The Lawmaker representing Fagge Federal Constituency in Kano State, Hon. Aminu Suleiman, has expressed concern over the poor response of the Presidential Taskforce on Covid-19 to the pandemic in Kano State.
In a petition he sent to the Chairman of the PTF, Barrister Boss Mustapha, on Thursday and titled ‘Request for urgent intervention to avert public health crisis in Kano State’ the federal lawmaker accused the committee of not doing enough to protect Kano State from the deadly disease.
“I recall that President Mohammed Buhari in setting up the Presidential Taskforce had reiterated that the PTF was created to develop a workable national strategy whose goal is to ensure all states have the right support and manpower”, he wrote.
He noted that the President stated unequivocally that the public health response to the pandemic is built on ability to detect, test and admit cases as well as trace all their contacts, regretting that in Kano, there is a huge gap in public health response.
“This is a cause for worry and concern and the reason I am constrained to write the PTF through you for urgent intervention”, he stated.
The lawmaker observed that while appreciable progress has been made in Lagos in terms of public health response with the active support of the federal government, the PTF and international partners, there has been no visible presence of the federal government or external aid in public health response in Kano State.
“Let me place on record that even though the Executive Governor of Kano State, His Excellency, Dr. Abdulahi Umar Ganduje had appropriately established a State taskforce and put in place structures, resources and material for Covid-19 responses, the efforts had grossly been overwhelmed and stretched in the face of current challenges”, he said.
He lamented the absence of testing and isolation facilities even as he regretted that Kano is now the third epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic next to Lagos and Abuja.
“We are worried there is a lot of apprehension over public health response in Kano State particularly with regards to testing and isolation as it is done in Lagos and Abuja. At the moment, there are indications that Kano does not have capacity to test more than 20 patients whereas with the support of the federal government and donor agencies, Lagos capacity has been increased to about 1500”, he said.
