Deeply concerned by the recent spread of Covid-19 pandemic in some Nigerian states, the member representing Fufore/Song at the Federal House of Representatives, Hon. Dr. Mustapha Saidu has tasked Adamawa state government to strictly enforce lockdown order on interstate movement or risk catastrophic outbreak of Covid -19 in Adamawa.
Though, no single case of the killer disease has so far been recorded in Adamawa, the MP has expressed strong fear that given the mass influx of people through border states of Gombe, Maiduguri and Taraba, Adamawa may be on the time bomb of the dreaded disease.
Speaking exclusively to NEWS PLATFORM in Yola, the Adamawa state capital Tuesday, the National Assembly Member asserted that what Adamawa government should do at the moment is to make sure that nobody is allowed to enter the state by whatever means, unless is quarantined for 2 weeks.
Hon. Dr. Saidu explained that any person in whatever capacity that is coming to the state must be quarantined for the stipulated time, and that if he is found to be free from the virus, he should be allowed to enter into the state.
He disclosed that the reason why there are rampant cases of the disease in some states that were locked down in the past is because people took the pandemic to such states, saying that the virus must have been brought to such states by the people who were coming from infected states.
According to him, the disease is becoming a very serious problem in Nigeria, saying that they had seen how it started from Lagos state and to Ogu state and Abuja and now to over 23 states in the Country.
In northern part of the country, according to him, the disease was not rampant as it is today, but said it is now spreading like wild fire most especially in Kano state, and that already the disease is reported in neighbouring Maiduguri and Gombe states respectively and making Adamawa to be on the red line.
The lawmaker posited that Adamawa and Taraba are lucky because the disease it is yet to cross borders, and therefore called on the government to enforce the lockdown order so as to ensure that it is not brought to the state.
He said that the recent 2 weeks lockdown order imposed was aimed at containing the pandemic, saying that more stringent measures needed to be taken so as to curtail the spread of the disease.
However, he dismissed as untrue the insinuations that Adamawa temperature will halt the spread of the pandemic, noting that if the temperature will thwart the pandemic, people would not have been inflected in Lagos, Kano and Borno states.
He told NEWS PLATFORM that the virus will flourish anywhere and that the only alternative is to campaign its avoidance, saying all hands must be on deck to make sure that adequate measures are put in place to avoid the disease..
Equally commenting on the state of health facilities in the country, the member of the Parliament observed that the health facilities are inadequate to deal with the virus, lamenting that the country was having only 3 testing centres for a country that has over 200 million people.
On why some religious zealots are advocating that there is nothing like Covid-19, Hon. Dr. Mustapha Saidu contended that any well meaning citizen who has a sense must believe that the disease is a reality, adding that everybody has his own level of understanding of events, but based on practical realities on ground, there is no sensible citizen that will deny the existence of the pandemic.
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