The Federal Government has concluded that recent deaths in Kano State are connected to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr Nasiru Sani Gwarzo, leader of the Presidential Task Force Committee on COVID-19, made this known on Sunday.
Gwarzo revealed that the test carried out established that the rampaging contagion was responsible.
“Let me inform us that most of the deaths recorded of recent and test carried out showed that Coronavirus was the cause,” he said.
“So, before the final report which would be ready in the next one week or few days, it is necessary for people of Kano to wake up from their slumber that this is a serious issue.
“It is not a new thing, countries like America, China, Italy, Spain, England, France and others experienced similar mysterious deaths.”
There have been concerns about the COVID-19 cases and the increasing deaths in the state.
President Muhammadu Buhari had during the week gave a matching order to the Gwarzo-led Presidential Task Force to unravel the cause of the mysterious deaths in Kano and also to contain the spread of the virus in the state.
This development somewhat counters recent figures from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
After racking up record infections on Friday, the numbers from Kano has suddenly waned.
From 80, it was slashed by half on Saturday and a paltry one-tenth the following day, raising integrity questions around the NCDC.
And this is even as prominent sons of the northwestern state have continued to pass away in rather controversial circumstances.
Emir of Rano, Tafida Abubakar Ila and Prof. Isa Hashim, a senior council member, Kano Emirate Council both died in the last 24 hours.
It is now clear that the majority of over 670 people who allegedly died in one week in Kano, were not accounted for in the NCDC statistics of infection and fatalities.
Now that this has been confirmed, the health agency must amend its records and give a more realistic analysis to the Nigerian public and the WHO
At the average global COVID-19 kill rate 3% of patients, 670 deaths would suggest that NCDC has missed out a minimum of 22,000 positive cases in Kano alone, thereby distorting the local, national and global reality of the severity of the pandemic.
In spite of all alarm bells and clarion calls by Kaftanpost and Prof Usman Yusuf while these deaths were unfolding, in Kano State Governor Umar Ganduje was in denial even though he could not stop himself from using the same facts he denied to ask for N15 billion from the FG for deaths the State Government officially insisted and rationalised as usual weather-related fatalities and other causes such as diabetes and malaria.
The FG’s confirmation of COVID-19 as the cause of deaths flies in the face of the plea of Governor Ganduje for a relaxation of the federally mandated lockdown in a State which is undoubtedly the epicentre for Covid-19 in Africa.
The seriousness of the crisis has not prevented Kano State from relaxing lockdown on Mondag just as it has been relaxed in the Federal Capital Territory, Lagos and Ogun States in what epidemiologists and public health experts call premature and unwise decisions of the Federal Government caving to the yearnings of a populace besieged by hunger and insecurity during the mandated period of the lockdown.
With ‘unofficial’ 22,000 cases and ‘unofficial’ 1,000 deaths (if we add the official >300 deaths), it is a huge calamity to leave Kano to themselves and to Ganduje at this time.
KaftanPost in many publications over the past two weeks has emphasized the need for every Nigerian to be aware that each person has a duty to learn from the catastrophe in Kano and avoid the same fate. Everyone who knows anyone in Kano must impress upon the people to be cautious, educate themselves on the virus and obey all medically advised precautions, including social distancing, avoiding large gatherings and as much as possible stay at home and go nowhere unless absolutely unavoidable.
Observers who spoke to KaftanPost suggest that the best advice must come from the State Ministry of Health and the Commissioner must take professional initiatives instead of waiting for Governor Ganduje to come round to face the obvious reality. The public health priority now is to get people aware in Kano that the coronavirus disease is wasteful of human lives by contagion and there is no hope to avoid it by mere prayers alone without a change of social behaviour and minimising group interaction. It is the job of everyone to protect their own lives and those of their families and loved ones. What now is the escape route for Kano and Nigeria? It is definitely not the present waves of the exodus from the city of Kano to other parts of Nigeria. The battle has to be won inside Kano first.
