The governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, has denied having any contact with President Muhammadu Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Malam Abba Kyari; the son of former Vice President, Mohammed Atiku and the governor of Bauchi State, Bala Mohammed, who have all tested positive to the escalating coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, urging Bayelsans to remain calm.
The governor stated this on Wednesday when he visited the state’s COVID-19 Isolation Center at the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital (NDUTH) in Okolobiri, Yenagoa Local Government Area to assess the level of preparedness of the state government to arrest any possible outbreak of pandemic in the state.
Dispelling the rumour that he may have contracted the virus, Senator Diri said “I had no link with Bala Muhammed and Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to President Buhari when cases of the outbreak of the pandemic was recorded in Nigeria.
“What happened in our National Executive Council meeting was that because we normally sit in alphabetical order, after Bauchi is Bayelsa, and on that Thursday last week, that we had the meeting I had sit next to the Bauchi governor.
“But at that time he had not tested positive to the COVID-19. And before that meeting, he had not had any contact with Atiku’s son or Abba Kyari. As a matter of fact, Kyari was not in that meeting. We were told that he was somewhere in Germany.
“So, I am even taken by surprise, where that speculation that I had contact with the Chief of Staff is coming from. As for the governor of Bauchi, he sat next to me because we are neighbours due to the sitting arrangement of our meeting but before the meeting, he had not met with the Chief of Staff.”
While inspecting the COVID-19 Isolation Wards, Diri said the facilities may not be adequate, but it is good enough for a start considering the fact that Bayelsa is yet to record any case of infected persons. He also revealed that the state has deployed health personnel to prevent infected persons from gaining access into the state through the borders of the Atlantic Ocean.
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Diri urged Bayelsans to adhere to all directives handed down by the government to control any possible outbreak of the virus, saying every decision of the government is in the interest of the well-being of the people of the state.
Reacting to the scarcity and increasing price of COVID-19 disinfectants and prevention kits in markets across the state, he said “the NDUTH has commenced production of sanitisers, hand gloves and face masks. And they would get government support to produce them in large quantity so that every Bayelsan can have access to these very vital items.”