Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has called on the President Muhammadu Buhari administration to activate workable strategy to contain, combat and flatten the curves of the National COVID-19 infection rate in Nigeria.

HURIWA said President’s “politically-tainted Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 are adopting a ‘wait and see’ unscientific methodology on the ravaging Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria rather than mobilise the scientific community in the country to work out and implement methodologies that meet global best practices as are adopted in civilised nations.”

The rights group also warned against hurried reopening of public and private educational schools even before any identifiable benchmarks to guide against widening spectre of the infections are met while tasking the President to utilise the over $4.5 billion the World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans recently obtained for Covid-19 to construct world class tertiary health facilities each in the six geopolitical zones of the country and to connect all the public schools in Nigeria to clean sources of water for the benefits of millions of the students and teachers to contain the spread the pandemic.

According to the group, “Generation unborn will never forgive this government should it fritter on frivolities the huge indebtedness it has incurred from global funding institutions in the name of fighting COVID-19 disease in Nigeria without building world class hospitals nor procure medical facilities and protection tools for frontline medical staff who as we speak have only just returned from a nationwide strike due to the failure of government to pay their hazards allowances.

“We have watched with considerable disappointment, the total absence of any sort of unified national anti-COVID-19 strategy since the virus spread into Nigeria about three months ago.” HURIWA asked the Federal Government to disband the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 “for spectacularly failing to achieve any significant milestones in the area of efficient containment,” asking: “Why keep a team that has failed to achieve tangible results?”

The rights group blamed the Nigerian government for abandoning local medical research institutes which could have been deployed to search for home-made remedies to the pandemic, adding that the President's over reliance on foreign money to combat the disease in Nigeria is belittling and has presented the country in terrible shape thereby consigning Nigeria to the backyard of international relevance.

“Imagine that the Health Minister told Nigerians that the country was awaiting foreign grant before the relevant agencies can analytically research into the efficacy of the recently obtained Covid-19 organics from Madagascar, wondering if Nigeria has become a failed state that relies entirely on grants,” HURIWA said.

It recalled that the Executive Board of the IMF had on April 28, 2020 approved US$3.4 billion in emergency financial assistance under the Rapid Financing Instrument to support the authorities’ efforts in addressing the severe economic impact of the COVID-19 shock and the sharp fall in oil prices.

The IMF financial support was to help limit the decline in international reserves and provide financing to the budget for targeted and temporary spending increases aimed at containing and mitigating the economic impact of the pandemic and of the sharp fall in international oil prices.

HURIWA stated at the time it got the $3.4billion loan for Covid-19 loan, Nigeria was close to securing a loan of $1.5 billion and another $1-1.5 billion for the Federal Government and states respectively.

HURIWA therefore asked President Buhari to tell Nigerians in black and White what these huge cash obtained to fight COVID-19 have been used for given that the state of health infrastructures is in shambles.

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