Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu has said that the state is on the mission of building 10 oxygen tents in the state as a way to deal with COVIOD-19 second wave.

 Sanwo-Olu disclosed this to the news men after his meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday in Abuja, noting that some of the patients are in need of oxygen, and this second wave of COVID-19 is more dangerous than the first.

He stated that “COVID-19 is with us and it is not just something playing in their heads. We have seen, unfortunately, the fatality rate around the country, even in Lagos. One of the things we have realised is that a lot more people require oxygen attention; they need additional breathing aid. So, we have started building what we call oxygen tents.

“We are building about 10 of such facilities; we have inaugurated about four or five of them and we are also building proper oxygen plants, additional to oxygen plants in the state so that we can meet the respiratory requirements.”

The Governor added that, the state government are rebuilding the properties destroyed during the last #ENDSARS protests.

“It is work in progress. To take something down takes one day, to rebuild it takes 10 years. It is a journey, not a destination. And so, it is going to take a while. We are carefully taking a proper study to know what we need to do; taking our time to get it right but we have started something,” he noted.  

He also stated that “Some businesses were affected, some people having their shops looted or burnt or something. We’ve been able to directly begin to support such businesses, especially on a micro, small level using the Lagos state Employment Trust Fund. They have started intervening and supporting some of these small businesses, giving them grants, giving them soft loans and making sure that they can come back together very quickly.

“The bigger larger items around infrastructure, around transportation, they will take a fairly longer time. We’re talking about a period that is still under three months. So, it’s still a working document that we are doing right now and we also have to be very creative in how we raise the finance. We didn’t have money anywhere; you know it was towards the end of a financial year and we’re just starting another year.

“So, to be able to make budgetary provisions for these things will require funding, both support from the private sector and also from the public sector before we can begin to reconstruct some of those huge infrastructures.”