now accounts for 81 of the overall infections.
