Aftermath of PDP primaries, Edo State records COVID-19 spike

At the Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium last month, Governor Godwin Obaseki, after emerging from a close meeting with his colleague in Delta State who recently tested positive to the coronavirus disease, staged a show of irresponsibility at the PDP primaries where delegates and other leaders of the party mixed freely and completely disregarded all health and safety guidelines.

From queuing to receive bribes, to rallying around in open hugs and exchange of all kinds of bodily fluids, Governor Godwin Obaseki led the way and others followed in dangerous actions that raised the specter of COVID-19 contraction and silent spread in host communities where many of these delegates were ferried from.

It didn’t take long before the consequences of that event and Obaseki’s meetings with infected persons to negotiate political deals, not least his irresponsible conduct at the PDP secretariat when he completed his defection, started to manifest.

Today in Edo State, there has been a worrying spike of infection rates, with all of the new cases directly tied to the PDP primaries according to health workers. To hide the problem, Obaseki disbanded the state’s mobile screening team after refusing to pay them for three months.

What kind of a Governor is this? As if it is not enough problem that he gave billions of Edo people’s money to PDP tax collectors to purchase their ticket, he is now spreading COVID-19 in the state, endangering the lives of the innocent, after refusing to pay health workers their due salary.

Signed:

Dr. Peter Olumense

Chairman,

Doctors Without Borders,

Edo State Chapter.

2/07/2020