The rampaging wave of the dangerous coronavirus pandemic has hit Nigeria’s State House, otherwise called Presidential Villa, as many aides of President Muhammadu Buhari and top officials of government are said to have contracted the virus.
But the Nigerian government is keeping a sealed lip on the matter, even as newspapers correspondents are advised against reporting the surge in infections at the villa.
Investigations by PREMIUM TIMES revealed that apart from the permanent secretary in the State House, Tijani Umar; the President’s Aide-de-camp (ADC), Yusuf Dodo; his chief security officer (CSO), Aliyu Musa, and his senior special assistant on media and publicity, Garba Shehu, whose results were confirmed positive during the week, the minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, is also down with the virus.
Some of the infected officials including Mr Garba, sources disclosed, were taken out of the cabinet meeting on Wednesday when the result of their polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests came back positive.
Mr Shehu, who confirmed that he was “afflicted by the mild variant of the COVID-19,” in a text message shared with our reporter on Saturday, said he has “no confirmation” of other cases mentioned to him.
He added that he was already fit, claiming he just completed his physical exercises when our reporter called, but that it would require scientific evidence to claim that he no longer had the virus.
His message reads in part; “I have no confirmation of the cases you mentioned, but yes I have been afflicted by the mild variant of the COVID-19. I felt okay from the beginning, maybe because one had received all three jabs, and right now, I feel 100 per cent. I just finished my hour-long running exercise.
“But the strange thing about this ailment is that it is the scientists, not you, that will say you are okay. Right now, I’m taking my prescriptions and isolating, and would go back for a test to ascertain if the virus is still here or it has left me. Thanks for your goodwill.”
Efforts to get the reaction of Mr Garba’s colleague and special adviser on media and publicity to the president, Femi Adesina, on the matter, were unsuccessful as his phone always indicated “busy” when called many times, and he also did not reply to a short message sent to him, many hours after.
Source : Premium Times