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PLATEAU State is piloting an online platform where residents within Jos North and Jos South would be able to access pass or movement permits online.
The new initiative is consolidating on Governor Simon Bako Lalong’s leveraging of technology in the fight against COVID-19 since the state started implementing lockdown with restriction of movements of people and goods.
“In pursuit of Governor Lalong’s agenda for safety and welfare of the people, the situation room thought it wise to ensure that people with emergencies and special needs that require movement within this local governments are able to apply for a temporary pass or permits to be presented at checkpoints,” said Director General of Plateau State Information Technology Agency (PICTDA), Mr. David Daser.
“We understand the challenges the lockdown is putting us all and we very much understand the gains of the lockdown on addressing the spread of covid-19.
“While this might confer this privilege to only people with smart phones and access to internet connection, we would be looking at upgrading the system and gradually employing USSD in the future. The goal is to solve a problem relating to this lockdown,” added Daser.
Plateau state has reported 17 cases of COVID-19 with improved efforts by the government to curtail the spread of the disease through a mix of strategies including the deployment of CCTVs and other IT tools to monitor all borders and enforce the restriction on persons and goods.
Nigeria’s has 4,787 confirmed cases of COVID 19 as at today. There are 959 recovered cases and 158 deaths. Worldwide, there are 4.26 million confirmed cases, 1.49 million recovered cases and 292, 000 deaths.
Since kickstarting its fight against the coronavirus pandemic, Plateau State has carried out fumigation and disinfection of public places and continuously raised awareness level on the dangers of COVID-19.
“If you need to move and you think two hours is enough time to carry out activities like ATM withdrawal, access a pharmaceutical store or some other listed reasons on the portal you may do so via the platform.
“You may not be able to be granted pass or permit on the application day, you will however be able to apply against the next day except for special emergencies. We have also restricted access to this portal to 10 persons daily as a pilot test.
“We have tried to ensure that only applicants with emergency cases would pass through approval by the situation room and this can last you for 12 hours.
We are fine tuning the process and educating the security personnel before we can roll out the first implementation. We would be increasing the numbers as time goes on. Technology is here to stay on the Plateau,” said Daser while thanking Governor Simon Bako Lalong for spearheading the technology march in the state.
The new platform is running with the support of Nigerian media-tech entrepreneur and CEO of uLesson, Mr. Sim Shagaya.
