Yahaya Bello lifts lockdown, insists Kogi is COVID-19 free

Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has lifted the two weeks lockdown he had earlier imposed on Kabba-Bunu Local Government Area of the state over suspected cases of coronavirus (COVID-19).

Governor Yahaya Bello announced this on Friday at the Government House in Lokoja, the state capital.

He explained that the decision became necessary after the result of all the samples taken and subjected to tests by the health workers in the local government came out negative.

Following the outcome, the governor insisted that Kogi has remained a COVID-19-free state.

He, however, urged the people of the state to adhere to the protocols of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to curb the spread of the disease.

Governor Bello had ordered a 14-day total lockdown in Kabba-Bubu in a state broadcast on Monday.

He restricted the movement of residents and directed the house-to-house distribution of palliatives to residents within the local government.

The governor also directed that contact tracing should be carried out from one house to another to identify those who might have made contact with the persons said to be the COVID-19 index cases in the state – the Chief Imam of Kabba and his son.

He had also urged health workers who might have made contact with the suspected index cases to go into self-isolation.