Between Covid-19 isolation and medical detention: Susan’s struggle for freedom

By Chris Otaigbe

Susan’s simple sentiment of returning home, from a foreign land, to perform a funeral and stay with her family in Benue, before going back to Britain, has landed her in a Covid-19 drama. She is currently being dangled between Covid-19 isolation and Benue State medical detention. If she has not been released yet, she may well have spent over 53 days in ‘medical’ custody, for a 14-day quarantine, Covid-19 test, etc.

Her story gives a picture of what is probably going on in the guise of fighting the coronavirus pandemic. Susan’s predicament speaks to the plight of many ‘voiceless’ Nigerians being subjected to sub-human treatment away from the more visible NCDC Covid-19 front desk and poster clinical operations.

Mrs. Idoko’s struggle is one that should be of concern to every Nigerian and every government, especially in this highly sensitive and combustible Covid-19 pandemic-polluted society. It could easily be you or someone related to you. So, one can imagine the trauma of this sordid ‘season movie’ being played by the Benue State government at their expense.

Nigerians, at home and abroad, who may have received her viral videos would definitely not be encouraged to come home and face the trying travails, the Benue-born grandmother is going through, today.

You returned home from England (or any other foreign country) on the 22nd of March for your mother’s burial (or any other funeral or event at that) just to honour the dead. After exhausting hours of air travel, naturally you would be jetlagged. So, you decide to check into one of the State’s private hospitals to check yourself and treat any symptom that may result from the flight fatigue.

The Doctor does his checks and informs you of a developing temperature in your system. But you argued there is no way you could have temperature when all you have been experiencing is some mild body aches arising from over 24-25 hours air journey.

But then, you allowed the Doctor to have his way because you are a law-abiding citizen. So, you allow him to keep you. He keeps you overnight, gives you analgesic and the pain was gone. You are ready to go home the following day and he informs you he would need to do a swab on you to test for Covid-19 symptoms as a standard procedure directed by the Benue State government. You agree and permitted the two men summoned by the Doctor to carry out a swab on half of your nose and throat.

After the swab test, you asked when the result would be ready and Doctor tells you, it would be ready in 24 hours. This was on March 25. The full 24 hours passed and no result came. The Doctor would come in the evening of the day after, on March 27, to tell you that the result of your test showed you are Coronavirus positive!

No problem. “So, where is the result?” You asked the physician and he says he does not have it. He was only told verbally that you are now a Covid-19 positive patient!

He walked out on you despite your entreaties to see the result of the test which he claims the State government told him was Covid-19 positive. Minutes later, your friend who is also a Doctor comes in to alert you that the Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom is already doing a Press Conference with your name as the State’s Covid-19 index case!

You storm downstairs to demand an explanation from the Hospital’s Doctor and all he could tell you was that they were helping you to fight with the State government. On what basis, you are not told. Where is the result? You are not given.

If this was a Nollywood drama starring your name, you do not want to be a part of it. So, you dashed back upstairs to fetch your bag in readiness to go home. By this time, you were alright; the headache and body aches that took you to the hospital were all gone now.

By the time you got upstairs, you discovered that the entire premises of the Hospital had been cordoned off by armed men, ambulance, the State’s Deputy Governor and his Team. Your heart begins to race in such fast tempo. You wonder when your status as a patient with mild medical issue was upgraded to the level of a ‘hardened criminal’ surrounded by the full security might of the State to be transferred to a prison facility.

Their mission was to come fetch you and transport you to an isolation centre. Helpless, you give in and follow them to the isolation centre. There you are traumatized and dehumanized with the State government videotaping you for onward transmission of the audio-visual record of you, as the State’s Covid-19 ‘convict’, onto the social media.

Overnight, you had become a Benue sensational Covid-19 point to the scoreboard of Nigeria’s contribution to the global statistics of the pandemic. This was the beginning of the Nollywood movie you feared you were being starred in, against your will. You spend ten days in the Benue isolation centre and then moved to Abuja after.

You did not receive the result until 15 days later in Abuja, on April 8, 2020. In the report, you were alleged to have come into the country on the 28th of February, 2020. On this said date (February 28), you were still in England. Also, according to the report, the state government claimed you came into the hospital with high fever and stooling on March 16. This also is not true because on the 16th of March, you were still in England.

The real fact about your entry into Nigeria is that you came into the country on the 22nd of March, and proceeded to the hospital two days later on March 24. Another untruth about you, contained in the report, is the age, placed at between 58 and 62. Though you are over fifty years, your real age is no way near the ones recorded in your name.

Unfortunately for you, it is this same report that the National Center for Disease Control (NCDC) is working on and for which they are holding you down on.

This, in a nutshell, is the story of Susan Idoko, as narrated by her in one of her viral videos trending in the social media.

Her story reveals in a manner that cannot be dismissed as conspiracy theory, what many Nigerians may be going through currently, in the hands of Covid-19 Managers in some of the states across the federation. In the videos, she makes her case before Nigerians, appealing to them to prevail on the Federal Government to release her from the detention the government has placed her.

Her ordeal graphically showcases the style of recruitment employed to coerce some unfortunate Nigerians into the Covid-19 basket for the state.

