By Mohammed Mohammed
The former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar on Friday said his patriotic counsel to the federal government on the first confirmed case of the Corona Virus infestation, via a citizen of Italy, who visited Lagos
and Ogun states is that the country must work with unity and national resolve just as it push back Ebola few years back.
He said the country must call upon our experience with the wild Ebola Virus, of which we were the first nation in the world to defeat that scourge in 2014. How did Nigeria do it? We achieved it by showing unprecedented unity. The federal government of the day, worked closely with the Lagos and Rivers state governments. There was complete unity, solidarity and oneness of purpose, which created the atmosphere that defeated that deadly infestation.
I strongly counsel that any tendency to blame and point fighters must be temporarily, if not permanently, suspended. If fingers must be pointed, it must be to solutions.
Nigeria needs firm and decisive actions to prevent an escalation of the scourge. Recently, we closed our borders as an act against economic sabotage.
Perhaps now is the time to temporarily halt flights to and from any nation with a prevalence of this scourge. It is more important to secure human lives, than to secure an economy. We also need to invest in early detection facilities at our airports.
But above all, he said, Nigeria must not panic. Whether at government or individual levels.
“We have defeated Ebola before and we can defeat this present predicament.” Atiku said.
According to him, the crisis is an opportunity to show that we are first and foremost Nigerians, and that we have no other country but our own dear fatherland, which we must work together to keep healthy and secure