Peter Uzoho
Osun State Government has allayed the panic generated by the yesterday’s return of 49 of its citizens amongst the people of the state who reportedly claimed the new returnees were COVID-19 negative and posed serious health risk to them.
The Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation, Osun State, Mrs. Funke Egbemode, in a statement yesterday, said the returnees were duly certified and cleared of COVID-19 before their entry into the state, saying, they posed no health risk to Osun people.
Egbemode said: “This is to officially allay the fears and panic in the public informed by insinuations that the State Government of Osun allowed a new batch of Ivory Coast returnees into the state, after the first experience which led to a surge of confirmed cases of the COVID-19 disease in the state.
“The State Government wishes to set the record straight, thus: 49 indigenes of Osun yesterday returned to the state. 41 are from Ejigbo and 8 from Iwo. We have an official report showing they all have tested negative for COVID-19.
“These 49 indigenes of Osun, on arrival from Ivory Coast, were graciously received by the Lagos State Government at the Nigeria-Benin border, were quarantined for 14-days in Lagos State’s facility in Badagry where they were tested for COVID-19 infection during the period.
“Those who tested positive to the disease were moved into Isolation Wards in Lagos, while those who tested negative to the infection were cleared and those from Osun were allowed to return to State of Osun, their destination”.
She assured the citizens that there was no cause for alarm or reason to panic, adding that the returnees who were accepted into the state have been certified to join the society by the appropriate agencies of the government, hence, posed no risk or threat to the people of Osun.
“The state government urges its citizens to continue to trust that this administration is committed to protecting the people of Osun with everything within its powers,” Egbemode noted.
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