TheCable

The Akwa Ibom government says it has intercepted 68 travellers who wanted to “invade the state” through its borders.

Udom Emmanuel, the governor, disclosed this when he hosted the state caucus of the national assembly in Uyo, the state capital.

The governor said the travellers “mainly from distant states” were liaising with their collaborators within the state to come into Akwa Ibom.

He alleged that the suspects wanted to take advantage of the “state’s robust healthcare system” designed to contain the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They tried to bring in about 68 of them. So you can imagine if they were allowed to come in,” he said.

“We got the information on time, so I used the police to intercept them; apart from that, I think so far, the curve has declined drastically.

“The intelligence gathering approach is deployed by Akwa Ibom government to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The approach has paid off for the state as the technique has enabled us foil the attempt of 68 suspected COVID-19 patients invading the state.

“I have text messages where people were trying to communicate with their colleagues here and those colleagues encouraged them to move into the state with the assurance that people are better treated here.

“Yesterday, we got a call from one village in Etinan local government area that somebody has sneaked into the state.

“People even enter through water and when they come in, they declare themselves to be having symptoms so we can pick them up for treatment because they hear testimonies and even calling people to confirm.”

The governor condemned attempts by people trying to invade the state, despite the agreement reached at the Governors’ Forum that inter-state borders should be closed to movements.

“In terms of boundaries, we are observing what every state in Nigeria is observing, it was agreed at the governor’s forum that we should restrict inter-state passenger movement for now until announced otherwise,” he said.

“So, let nobody misunderstand anybody, we don’t want people to start loading luxury buses and transmit the virus, even with that we are still having issues because of our long shoreline.”