From Moses Emorinken, Abuja and Robert Egbe
The controversy over the COVID-19 status of Benue State index case, Susan Idoko-Okpe has not fizzled out.
She has given new conditions to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), which she said, must be met before submitting herself to test, it was learnt on Tuesday.
The Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, told reporters at the daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja that Idoko-Ekpe has insisted that, before her samples can be taken, the collection must be carried out by the World Health Organisation, which send the sample to the United Kingdom for testing.
Idoko-Okpe, who is currently at the National Hospital, Abuja, has been in quarantine since March 24.
The minister said when he called her on phone to persuade her to submit herself to test, she directed him to her lawyer.
Ehanire said: “She came in from the United Kingdom. She’s due for another test, which she has refused to take, and we strongly believe that by now, she may be negative. But we need to document it because we also work with the guidelines by the WHO.
“To document it, I called her on phone and persuaded her to just let them take the test and she gave me the condition that first they must give her all her results from the past before she will agree for just her specimen to be taken.
“I gave instructions and they took all the photocopies of her results and gave it to her. But on the day of the test when the NCDC got there, she told them that she wanted the test to be taken by the World Health Organization and that the test should not be done in Nigeria, but that it should be sent to the United Kingdom. That seem to be a very difficult order. It is becoming a very odd drama.”
He added: “It was reported to me. So, I called her again and asked her why she changed the condition. She wrote a text to me saying I should consult her lawyer.
“This was just yesterday. So, we will continue with the lawyer business. However, she is quite well and in good health and the hospital authorities have also done their very best.”
Although, British-Nigerian Idoko-Okpe is alleged to be Benue State’s COVID-19 index case, she has constantly denied the claim via multiple videos on social media.
Idoko-Okpe, 56, is from Otukpa in Ogbadigo Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State, but resident in the United Kingdom (UK).
She said she had been quarantined by the government since March 24, but has never been ill or symptomatic of the novel coronavirus.
According to her, 46 days after she was quarantined first in Benue, and later, at the National Hospital, Abuja, the Federal Government failed to produce any test result showing that she was positive.
She alleged that the medical report upon which she was quarantined, belongs to a 62-year-old woman, Sarah Okpe, from Otukpo LGA.
She claimed that the owner of the report was tested in Benue for the virus on February 28, while she was still in the UK and that she arrived in Nigeria on March 22 only to be quarantined based on the February 28 medical report.
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Idoko-Okpe made her claims in an April 23 letter to the Minister of Health, through her lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) wherein she demanded her release and an unreserved apology.
But, last Thursday, the minister said he would release Idoko-Okpe’s medical report to prove that she tested positive twice, for COVID-19.
Speaking during the previous daily briefing of the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19, Dr. Ehanire, said: “As for the patient of Benue State, she has agreed to be tested and also as far as I am informed, she gave conditions for being tested and added that she must be given all her results, which is okay. No problem.
“So, the instruction is that she will be tested and she will be given all her results. What has happened since then, I will find out later this evening when I engage the Chief Medical Director of the hospital.
“But, we welcome the change of heart because before now, she refused to give any sample. Now, she has agreed that she will give test sample. So, we can have the stale being broken. And if she is negative then, the story will end there.”
The minister, on April 15, also denied Idoko-Okpe’s claims, following viral videos she posted on social media.
According to him, she constantly refused to accept the test results, adding that she claimed the results were fake because she was not showing any symptom of the disease.
He, however, added that “efforts are being made to carry out a third test on her and if the test comes back negative, she would be discharged.”
Speaking on her behalf in the April 23 letter, Adegboruwa said: “Our client arrived in Nigeria on March 22, 2020, through the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos and thereafter proceeded to Abuja from where she headed for Benue State, to partake in her mother’s funeral programmes.
“Owing to the stress of her journey, our client experienced some headache and fatigue, whereupon her sister introduced her to Grace Cottage Hospital, in Makurdi, Benue State. She was registered in that hospital on March 24.
“On March 25, 2020, a doctor at Grace Cottage Hospital informed our client that the standard procedure for people coming from countries with high prevalence of COVID-19, like the United Kingdom, was to take their samples, so he would have to call health experts from the Benue State Ministry of Health to carry out a COVID-19 test on her. Our client did not object to this procedure, as a law-abiding citizen.
“Thereafter, the doctor came into our client’s private ward in the hospital with two men, whom he claimed were from the Benue State Ministry of Health.
“They took the samples from our client’s left nostril and her throat. Our client then enquired from the doctor as to the collection of the test results and he responded that they would be ready in 24 hours. Though our client was now well and ready to leave the private hospital, she was advised to wait for the outcome of the COVID-19 test results. So, she waited.
“On March 27, 2020, the doctor informed our client that the test results were out and they confirmed that our client had tested positive for COVID-19. Our client asked for the said test results, but the doctor claimed that he didn’t have them too and that he too was only informed verbally.”
Adegboruwa said his client was shocked when her attention was called to a radio broadcast by the governor of Benue State, declaring her as the COVID-19 index case in Benue while she had not even seen the result of the test.
Adegboruwa said his client was subsequently moved to the Benue State isolation centre where she was allegedly “treated with disdain, dehumanised, stigmatised, traumatised and degraded,
The lawyer showed The Nation a page from an international passport bearing the stamp and March 22 date.
He said: “As of 28th February when the letter was written, our client was still in the United Kingdom and she only arrived in Nigeria on March 22 2020, as confirmed by the stamp of the Nigerian Immigration Service on her passport.
“The said letter indicated that the patient was referred to the Benue State University Teaching Hospital from a private hospital ‘After she tested positive to COVID 19’.
“As of this period, no test had been (nor could have been) conducted on our client as she was still in the United Kingdom and had not arrived Nigeria at all; and
“Our Client is not SUSAN OKPE and she is not 62 years old,” Idoko-Okpe stated in her petition.
According to her, part of the medical basis for which she was quarantined, was a “purported laboratory test result from the National Reference Laboratory, Abuja, which refers to “Okpe Susan, 58 years, Female, Benue State, Otukpo Local Government Area”.
The letter added: “Our Client is not 58 years old, she is not Okpe Susan and she is not from Otukpo LGA.
“In this same test result, it is stated that the ‘Date of onset of Fever’ is “16/03/2020”, by which date our client was still in the United Kingdom, having only arrived Nigeria on March 22 2020.”
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