Reactions As Nigerian Government Asks For Free Ventilators From Elon Musk

On Wednesday, a U.S Entrepreneur, Elon Musk, in a bid to help amid the coronavirus crisis offered to give free FDA approved Ventilators to hospitals worldwide.

We have extra FDA-approved ventilators. Will ship to hospitals worldwide within Tesla delivery regions. Device & shipping cost are free. The only requirement is that the vents are needed immediately for patients, not stored in a warehouse. Please me or @Tesla know: He tweeted.

He was applauded and different states of the world requested for this help, these include Spain and Ukraine. Nigeria was not left out, however, the request was made by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning in a now-deleted tweet.

This request did not go down well with many Nigerians, while some believed the appropriate organisation should have handled the request in private, others believe the Finance of Ministry should not have made the tweet at all/

Below are some reactions to this tweet:

Y’all should dead the “Ukraine too is begging Elon Musk for Ventilators” narrative.

Have we done half of what Ukraine has done so far? What have we done with the donations received?

Innoson offered this same government to produce ventilators but no one granted him audience.

— Wale Adetona (@iSlimfit) April 2, 2020

Begging Elon Musk for help but will send twitter trolls to attack Nigerian entrepreneurs who employ Nigerians, create wealth and pay taxes, just because they criticised the government. Never knew this day would come.

— Dr. Dípò Awójídé (@OgbeniDipo) April 2, 2020

I was prepared to jump on that Ministry of Finance handle “begging” Elon Musk for ventilators until I saw the Ukrainian embassy AND a former minister of health in Ukraine, “begging” as well.

Extraordinary times.

Means we should all take a step back & observe before reacting…

— Temisan Okomi (@temiokomi) April 2, 2020

It’s an embarrassment.

There are Nigerians that can contact Elon Musk and procure ventilators for Nigeria, armies only with an official letterhead from the FG.

A Nigerian sits on the board of Gavi, the largest public-private health partnership in the world, contact her. https://t.co/ddRlx4QZif

— Demola Olarewaju (@DemolaRewaju) April 2, 2020

1 ventilator is around $10,000 =N3.5m

500 ventilators that the corrupt government is begging Elon Musk for will just be N1.7b. They lied they shared N5bn to their so called poor people just yesterday. Hopeless & heartless Govt.

— Comrade Deji Adeyanju (@adeyanjudeji) April 2, 2020

A country that budgeted 37B for NASS renovation shouldn’t be asking Elon Musk for ventilators on social media.

— Seyi 🐻 (@Seyi__) April 2, 2020

Elon Musk offers to help, here 👇 is how enlightened people should react. People that do bambiala online up&down with account details splashed all over social media are insulting their government. Hypocrites. https://t.co/LNDdS0thOR

— Simon Wada (@simonwada) April 2, 2020

This same Nigeria that budgeted

N37B to renovate NASS building

$500m to upgrade NTA is begging Elon Musk to do ventilator giveaway for us on twitter.

We dey even beg to manage 100.

Giant of Africa!

— 👑 King Tunde Ⓜ️ (@iamwytunes) April 2, 2020