By Mike Odiegwu/Rosemary Nwisi, Port Harcourt
Fear has gripped residents of Rivers State over the increasing cases of coronavirus infection in the state.
The fear is particularly telling in Bonny Local Government Area (LGA) where a group known as Bonny Graduates Forum (BGF), claimed there is a possible outbreak of community transmission of the virus.
The state had 89 confirmed cases as at yesterday from the first one recorded on March 29. It has also recorded seven deaths so far.
In the midst of the lockdown in the state to check the spread of the virus, a medical doctor in the state has alleged assault by some air force personnel.
Dr. Avwebo Otoide was allegedly slapped and her mobile phone damaged.
The Bonny Graduates Forum (BGF) in a statement by its President, Awoiyeala Samuel Allison, Vice President Rowland Hart, and the secretary, Larry Igbaningo, said no fewer than 11 persons have been reported dead across the area in the last two weeks.
Some other people, according to them, are complaining of loss of sense of smell, taste, general body weakness and fever, among others.
Their words: “There have been an increasing number of incidences of loss of smell and loss of taste experienced by residents of Bonny LGA.
“The impacted populace cuts across every strata of society but they are mostly adults and teenagers.
“Aside the symptoms of loss of smell and loss of taste, there have been other co-symptoms such as weakness, stooling, coughing, headache, and very minute incidences of fever.
“The disease burden is reported high by the medical community and encompasses every medical facility in Bonny.
“There have been unexplainable number of deaths in the past two weeks, at the last count, 11 persons have been reported dead and the cause of death is currently being investigated.
“The medical community in Bonny LGA is already profiling these trend and working with the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to ascertain if this is a case of infiltration of the community by novel corona virus.”
They appealed for calm, noting that officials of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) are already investigating the cause of death and the widely complained symptoms by residents.
“As at today (yesterday), NCDC officials are in town and taking samples from volunteers to test for COVID-19 and will soon make their findings public.
“Given the circumstance, the Bonny Graduates Forum (BGF) is advising residents and visitors to take utmost caution with exposure. It is generally advised that people stay indoors.
“But more importantly, the need for strict adherence to the COVID-19 protocols have become necessary. These include social distancing, personal hygiene such as washing of hands and use of hand sanitizers, and avoidance of large gatherings.”
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Residents in other parts of the state, according to investigation, are wondering why the rate of infection keeps rising despite the lockdown and the closure of all entry and exit points in the state.
The state government believes the federal government is working against the interest of the state.
Health Commissioner, Princewill Chike, queried some decisions of the federal government which he alleged undermined the governor’s efforts to contain the virus.
He said when the governor insisted that flights should not come into the state from oil rigs; most people said the governor was confrontational.
He said 80 per cent of the cases in the state were oil rig workers, their relatives and their contacts.
Chike said the Rivers State governor was the first to shut down boundaries before the federal government took a similar action, adding that the governor continued to raise the alarm on border sabotage.
The commissioner said: “When the man was talking about the borders, they said he was confrontational. Why must he close borders? Wike closed borders before the Federal Government thought of closing.
“Has anybody bothered to ask the federal government, ‘why did you allow flights still come into Nigeria after the first Italian index case? The results we have are backlogs. They didn’t release the last ones we sent earlier. They are backlogs”.
It would be recalled that Wike recently blamed the rising COVID-19 cases in the state on unscreened oil workers saying that large percentage of infections recorded in the state came from such employees returning from rigs.
Speaking when the management team of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited paid him a courtesy visit at Government House, Port Harcourt, the governor said the development was the reason he insisted that oil workers coming into the state must be tested to know their Coronavirus status.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the lockdown, some personnel of the Nigeria Air Force (NAF) have allegedly assaulted a medical doctor in Port Harcourt.
It was gathered that the operatives manhandled Dr. Avwebo Otoide, slapped her, wrestled with her and in the process damaged her phone.
A Facebook user, Fisayo Soyombo, said on his wall that the doctor was later detained at the isolation centre.
He said: “NAF wants to cover it up but this injustice must be punished. Dr. Avwebo Otoide had just stepped out of her house and was walking along Ohiamini-Psychiatric Road, off Rumuola, when an officer disembarked from a light blue Hilux (patrolling with a light blue luxury bus), brandishing his gun and specifically pointing the barrel at her.
“He landed a heavy slap on her left cheek after she’d said she was a doctor. And even after presenting her ID card, his first utterance was: ‘Are you the first doctor?’ These were Nigeria Air Force men. What business did they have with land patrol?
“Just because she attempted to capture the incident with her phone as they made to leave, they returned to whisk her into the luxury bus, forcefully took her phone away, damaging the screen in the process”.
He said at the isolation centre, the doctor was locked up by the police for refusing to surrender her phone, adding that she was only freed following the intervention of the Rivers State Attorney-General who was accompanied by the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA).
He said: “In this COVID-19 season when healthcare workers are staking their lives for the safety of the rest of us, the least they deserve is to be treated with dignity, which, in any case, is what every human merits, irrespective of social status.
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