Susan’s case would certainly discourage Nigerians, who may be going through the symptoms, from stepping forward to be tested and treated because they would fear they would be treated like common criminals in the guise of arresting patients with Covid-19 symptoms.

The Minister for Health Osagie Ehanire has described as untrue, the report that it was detaining the Benue State first COVID-19 patient, Susan Okpe.

At a press briefing in Abuja recently, Ehanire said Okpe tested positive twice for Covid-19. According to him, she has refused to accept the results, explaining that she claimed the result was 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.

“This is a person who came from aboard and was heading to Benue. She felt unwell and was taken to a hospital and tested positive and was placed in isolation at Benue State. I had said before, that some people who are infected with coronavirus can have no symptoms, mild or very serious symptoms but even without symptoms they can be infectious. This person recovered from the symptoms and began to doubt the test she had undergone. Something led the authorities there to call me and the first complaint was that she was not comfortable where she was kept so we now arranged for her transfer to a more comfortable facility and requested a second test and it came back positive.” He said.

The Minister further explained that Okpe’s situation presents a case where people feel they are very well and wonder why they are kept in isolation. “So, we tried to engage this individual through her family and her pastor. The bottom line is she is positive but doubts the result and says it is fake.” The Minister enlightened.

Susan came in from England just about when airports were to be closed and reported herself to a hospital with feverish conditions and upon clerking, doctors suspected COVID-19. She took the swab and was found positive.

Then Nollywood began: she refused treatment or further diagnoses saying Gov. Samuel Ortom and Benue Govt were setting her up. The Federal Government had to evacuate her from Markurdi to Abuja where she became even more uncooperative saying she does “not trust Nigerians” and would not have been here but for her mother’s burial she came for. She was kept in isolation for monitoring.

So far she is asymptomatic and far more than 14 days have passed and she is likely to be negative by now. Stalemate is now that she would not even agree to another test to confirm that she is now negative. FG has to keep her there until she agrees to a test or her beloved and trusted UK govt can fly in to take her home.

Having spent 53 days in Covid-19 detention, Susan has threatened to sue the Nigeria Center for Disease Control (NCDC), should they fail to release her from the Abuja isolation center within the next seven days.

Idoko, who has been having a face-off with the government since she was diagnosed with the deadly virus, disclosed that she has been in isolation for 53 days now without showing any symptoms of the disease and insisted that she does not have the virus.

Responding to the development, the Minister of Health Minister maintained Mrs. Idoko had refused to let the NCDC and other medical personnel take her samples so they can do a final test on her before she is discharged.

Addressing newsmen in Abuja last week, Idoko’s lawyer, Mr. Steven Eke, said his client has lost confidence in the capabilities of the NCDC.

Steven Eke said Mrs. Idoko demands an independent test to be conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) under the supervision of the British High Commission and her personal physician.

The lawyer said the continued detention of Mrs. Idoko in the name of isolation is a clear violation of her fundamental human rights and that she will head to court if it persists.

However, Ehanire at the daily press briefing of the Presidential Task Force in Abuja on Friday, May 14 said he has persuaded Mrs. Idoko to consent to being tested, adding that her sample has been taken and the result will be out in a couple of days.

The Idoko-Benue-Health Ministry-NCDC macabre dance has turned messy and thrown the whole Covid-19 management by the Nigerian authority into some scary situation in which the credibility of the Managers, has been discredited by their handling of the Benue supposed index case.

She has spent over one and a half month in an isolation that has been universally accepted to be a 14-day quarantine period. Coupled with various viral videos that call to question the transparency and credibility of the entire process.

The simmering murmur and rumors of corruption and incompetence alleged to have tainted the administration of the process of testing and management of the Coronavirus patients is further deepening the perception of Nigerians that the daily rise in the number of infected, discharged and deaths, may largely be a hoax.

While the Minister has been addressing Susan’s stubbornness at rejecting further test, he has not addressed the discrepancies in the personal details in the report concerning her case. For instance, the date she came into the country and the one claimed in the report by the Covid-19 team creates cause for concern.

For instance, why would the report claim she came into the country of February 24, when she insisted she arrived Nigeria on March 22? Secondly, the circumstance surrounding her being declared a Covid-19 positive patient is disturbing and disheartening.

If the Benue State Governor went on air to proclaim her positive when her test results had not been resolved and while her health had been declared fit enough to be discharged by her Doctor, then the State government has some questions to answer and lots of apologies to offer Idoko.

The claim by the Health Minister that someone can be positive and still be healthy, while they can potentially infect others wobbles on the crucible of common sense.
Even though that could inform why the Ministry is insisting on a third test, Third Test!
What happened to the first and why was the second test (that should have performed the confirmation function the, now, proposed third is designed to achieve) not credible enough?
Why does it have to take three tests and over 53 days of isolation to ascertain the true Covid-19 status of a woman who came into her country to bury her mother?

The back and forth between Benue State, the Health Ministry, NCDC and Idoko surely has generated an ugly twist to the whole Covid-19 story as managed in Nigeria.

So far, Idoko’s case may go down in the history of the management of the pandemic as the longest, most controversial and worst handled.