PLATEAU INITIATIVE FOR DEVELOPMENT AND ADVANCEMENT OF THE NATIVES, PIDAN

Press Statement

The Plateau Initiative for Development and Advancement of the Natives (PIDAN) wishes to commend the Federal Government in general and the Plateau State Government in particular on their combined efforts to tame the Coronavirus Pandemic in Nigeria.
The Coronavirus also known as COVID-19 pandemic has shown progressive infection of Nigerians since the diagnosis of its first case in Lagos, Nigeria on 27th, February 2020.
As from 27th February 2020 to 29-March 2020, the number of cases in Nigeria rose from 1 to 111. This is a worrisome progression and the Month of April is postulated to show higher numbers of cases given the history of progression of the disease. This requires more aggressive approach to contain the disease. We are however lucky that cases have concentrated in urban areas where health services are better and patients are more enlightened.

We again commend Government efforts so far at both the Federal and State levels in containing the disease. Government reeled out a package of measures to contain the disease which has been yielding some good results, however there is need for a more aggressive approach to strengthening the implementation of the package given the increasing number of cases being recorded on daily basis.
It is good news that we have not recorded a COVID-19 case in Plateau State and we wish to once again commend the efforts of Gov Lalong’s administration towards containing the disease in the State. We appreciate the level of preparedness with respect to public education campaign and stage of isolation Centres in the various health facilities in the State. However, we are worried about the absence of a single diagnostic Centre in the State. We wish to appeal to his Excellency to liaise with the Federal Government to establish COVID-19 Case confirmation Centre in the State. This will certainly reduce cost of screening and confirmation of cases in the State in addition to facilitating the quick identification and confirmation of suspected cases.

Awareness creation and advocacy on the disease have been intense but concentrated in the urban Centres in the State. Recently the Association of Local Government in Nigeria ( ALGON) came in strengthening the State Government efforts thus increasing the extent of awareness creation at the LGAs. This is commendable and should be sustained till the pandemic is over.
However, our interactions with autochthones Development Association Leaders and sampling of views of persons at village market levels showed that the message has not ADEQUATELY reach this segment of the population. This may largely be due to the limited access of such segment of the population to both print and electronic media. We wish to appeal to the State administration to mobilize the autochthones Development Association Leaders and other grassroots level organizations in the various LGAs to carry out a more extensive including door-to -door campaign with messages in the various dialects at the rural/village level to contain the disease. This is essential to consolidate the current efforts at seeing that we reduce infections especially in the Month of April, which is likely to show more cases of the disease than what has been recorded.
We have appealed to our network of about 55 Autochthones Development Association leaders to courageously and aggressively step up their efforts to educate their people on the disease, despite been handicapped by low level of logistics including inadequacy of appropriate information, education and communication material (IEC).
We wish to appeal to well spirited individuals to team up and partner with Community Development Associations to effectively educate the people at the grassroot level so as to augment government efforts in containing the disease.
We wish to appreciate the people of Plateau State for their cooperation and compliance with the COVID-19 preventive measures so far and to further appeal to them to increase their commitment to ensure that we contain this pandemic on the Plateau.
We pray that God almighty will crown our collective efforts in taming the COVID-19 pandemic in Plateau with success.
Thank you.

Madaki JKA
President
March 30, 2020

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Covid-19: PIDAN Commends Plateau Govt Efforts in Taming Coronavirus