By Balogun Damilola
Gov. Dapo Abiodun of Ogun on Thursday announced plans to provide palliatives for 20,000 youths across the 20 Local Government Areas of the state.
Abiodun, who announced this at a press conference in Abeokuta, explained that 1,000 youths would be identified from each of the 20 council areas of the state to make up the figure.
He added that the gesture was meant for the poor and the vulnerable among the youths.
“Our promise is that we will continue to provide for as many people as possible.
“We have decided that our next target is our youths because though they are not elderly, they are also vulnerable.
“We are going to identify 1,000 youths per local government across the 20 council areas and provide palliatives for them,” he said.
The governor said that the state had been able to flatten the curve of COVID-19 through its emergency operation procedure, incident action plan and the 300 beds in its isolation centres across the state.
“Ogun state, with 23 ventilators, is probably the second state with the highest number in the country.
“My administration inherited 10 ventilators from my predecessor, purchased 11 and received two from the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG).
“We have done as much as we can within our limited resources to contain and flatten the curve of the spread of this virus as best as we can.
“We used the index case as an opportunity to begin to prepare ourselves.
“We began by setting up our emergency operation procedure and developed our incident action plan while we prepared our health officials.
“We have also set up our isolation and treatment centres and as at date, we have about 300 beds in the state.
“We, probably should be the state that has the second highest number of ventilators in the country,” he said.(NAN)