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President Goodluck Jonathanhas declared that
Nigeria is free of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease
which has claimed seven lives in the past weeks.
Jonathan addressing State House journalists in
Abuja yesterday said nobody has Ebola in the
country at the moment.
He said all those who hitherto had the symptoms of
the virus had recovered.
Jonathan, however, noted that the possibility of
recording the Ebola in Nigeria again could not be
ruled out as long as it continued to ravage Liberia,
Sierra Leone and Guinea.
He said the likelihood that someone like Liberian-
American Patrick Sawyer who imported the virus to
Nigeria in July could also not be foreclosed,
according to report from Daily Trust “Presently, there
is no case of Ebola in Nigeria.
Nobody in Nigeria has Ebola now. All the people
that had the symptoms of Ebola have recovered.
Out of 19, we lost seven and the others have
recovered. Yes, there are few people we are observing.
“That’s not to say we may not record Ebola again
as long as Ebola is still in the West Coast, it is there
in Guinea Conakry, it is there in Liberia, it is there
in Sierra Leone.
The likelihood that the character like the Late
Sawyer can come in one way or the other is also
open”, he said.
He said the government had so properly protected the
nation’s airports that “if Sawyer were to arrive
Nigeria now, no Nigerian would have contracted
Ebola because of the level of preparation…We are
sure that even if one mad Sawyer comes again,
nobody will contract Ebola.
Thanking all Nigerians for managing the virus,
Jonathan affirmed that the entire country had come
together in fighting the epidemic.
“This is one thing that the whole country came
together, worked together.
There was no issue of politics, there was no issue of
religion, and there was no issue of ethnicity. In fact,
that was why we were able to contain it.
If Nigerians did not agree, we wouldn’t have
succeeded”, he said. Jonathan also thanked all the
governors, especially those of Lagos and Rivers
States, for working with the federal government and
setting up machinery to manage Ebola.
On the September 22 schools’ resumption date,
Jonathan pleaded with the Nigerian Union of
Teachers to shelve plans to embark on strike, asking
them to commend and work with his government.
He said the NUT had no reason to threaten strike
over Ebola as the decision to reopen schools on
September 22 was taken at a meeting with state
governors.
According to him, if the government closes
institutions because of Ebola, foreign envoys in
Nigeria would send dispatches to their countries
about it and that could aggravate the
stigmatization against Nigerians going there.
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