Yahaya Bello. |
It
is no longer news, as Nigerians are in the know of the stand-off between the Kogi
State Government and the National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC that has
been on for a while now, which is not unconnected to the stance of the
Governor, Yahaya Bello to resist the ascription of fictitious confirmed cases
of Covid-19 for the State to suit a preformed narrative we believe is the
agenda of NCDC, which is to claim that every State in Nigeria has Covid-19.
In
this testimony by the state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr. Saka Haruna Audu,
the Government of Kogi State x-rays the issues surrounding the controversy
about those NCDC claimed are from the state.
HEAR
HIM: In the heat of this stand-off, we woke up one morning to hear that NCDC
has recorded two cases of Covid-19 for Kogi State. Your suspicion will be as
good as ours hence we set out to investigate the claim and here are our
findings.
1.
That NCDC claims a 62 year old man and his son from Kabba LGA of Kogi State
tested positive to Covid-19. According to the son, his father, who is a
Hypertensive/Diabetic had attended a burial ceremony where he was stung by
bees. He then developed facial problems from the sting and was taken to the
Hospital. The facial swellings subsided but the body weakness persisted where
eventually the managing Doctor discovered he had High Blood Sugar, which the
Doctor continued to manage.
2.
The Doctor confirmed that there was no time the patient presented with fever,
cough or difficulty in breathing. The only complaint was that of general body
weakness.
3.
The Doctor had no reason to refer the patient to FMC Lokoja except on the
insistence of the patient because they felt he was not getting better.
4.
On reaching FMC on the 24th of May 2020, FMC claimed the patient was referred
to them on account of 1week history of fever, cough and difficulty in breathing
with high suspicion of Covid-19, a claim the referring Doctor has vehemently
refuted.
5.
The ideal thing to do, if there are no hidden agenda, is for the State's
Covid-19 management
team
to be invited to pick up the patient to the the State's holding area for
testing and onward management.
6.
According to Management of FMC Lokoja, the patient declined the intervention of
the state case management team and was said to have left for Abuja for further
treatment by 6am the following morning. However the letter the Kogi State
Epidemiologist eventually received from NCDC informing the State of the
fictitious claim showed that the patient was referred to Abuja from FMC using
FMC's ambulance.
7.
On reaching Abuja, a Covid-19 test was hurriedly conducted and returned
positive within 24hours! Ridiculous right?
OUR
WORRIES:
●
One needs not dig deeper to see the handwritting clearly written on the wall at
how desperate NCDC is to nail Kogi State with a Covid-19 case and there is no
telling how low they are willing to stoop to do so.
●
They claim the patient was positive but hasn't been taken to an Isolation
centre. As at this moment he is still in the National Hospital.
●
His son who was also purported to be positive was asked to go home! He remained
with his father in the Hospital running errands going even as far as Suleja, in
Niger State. Who are we fooling?
●
It should be mentioned also that the patient's relation initially cried out to
us to help evacuate them from the National Hospital but on ariving there to
evacuate them, and conduct a confirmatory test using a private molecular
laboratory as well as Kogi State Rapid test kits, the patient eventually denied
us the opportunity to get it done, siting fear of receiving punishment from the
Federal Government (NCDC). Being able to carry out this independent
verification will have put to rest this matter once and for all.
●
We also wish to categorically state that though NCDC has consistently refused
to support Kogi State in her fight against Covid-19, WHO had been part of our
team till date. Though NCDC refused to follow their own protocols on visiting
the State, WHO staff who travelled out of our State and returned have always
obeyed the rule of self isolation for 14 days.
●
Despite the fact that we do not accept the fictitious cases, we have gone ahead
to do contact tracing to identify all those who came in contact with them,
tested them and they all came back negative. They will be retested in the next
14 days post first contact.
●
The normal NCDC protocol is to collect samples through the State Ministries of
Health where an Epid. form (Epidemiological form) will be filled by the State
epidemiologist and a sample number called an epid number attached to accompany
the sample to the laboratory for onward testing. In this case, who filled the
form? Where is the sample's Epid. no.? Is it the FCT state epidemologist that
filled the form and took samples at the same time? If that is the case then
they should have recorded the cases for FCT and not bother us with their ruse.
●
Nigerians need to start asking NCDC what they stand to gain by manufacturing
fictitious claims and attaching them to States and how eager they are to
announce confirmed cases, a situation that has had them coming out to apologise
publicly.
●
We will let the public be the Judge having laid down all these facts. We as a
State have nothing to hide, but we continue to insist that we will not be a
part of any fictitious scheme by a Federal body upon whom Nigerians put so much
trust.
This
will also serve as our clarification for those who have been asking.
●We
have both video and audio evidences for all claims mentioned here, however for
good reasons we are holding on to them till it becomes a necessity to share
them to the public.
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