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TONY JOHN, Port Harcourt
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, said the state government has been at the forefront of the COVID-19 mitigation in the country.
Governor Wike stated this during a courtesy visit by Course participants of Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, at the Government House, Port Harcourt, yesterday.
The governor, who was represented by his Deputy, Dr. Mrs. Ipalibo Banigo, said the COVID-19 team, under his watch swung into action at the beginning of the year when the news of the terrible coronavirus broke out.
He said his team ensured that all non-pharmaceutical measures were put in place, stressing that the use of hand sanitizers, social distancing, wearing of face masks and massive public enlightenment campaigns were carried out across the 23 Local Government Areas of the State.
According to him, when the need to shut down the borders and lock down became necessary, all the borders were shut down as part of deliberate efforts at ensuring Rivers people they were safe, secure and remain healthy.
“You know we have to be alive before we can talk about doing anything else, life is most important, this was done to safeguard the lives of those doing business here in the State”, the governor stressed.
He said: “We are pressing to do more; people have been afraid; they feel they will be discriminated if they are tested. But, we are trying to get information out, that people should know their status; they should know if they are positive; we have enough holding centres, where they can stay, and if there are those, who can stay at home and be quarantined, they can be properly advised by our various health authorities”, he remarked.
Governor Wike said: “We have been reducing our case positivity rate. Coming from the bottom, we are about 6.3 percent. That is the case positivity rate; it was quite high you know; there was a time when it was 14 to 15 percent in the country. It has been reducing and we have cut down as low as 6.3 percent and we are still going down”, he further stressed.
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He thanked members of the team for choosing Rivers for their study tour and expressed the hope that at the end of the tour, they would have remarkable recommendations that would be implementable.
In his remarks the Team Leader, Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji Brigadier General. Victor Ebhaleme, said the objective of the College was to develop the professional knowledge and understanding of selected officers, in order to prepare them for Command and Staff responsibilities.
He noted that the College doea not train only Nigerian Military officers, but also offers training to allied ifficers from sister African countries.
He said as part of the curriculum of the Senior Course, the students were made to study the African environment which begins with the Nigerian Study Tour, which is an annual event to selected states in the country.
The theme for this year’s course is “Pandemic and National Security: COVID-19 in perspective”.
