The signs at the entrance of Ndubuisi Kanu Park are clear enough to send the right message to any visitors.

‘No entry without a facemask’ and ‘Maintain at least two metres distance between yourself and other people’ are some of the instructions at the entrance point. Two washing hand basins with soap and running water are also stationed at the gate for visitors’ use before accessing the premises.

These are some of the measures put in place to avoid contracting COVID-19 at the amusement park located in the bowels of government offices in Alausa, Ikeja, Lagos.

It was around 3pm on Tuesday, December 22, when our correspondent visited the park. The lively atmosphere at the centre that afternoon stood in sharp contrast with the drudgery expected of it at that time of the week. But in the spirit of the season, the fun was not out of place.

What was however puzzling was little or no observance of COVID-19 protocols among the visitors – young and adults.

Under a shade along the park’s walkway, a group of about 50 comprising children and few adults was immersed in merriment, sharing food and drinks.

They mingled freely, with many of them keeping their facemasks below the jaws while others did not wear masks at all.

Perhaps, a number of such gatherings would hold at the park managed by the Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency in the coming days, starting from December 21, 2020, to January 3, 2021.

Tagged ‘Family Funshare Fiesta,’ the event promised to treat fun seekers to a range of activities, including swimming, rides, bouncing castle, and games.

Our correspondent contacted one of the park attendants, whose phone number was written on the banner, asking if a group of 100 visitors together with children could be allowed into the park.

The attendant, who identified himself simply as Yemi, answered in affirmative.

“If they will come, they have to observe COVID-19 protocols. They will use hand sanitisers and they have to wear face masks,” he explained.

He warned that the adults must coordinate the children so they don’t just run around unrestricted.

He added, “We will accommodate all of you. They have to be taken to playground in batches because of COVID-19. Since it is a get-together, you may need a canopy and chairs.”

But the majority of the visitors at the park that day disobeyed the protocols, failing to wear facemasks or wearing them haphazardly and disregarding physical distancing.

Beyond the park, the breach of COVID-19 safety protocols is noticeable almost in every public place in Lagos, the epicentre of the coronavirus in Nigeria, despite resurgence in the number of people infected and killed by the virus in recent times across the country.

From Friday, December 25, confirmed coronavirus cases increased from 81,963 to 88,587 on January 1, 2021, according to statistics from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control. Deaths recorded during the period also jumped from 1,242 to 1,294.

The rising second wave of the infection has compelled the Federal and the state governments to reinstate some of the measures taken early in the year to stem the spread of the virus.

Schools have now been shut down again till January 18, large gatherings banned in the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja), Lagos and Ebonyi states while government officials – except emergency workers – from Grade Level 14 downward were asked to work from home.

The Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has banned concerts, carnivals, street parties and nightclubs; Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mohammed Bello, have also imposed some restrictions and issued fresh safety protocols in their respective domains.

Sanwo-Olu, who is said to have just recovered from the virus, cautioned in a statement last Friday that it was wrong and dangerous for the public to think the worst regarding the virus was over.

He also reinstated the 12am to 4am curfew imposed by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on the state.

The governor lamented that credible reports indicated that the entertainment industry was planning large gatherings, concerts, street parties and carnivals, in the spirit of the Yuletide while nightclubs have also reopened in reckless disregard for the existing guidelines.

He said event centres were also operating with huge gatherings without any regard for public health and safety guidelines.

“The protocol of ‘No Mask No Entry’ must be enforced by all public places: offices, businesses, markets, shops and so on,” Sanwo-Olu stated, adding that all places of worship, including churches and mosques, must ensure that no gathering exceed two hours, at 50 per cent of the maximum capacity of the venue.

Large gatherings at NIMC centres

Following the move by the Federal Government last Tuesday to block all Subscriber Identification Modules not registered with valid National Identification Number by December 30, 2020, more Nigerians flooded offices of the National Identification Management Commission across the country to get their NIN.

This led to huge crowds characterised with non-observance of social distancing and other flagrant abuse of the safety protocols. Pictures of such instance at the Alausa office of the NIMC surfaced on online on Monday with many people lamenting long stay at the centre to do registration.

The uproar generated by the scenario resulted in the extension of the deadline for the SIM block to January 19, 2021, yet crowds continue to throng the NIMC centres.

A resident of Olowora, Oluwaseun Sunday, told our correspondent who visited the Alausa centre around 1.30pm on Tuesday that she had spent seven hours in queue, waiting to be registered.

