The Oyo State government has asked market leaders in the state to ensure that markets have various handwashing points or risk being closed as COVID-19 spreads.
Fatai Owoseni, the Special Adviser to Governor Seyi Makinde on Security, stated this on Monday, during a meeting with leaders of markets on traders complying with COVID-19 regulations.
Owoseni urged the market leaders to comply with the order within the next one week as it is mandatory. He said the state government had earlier given the markets samples of the handwashing facility, which have largely been vandalised.
According to Nigerian Tribune, though he noted that the state was not unaware of complaints that the facilities may have been vandalized, he said the market leaders had the mandate to secure and replicate the facilities provided.
“The markets have seven days to multiply and replicate the samples of the handwashing basins that have been designed and given to them already.
“They have to own, secure the facilities as their own and monitor their usage because the ones that government distributed have been vandalized and removed from where we put it. Markets that don’t comply will be closed,” Owoseni said.
On people flouting the dusk to dawn curfew in the state, he said the new directive was that anyone caught during the curfew will be asked to remain at the spot till 6 am when then curfew lapses.
In his own address, State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Dr Wasiu Olatunbosun, also urged the market leaders to ensure that traders adhere to the rules of social distancing, the use of face mask and use of alcohol-based sanitisers.
Olatunbosun particularly reminded the market leaders of the state’s directive on the use of face mask in public, which he said, the state government would enforce.
Representing Adelabu market at the meeting, Mr Onaolapo Gafar, said the market leaders need government backing to enforce the curfew.
He decried that the area boys had hijacked and destroyed some of the handwashing facilities that were provided by the state government.
