Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi said the state is allegedly under pressure to make false COVID-19 claim due to potential financial gains accrued to states with cases of the scourge.

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Of all the 36 states including Abuja, only Cross Rivers and Kogi have no record of coronavirus case which tolled 3, 526 as of Thursday from which 107 suffered casualties.

Of interest, the federal government supported Lagos, the epicentre of the virus with N10bn in the state’s fight against the virus with Kano making a case for itself to be given N15bn to tackle the marauding disease.

Gov. Bello alleged that he is being pressurized to lie that the state has recorded COVID 19 case for pecuniary gain.

The governor made this known on Thursday night at an engagement with officials of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC where he said the state was battled ready for the virus but would not made dodgy claim in order to attract financial support despite alleged pressure to go that route.

His word: “The Kogi State Ministry of Health has deployed health personnel to all the 239 Wards of the State, 2 focal persons per ward, who constantly sensitize the people on the dangers of the virus, communicate news or even rumours of suspected cases to the incident committee or task force for investigation and also assist in contact tracing.

“We have set up 3 modern Isolation/ Containment Centres in the State having a combined capacity of 130-bed spaces. These facilities currently lie unused. It is our prayer and our determination that these isolation centres will remain vacant until the pandemic is over.

 “We have provided emergency and toll-free numbers for the general public to call in and report suspected cases of Covid-19 at no cost whatsoever. We have also fielded many of such calls. All of them turned out to be false alarms upon investigation and did not meet the criteria from the NCDC for cases which should be sampled for testing. “In the circumstances, we cannot manufacture cases in order to be counted among the states which have recorded same. As a Governor I hear there are ‘benefits’ for having Covid-19 cases in your state, well, I am not interested.”

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