A member of the House of Representatives , Akinola Alabi , has urged the Presidential Task Force on COVID- 19 to open the country’ s airports.
Alabi, who represents Egbeda /Ona -Ara Federal Constituency , also pushed for interstate travel to be allowed in the next phase of the easing of lockdown .
“ Next phase of easing lockdown . Allow interstate travel. Then open the airports and introduce some safety measures , ” he tweeted on Wednesday .
The PUNCH reports that the country’ s airports and airspace were shut in March by the President , Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd . ) , as part of efforts to contain COVID- 19 .
Commercial flight operations , both local and international , had stopped forthwith but the President ’ s directive allowed the operation of essential flights including those for medical and evacuation purposes, amongst others, which are subject to the authorisation of the Federal Ministry of Aviation and agencies under it .
On May 6 , the Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID- 19 , Boss Mustapha , announced that the closure of the country’ s airports and airspace were further extended by four weeks after due consultations with experts .
The Federal Government has said it would roll out the course of action for the reopening of schools in the country.
The Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on COVID- 19 , Boss Mustapha , stated this during a briefing in Abuja .
While congratulating children in the country on the occasion of this year ’ s Children ’ s Day, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation urged stakeholders to begin to take steps that would aid the reopening of schools in the country.
He said , “ I wish to inform Nigerians that the Federal Ministry of Education will roll out measures for the self -reopening of schools .
“ The Presidential Task Force wishes to use the occasion of this celebration to congratulate our children and assure them, their parents and all stakeholders alike that all hands are on deck to reopen schools at a safe time .
“ We , therefore , use this medium to urge states , local governments , proprietors and all other stakeholders to begin to take steps that will facilitate an early and safe reopening . ”
A senior academic staff member in Federal Polytechnic, Ede , Osun State , Mr Matthew Omolade , has threatened a legal action against the Rector of the institution , Dr Adekolawole Edaogbogun , for suspending him over “ unsubstantiated allegation ” of plagiarism .
Omolade , through his lawyer , Mr Soji Oyetayo , in a letter dated May 20 , addressed to the Registrar of the institution , Mr Tunji Agboola , insisted that allegations against his client had not been proved, describing the decision to suspend him as a plot to punish him for an undisclosed offence .
He also accused the rector of appointing his son , Mr Goodness Edaogbogun , without approval by the governing council as lecturer .
According to him , only the Governing Council was empowered to punish , terminate or issue any letter of interdiction after fair hearing.
He demanded that suspension be reversed or he would approach court for redress .
Reacting to the allegations on behalf of the rector, the Deputy Rector Administration of the polytechnic , Mr Isiaq Adelabu , said an external assessor discovered that Omolade plagiarised in his work and subjected the work to further scrutiny .
Adelabu said , “When the external assessor alleged that he ( Omolade ) plagiarised , the assessor went ahead and printed the document he plagiarised and subjected it to an application that check the percentage of plagiarism and it came out to be 100 per cent plagiarised .
“An investigative committee was commissioned to give him a fair hearing. He was invited and series of questions were asked. After the investigation , it was revealed that three of his papers were 100 per cent plagiarised .
“It was the recommendation of that committee that was sent to the management and because of COVID- 19 the council is not around . It was at that point that the management took the decision to suspend him pending the time the council would meet and take the decision on the report of the investigation committee. ”
On the employment of the rector ’ s son , Adelabu said Goodness Edaogbogun was qualified for the appointment offered to him by the institution because he already had master ’ s degree when he was employed .
Barring any last – minute change in plan , the Secretary to the Government of the Federation , Boss Mustapha , will on Wednesday (today ) hand over Madagascan native formulation for the treatment of COVID – 19 to the Ministry of Health .
Minister of Health , Osagie Ehanire , disclosed this during a programme on Channels Television Sunday Politics.
The report had quoted a source as saying that the drug , which was delivered to the President , Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd . ) , by his Guinea Bissau counterpart , Umarro Embalo , 10 days ago , had remained in the possession of the SGF .
