The House of Representatives has asked the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and Chairman of the Presidential Task Force on Covid and the minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire and the Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu to brief members of the House through its relevant committee on the strange deaths in Kano and efforts by government to address the situation.
The House is also asking the Federal government to make available to Kano state special funds as it did to Lagos and Ogun states to fight the spread of COVID 19 in the state and the numerous strange and unexplained death occurring in Kano state.
In addition, the House resolved to investigate the strange death that has killed several prominent citizens of Kano and many others in the last few days.
Adopting a motion of urgent public importance sponsored by the 24 members of the House from Kano state and presented by House Leader, Rep Alhassan Ado Doguwa, the House also called for the establishment of infectious disease testing centres in all the 774 local government areas in the country to ensure that those in the rural areas benefit are not left out in the fight against COVID-19.
The House also resolved that religious leaders and traditional rulers should be included in the fight against COVID 19 while all members should return to their constituencies to assist in educating the people on the effect of the virus.
Part of the resolution also is that the Federal government should give a special intervention grant o N1 billion to each state of the federation to fight the Covid 19 pandemic.
Leading the debate on the motion, Rep Doguwa said Kano state was up against a killer virus that was worst than Boko Haram, claiming the lives of innocent Nigerians at will.
He said “we the 24 members of the House from Kano state are on our knees begging for urgent intervention to help save our people from this calamity.
“If care is not taken, what is happening in Kano maybe worst than Boko Haram. It is silently whipping out people. The areas affected has a very high population and the highest number of polling units in the country.
“What is happening in Kano is not about politics or blaming the governor. The governor, just like all of us is human. The COVID 19 pandemic has nothing to do with politics. Kano is a cosmopolitan city with people from all over the country”.
Doguwa expressed concern about the rising spate of unexplained deaths in Kano State in recent weeks, adding that it was unfortunate that Kano State being the most populated state of the federation has only one testing centre which has been shut down for about a week now, reportedly due to lack of some testing materials and reagents.
He also expressed concern about the current testing capacity in the country with the capacity for 3,000 tests in a day where as South Africa has nearly 10,000 tests capacity per day.
Contrinbuting to the debate, Rep. Toby Okwchukwu said care must be taken in addressing the situation in Kano, saying “it is Kano today, it may be another state tomorrow”.
The lawmaker said Nigeria must not wait for an outbreak of such unknown ailment in another state before taking measure, stressing that the fact that the NCDC testing centre in Kano was not working is a pointer that there was a problem in the country.
Rep. Haruna Mshelia calls for the engagement of community and religious leaders in educating the people about the dangers of the virus and expressed concern about trending social videos of people chanting there is no coronavirus.

By Tony Akowe