Dr. Goodluck Jonathan
FORMER Nigeria’s President, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has called on developed countries and international agencies like the World Health Organisation (WHO) to support the developing countries in their efforts towards curbing the spread of the Corona virus pandemic particularly by providing the necessary equipment and kits to enable them conduct aggressive COVID-19 testing.
According to a statement over the weekend by Jonathan’s media aide, Ikechukwu Eze, the former President made the calls while speaking as a panelist in an international web-based conference organised by the Universal Peace Federation (UPF) with the theme ‘Governance Challenges in the Era of the Coronavirus Pandemic.’
The other panelists included Mr. Stephen Harper, former Canadian Prime Minister, Mr. Sang Hyun Yoon, South Korean parliamentarian and Dr. Thomas Walsh, UPF Chairman.
Dr. Jonathan stated that the lockdown approach trending across many nations would be ineffective without aggressive coronavirus testing and noted that most of African countries may not be able to provide needed funds for the testing kits adding that so far, the lockdown has dealt a blow to many African economies including Nigeria.
He also appealed to international financing and donor agencies as well as creditor nations to consider granting economic palliatives including debt relief, to help weaker nations cope with the economic difficulties brought upon them by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It is true that many African nations are observing lockdown of cities and maintaining isolation centres, but if there is no effective testing, locking down populations as currently obtainable in many African countries may not be very effective.
“The key thing is that Africa is in dire need of testing kits. The world should come to the aid of Africa by sending more of these kits and other needed equipment to make the fight against COVID-19 more meaningful. Restrictions without strong and aggressive testing will not be impactful.
“We plead that WHO needs to come to the aid of African countries to enable them to procure the necessary kits to enable them to conduct aggressive testing now that many cities are locked down”, Jonathan said.
The former President, while recalling that during Ebola outbreak in Nigeria and some other African countries in 2014 during his administration, Nigeria effectively controlled the spread through effective synergy of the Federal and state governments alongside the civil society, private sector and the international community, and therefore called for greater synergy among all stakeholders to ensure effective implementations of precautionary measures against the dreadful Covid-19 pandemic.
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