By Marlikberry,

I remember sitting here last year Christmas Eve telling our viewers that you had just recovered from COVID-19; it seems like a perfect Christmas present. And there is this saying that if you can recover from COVID-19, then you can handle anything and come out victorious. Having recovered as a starter, is that how you feel that you can take on anything and come out victorious?

It is not about the way one feels because COVID-19 presented itself differently for different patients. I certainly would be the first to say to you that it was a different experience even in my family; the way my wife reacted is different from the way I reacted and likewise few of my staff reactions were different too but coming out of COVID gives a clear indication that we need to take things very seriously because the way in which each and every one of us react to it are very different. I would say my own was a mild moderate case, others were just asymptomatic and some people were very severe. But if you think coming out of COVID I can handle everything and anything, I would certainly not agree with you but I will give it a good shot.

I certainly also have to continue to lead from the front as the incident commander in the state. So what it requires is to continue to show leadership and to continue to tell our people that they have to take responsibility but the government will indeed do its very best at all times to ensure that it keeps all of its citizens safe. And for us doing that means that all the requirements that we need to do as a government like scaling up the treatment, provision of facilities and equipment required, we would do everything to ensure the safety of our citizens. For me, I am certainly not going to back down. We are not shying away from our responsibilities and we will continue to encourage our frontline health workers who are usually in the eye of the storm, who are the real heroes in all the attempts to flatten the curve and come out of this very difficult second wave that we are currently seeing.

Last year, after COVID-19 lockdown and EndSARS protest, we saw a lot of people losing trust in government and I am sure you have been getting feelers from people out there. If you were to speak to that person who seems to have lost trust in government, what will you be telling them?

If you don’t learn from what has happened yesterday, you probably don’t have a tomorrow. So for me personally, it is not really to dwell so much in the past, learn from the past but have a conversation going forward; have a plan, have an agenda that you can take forward. So, what I would say to a whole lot of my youths citizens and everyone is to say that as a government and person, we have learnt so much from 2020. We have learnt from a pandemic that has never ravaged the world in 100 years and which has Lagos at its epicenter. We had protests that we have never seen in this part of the country before and the aftermath of it, as a government we have learnt from it. We have seen all the bites and conversation coming out of it and we are saying transparently that, let all of us together take it forward and build a better society for ourselves. How else can we do it? We don’t have anywhere to go to; we don’t have any other country, we don’t have any other state. So, it is in our individual and collective interest, that will build things for ourselves and future; that is what I will say and that is the encouragement that I want to leave with all of us. And I kept saying this; for me as a person, as long as I have this mandate, I will not shy away from ensuring that I give hope to my fellow citizens. And we will take all learning and lessons forward and build a better and stronger future for ourselves.