Nigeria is finished if govs take over COVID-19 battle – NMA

The Nigerian Medical Association says Nigeria will be finished if state governors are allowed to take over the COVID-19 battle in the country.

NMA President Prof. Innocent Ujah, said this yesterday during an interview on Sunrise Daily programme of Channels Television monitored by our reporter.

He said President Muhammadu Buhari should not devolve such powers to the state governments “because apart from Lagos and maybe one or two other states, the commitment is, to say the least, very disappointing. I can say that because I’m a clinician myself.

“I believe that the president should please not devolve those powers. This is an emergency. Coordination is very important and the coordination should be central, should be from a point because once you do that, Nigerians will be finished. And we pray that he doesn’t do that.”

He urged the Federal government to set up a research team to regularly evaluate the country’s response to COVID-19.

He said doing so was important to enable the country to ascertain what was working or not, making the necessary impact in its COVID -19 response.

He said it was also important to include a research team in the composition of the Presidential Task force on COVID-19.

He said: “As a researcher, I think we should have a strong research team to be part of PTF. I’m not aware that the PTF has a research team and we must evaluate and monitor what we do. We need a research team that’ll monitor regularly what we’re doing otherwise, we will be groping in the dark. The response must be evaluated by the research team.

“If you say we should wear a face mask, what is the percentage of Nigerians wearing masks in Abuja? You say social distancing, that is completely out. We don’t have social distancing as far as I’m concerned.”