In December 2019, China reported an outbreak of a disease that swept through Wuhan in the Hubei Province. Since then, globally, 4, 629, 575 cases have been confirmed as at 17th May, 2020, with 311, 363 deaths (Johns Hopkins, 2020). In Nigeria, the first case was recorded on the 27th of February, and since then, a total of 5, 671 cases have been confirmed from 32, 942 tests, 1, 472 persons discharged and 176 deaths at the time of writing, (NCDC, 2020). In responding to the threat posed by the pandemic, the President, Muhammadu Buhari inaugurated the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 to coordinate the emergency national response. Consequently, several strategies such as lock-downs to strengthen social distancing, and the national strategy to scale up access to Coronavirus disease testing in Nigeria amongst others have been instituted and implemented under the leadership of the PTF headed by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation. Also, post COVID-19 economic recovery strategies are being developed by the Economic Sustainability Committee headed by the Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo.
It is important to note at this juncture that the Coronavirus disease poses a great threat to Nigeria. Already, the global Oil and Gas industry is suffering so much from it. With about 3 billion people under one form of restriction or the other, this has led to an acute drop in demand for petroleum products the world over. Consequently, energy intensive industries such as Aviation, Shipping, and local transportation have been severely hit, leading to thousands of job losses the world over. This in turn has drastically affected the price of oil due to the glut caused by a combination of increased production and a greatly reduced demand, (IMF, 2020). This has crashed Oil price to an 18-year all time low, with grave consequences for Oil-dependent countries such as Nigeria.