10 items I would have loved to have been included in President Buhari’s speech yesterday:

By Ayo Akinfe

(1) The government’s Covid-19 committee has put together a special emergency pack that includes 5kg of rice, gari and beans each, as well as cooking oil, tomatoes, two tubers of yam, tinned milk, water, eggs and bread. This will be distributed across all 774 local government areas immediately

(2) We estimate there are about 40m families in Nigeria at the moment. Our Federal Bureau of Statistics has begun work to firm this data up. Our goal is to ensure that every single family gets a hamper of our emergency pack over the next week

(3) Given the recent increase in violent crime in Lagos and Ogun states, the federal government will fund, arm and equip the Amotekun Corps to contain the situation

(4) The Central Bank of Nigeria has been directed to offer Innoson Motors a $10m loan so it can reconfigure its production line to commence the immediate manufacture of ventilators

(5) We have set ourselves a national target of producing 200m facemasks this year. Any manufacturer interested in playing a part of this should contact the federal ministry of health for support. Also, as from 2022, Nigeria must manufacture all drugs used locally. We have thus written to about 50 global pharmaceutical giants asking them to come and open plants in Nigeria

(6) It is our goal to produce all the food contained in the emergency pack locally, hence we will aim to produce at least 10m tonnes of rice, gari and beans each in 2020. Farmers will be given interest-free loans to increase production, as will processors to process these crops post-harvest

(7) We have set ourselves the national goal of becoming totally self-reliant when it comes to the supply of medical equipment by 2021. As part of this process, we are inviting interested parties who want to manufacture Covid-19 test kits to get in touch with the federal ministry of health

(8) I have directed the health minister to liaise with the Nigerian Association of Herbal Drugs and Remedies with a goal towards finding a herbal remedy for Covid-19. Their research will be funded by the federal ministry of science and technology

(9) All Nigerians stranded abroad will be flown back to the country free of charge with the federal government bearing the cost of such travel

(10) I have directed the health minister to call a meeting of all Nigeria’s leading virologists, immunologists, biochemists, microbiologists, etc, with a view to commencing work on a Covid-19 vaccine. I hope this will be available by September at the latest