A delegation from the Lagos State government led by Akin Abayomi, commissioner for Health, and Lanre Mojola, director-general of the Lagos State Safety Commission, at the weekend inspected the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) to ensure facilities at the church are in compliance with COVID safety and prevention protocols in preparation for the funeral of its late founder, Prophet Temitope Balogun Joshua.
Speaking after the inspection and meeting with the church officials, Abayomi said the inspection is in line with the third wave mitigation strategy of the State Government to prevent the importation and spread of new deadly strains of COVID into Lagos and Nigeria.
According to a statement signed by Tunbosun Ogunbanwo, director, public affairs, Abayomi acknowledged that the late Prophet was a prominent individual with large congregation and followers from around the world, saying that the funeral rites would expectedly attract people from within and outside Nigeria who will deem it fit to come pay their last respect to the clergy.
He explained that the Lagos State Government considers the funeral activities at SCOAN an important event enough to ensure strict compliance to COVID safety protocols to prevent the importation, transmission or spread of the newly deadly strains of COVID infection to the state or country.
“In these very precarious times that we are in, with a global pandemic that is evolving dynamically; what we now know is that there are different strains of the virus circulating around the world, and Lagos State has a very strong third wave prevention strategy,” Abayomi stated.
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“The likely cause of a third wave is going to be an importation from visitors who are infected with the virus, so we are particularly careful about working with the Synagogue to make sure that we have a collaboration that will reduce the opportunity to zero of us either importing a virus or even allowing someone who is positive to interact with the community,” he said.
While noting that there are some areas of infection prevention protocols that needed strengthening in the church, Abayomi assured that those areas would be strengthened before and during the funeral activities.
He added that biosecurity and safety experts will also be on ground to work with the local organizing committee to monitor and ensure safety of attendees.
“In collaboration with the Lagos State Safety Commission and the Biosecurity Unit of the Ministry of Health, we’ve seen some areas that needs strengthening, we’ve been observing these for some days now and we are strengthening the protocols, so that as events are leading up to the seven days and during the seven days, we will have marshals on ground, we will have biosecurity experts on ground, will continuously monitor the situation and work with SCOAN to make sure we can keep this place safe and keep the congregation safe and keep Lagosian safe,” he said.
