The Northern Governors’ Forum on Monday has met over the COVID-19 pandemic, seeking for cooperation in other to tackle the virus in the region.
The meeting, which was held via a teleconference was chaired by the Chairman of the forum and Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong.
Part of the discussion was to examine the impact of the virus in the region and also stressed that they cannot lock down the entire north.
In a statement issued by the Director of Press and Public Affairs to Plateau Governor, Simon Macham, members of the Forum resolved to strengthen preventive measures against the pandemic, by enhancing border controls and surveillance as well as greater collaboration to ensure that there is synergy among them in movement restriction.
While noting that the lockdown in some states in the region had varying levels of success, the governors also raised concerns that enforcing cross-border movements remains a challenge as some of the cases recorded in some states were imported from outside despite the closure of borders by their respective governments.
The statement said, “They (northern governors) agreed that at the moment, each state would adopt the measure suitable to its setting because total lockdown of the region will come at a very high cost since most of its citizens are farmers who need to go to farms since the rains have started.
“Another issue discussed by the northern governors was the issue of palliatives from the Federal Government where they regretted that so far, no state in the region had received a dime as special allocation despite the fact that some of them have recorded cases while others are making frantic efforts to prevent any outbreak, as well as prepare against any eventuality.
“This they observed has eaten deep into the pockets of the states as they have spent a lot of money already and may not be able to sustain this for a long time. Since prevention is better than cure, they canvassed that the Federal Government grant them some special funds just as it has done to other states.
“The northern governors lamented that the region has no testing centre, which is very disturbing. They resolved to again liaise with the Federal Government to ensure that each state at least gets one testing centre while highly populated ones get two.