Kano Groups Advocate Concerted Efforts By Northern Governors Over COVID-19

The Joint Action Committee of Kano Concerned Citizens Initiative and Advocates for a United Kano, has demanded Corona Virus screening mechanisms be mounted by Northern states with overlapping boundaries to jointly screen and monitor the unrestrained movement of people by Northern Governors.

The group said the fragile healthcare policies and infrastructure of the region need an urgent and thorough overhaul and upgrading.

This was contained in a message signed by Alhaji Bashir Othman on behalf of KCCI and the ADVOCATES titled ‘’letter to Northern Governors Forum for Coordinated Efforts against Coronavirus Pandemic’’ and forwarded to Solacebase on Tuesday.

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According to the letter, the appalling squalor and dirty environs in most towns and cities in the Northern States are frequent sources of health concern and anxiety. Many settlements have become ghettos in the midst of big towns. A massive public fund should be invested in sanitizing our environment, to ensure better health for all.

FULL TEXT OF THE LETTER

30th March 2020

To all Northern State Governors, through Rt. Hon. Simon Lalang, Governor of Plateau State Government House, Rayfield Jos, Plateau State.

Your Excellency,

LETTER TO NORTHERN GOVERNORS FORUM FOR COORDINATED EFFORTS AGAINST CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC

In our bid to complement health emergency measures to check the Corona Virus (COVID-19) Pandemic, the Joint Action Committee of Kano Concerned Citizens Initiative and Advocates for a United Kano, hereby wish to contribute thoughts and ideas that could greatly assist our eminent Northern Governors Forum to strengthen their resolve to clear certain embarrassing social and economic contradictions.    The official restriction of movement of people, limitation of mass social gatherings and declaration by Kano, Jigawa and Sokoto States to lock down their borders have, amongst other factors, exposed our fragile healthcare policies and programmed in the Northern States. The salutary need, therefore, for common strategies to stabilize the consequences of the Corona Virus Pandemic, both in the short and long terms, cannot be over-emphasized. Many health facilities in the region are in derelict condition, skilled professionals are in short supply, while drug manufacturing is virtually nonexistent. Except in Abuja, there is neither any Corona Virus testing center nor any credible diagnostic center in the entire three Northern geo-political zones. Even that in Abuja is grossly below standard. From what we read and heard, the National Center for Decease Control (NCDC) is simply an embrassement to this country.

The unfettered and uncontrolled influx of travelers on motorcycles and trucks into the Northern States. of people fleeing from the Pandemic in the Southern parts of the country and neighbouring countries, has effectively compromised the tactical containment blockade mounted by the States. This infraction clearly demonstrates that unless Northern State Governments work in unison to enforce the movements, social distancing and crowd restrictions orders, the imminent wide scale COVID-19 outbreak in urban and rural settlements of Northern Nigeria could be overwhelming. Despite its advantages of checkmating the spread of this world Pandemic, the curtailment of movement has unwittingly exposed the soft under belly of the agricultural economy in Northern Nigeria. Since the epidemic broke, poultry and animal farming as well as steady supplies of chicken feeds into the Northern States have reduced to a trickle, occasioning their biting scarcity and resultant escalation of prices. Local farmers have also become desperate for outlets to sell perishable vegetables like tomatoes and onions etc.

 

Northern State Governments need to coordinate workable short and long term strategies to address these and other unintended fall outs of the Corona Virus Pandemic.

1. Corona Virus screening mechanisms should be mounted by Northern states with overlapping boundaries to jointly screen and monitor unrestrained movement of people.
2. Religious and community leaders should be solicited to support limitations imposed on mass social gatherings. And where such gatherings are allowed, like in Mosques and Churches during specific prayer times, the Imams and the Pastors must restrict the number of worshippers and ensure adequate spacing. They must also provide all the sanitation facilities, including body temperature measurements before any worshiper is allowed entry into the premises. And, where a prohibition is in place, it must be strictly enforced and people should be made to understand it is in their own best health interest.
3. Our fragile healthcare policies and infra structure need urgent and thorough overhaul and upgrading. The appalling squalor and dirty environs in most towns and cities in Northern States are frequent sources of health concern and anxiety. Many settlements have become ghettos in the midth of big towns. Massive public fund should be invested in sanitizing our environment, to ensure better health for all.
4. Northern State Governments must as a matter of urgency secure, even commandeer, large Halls in suitable locations, and equip them with sufficient facilities and protective clothing that a modern Isolation Center would need.
5. All Northern State Governments should, please, make Education, Healthcare and Agriculture their utmost priority. These are what will sustain us for now and the future. We pray for all of you and thank you in anticipation. May this Virus and other deceases find their way out of our villages, towns, cities and country as soon as possible.

Yours most sincerely,

Alhaji Bashir Othman Tofa

For and on behalf of KCCI and the ADVOCATES