Roads and streets locked down for days and weeks are expected to experience heavy traffic when they are re-opened Tuesday.
Analysts are already predicting large turnouts when the government’s order goes into force in the next couple of hours.
According to Governor Nyesom Wike, residents in Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor, two most populated local government areas in the State have forty-eight hours to replenish their stock.
Thursday, after the hustle and bustle is over, a complete lockdown would fall back in place.
Wike who returned from a demolition exercise at Eleme said in a broadcast Sunday night that residents of PHALGA and Obio/Akpor would be free on Tuesday and Wednesday to go shopping.
“We have given due consideration to the propositions on the way forward by well-meaning citizens of the State” Governor Wike hinted, “and after a cautious review of the situation, decided to implement a partial relaxation of the lockdown measures, to enable residents to have some fresh air and replenish their foodstuffs and medicines.”
“I hereby announce the temporary lifting of the total lockdown on Obio/Akpor and Port Harcourt Local Governments Areas for two days only, with effect from Tuesday 12th May 2020″, the governor declared.
Wike announced that shops, supermarkets and malls were free to open their doors within the period.
” Similarly, all hospitals and banks can also open and provide full services to the public”, Governor Wike explained.
After several days of confinement, there is widespread excitement.
It is likely to be a rush against time, when shops and markets reopen.
But, it would be time to practice social distancing and mask wearing.
These precautions may slow down public access to shopping malls, banking halls and supermarkets.
It is possible that the two days of grace allowed by the government may not be sufficient as a result. Nonetheless, there will be a scramble for whatever people can find in the market and in the shops. While most families would be hugely interested in buying foodstuff, others are likely to prepare for the purchase of diesel and PMS to light up their homes, run their water boreholes and power refrigerators and freezers.
Yet, there are folks who have huge transactions to take care of, some banking to do within the period, and places of interest to get to before another lockdown.
Most who are not used to working from home, who do not stay home most of the time have become bored.
It would be an opportunity to move their bodies, freely breathe the air outside and get that rare feeling that they are born free, merely by being part of motion.
While people get ready to pour unto the streets, the demolition of two hotels continues to occupy centre stage.
Some even suspect that the announcement of the two-day stay-on-the-street-plan may have been conceived as a diversion.
But Government insiders dismiss the claim, insisting that the plan had been on the cards