Threatens extension of lockdown in FCT, Lagos, Ogun
Plans evacuation of Nigerians abroad
Directs foreign missions to compile list of citizens willing to return
The minister of information and culture, Mr. Lai Mohammed, has said that the remains of persons who died of COVID-19 would not be released to their families for burial.
Mohammed who stated this in an interview with NAN in Abuja yesterday said such corpses would be handled by the ministry of health because they are contagious.
“Coronavirus is very dangerous and contagious; there is no medicine for it yet and it is not just capable of killing, overwhelming health care system but it will destroy the economy.
“In some countries, they are putting dead bodies in big refrigerators because the morgues have filled up.
“Nigerians should not forget that this is not the type of corpses that can be claimed for burial because it must be handled by the ministry of health,” he said.
Mohammed who is a member of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 also threatened residents of the Federal Capital Territory, Lagos and Ogun states with further extension of the federal government’s lockdown order should they continue to flout the stay-at-home directive.
It would be recalled that President Mohammadu Buhari had, in a nationwide broadcast on Sunday, March 29 announced the lockdown in a bid to curtail the spread of the coronavirus disease.
The President said it would last two weeks in the first instance to “identify, trace and isolate all individuals that have come into contact with confirmed cases.”
But the minister said the order was not being strictly observed.
He said the only way to stop the spread of the virus is for the people to play the part the government expects of them.
“If we don’t behave ourselves, there is a likelihood that the lockdown will be extended, but if we behave ourselves, there might not be an extension and I hope we do so.
“If we stay at home for two weeks and we are doing everything we are supposed to do, we should be able to effectively contain the disease.
“Therefore, my appeal to Nigerians is that they should obey the directive on social distancing, personal hygiene and shun gatherings; after two weeks, we will resume our normal life.
“But if they think it is a joke, then we may have to stay at home more than the two weeks,” said the minister.
On calls by some NGOs to probe the task force over the disbursement of donations meant for the COVID-19 fight, Mohammed said: “We have not received even one kobo; people want us probed for how we spent monies we have not even seen.
“I can say without any fear that as of this moment, the task force has not received a kobo from anybody.
“The only money we will be able to account for is whatever money we receive from the federal government.
“The Nigeria Economy Group-led private sector has said it is not going to give a penny to the task force; it says it will only raise the money and ask us what our needs are.”
Mohammed also disclosed that the federal government was planning to meet with indigenous manufacturers to discuss and facilitate the local production of personal protective equipment, to enhance the fight against the coronavirus.
Mohammed said the minister of state for health, Dr Olorunnimbe Mamora and the minister of industry, trade and investments, Mr. Adeniyi Adebayo, would meet with the manufacturers on behalf of the government.
He said the move had become necessary in view of the shortage of the equipment and the need to encourage and develop local manufacturing of medical equipment.
“PPE is in short supply globally and we want to see how we can start manufacturing them locally.
“All over the world, people are making mask locally because there is a short supply of masks.
“Those ones we got from Jack Ma have been shared with the states.
“We call them starter packs and they contain masks and test kits. We have given them to states according to their needs. Naturally, Lagos got more because it is the epicenter of the virus.
“We are trying to source the PPE more locally, but one thing about PPE is that if you don’t get it right, you may lose more lives,” he said.
Meanwhile, the minister of foreign affairs, Mr. Geoffrey Onyeama said plans were in the works to evacuate many Nigerians who are stranded outside the country as a result of the escalation in the global cases of coronavirus infection.
Onyeama who stated this yesterday in Abuja when the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 briefed the media on the containment of the pandemic said the federal government had raised concerns about the plight of stranded Nigerian citizens following the disruption of the global aviation industry and shutting down of national borders because of the pandemic
The minister said the federal government had put its foreign missions in the know of the plan and asked them to verify the number of those affected.
Similarly, the director general of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NiDCOM), Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa said the federal government directed all its missions abroad to compile a list of citizens willing to return home.
In a statement by the spokesperson for the agency, Mr. Abdur-Rahman Balogun, NiDCOM said the directive was sequel to requests by some Nigerians stranded abroad in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Dabiri-Erewa urged interested Nigerians to inform the missions in the various countries they are in, who would then collate and coordinate with the ministry of foreign affairs.
However, she said the ministry of foreign affairs had instructed that the financial implications would be borne by the prospective evacuees, who would be compulsorily quarantined when they return.
She asked stranded Nigerians willing to return home to key to the programme by providing their information to the mission in their respective host countries.
She said while embassies in several countries were also on lockdown, those interested could go online and fill a form provided on the commission’s website.
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