Ehanire , in confirming the report , said his ministry would take delivery of the drug “ on the next working day ” .
Since the Federal Government has declared Monday and Tuesday as public holidays to mark this year ’ s Eid – el – Fitr , the next working day is Wednesday .
The minister said , “ The Madagascar herb is supposed to be handed over to the Ministry of Health on the next working day .
“ That’ s when we will pick it up and then send to our research institutes , first of course to NAFDAC and then to the Nigeria Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development to look into it and tell us what it is. ”
The SGF had, at the daily COVID- 19 briefing last Tuesday said he had received the consignment of Madagascar ’ s drug and that it would be sent to the ministry of health .
“ I am going to engage the minister of health who has the responsibility of validation , through his institutions that are chartered by law to do that . The President was upfront with that even when he took delivery of it from the President of Guinea Bissau , ” Mustapha had said .
Presidential spokesman , Mr Femi Adesina , says Nigerians are lucky to have the President , Major General Muhammadu Buhari ( retd . ) , as their leader .
Adesina has come under fire following some of his comments .
He insists his boss is performing well, despite the contrary opinions held by regime critics.
But the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity said on Monday he owed no one apologies for being a ‘ Buharist’ , adding that he would continue to remain one .
“In fact , we are lucky to have him at a time like this , ” he tweeted on his handle , @ FemiAdesina .
“ I am a Buharist any day , no apologies , and I believe the President is leading the country well . ”
Adesina was reacting to comments made about him by persons he described as “mischief – makers ” .
He wrote , “A quote from mischief -makers is making the rounds , ascribed to me . I just dey laugh. ”
He has faced more heat since the appointment of Prof Ibrahim Gambari as the Chief of Staff to the President .
Adesina ’ s critics , in their latest attacks , reminded how of how he vilified Gambari in the past over the latter’ s alleged supportive role in the trial and execution of Ken Saro – Wiwa by the Sani Abacha regime .
Some mocked him , saying he might have to eat his words now that the same Gambari had become his boss at the Presidential Villa , Abuja .
Weeks back , amid the raging COVID- 19 pandemic, Buhari came under attack following his initial silent approach to the pandemic , as they demanded that he address the nation.
Before Buhari made his first March 29 nationwide broadcast, Adesina had defended the President ’ s silence , saying that leadership, like “ stylistics ” in literary appreciation , was about an individual ’ s style .
The Academic Staff Union of Universities, ASUU, has called on the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in the education sector and raise funds to tackle the rot therein, just as it did to contain Coronavirus outbreak in the country.
The National President of ASUU, Prof. Biodun Ogunyemi, who stated this in a chat with newsmen , said the effect of poor funding of education became glaring when COVID-19 broke out in the country and most of the nation’s teaching hospitals did not have ventilators to help keep patients alive.
Ogunyemi noted that China, where the disease broke out, was able to quickly tackle the scourge by resorting to public tertiary teaching hospitals because they were well funded by the state.
“Look at how much money has been raised to fight COVID-19 pandemic. This is because it is seen as a health emergency. We can do same for the education sector. The poor funding of the sector has deep damaging effects on our national life. A poorly trained medical student would end up being a great danger to the health of the people.
“There are cash cows like the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and others that funds can be drawn from. Instead of doing so, our politicians are only interested in drawing funds from them to prosecute elections. Have you ever seen the budgets of the CBN or the NNPC?
“If we want to really catch up with the rest of the world, we must adequately fund the education sector. We plead with parents, guardians, students and Nigerians generally to understand our position and know that we cannot go on postponing the evil day. In fact, the evil day manifested in out lack of adequate response to the COVID-19 outbreak by our teaching hospitals,” he said.
On the complaints that trailed the payment of February and March 2020 salaries of lecturers through the Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System, IPPIS, Ogunyemi said his union had been vindicated.
“As we speak, our members in some universities namely Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Akwa, University of Jos, University of Maiduguri, Abubakar Tarawa Balewa University, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture are yet to be paid their salaries. Ridiculously, some lecturers were paid 20 percent of their salaries. Those who got anything reasonable were paid 80 percent of their salaries.
