Following the disagreement between the Kogi State Government and the officials of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), the federal government has said it will re-engage authorities in the state to allow NCDC officials test residents for Covid-19.
NCDC officials sent to the State returned back to Abuja on Thursday after Kogi Governor, Yayaha Bello ordered them to go into isolation and take the COVID-19 test before operating in the state.
However, Ehanire said the federal government’s effort to support the State with regards to COVID-19 had failed.
The Minister spoke during the daily briefing by the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 in Abuja, yesterday.
He said: “We tried to send a team of the Ministry of Health and the NCDC into Kogi yesterday but there were some differences there to processes.
“This will mean that we need to re-engage the state governor again and work with him and his team to create the conditions to which the Ministry of Health and the NCDC can complete their job.
“The agreement we had with them after discussions with the Governors (Kogi and Cross River) is that we should send a delegation to the states just to validate the facts.
“Of course, we need that for our national records and to be able to report to the world what the situation is in our country because by now the whole world knows that we do not have any record from these two states.”
Kogi and Cross River are the only two States yet to record an index case of COVID-19 since the pandemic broke out in Nigeria.
