Most of our COVID-19 heroes reside in Lagos, the epicenter of the outbreak in Nigeria with the most recorded cases. 

These heroes have swapped capes for scrubs, masks, hand gloves and overalls when it most matters…

Working strenuous shifts with the virus choking the air around them, Nigeria’s frontline healthcare personnel have put their nation before families and loved ones.

From the various isolation centers in Lagos, they are restricted to their hotel rooms after shifts and most haven’t been to their rented apartments since the index case was diagnosed.

Most are fresh out of medical school--young, daring and with a point to prove.

Armed with their Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) every other day, they have tended to the sick, celebrated the discharge of recovered patients with pumped fists and celebratory dance moves, and knelt on lawns to pray for healing when a worship band comes visiting most Sundays.  

Nigeria’s most populous city of some 22 million people, accounts for 50 percent of the country’s rising COVID-19 cases. 

However, the Babajide Sanwo-Olu led Lagos state government has leveraged the relative sophistication of its healthcare facilities and the private sector to curb the spread of the outbreak in a cramped city.

New isolation centers have sprung up and bed spaces have more than quadrupled.

Health and government officials have also ramped up contact-tracing, isolation and testing, while continuously educating and sensitising the public through billboards, radio jingles and internet campaigns. 

The Lagos state government continues to brief residents on steps taken to contain the virus, while issuing progress reports.

The Director General of the NCDC, Chikwe Ihekweazu, has led his team of infectious diseases experts admirably in these difficult and uncertain times.

The NCDC has worked closely with the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 on containment and restriction measures, public health awareness, sensitisation and protocols.

Attempts by politicians to interfere with the process and doctor figures to suit their motives, have been strongly rebuffed by the NCDC.

The organisation continues to warn political leadership to follow the science.

The NCDC has also strengthened its capacity nationwide and has done its best to ramp up testing and awareness in remote and difficult terrains.

Personnel of the Lagos Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) have kept crowded streets and busy highways clean in the epicenter of Nigeria’s COVID-19 outbreak.

Their salaries were delayed during the total lockdown season, but they showed up at their duty posts no less--hauling mounds of refuse bags into trucks and sweeping the streets clean to curb the spread of microbes. 

Refuse management and waste disposal is a big deal in Lagos. The present crop of LAWMA sweepers and supervisors have played their part in keeping a thrumming city sane and that bit liveable. 

In a season when staying indoors has become the new normal, privately run dispatch firms have assumed increasing prominence and significance. 

As Nigeria battles the pandemic amid a raft of restrictions, dispatch riders and delivery trucks have been criss-crossing the country to deliver much needed groceries, snacks, food and office documents--playing their part in reducing non-essential commuting. 

The police often get a bad rap in Nigeria and for good reason.

However, the Tunji Disu-led RRS--a special police unit--has played a critical role in reducing crime on lonely nights and quiet streets as Lagos battles the pandemic. 

The RRS has branded itself as ‘The Good Guys’--helping motorists to replace flat tyres here, putting out car fires there, storming besieged neighborhoods to ferret criminal gangs and watching over crime-prone neighborhoods at midnight as the city goes to sleep. 

With curfews now a feature of Lagos life, the RRS is often up and about, combing swathes of the city to enforce restrictions with the use of modern tools like drones.