She said, “I came here around 6.45am. The crowd was so massive. As of that time, I was 400 and something on the list. They asked us to come back tomorrow (Wednesday) as early as 5am. I really need the NIN not just for the SIM registration but some other things. I also want to update my bank account. This is the third time I would be here.

“There is no social distancing here. Government should create more centres for the registration. The online registration is not working; the network is so bad. If it is working, it will ease up the crowd. People are just pushing one another which is very dangerous in respect of COVID-19.”

Another applicant, Edward Ekpo, expressed frustration over the large crowd, saying that he had spent seven hours mixing freely with people, most of whom did not wear face masks.

He added, “For people to gather here, considering the fact that there is COVID-19, is very annoying. This is something that can be done online but it is not working. It is absurd that we are still using the old way of doing things.”

Violation of protocols in parks, marketplaces

In the motor parks around Ojodu-Berger, Ogba, Ojota, Ikeja and Oshodi visited during the week, the gale of disregard for the public health safety rules among commuters and motorists was staggering.

Saturday PUNCH observed that in most of the parks, commercial vehicles were loaded to capacity with noticeable body contacts among passengers, the majority of whom did not put on face masks or did so shabbily.

A park attendant and member of the National Union of Road Transport Workers at Ogba, Biodun Egberonde, said the union had been enforcing use of facemasks before boarding.

“We are carrying full passengers but we make sure that those who do not wear face masks are not allowed to board,” Egberonde, who was also without a mask, explained even though most of the passengers entering buses at the park did not comply.

Water and soap that used to be in the parks for passengers to wash their hands before boarding had also disappeared.

At the Bus Rapid Transit system terminal stations in Berger, there were long queues with little or no social distancing maintained by the waiting commuters. The buses were also fully loaded though the passengers were compelled to wear facemasks.

The disobedience to protocols is also noticeable among commercial motorcycle riders banned from Lagos highways but who have found their way back in numbers, especially after the #EndSARS protest.

Many of them now carry two passengers resulting in three persons crammed on a bike without using facemasks in most cases.

The COVID-19 safety guard was more loose in marketplaces around the areas visited by our correspondent.

Commercial activities went on at full buzzle with minimal caution against the virus. In most instances, both the traders and their customers transacted with neither of them masked up. Handshakes and other forms of body contacts were also rampant.

“Do you still believe there is coronavirus?” A food stuff seller at a market in Ojota, Jumoke Oladeji, retorted when our correspondent asked her about safety measures. “The whole thing is just a scam by the government to make money,” she added determinedly while attending to a customer who also agreed to her position.

“Yes, my brother. It (coronavirus) is a scam. And if it is true, it is the problem of the rich not poor people like us,” the customer, who later identified himself as Dapo Babatunde, argued in Yoruba.

Crowded shopping mall

As Yuletide drew near, there was increased shopping in cities, leading to a surge in human traffic in malls, restaurants and boutiques.

Despite being a working day, a popular shopping mall at Ikeja was crowded on Tuesday when our correspondent visited.

Inside the mall, shoppers were in two long queues as security men stationed at the entrance of the shopping hall controlled the number of people inside the hall at a time. The shoppers were allowed to enter one after the other as those inside were leaving. While the majority of them in the queues put on masks, they barely observed physical distancing.

There were also a number of shoppers queuing at the Automated Teller Machine stands within and outside the mall to withdraw cash.

“We have been doing our best to control the crowd, especially at this Yuletide period. We hope customers will continue to cooperate with us,” an official approached by Saturday PUNCH stated.

Enforcing safety protocols amid deadlier strain

The Lagos State Government in a tweet on Tuesday warned residents that failure to wear face masks in public could land them in prison.

The tweet read, “Did you know? Failure to wear a face mask in public or breach of any COVID-19 regulations, you can be prosecuted under the Lagos State Infectious Diseases (Prevention) Regulations or Criminal Laws of Lagos State and upon conviction liable to imprisonment up to one year.”

On Sunday, the state government announced shutdown of 12 event centres and clubs for flouting the COVID-19 regulations.

The facilities which were shut down by the Lagos State Safety Commission led by its Director-General, Mr. Lanre Mojola, include DNA Night Club, Buzz Bar, Silverfox, Cocoon, Westend Nightclub, Rumours, Lekki Waterside, Landmark Event Centre, The Wave Beach club amongst others.

The commission had earlier shut down Cubana, The Corner, 355 Restaurant and Night Club in an enforcement operation which started on December 19, 2020.

Mojola said any establishments that broke the government’s seal and continued partying would be charged.

