South East youths ask governors to intervene in health, rising food prices

• Varsity to fumigate Abia State, build, equip isolation centre

The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders (COSEYL) yesterday urged governors of the region to ensure improvement in health facilities to handle emergencies that may arise from Coronavirus outbreak.

It also asked them to intervene in the rising prices of food items and provide other palliatives that could assist the people during the stay-at-home period due to shutdowns directed by the various state governments.

In a statement issued in Enugu by its President General, Goodluck Egwu Ibem, the group lamented that most families had started suffering the adverse effects of total lockdown, stressing that unless something urgent was done, “many people may die of hunger faster than from COVID-19 infection.”

Ibem appealed to politicians and businessmen in the zone to assist governments provide for the people, stressing, “It is sad that until now, most states have not paid salaries, yet they have ordered workers to stay at home.

Questioning the essence of the total shutdown when there was no commensurate provision for the people, COSEYL said the likes of Ike Ekweremadu, Arthur Eze, Emeka Offor, Innocent Chukwuma, Maduka Onyishi, Ifeanyi Uba, Chimaroke Nnamani, Rochas Okorocha and Theordore Orji, among others, should not watch while the people continue to wallow in hunger.

Meanwhile, Founder and Chancellor of Gregory University, Uturu (GUU) Abia State, Professor Gregory Ibe, has announced fumigation of the state and other interventions the university would effect to check the spread of Coronavirus.

State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Joe Osuji told The Guardian that the state was elated and thankful to Ibe for his kind and timely gesture.

To activate the package, Ibe told the Abia State Inter-Ministerial Committee on COVID-19 to immediately designate a suitable facility in Abia North Senatorial District, which presently has no isolation centre for the university to develop and equip as a functional isolation facility.

In a statement, his Media Adviser, Ogbonnaya Ogwo, disclosed that the university’s colleges of Pharmacy, Basic Health Sciences, Medicine/Surgery, Natural and Applied Sciences, departments of Biochemistry and Alternative Medicine would conduct joint extensive researches aimed at discovering and proposing anti-COVID-19 vaccines.