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Sola Ojo, Kaduna
The Chemical Society of Nigeria (CSN), the umbrella body of all professional Nigerian Chemists, has pledged its full support to the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 to ensure total defeat of the pandemic in the country.
The President of the Society, Professor Sunday Olawale Okeniyi, made the pledge on behalf of the society while presenting CHEMSOTIZER, the hand sanitizers produced by the society, and face masks to the PTF Team on COVID-19.
According to the varsity, the CSN was making the gesture as part of its corporate social responsibility (CSR) to the fight against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic and to complement the efforts of the PTF.
Prof Okeniyi commended the PTF for its efforts at the federal and state levels in ensuring that lives of Nigerians were safe.
‘We are aware that the current outbreak of COVID-19, which is of the betaCov lineage is very contagious and causing many deaths among the vulnerable, influential members of our societies and health care professionals.
‘Therefore the society deemed it fit to look inward and pulled resources together to produce the instant drying sanitizer. The CSN also commissioned another highly rated Industry to mass production of nose masks so that it would be hygienically made and of good quality and standard.
‘To the PTF team, our doors are open and we are available to give any technical advice and support to the fight towards achieving the desired objectives and with your unalloyed support, we are confident of carrying out more herculean tasks and prove to the world that Nigeria is a great country that can rely on her professionals in combatting future challenges,’ he added.
Receiving the items on behalf of the Chairman of the PTF, Mr Boss Mustapha, the Permanent Secretary, General Services, Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (OSGF), Mr Olusegun Adekunle, noted that Nigeria could not afford to come out of the pandemic without lessons learnt and systems put in place to combat future challenges.
He stressed the importance of research activities in situations like this just as he hinted that the PTF and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) had created a platform for research funding.
He, therefore, called on CSN and other researchers to take advantage of the platform and send in their proposals for consideration.
According to him, the PTF is looking forward to a greater synergy with professional bodies like the CSN in order to achieve greater results.
In a remark, the National Coordinator, PTF on COVID-19, Dr Sani Aliyu, described the pandemic as ‘the most challenging health emergency of our time. No community in the world is immune to the pandemic and we have to build our own system to fight it.’
Dr Aliyu reiterated that the pandemic would not ease soon, saying that Nigerians should take responsibility individually and as a people as we expect higher fatality figures in the coming months.
He also advised Nigerians to take proper care of their elderly relatives and to protect them from contracting the virus.
He also reiterated the essence of using high quality and standardised products like the CSN Chemsotizer in the fight against the pandemic just as he called for closer collaboration between the CSN and PTF on COVID-19 in the area of research, innovation and production of high quality and standard products meant for the fight against the pandemic.
