Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State has alleged that many people, particularly officials managing COVID-19 in the country, have turned it into a business venture.
The governor who spoke in Calabar yesterday expressed doubt over the potency of the virus in Nigeria due to the intense heat level in the country.
“When you sneeze in our country, the virus escapes and falls into hell because it can’t stand an atmospheric temperature of 32 degrees and we sometimes have 42 degrees in Nigeria. So, what are we talking about? We are really being exploited and we must shut our doors,” he said.
He said there were many loopholes and business elements in the way COVID-19 is being managed in the country.
The governor added, “I can tell you that testing for coronavirus has gone eco-political. It is more reagents, more money for some people but as for me, it is about science and reality and when someone has a wrong mentality definitely he will have a wrong reality.”
He also wondered why the country cannot produce its own test kits.
“Why can’t we have our own vaccination plants to produce vaccines? Nigerians are endowed, very intelligent people by nature,” he said.
He added, “My Chinese friend who lives in Switzerland said he has made quite a fortune importing reagents out of the Philippines.”
He said the tests conducted in Nigeria to diagnose coronavirus lack ‘reproducibility and reliability’, maintaining that he only tests people with symptoms of the virus.
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