Secret Reporters No place to hide
Secret Reporters
Following our earlier report on the death of a medical doctor in Akwa Ibom state due to the COVID-19, it has now been confirmed that there may be no iota of truth or transparency by the administration of Governor Udom Emmanuel in its handling of the Coronavirus Outbreak in the state as statistics and figures dished out to the unsuspecting populace seems to all be a hoax.
Information obtained by this online news medium revealed that contrary to the press statement released on 23rd April 2020 by the Secretary to the State Government and Chairman COVID-19 Management Committee in Akwa Ibom State Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, eulogizing the state government on the low incidence and 99% contact tracing score recorded in the state, the state government may have been lying to her citizens.
A source in the know squealed that the sample of Dr Johnson Imoh, the medical doctor that helped late Dr Dominic to Ibom Specialist Hospital, was only taken a few days ago after social media cries and pressure with no contact tracing initiated by the COVID-19 team since the incident occurred last week as the doctor was never asked about persons he had contact with.
Another source revealed that there have been a series of deaths in the Accidents and Emergency Department of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital UUTH as eight (8) deaths were recorded on one of the days within this week. According to the source, most of the patients came to the Accidents and Emergency Department with respiratory distress and soon after died. Frightfully, there were no kits in the unit to ascertain if the deaths were caused by COVID-19 or not.
In a similar vein and hell-bent on continually dishing out lies to residents in the state, it was also learned that the state government through the Health Commissioner Dr Dominic Ukpong who also doubles as the chairman of the incidence committee, as against known practice have allegedly been suppressing testing in the state. This was disclosed by the PRO of the Nigerian Medical Association in Akwaibom state Dr Ekem Emmanuel John who stated that the state epidemiologist, Dr Aniekeme Uwah was removed for taking samples above 10, as against the direction by the health commissioner. Reason being that the health commissioner doesn’t want the state to rank number one as it did on HIV.
“There is no such thing as aggressive testing going on here in Akwa Ibom state. What is happening in Akwa Ibom with regards COVID-19 is organised intimidation”. “There’s a lot of pretense going on in this state. The Commissioner for Health went round telling lies, that NMA is asking for money to fight COVID-19.”
Speaking further, the NMA PRO also disclosed that the state media bulldogs headed by Aniekeme Finbarr and Essien Ndueso using boys recruited via WhatsApp for a meagre N5000 are usually sent after anybody that speaks the truth in Akwa Ibom on social media by the government, alleging that in most cases the boys are sent physically to harass and attack the person.
He also decried that it was unfortunate that some state governors and their commissioners rather than showing interest in the welfare of the people choose to politicize everything.
Investigations have however revealed that Akwa Ibom might be another ticking time bomb after Kano with the heightened level of alleged deception by the government accustomed by little or no proper enforcement of lockdown rules and implementation of laid down health guidelines for combating the COVID-19 outbreak with cloth masks which offers no singular protection against virus and bacteria widely used by residents, borders freely accessible to both private and commercial drivers with the right amount, gatherings above the stipulated number, crowding in market places across the state and unprecedented vehicular movement of non-essential staff usually in the evening amidst the lockdown all indicating that only lies seem to be the sermon every day in the oil-rich state.
