RESUMO
Lagos state remains the epicenter of COVID19 infection in Nigeria. To facilitate the emergency preparedness and response to COVID19, the State Governor and Incident Commander constituted a Think Tank comprising 13 experts from various disciplines committed to the health of the public. The Think Tank assisted the government with decisionmaking strategies and supported the emergency operation centre (EOC) for the COVID19 response. Their main achievements were developing frameworks for decisionmaking and strategies for phased easing of the Statewide lockdown. The challenges encountered were that it was often viewed as a parallel structure to the EOC and separated from the traditional civil service structure; causing some reluctance to implement ideas generated by the Think Tank. Nevertheless, the Think Tank played an important role during the COVID19 pandemic; the lessons learned might help other states and resourcelimited countries wishing to adopt this approach to emergency response.