Niger State: Kano-based returnee driver whisked to isolation centre in Minna tests positive to COVID-19

John Adams, Minna

A middle-aged man identified as Mallam Yunusa Idris who sneaked into Zumba community in Shiroro local government of Niger State from Kano on Tuesday, April 28th, has been picked up by the state task force on COVID-19 and quarantined at an isolation centre.

Mallam Yunusa was a driver to a former staff of the Segmentary National Control Centre (SNCC), Engineer Mohammed Gumel, who was said to have died in Kano on Thursday last week of an undisclosed illness.

The driver, however, sneaked into the community which hosts the Shiroro hydropower dam on Tuesday night after the three-day fidau prayer for his late boss.

Members of the community who were apprehensive and worried on hearing that his boss had died in Kano of an undisclosed illness, immediately alerted officials of the hydro dam and the police.

The driver was subsequently invited for questioning and he admitted that his boss died of COVID-19 related complications in Kano and that he had decided to return home after the three-day fidau prayers for his late employer.

He further admitted that he drove his late boss all through the period of his treatment in a private hospital until his death on Thursday, April 30th.

This prompted the police and officials of the Shiroro hydro dam to immediately alert the state task force on COVID-19 in Minna.

The task force, alarmed by the information, hurriedly dispatched an ambulance to Zumba to pick up Idris and drove him straight to the Minna isolation centre from where his sample was taken and sent to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) Abuja to ascertain his status.

The commissioner said the driver was tried by the mobile court and quarantined, after which his sample was taken to Abuja for testing and it returned positive.

He said the patient, who is presently at the quarantine centre in Minna, will immediately be moved to the isolation centre at the Minna General Hospital for treatment.

Meanwhile, the state government has intercepted three vehicles carrying 43 passengers heading to Kuta in Shiroro Local Government Area.

It was gathered that they were tried at the mobile court and repatriated back to their state.