Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, on Wednesday, says the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) is not prepared for the coronavirus epidemic with the poor state of its isolation centres.
Lawan stated this when the leadership of the Senate inspected isolation centres located at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada.
The centres lacked electricity or generator while required medical equipment in almost all the wards are still under construction.
The Head of Administration and Human Resources of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), Yahaya Abdullahi, said the sorry state of the centres was due to none release of money.
“Not a single Kobo has been given to us here for equipping any of the centres, be it the temporary one or the real centre that is still under construction.
“Even the matresses put in some of the rooms of the permanent site were personally procured by us through contribution or borrowing,” he lamented.
Irked by the development, the Senate President asked the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, to immediately release the sum of N620m to NCDC.
“From our inspection here, the temporary isolation centre is really not in good shape. It doesn’t look ready to receive any patient, and I believe that this is something that we need to fix between now and tomorrow.
“We are in an emergency, even if we don’t have people who are affected, we shouldn’t just rest on our oars. We have to do everything and anything possible to fix that temporary isolation centre to be prepared to receive anyone who falls sick in this respect.
“I am sad, we are indeed actually sad, that of the N620 million that was supposed to be released to this place for fixing of everything here to NCDC, not a kobo has been released.
The Senate President, further lamented that Nigeria, despite being a country with the largest economy in Africa, is yet to have a completed Isolation Centre in any of the geo-political zones that would provide emergency response to disease outbreak in the country.
He charged those saddled with leadership responsibilities in the country to live up to expectations through timely discharge of their mandates and duties.
Lawan said: “There’s no way that Nigeria, the largest economy in Africa, with a population of two hundred million, and yet the Federal Capital and six surrounding states of the North Central, you don’t have one room that you can call an isolation centre, where anyone who unfortunately falls into this crisis will be taken to. This is not acceptable.
“So, we are going to ensure that the money is released, we are not going to put pressure. This is what they are supposed to do, and they must do it.
“I also believe that we should have a replication of the permanent site, we should be able to complete this and then have five others across the remaining geo-political zones of the country.
“Let’s spend money for our people, we waste money for some things that are less important. This is about the health and lives of the people of this country, and therefore, no investment is too much.
“So, we should be prepared at all times. We had Ebola, SARS, now we have Coronavirus, we do not know what else will come, but we should be prepared and ready for any eventuality, and no investment is too much.”
First Coronavirus case in Lagos
The Federal Ministry of Health last Friday confirmed the first case of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in the country.
Minister of Health, Doctor Osagie Ehanire in a statement said the case, confirmed in Lagos State was an Italian citizen who worked in Nigeria and returned from Milan, Italy to Lagos on the 25th of February.
He said: “He was confirmed by the virology laboratory of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, part of the laboratory network in the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).”
Since then, authorities have been tracing everyone who had made contact with the Italian.
No other coronavirus case has been confirmed in the country yet but authorities are making efforts to prepare for any eventuality.