Announcing the new guidelines in Abuja last Friday, the FCT Minister, Muhammad Bello, stated that enforcement teams would be out on the streets to ensure compliance, adding that the Federal Capital Territory Administration would work closely with the judiciary through the mobile courts under existing laws.

He said COVID-19 figures over the last three weeks in the FCT had been unacceptably high, noting that there was an urgent need to contain it.

He added, “No mask, no entry, no service. All office and business premises must have a hand-wash station with running water and soap or hand sanitiser. Employees who are feeling unwell or have COVID-19 symptoms should notify their supervisors immediately or stay at home and seek medical attention to confirm diagnosis by doing a COVID-19-test.”

He called for total compliance with all safety guidelines, adding that the holiday season demanded that special emphasis be placed on marketplaces, worship, entertainment and recreational centres which traditionally attract large gatherings during this period.

In an interview with The PUNCH live-streamed on Facebook on Wednesday, a virologist, Prof. Oyewale Tomori, stated that there was mutation in the structure of COVID-19 with a new strain that spreads faster now found in Nigeria.

He said the strain might lead to more infections and deaths if people failed to observe the necessary safety measures.

Tomori said, “The latest I have read this morning (Wednesday) is that it seems to affect younger people a little more than before. This is an evolving thing and people are learning about it every day. So we have to keep our eyes open. It is difficult to predict (that it will lead to more deaths) but because it spreads faster and in an environment where people are not taking proper preventive measures, it means more people will get it.

“How you react to it depends on individuals so it may lead to more deaths. The chances are that if the virus is affecting more people, we are likely to have more people dying.”

The virologist noted that between weeks 42 and 49 in 2020, about 60,000 travellers came into Nigeria with just 7,000 of them tested for COVID-19.

He said 80 per cent of those who came into  the country after seven days had not reported for testing as recommended, adding that the government had been advised to take the samples on arrival.

The medical expert worried that travelling for Yuletide celebrations might further lead to a spike in the rate of infections and appealed to people to take responsibility for public health.

He said, “It is not only government we should expect to do this thing. We must stand everywhere we go and advise people who are not using face masks. You go into town now (wearing masks) and see a lot of people looking at you as if you are a crazy man. This is a problem. We must be talking; we must be saying it to people. Wear your mask; it is for your life, it is for my life.”

Tomori said it was unfortunate that the government had to resort to using enforcement to ensure compliance, noting that persuasion should have been the ideal measure.

He stated, “Let people appreciate the need to wear masks. We have not put that message out enough for people to see that they have a major role to play in the transmission of this disease. We have always focussed on government control. Government is not the controller of this thing. Remember we locked down the whole country at one time but we were not wearing our masks and the number kept shooting.

“It is not the lockdown that is going to reduce it, it is the compliance with wearing of masks and other protocols but we refuse to obey those rules and the number keeps shooting through the roof. You can lock down this country from now till eternity, if you don’t wear the mask, the number will continue to rise. That is the message we need to get across to individuals.

“An individual is more important in COVID-19 control. Government will never die of COVID. If one of them dies, they will be replaced with somebody else. You are the only bread winner in your family, if you die, it will affect your family. Think of that before you decide you are not going to wear mask.”

He also appealed to religious leaders to comply with social distancing and other safety measures while congregating and warning against large gatherings.

Also, the President, Association of Resident Doctors at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Dr Judith Jolayemi, at a briefing on Monday said the impact of the second wave of the coronavirus might be deadlier than the first wave.

She urged all Nigerians, organisations, institutions, and the government to obey the COVID-19 guidelines to curb the spread of the virus.

Jolayemi said, “Individuals must know that they owe themselves the responsibility to protect their health and are therefore encouraged to adhere strictly to the COVID-19 safety protocols at all times.

“Schools after vacating this month maybe considered to remain closed until the epidemic curve begins to reverse. Government at all levels should continue to enforce laws regarding adherence to safety protocols, scale-up COVID-19 testing, improve infrastructure and services across boarding including the airports and ensure the delivery of COVID-19 vaccines at the earliest time possible.”

A Senior Registrar at the LUTH COVID-19 isolation centre, Dr Folarin Opawoye, attributed the recent increase in COVID-19 cases in the country to the attitude of Nigerians towards the non-pharmaceutical guidelines.

He said, “Lockdown can be challenging especially in this environment because of socio-economic indices of the people. A lot of people have to go out every day before they can eat.

“But there are many other things we can do without going through the lockdown. Everybody should be wearing their nose mask, observe social and physical distance, avoid unnecessary gathering and travelling as recommended by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.”