Kogi accuses NCDC of unethical practice in ‘allotting’ COVID-19 cases

Kogi State Government has accused the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC) of desperation to record a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) case in the state; hence it violated its protocols for declaring a case.

The Commissioner for Health, Dr. Saka Audu, stated yesterday in Lokoja that some individuals were declared COVID-19 positive, even before testing them.

Reacting to last week’s declaration of two cases against the state, he noted, “One needs not dig deeper to see the writing on the wall at how desperate NCDC is to nail Kogi with a COVID-19 case. There is no telling how low they are willing to stoop to do so.

“They claimed 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 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 arriving 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, citing fear of receiving punishment from the Federal Government. Being able to carry out this independent verification will have put to rest this matter once and for all.”

He charged Nigerians to start asking NCDC what it stood to gain by manufacturing fictitious figures and attaching them to states and how eager it was to announce confirmed cases.

Kogi, according to him, has both video and audio evidences for all accusations against NCDC, but would only share them to the public when necessary.

“Nigerians are in the know of the stand-off between Kogi State and NCDC that has been on for a while now, which is not unconnected with our stance to resist the ascription of fictitious confirmed cases of COVID-19 to our dear 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 the heat of this stand-off, we woke up one morning to hear that NCDC has recorded two cases of COVID-19 for Kogi. Your suspicion will be as good as ours, hence we set out to investigate the claim.”