By Comrade Nnadi Goodluck
The Kogi State Governor, Yahaya Bello has said that the state cannot manufacture coronavirus cases in order to be counted among the states which have recorded same.
The governor said this on Thursday night when the officials of the NCDC visited Kogi State.
He said that he heard there are benefits for states that have recorded COVID-19 cases, stressing that he’s not interested.
He said: “Our people are adequately sensitised in all languages and locations throughout the state about Covid-19. As much as practicable Kogites now observe social distancing, handwashing and other protocols for prevention of infection.
“The Kogi State Ministry of Health has deployed health personnel to all the 239 Wards of the State, 2 focal persons per ward, who constantly sensitize the people on the dangers of the virus, communicate news or even rumours of suspected cases to the incident committee or task force for investigation and also assist in contact tracing.
“We have set up 3 modern Isolation/Containment Centres in the State having a combined capacity of 130-bed spaces. These facilities currently lie unused. It is our prayer and our determination that these isolation centres will remain vacant until the pandemic is over.
“We have provided emergency and toll-free numbers for the general public to call in and report suspected cases of Covid-19 at no cost whatsoever. We have also fielded many of such calls. All of them turned out to be false alarms upon investigation and did not meet the criteria from the NCDC for cases which should be sampled for testing.
“In the circumstances, we cannot manufacture cases in order to be counted among the states which have recorded same. As a Governor I hear there are ‘benefits’ for having Covid-19 cases in your state, well, I am not interested”.
This is coming barely three days ago after the Kogi State Government also alleged that plans are in works to import cases of coronavirus into the state through illicit means.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Information and Communication in Kogi State, Kingsley Fanwo.
The commissioner said that the plans is part of an unholy conspiracy to declare COVID-19 in all states of the federation.
The commissioner added that are recent pressures from some interesting quarters for Kogi State to find and declare cases of the disease.
At the time of filing this report, Kogi and Cross River States are the only states in Nigeria still yet to record a single case of the virus.