The Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun yesterday Friday 15th May, 2020 in his state’s broadcast while giving updates on the Covid-19 pandemic said that, the feedback received from the public opinion poll on Twitter informed the decision of the state government to extend the lockdown for additional one week.
The governor in his address to journalists said, “Interestingly, the feedback from you, the people of Ogun State, from the Public Opinion Poll hosted on the Twitter, also support the extension of the lockdown. Out of about 6,000 respondents of the online poll, 53% support the continuation of the lockdown whilst 43% want a review with 4% undecided, and this the measure taken to extend the lockdown.
It would be recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari in his last address to Nigerians on the coronavirus pandemic announced the easing of the lockdown directives in Lagos State, Ogun State and Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with movement from 7 am to 5 pm daily and curfew in the night.
The Ogun State Governor however requested for an extension for another week before the recent addition.
It was also gathered that even Lagos State with the highest number of coronavirus has relaxed it’s lockdown directives, same as Abuja and other states of the federation.
However, Ogun State residents have took to their social media platforms to react about the state government’s decision to extend the lockdown with the public opinions received on social media to extend the state’s coronavirus lockdown by additional one week.
In his reaction, Barrister Habeeb Whyte, a legal practitioner has shown his displeasure and dissatisfaction by the decision of the state government.
Habeeb in his opinion says, “let us say the truth, this is not fair at all. Votes never came from twitter during election moment, why would the fate of millions of voters be decided over a twitter poll. ”
“Is this governance about Social Media, well, it has been about Social Media since the inception of this government.”
He further said, “the other time, I was shocked when I saw the post of popular government personnel directing that Ogun State people to join the Governor’s Live broadcast on Facebook and to worsening the situations, neither OGBC nor OGTV aired it LIVE, that was almost the same day journalists worked out from the Iperu home of the Governor for not attending to them early enough”
“This is bad for us. When I see the truth, I say and when I see the bad, I would say it, I await the e-rats to just try and put useless defense up and we would make them understand that posterity would never favour their existence in any way, he added.
“Power is not forever neither does the tyranny nor enjoyment is” he concluded.
Ifemosu Michael in his reaction said, “There is nothing wrong In conducting a poll online to seek opinions, however relying on the polls to take drastic and volatile decision(s) is uncalled for, majority of those who voted on that online poll is not from Ogun state, another major set of people who voted are not resident of Ogun state, while those that the decision will be binding on them only have few of them represented.
“This tells us that the validity of an online poll (abstract) on the lives of the good people of Ogun state (Physical) do not augur and correlate. In other words, the decision of the government to add another one week is absurd.”
“The extension of Ogun lockdown is a Beautiful and Decorated Nonsense, I said this because the lockdown isn’t a lockdown in the first instance, it is just a mere Charade. How can you claim to lockdown a state and yet there are free periods and days? Is the Virus informing the governor it Time of action?”
“Obviously NO. Again, how many Contact testing is Ogun Covid-19 team making per day? How many isolation centres are on ground? As much as the Governor is willing to fight the Virus in the state, it is still an act of patriotism to let him understand that Total Lockdown should be Total Lockdown and not partial Lockdown.”
Victor Eniola Mark, an ace journalist and media consultant in his opinion said, Twitter is far from a good representation of public opinion in Ogun State.”
“Without mincing words, I say with all sense of responsibility that whoever advised the Governor to use Twitter for ‘Sampling’ of public opinion about Lockdown by Ogun Residents did not do well.”
“In fact, In my opinion, whoever wrote that speech and inserted that aspect goofed, let me acknowledge that valid points were also raised in the release.”
“However, to put it mildly, it is unwise to keep doing the same thing over and again and expect a different result.”
“The lockdown pattern has not worked and constantly creates more problems than solutions.”
“While I will never place the economy over life, the argument that extension or cancellation of lockdown as we have it in Ogun State right has anything to do with fighting COVID-19 is very much debatable.”
“We already know how many people have died due to complications related to COVID-19.”
“However, we do not have accurate data of how many people have died and will die from several complications closely linked with the lockdown as we have it now, he concluded.
Alli Wasiu on his own part said, “I think the lockdown is unnecessary as people are now very much aware of the virus and its horrendous effects. People are hungry and frustrated. Let strict measures be in place for anyone who fails to use nose masks”.
Ayoola Emmanuel said, “Actually the use of Twitter poll to measure extension is not a good idea because it doesn’t cover the decision of the general public, but the extension is a perfect idea.”
“Though there’s no lockdown in Ogun state, what we have is partial lockdown because the market still opens on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.”
“When you check the number of COVID-19 patients in the last one week you will see increase compared to the number of people discharge in the same week.”
Sulaimon Fasasi in his opinion said, “This Twitter survey is fraudulent. A multiple survey method would have given a better and dependable result.”
“Why not try Facebook, radio programmes, vox pop, etc, to get a better result?
“How many of us have a Twitter account? How many of those who have Twitter account operate it?
On her part, Olawale Adesola said Why would they use Twitter users to judge the state? What if a person that stays in other states voted for the lockdown to continue. How will they detect it? It’s total rubbish.
Ifedayo Ogunyemi noted that Twitter poll, for me, is a step that isn’t perfect. Other media can be incorporated no doubt.
“However, there are some statistics that may back the use of Twitter. One of them is that the population projection of Ogun State as of 2014 stands as 7.1m fifty-seven (57) per cent are of working age. No doubt that figure would have increased now that we are in 2020.”
“According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Ogun State came second behind only Lagos in the total number of internet subscribers in Nigeria as of mid-2019 with a total of 7.4 million internet subscribers.”
“Twitter remains one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in Nigeria today coupled with the fact that a lot of people are home and many may take solace in surfing the internet more than they do before the lockdown came into effect.”
“If the decision to use Twitter were not based on these among other parameters, the government has to answer us.”
“Nonetheless, we could always do better by incorporating other media to get a better result, he concluded.