“We have said it that IPPIS is too strait jacketed and not suitable for the university system. Even some sister unions that did not see what we had seen about IPPIS are now complaining. The only solution is for the government to do away with the toga of arrogance and embrace our Nigerian Universities Accountability and Transparency System.
“We are sounding a note of warning that we won’t tolerate further mutilation of our salaries. Our members have been on the same salary structure since 2009. The government has been provocative and lackadaisical in its approach. How do you keep shifting the goal post when a goal is about to be scored,” he stressed.
The ASUU boss added that it seemed some people in government were interested in punishing university lecturers for no just cause.
Recall that ASUU has been on strike since early March this year over IPPIS, implementation of a Memorandum of Action signed with the government, better funding of education generally among other issues.
Going by the position of the union, even if schools shut down due to COVID-19 outbreak are asked to reopen now, the university system may still experience Industrial disharmony.
Following criticisms from people that President Donald Trump, did not do enough to cushion the spread of coronavirus, that has killed about 100,000 US citizens, the President in a riposte said he acted very well as against his opposition’s hypothetical submission.
Disclosing this via his twitter handle, the outspoken President penned down all he did to stem the spread of the disease.
According to him, “For all of the political hacks out there, if I hadn’t done my job well, & early, we would have lost 1 1/2 to 2 Million People, as opposed to the 100,000 plus that looks like will be the number. That’s 15 to 20 times more than we will lose. I shut down entry from China very early!
“One person lost to this invisible virus is too much, it should have been stopped at its source, China, but I acted very quickly, and made the right decisions. Many of the current political complainers thought, at the time, that I was moving far too fast, like Crazy Nancy!”
Thousands of children in face masks flocked back to school in Ivory Coast after the country became one of the first in West Africa to restart lessons after a two-month coronavirus shutdown.
With a total of 2,376 cases and dozens of new infections each day, Ivory Coast has yet to contain the virus. But authorities are confident pupils can study together in safety after the introduction of extra hygiene measures.
In Abidjan’s Adjame neighbourhood, children in backpacks queued to wash their hands under a teacher’s watchful eye before entering their school, where they sat just one to a desk with bottles of sanitising gel within reach.
“At first we were a little scared. When we saw that the protective measures were being respected, the fear went away,” said 14-year-old Samira Cisse.
Nearby countries are likely to follow closely whether the Ivory Coast’s decision to reopen schools causes a spike in infection. With millions of children still at home, aid agency Save the Children says many could face serious setbacks due to limited options for distance learning in parts of Sub-Saharan Africa.
The Ivorian education ministry told Reuters it appreciated the seriousness of its decision.
“We also have an imperative duty to ensure that the children entrusted to us can complete their education,” said ministry official Assoumou Kabran.
Reopening classrooms also means thousands of pupils and their teachers must be ferried back to boarding schools outside Abidjan, the epicentre of the epidemic.
French teacher Patrick Yobouet, 38, waited with hundreds of others in a sun-baked stadium to board buses out of the city.
“We’re a bit worried as we leave because we don’t know if we have the coronavirus or not or if the children are contaminated or not,” he said.
As controversy trails, the non-availability of laboratory testing for COVID-19 in Kogi State, suspected cases of the disease are being seen in hospitals in the state even as doctors have lamented the inability to conduct tests.
The Chairman of the Kogi state branch of the Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, Dr. Kabir Zubair, told newsmen in an interview that the state NMA was not happy about the challenge over testing created by the state government.
Zubair said despite the increasing numbers of suspected cases, his colleagues cannot confirm any of the cases because laboratory tests are not ongoing.
“People are presenting with the symptoms of COVID-19, even though it may not be all the symptoms of the disease but the doctors are suspicious of COVID -19. And because we are not able to carry out tests we could not confirm all the suspicions. Everything ends at that level of suspicion.
