Apologise for how you handled the issue of the Chinese medical team, PDP tells Nigerian govt

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has berated the Federal Government for its alleged denials and cover-up on the whereabouts and activities of the Chinese medical experts brought into the country last month.

A statement on Tuesday by PDP’s national spokesman, Kola Ologbondiyan said:

“Our party, on behalf of Nigerians, demands an immediate apology from the Federal Government for taking the citizens for granted in its handling of the Chinese.”

The party said the conduct of the Federal Government in disclaiming the Chinese team and declaring that it could not account for their whereabouts after it had accorded them state reception, had further exposed the “dishonesty, lack of transparency and inherent corruption that pervade the APC administration and for which Nigerians have completely lost confidence in it.”

The PDP described as bizarre that the Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, disclaimed the Chinese team, denied involvement and knowledge of their whereabouts whereas clarifications by the Chinese Embassy and the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) indicated that the team had been in CCECC facility and had also collaborated with Nigeria’s health agencies.

The party noted that the declaration by the minister of health that government could not account for the medical team it officially received, directly triggered public alarm and raised suspicion of clandestine designs against the nation, “consequent upon which our party issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the Federal Government.”

The opposition party said that the APC administration would have faced the anger of Nigerians for its alleged lack of transparency at the lapsing of the 48-hours ultimatum but for the clarifications by the Chinese Embassy and CCECC.

“With this clarification by CCECC, the PDP demands that the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 should come clean on the reasons it claimed ignorance of the whereabouts of the Chinese team and apologize to Nigerians.

“This is because our party believes that the health minister’s conduct betrayed a plot by certain officials of the Federal Government to deceive Nigerians and ostensibly distract public attention from the acts of corruption being perpetrated in the fight against COVID-19 in our country.”

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The PDP, consequently, is asking the Federal Government to immediately declare and account for, in details, all funds, equipment, therapeutics and sundry aids it has received from international and indigenous bodies and individuals, “given the exposed proclivities of its officials for diversion of such aids.”

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