The Nigerian government has appealed to those who looted medical storage facilities and isolation centres across the country to return the vaccines and consumables stolen from the centre.
The government urged state governments not also to shut down their isolation centres, pointing out the need to be at alert in case of a resurgence of the pandemic.
The Chairman of Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 and Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha, made the appeal during a media briefing on Monday in Abuja.
Mustapha expressed shock at the magnitude of the looting of some warehouses across the country by miscreants.
He gave reasons for the inability of some states to complete the distribution of palliatives from CA-COVID, a private-sector coalition supporting the national response against COVID-19.
“Of particular concern to the PTF is the issue of palliatives found and looted from various warehouses around the country. It is important to make the following clarifications,” he said.
“The Federal Government Palliatives consisted mainly of the 70MT of grains released from the Strategic Grain Reserves as well as rice secured from the Nigerian Customs Service. The shares for each state were handed over to the state governments for onward distribution to the citizens.
“The private sector coalition (CACOVID) that has been quite supportive of the Federal Government worked with the states through the Nigerian Governors’ Forum to determine the quantum of their intervention, which was intended to be effective and equitable.
“Many indices were worked out for this purpose. The National Coordinator shall also provide further distinction and the modus operandi for the distribution of the palliatives donated to the states by the coalition,” he added.
