Deputy Chairman, Alliance for Survival of COVID-19 and Beyond, (ASCAB), Sina Odugbemi, has challenged the Federal Government to do better in its handling of COVID-19 cases in the country.
Narrating a personal experience, Odugbemi said he had run a test and three months after, he was yet to receive the results.
“In the heat of the pandemic, there was a suspicion of somebody having COVID-19 in my office and the decision was to get to the nearest hospital and check yourself. And the person tested positive so there was pandemonium in my office and everybody had to go and take the test,” he said on Tuesday in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today.
“I was at Ifako center and my sample was taken and sincerely I’ve taken the test for three months now and there is no result and if you ask many other Nigerians they will tell you their experience is not far from that.”
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With a second wave of the pandemic hitting many countries across the globe including Nigeria, Odugbemi believes that the government lacks proper preparation to be able to handle the virus.
He believes that compared to other countries, Nigeria’s approach has been below average.
“Here, we don’t think ahead of time. We don’t anticipate the capacity of the pandemic. Everyday we count numbers of deaths all around the world and this has to be very instructive to us as a nation.
“And I feel that generally, we have scored below average.
“When the pandemic started, we saw a lot of centres springing up where people could go. But now they have disappeared. We need to up our game as a people. We need to take this thing very seriously,” he added.
So far Nigeria has recorded a total of 101,331 cases, while 1,361 have died.
On a positive note, however, 80,491 have been successfully treated and discharged from isolation centers.