“We have been on their neck to see how they will resume the tests but they are not collaborating in any way with NMA. What the state government has done is that they have been able to procure their own antigen test kits approved by the US Food & Drug Administration, FDA. That is the one they said that will be used to test any COVID-19 suspected case now even though the World Health Organisation, WHO, did not recommend the use of test kits of an antigen or antibody but for now, that is what we have and we will make do with it.”
Zubair said members of the Association of Resident Doctors, ARD, which is an affiliate of the NMA, and have become agitated and apprehensive in the last few months, due to community spread of COVID-19 in Nigeria.
He said suspected cases are being seen specifically at the Federal Medical Centre, FMC Lokoja which is also the only functional tertiary health institution in the State.
“As a clinician, standard practice demands that the moment you have a clinical suspicion of infectious diseases, the ideal thing is to carry out laboratory confirmation.
“COVID-19 is a highly contagious infectious disease, responsible for the ongoing global pandemic. In Nigeria, new cases are reported daily and community spread is accelerating. This is the reason why members of ARD are agitated as testing for COVID-19 has remained a challenge in the state,” he added.
On the level of involvement of the state NMA in the COVID 19 response in the state, he explained that the state government, its health personnel, and the state epidemiologists are the ones handling the tests.
Zubair who frowned at the level of preparedness against the disease in the state said: “We are not happy that the state is not testing but for the past two to three weeks, we have done the much we think we can do.
“We have reached out to some interest groups to see how the situation can be changed. We have done several publications online on the situation in Kogi, different health groups like the state Association of Resident Doctors, ARD has done a lot of publications about the situation in the state. We have also liaised with our national body to see how they can come to our aids.”
He said it was only last night that the state government was able to put up isolation and diagnostic centres with few beds and equipment inside.
“The government is just putting up small arrangements in place. Last week, the opened isolation and diagnostic centre that has few beds and equipment inside. They have also procured Personal Protective Equipment, PPEs. Most of the centres in the state also have PPEs and that is what they are using anytime they see suspected cases in the hospitals.
“We have been talking to the state Commissioner for Health, state epidemiologists and other government officials on the need to commence testing and that is the only the way the medical personal can put their minds at rest. We are hoping that they will listen to us and do the needful.”
He further debunked reports that more people are dying in the state. “There is no sudden increase in deaths so far so good. The mortuaries and burial grounds are running normal, no sudden increase in any way.”
According to the state by state breakdown of COVID-19 cases Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, daily situation report for COVID-19 released on May 17, 2020, Kogi state had carried out only one confirmatory test.
Chinese Foreign Minister , Wang Yi , has said China will work with other G20 members to implement the debt service suspension initiative to ease the debt burden of Nigeria and other African countries .
In a statement by China ’ s Consul General in Lagos , Chu Maoming, the minister said this while responding to a question asked by an African journalist at a press conference on the sidelines of the annual Chinese national legislative session on Sunday .
Yi , who is concurrently a state councillor (equivalent of deputy prime minister ) of China ’ s cabinet , stated that China and Africa were good brothers .
“ China is also considering further bilateral support for African countries under the greatest strain to help African brothers and sisters through this difficult time , ” he stated .
He also said , “ Our people, having fought shoulder to shoulder for national liberation , are partners for common development . A few years back , we were together fighting Ebola . ”
The minister said he agreed with the African Union Commission that “ Africa and China are friends and , more importantly , comrades in arm. Nothing can change or damage this friendship . ”
He stated that in the battle against COVID- 19 , China and Africa had again stood by each other .
Over 50 African leaders had expressed solidarity and support in phone calls or public statements , he noted .
Yi said China had subsequently sent medical expert teams to Africa ’ s five sub – regions and surrounding countries .
The minister said , “ Resident Chinese medical teams based in 45 African countries have acted swiftly to assist in the local response . They have held nearly 400 training sessions for tens of thousands of African medical workers .
“ China also looks after the African community in China just like it takes care of its own families. ”
Yi disclosed that all of the over 3 , 000 African students in Hubei Province, including the city of Wuhan had been safe and sound , except for just one who got infected but was soon cured .
The minister stated that 2020 marked the 20 th anniversary of the Forum on China – Africa Cooperation.
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