Why I have refused to visit my hometown Ilorin, since my appointment in the last nine months is to avoid the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari has disclosed.
He disclosed this during the commission of the State House Clinic Special Care Centre (COVID-19 Isolation Centre), on Tuesday.
The CoS urged the people to comply with the non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 — face mask, hand wash and social distancing.
‘‘It may interest you to know that since my appointment into this position in May 2020, I have not been to Ilorin, Kwara State, my hometown,” Gambari said.
He, however, lamented the approach of Nigerians to the non-pharmaceutical intervention, which he described as unfortunate.
Gambari assumed the people of his hometown might have thought only rich people suffer from COVID-19.
‘‘But as Mr President often says, COVID-19 is a respecter of nobody. Rich and poor, powerful or weak, all of us must respond to this very effectively,” he said.
‘‘For me who sees the President many times in a day, I have to take responsibility and if that involves giving up going to the town of my birth, so be it.’’
Gambari charged citizens of Nigeria to embrace the new vaccine which is meant to protect them from the virus and do whatever it takes to keep them safe.