Ex-President Goodluck Jonathan has warned the federal government that having a lockdown without proper COVID-19 testing would fail.
Jonathan used the opportunity to call on the World Health Organization to provide help to Nigeria and other African nations in procuring kits for coronavirus testing.
He also appealed to donor agencies and other international financing institutions and other creditor institutions to help provide economic palliatives to weak nations to help them combat the virus.
Jonathan made the call while playing host as a panelist in an international web-based conference that was organized by Universal Peace Foundation.
“It is true that so many African nations are on lockdown of cities and also maintaining isolation centers, but if there is no or poor effective testing, locking down populations as currently seen in many African countries may not be very effective.
“The critical thing is that Africa is in dire need of testing kits. The world should help Africa by sending more of testing kits and other needed equipment to help them fight against COVID-19. Restrictions without aggressive and strong testing will not have impactful.
“We plead that WHO should come to the aid of African countries to enable them to buy the necessary kits to help them conduct aggressive testing now that many cities are locked down.” He said
