Governor Ganduje seeks N15b support from FG to fight COVID-19 in Kano

Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Kano State governor Kano State Government has revealed on Wednesday that it has applied for N15b from the Federal Government to fight the coronavirus pandemic. This was disclosed bythe state governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, during a television programme ‘Politics Today’ aired on Channels Television and monitored by Daily Trust. The governor stated that the state had not received a dime from the federal government as support to fight the COVID-19 disease since when the state recorded its first index case of the virus. Kano’s COVID-19 cases are rising by the day and in just over a week, the cases are close to a hundred. Ganduje had last week declared a lockdown to curb the spread of the virus within the state. He explained that the N15b would be expended in paying voluntary health workers engaged by the state to support the health personnel, personal protective equipment (PPE) and the creation of other testing centres. “You can understand that Kano is the most populated in the country hence the only testing centre at AKTH is not enough for us,” said Ganduje. However, reacting to the reported mass death in the state, the governor denied the report. Daily Trust had reported that more than 150 persons had died of in three days last week but Ganduje said the figure is false. The Presidential Task force on COVID-19, on Wednesday, announced an investigation into the reported death so as to ascertain the actual cause and the number of deaths. The Health Minister, Dr Osagie Ehanire, announced this at the daily briefing of the task force in Abuja, noting that the task force was waiting for the arrival of its epidemiologists. However, Ganduje said a survey and investigation conducted by his government at some of the burial grounds discovered that 13 people died not the figure quoted by the media.