The Berom Community in the Barki Ladi Local Government Area of Plateau State has rejected the alleged conversion of a popular hotel in their domain into an isolation center for COVID -19 by the state government.
The community accused the state government of not following the stipulated guidelines by the World Health Organisation. It expressed fears that workers in the facility who are members of the community were being exposed to the danger of contracting coronavirus disease as they were not health workers or trained personnel.
In a statement made available to The Punch in Jos on Monday, the community threatened legal action against the state government if it failed to relocate the isolation center at the end of the 24-hour ultimatum.
The statement by the Chairman of Berom Youth Movement, Heipang district, Mr. Rwang Tengwong, said, “The youths of Heipang community note with concern that despite the promise by the Commissioner for Health to relocate the isolation center, new inmates were admitted into Godiya Tourists Resort on April 23 and 24, 2020 respectively to be quarantined. Sadly also is the fact that the index case stayed for 48 hours at the facility after she was confirmed positive of COVID 19.
“Also, members of the community who work in the hotel still offer services as against the WHO guideline which says their services are withdrawn and health workers take over the facility.
“As a community, we expect that with the confirmed case recorded in the state, the government will be more committed to ensuring that citizens are not further exposed to the risk of spreading the dreaded disease by immediately quarantining all workers of the hotel, relocating the inmates and immediately decontaminating the facility to stop cases of community spread of the virus.
“We want to make it clear that, if the government does not relocate the quarantine center from the present residential area by 23:59 of Monday the 27th of April, 2020, we will be forced to interpret the government’s action as a biological war against us. We will also not be deterred to constitute legal proceedings if the matter is not addressed properly by the end of the deadline.”
Efforts to get the reaction of the state Commissioner for Health, Dr. Ninkong Lar Ndam, on the issue proved abortive as several calls put across to his mobile telephone went unanswered.