With Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic ravaging the whole world including Nigeria, both the Federal Government and state governors are doing whatever they can including prolonged lockdown of businesses to try and contain the spread.
In Kano State, which its active cases are growing, the state government has begun the deportation of Almajiris who are non-indigenes of Kaduna State. (Almajiris are abandoned Northern Nigerian children who litter the streets of Nigeria begging for survival). The government resorted to this approach as the number of confirmed coronavirus cases reached 36 in Kano which is one of the densely populated states in Nigeria.
Director General, Media and Communications, Kano State Government, Salihu Yakasai, said the deportation was in order to mitigate the risk of exposing them to coronavirus and the attendant effect of the lockdown in the state. “H.E. @GovUmarGanduje has today, disclosed that his government has begun the deportation of Almajiris in Kano back to their home towns and states in order to reduce the risk of exposing them to coronavirus and related hardship from the lockdown that will further affect them,” Yakasai tweeted on Sunday night. The state has recorded one fatality but no discharged case yet.
Meanwhile, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control announced on Sunday night that confirmed COVID-19 cases in the country jumped to 627 while 170 recoveries and 21 deaths have been recorded. Over fifty-five per cent of the total cases in the country were reported in Lagos State, also thickly populated just like Kano.
