Atiku Wants FG to Use Nigeria’s Ebola Experience to Defeat Coronavirus, Calls For Temporary Suspension of Flights From Affected Countries

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2019 general election, Atiku Abubakar has called on the president Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to recreate Nigeria’s strategy that was used to defeat Ebola virus in 2014 to stamp out coronavirus.

Atiku’s advice came amidst the first recorded coronavirus case in the country after an Italian national who visited Lagos from Italy contracted the virus. In a statement on a Friday, the former Vice President also called for a temporary suspension of flights from countries with reported cases of the virus adding that saving human lives is more important than saving the economy.

Government “must call upon our experience with the Wild Ebola Virus, of which we were the first nation in the world to defeat that scourge in 2014. How did Nigeria do it? We achieved it by showing unprecedented unity.

“The federal government of the day worked closely with the Lagos and Rivers state governments. There was complete unity, solidarity and oneness of purpose, which created the atmosphere that defeated that deadly infestation. I strongly counsel that any tendency to blame and point fighters must be temporarily, if not permanently, suspended. If fingers must be pointed, it must be to solutions.

“Nigeria needs firm and decisive actions to prevent an escalation of the scourge. Recently, we closed our borders as an act against economic sabotage. Perhaps now is the time to temporarily halt flights to and from any nation with a prevalence of this scourge. It is more important to secure human lives than to secure an economy. We also need to invest in early detection facilities at our airports” he said.

“This crisis is an opportunity to show that we are first and foremost Nigerians and that we have no other country but our dear fatherland, which we must work together to keep healthy and secure,” he added.